Marc Ambinder on Unity 12 candidate Bayh:
When it became clear to Bayh that the White House wasn’t going to play his game — wasn’t going to sell out liberals at every turn — Bayh decided he had had enough.
You also get the sense that, as is usually the case, there isn’t really much policy substance here, it’s all about the joys of hippie punching.
It is certainly my impression that there lots of wise, principled centrists encouraging the Obama administration to punch hippies harder. The real problem with punching hippies, of course, is that these days, hippies are generally advocating smart policies (even when I don’t agree with their methods of getting them enacted).
Koz
Is that supposed to be a bad thing?
BTD
Just to make a point – the named source on this story is who exactly?
mr. whipple
The poor, poor hippies.
WTF does that even mean, ‘hippy punching’? To me it’s all whiny titty baby-ism.
gwangung
@BTD: Y’alls not making a point. Y’all trying to make this about you.
Boring.
madmatt
seeing as centrists and right wing approaches got us to where we are, the hippies are the only ones with a plan that might work. I know how you do love sucking up to the rethugs and working together…hows that going for ya?
DougJ
@mr. whipple:
WTF does that even mean, ‘hippy punching’?
It means taking stances for the sole purpose of distinguishing yourself from the radical, far left. No one feels sorry the hippies here. It’s that it’s a bullshit tactic.
DougJ
@BTD:
Well for starters, it’s not that far from what Bayh himself said.
Pangloss
Who is Some Say, and how did Mr. Say become the most prolific and authoritative inside source in Washington?
geg6
All this said, seems like the IN Dems will get to pick their nominee:
http://hotlineoncall.nationaljournal.com/archives/2010/02/in_dem_says_she.php
I signed onto a Facebook campaign to draft John Mellencamp. Better and smarter than St. Ronnie, for sure.
BTD
@gwangung:
DougJ wrote:
In this post, he quotes Ambinder sourcing no one at all, anonymous or otherwise, as follows:
Selective objection on the sourcing issue.
freelancer
Anyone else have the ad columns completely messed up on the frontpage only?
mr. whipple
No, you miss my point. First off, what’s wrong with that? Second, this is politics. Everyone takes their lumps.
But this latest obsession with hippies(whoever the hell they are) being all oppressed and such, and having their little feelings hurt, I just don’t get.
Napoleon
So in Bayh’s world pissing off your base and carrying water for Republican’s in Congress is the key to electoral success.
Face
Can we get a econ thread here, tout suite?
Reading CalcRisk is making me seriously nervous. House of cards seems nearly ready to fall.
Anyone see that Illinois is soon to be $130 billion in the red at the end of this year?
Ian
We will be better off without Bayh. Nuff Said.
JenJen
My jaw is agape that Marc Ambinder might actually see something for what it is,
for oncefor a change (I read him daily thru 2008, it’s a “when-have-you-figured-it-out-lately” thing for me).@Punchy: Wee tad, yes!
BTD
@DougJ:
And how far was the “anonymous House source” in the Politico article you objected to from what the Speaker of the House said on the record?
Look, we all cite to things we agree with or do not disapprove of. And we try and justify our critiques of people who do the same.
A more forthright approach is to admit our own biases.
Punchy
BTD seems a tad bit…..concerned.
DougJ
@mr. whipple:
First off, what’s wrong with that?
It involves advocating things like privatizing social security.
Kris
@BTD:
Oh please. You of all people have some nerve pulling that shit when you write nasty posts using strawmen all the time. Go back to your racist cesspool that is TalkLeft.
geg6
@BTD:
Usually, I am not as dismissive as many here of your points, BTD, but this is ridiculous. How, exactly, is what Ambinder or Atrios said in any measurable way any different than what Bayh himself said in his many explanations for why he decided that Sarahcuda is a good role model for his political trajectory?
J. Michael Neal
@BTD:
This raises interesting ideas on identity and the self. Is someone defined by their name, or is exactly who they are dependent upon other qualities.
El Cid
Actually, the main benefit aimed for in hippie punching is to press for policies and politics aimed at benefiting the wealthiest and most hawkish.
scarshapedstar
Talk about projection.
Hippy-punching is when some dirtbag like Joe Lieberman doesn’t want to vote for health reform, because he’s an asshole, so he says “too many hippies support this bill, therefore IT DIES” and the Villagers in turn punch the hippies for having forced his hand by being so mean to Lieberman over the years.
Turncoat Democrats justify their right-wing thuggery by loudly proclaiming that they hate their own base, and so they are lauded as the maturest and deepest thinkers in the room.
