The Ringer

All the top lawyers representing defendants in Agent Orange litigation are still busy fighting off crippled Vietnam veterans, it seems, so Mr. Obama nominated instead a top lawyer who represents the largest superfund toxic polluter to head the Department of Justice's environment division. Before being sworn in as President it was the (so-called) little things that gave concern: nominee after nominee from the center or center-right for key positions. As President, the troubling decisions have turned from a trickle, into a stream, and then a flood. It's perfectly fair at this point to say that Mr. Obama owns the Great Recession; he owns the wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan; he owns Guantanamo and the entire, continuing cover-up of past criminal activity, including torture; he owns the burgeoning apparatus of illegal state surveillance; he owns the health care crisis; and now he owns the give-aways to environmental predators. The list goes on. It's true that the left gets a few crumbs, certainly more than under the previous criminal regime, but it would be a critical error to be grateful. I'm not.