It took a year and two devastating events within one week to wake up our President and get him to speak like the person many of us thought we were voting for.                                   

First his political party falls asleep at the switch, allowing the Republicans forge a huge upset in the special election for Massachussettes senator.  And Ted Kennedy's vacant seat no less. The same Ted Kennedy who, whatever his many defects, fought for decades to bring better health care to Americans.  Not only does the Massachussettes political machine nominate a totally unlikeable person a terrible communicaor, they assume a victory and have it snatched out of their hands, threatening the slim majority they took so long to forge so they could get health care reform passed.  And where was the national Democratic committee?  They had to know how crucial winning this seat was.  Complacent and incompetent--that's the Democrats. 

Punch #2 came from the Supreme Court whose five conservative members decided corporations could spend unlimited money to influence campaigns.  So outrageous that Oama was finally motivated to come out of the comfortable position of "conciliator" and strongly attack the Supreme Court decision as a threat to democracy.  He's calling on congress to neutralize the decision through legislation action.  I won't hold my breath.

There is hope, however, and it lies with the Internet.  It was skillful use of blogging and social networking that won the election for Obama.  And it will take even more skillful use of blogging and social networking to counteract the hundreds of millions of dollar that corporations will use to manipulate public opinion.