If we point out that they are really just Republican moles who never met a progressive policy they didn’t hate, then they whine and cry about “intolerance” and leave the party. (Just like with Civil Rights!)
geg6
@mr. whipple:
Not to make fun, but are you new to the Dem/liberal blogosphere? Punching hippies is pretty much a decade old shorthand for people like me being fucked over by almost everyone in politics, regardless of the fact that I’m too young to have been a hippie, am a respected professional in my field, and am a respected member of my community. If you are liberal, progressive, or just a Democrat, you are, by definition to some, a dirty fucking hippie (DFH).
mr. whipple
@DougJ:
I don’t see some centrist, protocorporate BS spewed by some wall street democrat/tool a punch to hippies.
In other words, I’m feeling like this constant need in some circles to feel all oppressed and start whining about it is just BS.
Dr. Morpheus
@Ian:
According to Nate Silver’s analysis, no we aren’t
Mr Furious
@DougJ:
No. It’s more than that. Creating space between yourself and an extreme wing is fine. The real damage the hippie-punchers do is paint anyone to the left of Evan Bayh as the extreme, radical, far left.
They pretend to be “centrist” by yelling “Me Too!” with the GOP and “Not Me!” to the base of their own party that swept them into the majority.
Napoleon
Sweet Jesus, just a few weeks ago didn’t Bayh threaten to not vote for raising the debt limit of the US which would throw the country into default unless a Democratically controlled Congress basically handed over the future of programs like SS to a commission that had a larger representation of Republican’s then Congress. Does anyone doubt for a second that someone who would do that doesn’t think like Ambinder is reporting he thinks (and I read to be something he got right from Bayh)?
slag
TNC brings up this quote from Bayh:
And then points out the obvious:
In a nutshell.
People like Bayh have no policy positions. They’d rather spend their time preening instead of governing. It’s the lack of principle that makes them impossible to work with on policy.
So, how do you deal with them? Give them unrelated crap to get their votes. Which undermines everyone’s faith in government and enables idiots to claim there is no difference between the two parties, government is corrupt, etc, etc.
If only there weren’t so many of them.
mr. whipple
@geg6:
I see that as the flip side of every right winger I know crying about how their politicians don’t listen to them because they don’t get the pony they want.
geg6
@mr. whipple:
Well, you apparently don’t contribute to the DSCC or the party coffers. Because when assholes like Bayh take my hard earned cash and then use it to bad mouth me and my principles, I think I have plenty to bitch about.
Those of us who do and expect something from these assholes in return, even it’s only a modicum of respect, have every reason to call out ungrateful pieces of shit like Bayh.
John Quixote
@Face:
It’s 13 billion, not 130. Bit of a difference. Tax revenues have fallen off the face of the Earth in my home state. No filling the hole without a combo of cuts and tax increases. Which means it won’t get filled. Which will make the editorial board of the Chicago Tribune very, very happy. ‘Cause it continues to give them cover for the ‘revolution’ they are pushing. Which means putting GOPers into power. Both parties here are completely worthless.
The town I live decided to spend stim money fixing the statue on the county courthouse, instead of fixing the damn sewer system. I look forward to my basement flooding when all the snow melts. Which would be the 4th time in less than two years.
El Cid
Evan Bayh co-sponsored the Iraq war resolution, a complete cheerleader for it.
Okay, maybe the ‘hippies’ (i.e., the entirety of Americans opposed to this bullshit unjustified invasion and occupation based on fraudulent propaganda and forgings) weren’t able to magically exert their will and stop the war.
We’re talking a period of time in which George H. W. Bush (i.e., Bush 1) officials who opposed the invasion & occupation were seen as crazy rad off-the-edge fringe hippies.
I think we’ve gotten to the point where even attempting to be rational about policies without altering rational arguments to please conservative Democrats is now the hippie fringe.
It’s apparently all the moderate centrist rage to make any policy shittier, less effective, or even harmful, so long as its core elements are to assist the wealthiest and most powerful, justify conservative ideologies, and push for foreign policy hawkery.
And no matter how logical and empirically based your preference for policies other than the ones the establishmentarian centrists want, all of a sudden you’re a crazy hippie pushing America the balanced center right nation which wants bipartisan solutions way too far.
Dr. Morpheus
@Face:
Woah! Slow down there cowboy! Reread CalcRisk again, the TOTAL deficit for ALL states that are in the red is $180 billion. Are you seriously thinking Illinois’ debt constitutes over 80% of that?
It’s bad, but the deficit is going to be $7.1 billion.
Bad, but no where near $130 billion bad.
ellaesther
No DougJ you did not just take one of the best, sexiest, heart-achiest songs in the history of songs and connect it in my pinhead to the minutia of the dysfunctional Democratic Party, circa 2010.
Damn it!
BTD
@geg6:
If that is the case, why not just quote what Bayh himself said. For the record, I doubt there is a quoter from Bayh that says “the White House wasn’t going to play [my] game—wasn’t going to sell out liberals at every turn—[so I decided I] had had enough.”
