2012 Campaign Slogan, "Trust Me."

That was then, this is now. It was in 2008 that a young, fresh, and hungry Barack Obama delivered one of the most impressive campaigns in recent memory, promising, among other things, to 1. fix an unjust immigration system, and 2. build bridges with the other party. Why bring this up now? Why rehash the past? Because we are supposed to learn from it. And because the present has an ominous way of mimicking the past, and if there was any doubt, we are now in full campaign mode for 2012.

Promise number one, fix immigration. The real way to do this, of course, is to actually engage the policy makers and shakers, those lofty, honest politicians we like to call Senators and Congressmen. The Obama method, on the other hand, is to traverse the country holding hands and singing Kumbaya with US Rep. Luis Gutierrez, promising the moon. But reality has a funny way of sneaking up on you. In Gutierrez's own words, "He came to our neighborhoods, he came to our communities, he gave speeches." In other words, he bullshitted them. 67% of them trusted and believed in him. Now he looks them in the eye, 3 years later and says, "Hey I really mean it this time. Trust me." And he goes on television to once again woo the important Hispanic vote. He must really think the Hispanic population is just plain stupid. If he couldn't do it with a filibuster proof Democratic majority during his first term, how or why the hell is he gonna do it now?

Promise number two, build bridges. Without boring you with endless references to the Dark Side of the Force, ie. the Republicans, let's look at a recent, full campaign-mode quote. Once again, on TV, in Clinton-speak, he calls them, "alligators in the moat" along the US border for their stance to secure the borders first, talk immigration reform later. So much for steering the nation away from the partisan ways of the past. It was only a few months ago, (post-2008 campaign and pre-2012 campaign, you know, those 2 years of actual presidency) that Obama stated that addressing entitlement reform shouldn't result in one side blasting the other for at least coming up with real ideas. Then a funny thing happened on the way to the altar; he went into campaign mode. Recently, House Budget Chairman Paul Ryan (R-Wis) proposed Medicare reform, and Obama could have said something like, "I appreciate different views and ideas, and I applaud my colleague's willingness to open dialogue on the subject." But alas, his words were more like, "I reject Lord Vader's attempt to woo the poor, neglected seniors of this country as mere campaign propaganda."

This, in turn, is exactly what he is doing now. Same old story as always, do as I say, not as I do. Wooing the voters of this country, black, white, Hispanic, Middle-Eastern, Asian, old, young, rich, poor, with the kind of BS that used to be reserved for snake-oil salesmen traversing the country in a horse drawn Walgreens on wheels. People used to believe the words that came out of the salesman's mouth, because he sounded so sincere. So trustworthy. He had the gift of gab, and he used it to sell. Hard part was, though, you could never go back a second time. Because the folks who bought his snake-oil the first time around, knew better. They told their friends, and they learned from the past. Question is, will we?