Earlier today in the comments, I said some nasty things about Steve Clemons, and Steve has come to defend himself. All’s good, he was right, I was rude and hasty and unfair, and I apologize. In other words, it is Monday.

The crux of the foodfight is his post several months back in which he asserted that the WH intentionally did not put up the text of the Human Rights Campaign speech fast enough on a Saturday night, which started yet another inevitable “Obama Hates The Gays” three day affair on the internet. You may not remember which one of those it was, because it was sandwiched in between a couple days of “Obama hates the womyn folk” because he doesn’t play basketball with them, and a couple of days of “Obama hates the progressives” because he hasn’t shot Lieberman in a dark alley yet but asked Howard Dean to tamp down the rhetoric (hint- one of those two people has a vote in the Senate). Likewise, I don’t want you to get confuse this freak out with the “Obama hates the gays because he has not waved a wand and ended DADT and DOMA” and “Obama hates the gays because Rick Warren gave a shitty speech and was totally outclassed by Gene Robinson and Rev. Lowery.” No doubt, the fact that I have even mentioned this will foster fifty emails and delinkings because I am not gay friendly.

But here is the thing- Steve says he has private information, and I just don’t want to hear it. The piece making the assertion was public- very public, and if he and others have evidence that this was intentionally done, then I want it out there so I can beat up on the WH Communications Office. I don’t want private assurances, because right now I see a real deficit of trust between the beltway progressive activists who call themselves the base and a lot of the rest of the party who look and think like me and many of the people here.

I’m new to this whole party, so I haven’t quite figured out the whole history of all the infighting yet, but I have to tell you that there are a number of people like me who worked their ass off last year trying to get Obama elected, and who would still crawl over glass to get him elected again. We are just sick and tired of the unending negativity in some quarters and tired of being told that we are vastly outnumbered by the disaffected (but loudest) few, when polls show Obama with up to 90% of liberal support. So help me God I will curbjaw the next person who savages Obama on Fox and then has the balls to use the “Overton window” as a defense. I’m sick and tired of people writing pieces flaying the administration alive and then saying “but I only wish the best for the admin.” I’m sick and tired of people looking at the HCR bill and picking out only the things they dislike, ignoring all the positive aspects that make folks like Feingold and Sanders willing to vote for it- but that isn’t good enough for our progressive betters on the blogs and in the media.

I’m sick and tired on the focus on Rahm, because it weakens the President for his alleged allies to constantly act as if Rahm is really running the show. Everything you think has happened because of Rahm, Obama had to sign off on it.

I’m sick and tired of people on the left having the same amnesia that the folks on the right have about how well and truly fucked this country was on 20 January, and now pitching daily fits because there is no pony yet. I’m sick and tried of going to progressive websites and reading the following posts:

Obama sucks
Rahm sucks
Obama and Rahm suck
Obama sucks
Rahm sucks
Obama and Rahm REALLY suck

And then, without a trace of humor, ending with a concern troll post about how demoralized Democrats are about the fall elections. No shit? Your readers are demoralized? I wonder what could be helping to cause that?

So I tend to act in a volatile manner when I see unsupported assertions. Maybe we have carved out our little Obot sanctuary here. Or maybe we have carved out a place where we remember all the good things that have happened in the past year, on top of the failings. And yes, there have been lots of failings.

But right now-I just don’t trust the beltway progressives any more than the beltway Republicans, even though on a lot of issues I think the progressive activists are probably right about policy. What I see going on are the same hysterical types of responses to everything that we get from Republicans, only the position on the issues has changed.

And I’m rambling.

Per the NYTimes:

Representative John P. Murtha, the longtime Democratic congressman from Pennsylvania, has died at age 77…

A former Marine, Mr. Murtha, his office noted, was the first Vietnam War combat Veteran elected to Congress. Throughout his years, Mr. Murtha paid particular attention to defense spending and to the Pentagon and the military.