BTW, I do not object to using it at all. I think it is almost certainly true.
My point, for those who care to consider it, is you can’t go all “concern troll”/ “anonymous sources” and then use this without being inconsistent.
geg6
@mr. whipple:
You know what? That’s bullshit. The least this idiot could have done was treat his party and people like me who helped bankroll all his campaigns with some respect. He hasn’t, he didn’t, and it’s not about a fucking pony. Stick your pony bullshit up your ass. I’m sick of idiots like Bayh and you dismissing the real policy and governing problems with shit like this on people like me “wanting ponies.”
So condescending and assholish, it could be Republican.
mr. whipple
Of course I do. And I don’t mind a douchbag like Bayh occassionally demonstrating his bipartisan cred for the yokels back home. It’s all in how one does it, and when.
I see such acts as douchbaggery, and not some personal affront to my hippiness.
rootless_e
i missed BTD’s earlier visit here. it must be very frustrating to him not to be able to ban BJ commentators.
cfaller96
Evan Bayh is the Eric Cartman of national politics. Am I first to point this out?
I can’t believe that I am, so I’d love to see a link of somebody smarter, more eloquent, etc. making the case that Bayh is simply giving the one-fingered salute to his colleagues and saying “Screw You Guys I’m Going Home!”
His resignation was sudden, his explanation was pissy (albeit with valid points), he’s always seemed to struggle to get along with his fellow Dems…it points to the resignation as Bayh just giving up. What a punkass bitch.
I never liked this guy anyway.
DZ
As a proud and long-term DFH, punch me all you wiah, but do not ask me to jump on the centrist bandwagon. I never vote anything but Democratic, but I do object to being beat on by people masquerading as Democrats.
Democratic centrists today would have been ‘country club’ Republicans in 1968. Don’t ask me to support that. BTW, there has been no ‘far left’ in the U.S. in more than 30 years.
BTD
@Napoleon:
“I read to be something he got right from Bayh.”
Then Ambinder should write these words – “Bayh said.”
But here is the point – if the story had said “sources close to Bayh” (which BTW, often is the code for the actual person being the person quoted) – DougJ would object, or at least he says he would.
Ambinder does not even give him that and not a “concern.”
To be clear, I’m not concerned. But then I do not profess to be “concerned” about stories with “anonymous sources.”
Zifnab
@Dr. Morpheus:
Indiana, which hasn’t voted a Democrat President since Lyndon Johnson in 1964, went for Obama by 20 points in 2008. That may have been a massive fluke, but I think judging future representation out of that state by past or current representation is a mistake if you neglect this heavy left-leaning trend.
Who will we get to replace Evan Bayh? I honestly don’t know, but the candidate will have the freedom to be more left-leaning than the retiring incumbent.
geg6
@BTD:
I don’t completely disagree with you, but neither of them are off the mark on what Bayh meant. Perhaps they should have said something like “my interpretation of what Bayh is doing…” or something along those lines. It would be better, but we are talking blog posts after all. No editors!
BombIranForChrist
Good riddance to bad rubbish.
I am usually to the left of most centrists, but I realize they are valuable both to policy debates and political realities. I love hippies, but lord help us if hippies had total control of our policy goals.
Still, within the realm of Centrists, there are good actors and there are bad actors. Bayh was a bad actor. He was a poser who made every decision based on how he thought the decision would look in some vague future where a coalition of independents, Republicans, and Democrats would coalesce and nominate him for President in the Democratic Primaries.
Right.
Now he is basically just John Edwards without the haircut and pregger sex.
Tonal Crow
@mr. whipple: I see that the frequent use of the “pony” metaphor against DFHs sows discord and discourages political participation.
rootless_e
@BTD: Snort.
Comrade Kevin
@DougJ: Dude, ignore BTD. He wouldn’t let you do what he’s doing here on his blog; don’t give him any satisfaction.
JK
h/t http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2010/02/bayh-calls-lack-of-primary-to-replace-him-a-good-thing-on-call-with-dems.php
Zifnab
@cfaller96:
He’s not giving up, he’s cashing in. The firebombing of his potential rival followed by a last-minute retirement suggests that his replacement is in the can on the Democratic side. Bayh isn’t getting traction in the Senate, so he’s going to go private as a lobbyist and let a new industry tool who might be able to get better traction take his place.
This is all an orchestrated play to keep the seat firmly in the hands of his corporate buddies.
Corner Stone
@Tonal Crow: Who would’ve ever guessed?
Mark S.
@El Cid:
You are on a roll today, man.
BTD
@geg6:
“we are talking blog posts after all. No editors!”
And yet, every day there is a ton of concern here about blog posts that use “anonymously sourced” news articles like this one.
