Glad you posted this at Daily Kos. It's a site totally unwilling to hear any criticism of Obama, especially that which compares Obama to Bush in a way that suggests they may not be so different, and that's why it's valuable that you made the effort to have a real conversation. I tipped and rec'd your diary, and am unsurprised at the unwelcome reaction.

My take is that Obama is failing as badly as Bush did, but for very different reasons. Bush really believed in unilateralism, in American imperialism. He used America's position in the world to try and impose the neocons' will on the rest of the globe, regardless of the conditions or consequences. And so he failed.

Obama's approach is different. It's not at all a rejection of Bushism - after all, Obama has doubled down in Afghanistan and refuses to close Guantanamo Bay or Bagram. Instead Obama tends to shy away from confrontation. Not out of any ideological choice, but out of an odd personal unwillingness to challenge or confront anyone. With Honduras, Israel, and the stolen Iranian election, we saw a common thread of Obama being totally unwilling to stand up for democracy and fair treatment.

Unfortunately we see exactly the same thing in his domestic policy. For example, Obama would not fight for the repeal of the military's ban on gays and lesbians serving openly in the military. When it became clear Congress had the votes to fully repeal "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" Obama hesitated and showed himself reluctant to anger some in the military by supporting repeal. So he demanded and won a watering down of the repeal, all so he could avoid having a public confrontation with the military. Of course, it was perfectly OK for him to confront the progressive activists demanding repeal.

The consistent thread appears to be that Obama, like many Americans of his generation, has internalized the notion that conservatives and corporations are extremely powerful, that it is wrong and foolish to try and oppose them, so all you can realistically and sensibly do is just accommodate them. He holds that belief whether it's in domestic or in foreign policy.

The overall thread is that Obama is simply unwilling to lead - on almost anything. He is a very reactive president, and that does not serve US interests even when you define them in a non-imperial, progressive fashion.

And the world will live as one