When he called for bringing the troops home from Iraq in 2005, after having voted for the war, his proposal stunned many in Congress and added a powerful voice to the growing forces demanding immediate drawdowns and or deadlines.

Just this past Saturday, Mr. Murtha became Pennsylvania’s longest serving Member of Congress.

I’m sure the 101st Chairborne are planning their ‘victory’ celebrations already. But in the real world, who’s going to take Murtha’s seat?

For good clean fun, sit down, put your right hand behind your back, and then try to cut the toenails on your left foot using only your left hand. Good times.

Looking through the internets this morning two items caught my eye.

First, the NYT has a nice interactive look at the proposed 2011 Federal Budget. It is a good tool to get an idea of where and how the Federal Government spends money—and how the Obama Administration sets its priorities for that spending. Clicking the “Hide Mandatory Spending” button gives you a good idea of how little discretionary spending there is to work with.

The other was a great post from Ezra Klein about the Republican Ideas that are already in the HCR Legislation. Ezra looked at the Republican ideas for Health Care Reform offered in the GOP’s “Solutions for America” homepage, and found that ALL OF THEIR IDEAS are already included in the legislation that passed the House and the Senate. This exposes the hypocrisy of their opposition to getting a HCR Bill enacted into law. Their only goal is to say NO, regardless of the cost. The meeting that President Obama will have on February 25 to go over these HCR Bills with Democrats and Republicans should be interesting television.

Have you called your House Member and Senators today to remind them to PTDB? This would be a good week to do so.

Cheers

dengre

and yes, this can be used as a lunchtime open thread…

Interesting piece in USA Today on declining credit card use:

Credit card usage is slowing. Revolving credit — largely made up of credit card debt — fell by nearly 20% in November, the largest drop on record, according to the Federal Reserve, reflecting less borrowing by consumers and banks’ tighter lending standards. Through October, the number of new credit card accounts was down 46% from the same period in 2008, according to Equifax.

But abandoning credit cards is a much more radical step than using them less. Consumers who don’t own a credit card often have a hard time renting a car. Some hotels won’t book rooms to travelers who want to pay with a debit card or cash. Those that accept debit cards may place a hold on several hundred dollars in the customer’s bank account, which could cause checks to bounce. And many consumer experts say that responsible use of credit cards is one of the most effective ways to build a good credit record.

It will be interesting to see what the long term implications of this will be, because I sense a lot of people now run with the baseline perception that banks and credit card companies exist only to screw their customers.

The Founding Bloggers:

Founding Bloggers can confirm that we too captured an image of the writing on Governor Palin’s hand. The notes appear to be very innocuous.

On the other hand, the outrage on the left is being completely misunderstood by the right.

Who is outraged? We’re all hysterical. This is funny stuff. I think it is awesome that the lead wingnut in the country is such a dim bulb that she has to have “budget tax cuts” on her hand to remind her what she stands for. Put it this way, since this is Black History Month, this is akin to seeing “civil rights” written on MLK’s hand.

No one is outraged by Palin- we’re laughing at her and we are laughing at her supporters.

I found Steve Clemon’s description of this piece so annoying and ridiculous that I was unable to read the piece itself. People say it’s good, it’s Henry Edward Luce on Obama’s (too) close-knit team of advisers from Chicago, especially but not only Rahm.

Now that I check I can’t access the piece anyway because of the FT paywall. But you may be able to.

Update. Steve Clemons asks what I don’t like about his piece. So here’s what really got me:

I will never forget when Rahm Emanuel laughingly responded well within earshot of several national media (and this blogger/writer) at an Inaugural bash to an inquiry if Emanuel was enjoying putting Tom Daschle on the basement floor of the White House in a non-descript office pretty far from the president. Emanuel joked back glibly that Daschle had to be happy with any office in the White House because “any square inch of real estate inside the White House—no matter where it is—is more valuable than anything outside it.”