The “concern” is not about the sourcing obviously, it is about what is said in the article.
I do not pretend the concern. Obviously going with on the record sources is better. But to pretend this general outrage about “anonymous sourcing” is well, it does not hold up.
Corner Stone
@BombIranForChrist:
Why exactly?
Mnemosyne
@BTD:
So your argument is that we can never consider the source for a story and have to take all statements as equally truthful whether they come from Marc Ambinder or right-wing hack Michael Barone. Because if Barone is saying something that you want to hear (100 House Democrats won’t vote for the bill!) then he must be telling the truth!
Sentient Puddle
@Zifnab:
Uh…you’re off by about 19 points. Maybe you’re thinking of Virginia instead? Though even that was nowhere near 20…
BTD
@Comrade Kevin:
Probably a good idea. Another idea is to stop with the “concern” about anonymous sources.
rootless_e
BTD – talk left must be in ecstasy about the Scott Brown win. Are you guys gonna hold a blog party or something?
Corner Stone
@El Cid:
I agree but have also thought one main benefit is the kind of inoculation this action provides.
It also sets down a marker that others are now scared to cross lest they be associated with the hippies.
BTD
@Mnemosyne:
No. That is not my argument.
My argument is you can’t credibly rail about blog posts with anonymous sources one day and then use them yourself in a post the next day.
But feel free to misstate my point as often as you wish.
Michael
OT, but little baby Prop got hauled out of the warehouse again.
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2010/2/16/837550/-Sarah-Palin-vs.-Family-Guy
“Enough is enough” when the stupid twunt shuts her White Supremacist Christianist secessionist mouth.
rootless_e
@BTD: The question, as always, is whether your failure to get something simple and obvious is a annoying debate tactic or just ignorance.
Mark S.
@Zifnab:
Um, Obama won Indiana by one percentage point.
BTD
@rootless_e:
Jeralyn was pleased.
As you know, I supported Coakley.
But here’s my point – the inability to actually refute my point by a motivated group of people wanting to do so should tell you all you need to know.
BTD
@Mnemosyne:
BTW, when did Marc Ambinder become a Not Hack?
He is very much a hack.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
This, from Atrios, is the part that drives me so nuts I want to run head lowered into a brick wall:
Does no one in the media notice that the so-called principled moderates/reasonable liberals/”grown ups” as Tweety loves to call them, are the ones who chiefly enabled Bush and the Republicans to put us in the fucking mess we’re in?
BTD
@rootless_e:
What did I fail to get? That DougJ was just kidding when he said he objected to blog posts using anonymous sources?
Sure.
cfaller96
And just to offer another explanation to Mr. Whipple about hippie-punching, here’s my definition:
“Punching the hippies” is a political gesture, position, statement, etc. designed to distance a Democrat from his “radical” base. It used to be called a “Sister Souljah” moment, but the idea is the same- gain credibility on the national stage by criticizing members of the Democratic base.
What’s wrong with that? Well, I for one don’t see the political value in doing so anymore. Back in the ’90s and perhaps even earlier in the ’00s a politician may have derived a benefit by having Beltway journalists (e.g. David Broder) coo over his/her “centrist, moderate” principles. But times have changed.
I just don’t think it does much good to dispirit the activist base that has become newly energized and newly empowered through the internet. The Netroots may not be the biggest swinging dick in the Dem Party, but it’s significant nonetheless. And what does a pol get in exchange for pissing off a large portion of volunteers, precinct captains, donors, etc.? Approval from DC pundits? That and $4 will get you a latte at Starbucks.
Getting beyond the increasing lack of political utility in punching hippies, let’s also note that there are serious policy problems with punching hippies. Time and time again, the liberal base has been right about the more serious issues of the day. You can only be so wrong for so long before you start to become discredited, and if you do so while alienating your base, well, then you become irrelevant. Thus, exit Senator Bayh.
Corner Stone
@Mnemosyne:
This is pretty poor.
rootless_e
@BTD: You don’t have a point. You have a weak rhetorical stunt.
And you are a liar. (using the BTD definition of “lying”).
Mnemosyne
@BTD:
So tell us, BTD — what is Ambinder’s motive to exaggerate here? We all know what Barone’s motive to exaggerate is, which is why people objected to quoting him.
Of course, if you pretend that the only problem is the anonymous sourcing and not the person quoting the anonymous source, you can get your panties all in a twist because dengre was so meeeaaaaannn to McJoan when he pointed out that she linked approvingly to someone who has a motive to lie about what she wanted to hear.
lol
@rootless_e:
It’s typically both when it comes to Firebaggers.
slag
Dougj, will you please just take back whatever it was you said so that BTD could get over himself and we could get off these tangents? Please?
No one will think less of you. We promise.
