So little, so late. So many squandered opportunities, and now Obama wants to take a stand. Is this because the poll numbers show his job is now on the line? I am eager to see the guy use the bully pulpit to push good public policy, but I have very little confidence in this guy. I hope I am wrong about him. Maybe he has hit an "aha" moment where he understands what he needs to do, but he does have a significant history of talking the good talk, then caving in to right-wing demands. And the pattern has strengthened the right-wing, so progressives/liberals/scientists (however we might identify ourselves) now face a Republican party that would repeal the law of gravity on behalf of corporate interests if they could. We are moving in an election cycle where the Dems have a very large number of Senate seats in play and where the mood of the country provides fertile ground for demagoguery. It may have finally dawned on President Obama that despite serving corporate interests pretty loyally during his term in office so far, that the "deciders" don't really need him, the deciders can do quite nicely with Romney or Perry. So I have two questions about President Obama's sudden commitment to taxing the rich: 1. Are you going to cave in like you did on the public option? 2. If you are serious about a different economic model, when are you going to dump Geithner and Summers, the architects of the Wall Street globalization model? Make me a believer. Bring it on, as your predecessor famously said. Only a real political brawl is going to rescue the country from a right-wing corporate political party that does not believe in evolution, global warming and the necessity of taxes.