I find it difficult to believe that nobody filmed a table of Democratic campaign contributors singing a pro-Bradley Manning – you know: the seditionist soldier and oath-breaker who put Americans and American allies at risk by committing espionage on Wikileaks’ behalf – song to the President at a San Francisco fundraiser this morning.  More likely somebody did – but, given just how badly President Obama reacts to things going even slightly not his way, everybody involved probably deleted their recordings and are now hoping that the whole sorry thing blows over.

Not that it matters.  Below is the song that was sung.  The tune is unknown and the scansion is… well, we all can’t be poets*. But it’s the parts that I bolded that made this a futile exercise on the protesters’ behalf:

“Dear Mr. President we honor you today sir
Each of us brought you $5,000
It takes a lot of Benjamins to run a campaign
I paid my dues, where’s our change?
We’ll vote for you in 2012, yes that’s true
Look at the Republicans – what else can we do
Even though we don’t know if we’ll retain our liberties
In what you seem content to call a free society
Yes it’s true that Terry Jones is legally free
To burn a people’s holy book in shameful effigy
But at another location in this country
Alone in a 6×12 cell sits Bradley
23 hours a day is night
The 5th and 8th Amendments say this kind of thing ain’t right
We paid our dues, where’s our change?”

By their own admission – and despite their own concerns – these people maxed out their campaign contributions and will vote for Obama in 2012; in other words, they are of no further use to the President.  In this they represent the progressive movement in miniature: the establishment will graciously permit the Democratic base to complain as much as they like… just as long as it is understood that said complaining interferes with neither their voting habits nor the revenue stream.

Moe Lane (crosspost)

*OK, OK: more accurately, you all can’t be poets.