Mnemosyne
@Corner Stone:
Really? BTD took about 50 comments yesterday to argue that Michael Barone is a reliable source about healthcare reform that we should all listen to. Do you agree with his assessment?
BTD
@Mnemosyne:
Wait a second. So if there is no discernible “motive to lie,” then using anonymous sources is acceptable?
I never understood DougJ’s objection to be because he thought the reporter was lying. Is that really the point the new rationale now?
Are we now Ok with anonymous sources when the reporter has no known motive to lie?
Well, allrighty then.
Elisabeth
I thought the Obama White House had already sold out liberals at every turn.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@slag:
Well, it’s a nice thought, but the notion that anyone from this plane of existence could say anything that would acheive that result is a tad bit far-fetched, don’t you think?
Thunderbird
@Zifnab:
Um, no. 49-48.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_presidential_election_in_Indiana,_2008
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
@BombIranForChrist:
There are folks who are truly centrist from a policy standpoint – they honestly support policies that are neither strongly left or right (as defined in this country). And then there are rent seekers. The rent seekers could care less about policy except insofar as they need to find the place where opposing factions are evenly balanced in our policy debates and then they squat there extracting rent from the leverage they gain over policy decisions by being “in the middle”, whatever that means at the present moment. Bayh is IMHO, a classic rent seeker. There are probably far more rent seekers in our political system than true centrists, but they can be hard to tell apart, especially for low-info voters.
Part of the crisis that is going on in the ranks of the Blue Dog Dems right now is that the same party having full control of both branches of Congress and the WH, and also having a President who is committed to dialog with all factions (come what may) has deprived the rent seekers of their ability to pretend to be true centrists – their rent seeking behavior is more nakedly exposed than they are used to (especially Congressional Dems who were accustomed to being in the minority) and they don’t like it.
WereBear
@Corner Stone: I think what really frosts the cherries on the centrist’s hats is the stone cold fact that the hippies have been right about so many, many, many things lately.
From deregulation and corporate power concerns, to food supply, energy, and climate issues, the hippies have been right for almost half a century now.
And even so, even here and even now, people who want to appear sensible feel constrained from sticking up for the hippies too much.
WTF? If hippies had total control of our policy goals, could it honestly be any worse than what we’ve been going through the last ten years? Get a grip, people!
BTD
@Mnemosyne:
Again misstating what I said.
Michael Barone is a hack. And a lying hack who writes with his own motivations.
That said, his statement that the House won’t pass the Senate Stand Alone Bill based on an anonymous quote from a House staffer used by a reporter with no known motive to lie was the issue in the post and in DougJ’s expressed objections in the comments.
But I am curious about this new found credibility for the hack Ambinder.
Corner Stone
@Mnemosyne:
After all of his numerous comments it should be impossible for a rational person to summarize BTD’s argument the way you did.
Whether you believe he has no argument, or that his argument is weak and he should drop it is one thing.
But it is very clear that he is not making the argument you try to pin on him in your comment.
BTD
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
He should. I would certainly appreciate it.
But that does not explain his inconsistency here.
rootless_e
And Atrios is really full of it here – as usual these days. The unifying political core of fdl-progressivism is that its all about them and their feelings so he assumes that Bayh is motivated by some kind of personal grudge. The reality that the fdl-progressives do not want to admit to is that the Obama administration has pursued an aggressively Democratic-wing-of the Democratic party agenda which undoubtedly annoys corporate hacks like Bayh and placed him in a difficult political position. Atrios can’t admit that- because that would require questioning the whiny “thrown under the bus” foundation of fdl-progressive ideology.
Molly
@mr. whipple:
From what I can see these days, we’re mixing our DFHs. We have DFHs who want a more progressive agenda, some more to the left than others, who are legitimately criticizing the Obama administration. They back up their criticisms. They are rational. I respect these people, I think they are a valuable voice. I’d never throw a punch in their general direction. They do get punches thrown at them that are pretty undeserved, because of…
Group 2. We’ve given them many different nicknames. They simply don’t seem capable of rational discourse. They’re unhinged and frothing. It’s as pointless talking to them as it is trying to convert a hard-core Pentecostal to Zoroastrianism.
I don’t like mixing the two. I fully support a good punch to the gut of Group 2. Not to Group 1.
cfaller96
This is actually something that I’ve been concerned about with Balloon Juicers. Yes, anonymous sourcing has been abused and continues to be abused by many members of the traditional media. Yes, anonymous sourcing should be viewed with suspicion.
But anonymous sourcing does occasionally have value, so you can’t be so absolute about your suspicions. I sometimes get this vibe from John and Doug and the rest of the crowd, so BTD has a point here.
