Barack Obama: the politics of hypocrisy and cynicism

Toby Harnden, Telegraph [UK]:

[...]

One of this White House’s flaws is that it is packed with campaign operatives like Axelrod at senior levels or other refugees from the Windy City like Emanuel, who delight in the dark arts of Washington and Chicago-style hardball.

What Mr Obama lacks is wise, detached counsel from outside his inner circle. Mr Craig might have fulfilled such a role. His replacement? Mr Obama’s personal lawyer Bob Bauer, another campaign loyalist. It was an eerie echo of President George W Bush’s installation of his crony Alberto Gonzales in the same position.

The supposedly post-partisan Obama is operating a one-party system in Washington in which Republicans are frozen out. His big campaign donors are now housed in sumptuous ambassadorial residences across the world.

Where he promised transparency, everything is opaque.

Far from changing Washington, Obama has slipped effortlessly into its ways. Could it be that the hallowed figure who preached hope and “yes we can” is really a hypocrite whose legacy will be greater cynicism?

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