Compare this flippant meanness and hubris..

How is that in any way “flippant meanness and hubris”? Isn’t it what everybody in Washington believes? I thought it was a good thing to believe that someone should be more proud to work in the White House than as a corporate dog’s body (I’m trying to give an accurate description of what Daschle was doing when he was being considered for HHS)?

Maybe I’m making a mountain of mole hill here, but this bothers me.

Hank Paulson screwed a lot of things up, but his new book contains some interesting nuggets:

When he spoke to House Republicans about efforts to help Fannie and Freddie, he was chagrined that many responded with speeches about ACORN, the low-income housing activist group.

No one should pretend that fixating on idiocy like ACORN (instead of doing their fucking jobs as legislators) doesn’t have consequences.

Congrats!

Saints open big in the 3rd Q.

*** Update ***

Heh:

I’m sitting here watching half of the The Who play the Half-time show. Somewhere, Keith Moon is spinning in his grave. I find this to be one of the saddest things I’ve seen in a long time, but I guess they needed the money. Teenage wasteland indeed.

Anyway, I’m glad they talked Nigel Tufnel into playing drums. That was a nice touch.

Think of this as a Half-time Open Thread.

Cheers

Oh, and by the way: Go Saints!

Some big story about New York State governor David Patterson is supposed to break early this week, and the governor is supposed to resign (EDIT: e.g. TalkingPointsMemo) Monday or Tuesday. This is all over the place, but I have it from a pretty reasonable source. Supposedly, it involves extramarital sex, but that’s not the bad part, the bad part, according to my source, revolves around gambling and the repayment of gambling debts.

Update. I’ll just repeat exactly what my source told me. He says that Paterson ran up a big gambling debt to some people (possibly connected with this) who retired the debt in return for getting a big state contract.

I don’t know if that’s correct or not but it would be very typical New York State politics and the same general flavor as what Joe Bruno (the legendary longtime Republican Senate majority leader) went down for.

The sex angle might be fairly titillating (swinging, supposedly), but it’s minor compared to the gambling (EDIT: or more properly to the state contract, which really does stink, whatever the reason it was given) so it might not figure in as anything other than a footnote.

Update update. I don’t want to make any hard predictions here, politically. But I’m pretty sure that what my source says is, at least, what insiders are saying in Albany right now, FWIW.

Update update update. Just to be clear, everyone in NYS has been referring to rumors about Paterson and saying they’re likely to force him to resign. What I’m writing here seems to be the standard “insiders story” that is getting repeated. I don’t know if it’s true or not, for sure, obviously, but I thought people might be interested to know what it is that everyone is referring to, at least.

Final update. Paterson people say the gambling thing is bs, but everyone seems to think that something big is coming down the pipe. Maybe it’s just sex stuff, maybe it’s something more, maybe it’s nothing. We’ll see what happens.

Go Saints!

Kind of snowed in here- well, a lot snowed in. The 18 or so inches of snow is still on top and around the car, and add to that they plowed the roads into my driveway, home team is not going to be driving anywhere soon. That means no cooking BBQ or anything special this year, but I think I will make it.

What are you all doing to get ready for the game?

This is two-thirds of a short thing in Kaplan about Sarah Palin last night:

1) She’s lost a lot of weight, perhaps 15 pounds. She looked trim and firm, like she’s hoisting the barbells or maybe chopping wood. Her chair at the head table was empty; if she had the shrimp and filet mignon served to attendees, she ate in her hotel room.

2) She wore a fitted black suit, black hose and high black platform heels. She had on three opera-length strands of pearls, two white and one multi-colored. In her lapel, a small pin with two flags—for Israel and the United States.

This isn’t that Robin Givens, or whatever her name is, queer eye for politicians’ wives thing, this is from a blog that purports to be about politics.

We did hear a lot about Al Gore’s weight and beard and so on, so I can’t honestly say for sure that a man wouldn’t be scrutinized in the same way.