Having said that, I’d trust Ambinder on anonymous sourcing before I’d trust Barone (though I haven’t read either article so my opinion means jack here). That nuance sometimes gets lost in the shuffle, though, because we all want to trust the guy that anonymously sources what we want to hear while trashing the guy that anonymously sources what we don’t want to hear. Both BTD and DougJ have a point, IMO.
Mnemosyne
@BTD:
Actually, the complaint was about using the non-anonymous source, Michael Barone. You know how you know he’s not anonymous? We know what his name is and we know exactly what he said, because McJoan quoted him.
But, hey, continue to willfully pretend the argument was about anonymous sources and not right-wing hack sources so you can have cover to quote right-wing nutjobs whenever you need a stick to bash Democrats with.
Corner Stone
@ThatLeftTurnInABQ:
I would agree with most of your assessment here. The reason there are more rent seekers and “centrists” is because they are powerful forces for the status quo.
And obviously those who benefit the most from the status quo are the ones paying the bills.
Tonal Crow
@WereBear: I agree completely.
Mr Furious
The complete paragraph from Ambinder:
BTD is bitching about an “unnamed source” for that? It’s not a fucking quote—it’s equal parts opinion, speculation and conclusion from Ambinder himself.
Did BTD forget about Bayh and his move early in the Administration to form his own bullshit “Centrist/Fuck-Obama Premptively Coalition?” in Congress? With stuff like that out there as common knowledge, Ambers isn’t even stretching with this statement. Bayh practically had this stance embroidered on his fucking jacket.
Can cleek get to work on a BTD/source pie filter already?
BTD
@Mnemosyne:
That’s not DougJ’s argument, which is what I address here.
I quoted DougJ’s comment that I am referencing with regard to anonymous sources.
My argument on the issue of dengre’s post is contained in that thread.
BTD
@Mr Furious:
Opinion? Ok. If you say so.
mr. whipple
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
And Obama didn’t go along?
Comrade Kevin
You know what is the mark of a successful trolling? When the troll manages to make the whole thread about him.
slag
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: You’re probably right. My
optimismnaivete surprises even me sometimes.Corner Stone
@WereBear:
And I always find it amusing. People will sometimes say “good policy *is* good politics” but then they have no issue when someone shivs a good policy by using the cover of “hippie punching” to do it.
Ailuridae
@rootless_e:
BTD is a liar using any definition of lie or liar known to man. His posts and his comments here are routinely untruthful. Catch him lying about something though and he runs from the thread using the excuse that Rep Murtha just passed. He then returns to other threads and tells the same lies.
BombIranForChrist
@Corner Stone:
I don’t think the hippies should be in complete control of policy for two reasons:
Generally speaking, absolute power corrupts absolutely. I think it is a bad idea for any political group to have complete, unfettered control over anything. Opposition parties are useful to keep parties in control from going completely insane.
Second, most hippies I know don’t support war of any kind and they think capitalism is evil. I disagree with both those points. Pretty strongly, actually.
BTD
@cfaller96:
I would too. But Barone did not have an anonymous source. He referenced a news article that used an anonymous source.
The news article existed there is no dispute about that.
So there really was no anonymous source issue regarding Barone, but rather, in DougJ’s words “If the piece had begun “an anonymous Democratic source tells me he heard David Broder say the Democrats are screwed”, I would not have cited it approvingly.”
The story in question cited a House staffer anonymously.
gopher2b
@John Quixote:
This isn’t really fair since there aren’t any GOPers in Illinois outside of Dupage. And that government runs on time (even if it is the most boring place on Earth).
mr. whipple
@Molly:
Thanks, Molly. Maybe a better definition of who’s who would help me understand better.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Mr Furious:
Not even early in the administration. Bayh was bragging about his plans to undermine Obama more than a month before the inauguration.
@rootless_e: I think in this case he’s got it right. Not that Bayh actually is walking away because of bloggers, but that–like Lieberman and McCain– he’s shocked at the ignorance and ingratitude of a party and a nation that refuses to recognize the awesomeness he sees in the mirror while brushing his teeth.
BombIranForChrist
@WereBear:
In my case, this is false. I am not sticking it to the hippies to prove some kind of High Broderism on my part. I actually don’t agree with a lot of what the hippies say. It’s either intellectually dishonest or stupid to believe that if someone doesn’t agree whole-heartedly with the hippies then necessarily they are just trying to “appear sensible”. Maybe people actually disagree with hippies. It’s possible. It may seem crazy to you, but people do actually have substantive reasons to disagree with the hippies.
Mnemosyne
@Corner Stone:
Not at all. BTD is pissed off because dengre called McJoan out for linking to Michael Barone. He knows he can’t really defend linking to Barone, so instead he has to pretend that Barone’s reporting of his admittedly third-hand source must be accurate.
He’s trying to pretend to be outraged about anonymous sources, but since his outrage comes from the fact that dengre dared to call out McJoan for linking to Barone as a reliable source, I think we can safely say that his sudden outrage about anonymous sources is, shall we say, a bit theatrical.
Mr Furious
@BTD: Yeah. I’ll stick with that. Nowhere in the entire column does Ambinder reference a source or anyone else supplying any of his material. It reads to me as his summary of the situation with some hyperbolic opinion mixed in.
TuiMel
@Mr Furious:
I agree.
rootless_e
@Comrade Kevin: well yes, but an ongoing theme here is an investigation into what motivates the whinging Obama-hating, pseudo-progressive faction that BTD belongs to, so it’s on topic to some extent.
Bruce (formerly Steve S.)
I just don’t get how financial reregulation became a left-right issue. Can’t even the dimwits in DC’s press corps see that it’s simply a matter of society’s survival?
Mnemosyne
@BTD:
Since today’s argument is based in your arguments on that post, clearly it is not “contained” in that thread. You’ve dragged that dead corpse over to this thread and are desperately throwing formaldehyde on it to try and pretend it’s something else.
geg6
@BTD:
In defense of John and Doug’s (and, honestly, my) disgust at the overuse of the “some say” meme, they generally bitch the most about it when it’s used by a NYT or WaPo blog (which would presume some quality control due to the prestige of the medium) or on the Sunday talk shows or cable channels. All of those examples have numerous editors and journalists who win prestigious journalism awards and who should know better. I don’t hold people like Atrios to the same standard, though a defense of Ambinder in this context does not hold up. So I’ll give you that one. And what a relief, because I really HATE defending Ambinder.
Ailuridae
@Molly:
Group 2. We’ve given them many different nicknames. They simply don’t seem capable of rational discourse. They’re unhinged and frothing. It’s as pointless talking to them as it is trying to convert a hard-core Pentecostal to Zoroastrianism.
I’ve taken to calling them FDL-bots. Feel free to use it.
I was tempted to call them Hamsherites but figured that might only exacerbate Jane Hamsher’s megalomania.
BTD
@Mr Furious:
So should Ambinder be read that way? He calls himself a reporter but you describe something different.
More importantly, is that how DougJ sees it? And if so, is he ok with using “news analysis” pieces with unsourced fact assertions.
Because what you are saying is that Ambinder expressed an opinion on what he thinks happened.
Another word for that is speculation.
vheidi
@Corner Stone: yes, indeed, why exactly?
Mr Furious
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: I believe you’re correct. I remember thinking it was pretty fucking bold from a guy who had reportedly been on the short list for VP to gut his party’s newly elected POTUS.
But this is Bayh, and it was pretty clear getting passed over was a raw wound.*
*NOTE TO BTD: No source for that—just one pissed hippie’s opinion.
Tonal Crow
@gopher2b:
Could’a fooled me. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/politics/interactives/campaign08/election/uscounties.html .
BTD
@Mnemosyne:
Actually it isn’t. It is about the anonymous source argument DougJ presented.
I quoted it in comment 10.
rootless_e
@Ailuridae: u have a point.
vheidi
@Molly: Hamshters made me laugh, because I’m an O-bot natch
jeffreyw
Don’t you folks ever eat lunch? Jeebus
BTD
@geg6:
Even that bothers me to be honest because it is completely selective. Are you telling me they object when Ezra Klein, a WaPo blogger, makes references like “I talked to the White House . . ?”
Look, as always, when we like the thing reported, our procedural objections melt away.
I do not claim to be any better.
gopher2b
@Tonal Crow:
I think it was pretty obvious I was referring to GOP office holders.
Corner Stone
@BombIranForChrist:
I think we’re probably crossing definitions at some point.
I don’t know how you define the category of people you refer to as hippies but I can tell you I am against aggressive war and also think unfettered capitalism is destructive to a society.
But most people I know who are on the left side of the spectrum agree with me. And I don’t know any that would actually get rid of a capitalism structure for our economy. But IMO they’d like for the current structure to actually benefit someone besides the top 1%. For a change.
The nation’s been bashing on the mirage of “hippies” for well over 40 years now, and politicians have been using them as bogeymen off and on as needed to enact policy such as El Cid described.
How’s that working out for you?
Mr Furious
@BTD:
Ya think? Might be why I used that word to describe the piece in the first place.
Again, you pull the statement from Ambinder’s column that asserts “some say…” or “sources tell me…” or “DSCC officials…” and I might be persuaded.
I’ll wait ALL DAY if I must…
JustMe
BombIranForChrist: “hippie punching” is metaphorical, not just about the “punching” but about the “hippies.” In this case, when we refer to “hippie punching”, it’s about people like Bayh’s reflexive need to oppose something just because the Democratic party base wants it, even if it’s objectively speaking a “centrist” policy view.
eemom
just a feeble whimper of protest from an old English major here: it is totally ridiculous to call the so-called far left of today “hippies.” That word has an actual historical meaning and shouldn’t be bastardized.
Jane Hamsher a “hippie”? Pleeeeez. The 1960s is rolling in its grave.
We need a different word for this concept.
Eric U.
@rootless_e: he’s incapable of playing well with others. Considering some of his GOS posts, I can’t believe the line he’s taking here, but I guess people change.
Mnemosyne
@BTD:
I guess you and I have very different opinions about Politico. You think of them as an objective news source that has no motive to slant their stories one way or the other. I think of them as a right-wing news outlet that pushes a very specific slant meant to assist Republicans.
As long as you believe them to be independent actors, you will continue to ignore the fact that 90 percent of their stories feed into the right-wing narrative and continue insisting that they’re just reporting facts.
BTD
@Mr Furious:
Describe by who? Not Ambinder.
And if DougJ is ok with writing “speculation” then what’s the big deal about anonymous sources anyway?
John Quixote
In lighter news, a new CNN poll shows that 52% think Obama should be a one-term POTUS. Well, at least the country gave him 13 months before they decided to go back to the GOPers. It took 6 years before the country finally figured out that Bush was a disaster, but they barely gave Obama a year to clean up his mess before they said ‘fuck it, bring on the Brawndo!’.
We are a nation of impatient fucking retards.
BTD
@Mnemosyne:
Let me get this straight, you think the Politico reporter made up the quote from the House staffer. That’s your theory?
Politico slants with what it decides to cover and how.
I doubt they make up quotes.
But apparently some of you think that these quotes are made up.
valdivia
@John Quixote:
yeah and Obama is back up to 53 on Gallup so I guess these polls tell us nothing.
Ailuridae
: @Molly:
Group 2. We’ve given them many different nicknames. They simply don’t seem capable of rational discourse. They’re unhinged and frothing. It’s as pointless talking to them as it is trying to convert a hard-core Pentecostal to Zoroastrianism.
I’ve taken to calling them FDL-bots. Feel free to use it.
I was tempted to call them Hamsherites but figured that might only exacerbate Jane Hamsher’s megalomania.
mr. whipple
Agreed.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@eemom: IIRC, and to the extent that I am aware of internet traditions, the use of DFH to describe decidedly non-hippie-ish persons–such as myself, Al Gore, Paul Krugman, Barbara Boxer, etc–who opposed Bush’s war was ironical in its origins. Now the idea of which hippie is being punched–by Obama, by Broder, or by John Cole– has become caught up in our post-election split between those who see themselves as Church of Keepin’ It Real, and those of us who call those people Firebaggers.
Mnemosyne
@BTD:
So sweet. So naive.
ETA: The reporter doesn’t have to make the quote up himself if the “House staffer” he talks to isn’t a Democrat. Just sayin’.
Chyron HR
@BTD:
Could you please go back to yapping about the Platonic Solids and Republican Party Chairman John Lennon? It was a lot funnier.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@John Quixote:
Well, it’s not as if that’s a leading question or anything. I’m sure the good, responsible centrist journamalists of CNN ask that question after the first year of every presidency.
geg6
@BombIranForChrist:
You do realize that the phrase was used most back during the run up to the Iraq War and was used to describe anyone who was against the war, just like the dirty fucking hippies of the Flower Power era? And that about 50% of the people that have been tagged with that derogatory nickname are people like me: over 50 but too young to have been a hippie, work in professional fields and/or have graduate degrees, are middle class, are generally classic liberals or center-lefties, and have never worn patchouli nor scored acid on a corner of Haight Asbury? That the word is usually used to insult someone who never was, never would have been, and never will be anything like an actual hippie? That it’s meant to lump your average liberal Democrat as some sort of Weather Underground radical?
Mark S.
@Mnemosyne:
Oh for Christ’s sake. What did Barone say that was so controversial? It’s pretty obvious that Pelosi doesn’t have the necessary votes to pass the Senate bill “as is”; otherwise, she would have done it by now.
The rest of Barone’s article is him speculating what the House Dems are thinking. Anytime someone is speculating about the motivations of other people, it’s best to take it with a huge grain of salt. Same goes with all the speculation concerning Bayh’s motivations.
licensed to kill time
@eemom:
I agree. As an actual old hippie I always cringe a little bit at the hippie punching meme. I don’t know what would be a better term – maybe punch ’em in the red diaper doper sack? Prog-popping? LoonyTune Lefty lashing?
Pangloss
Evidently, Eisenhower Republicans were really dirty hippies.
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2010/2/16/837390/-Quick:-Who-Wrote-THIS
Tonal Crow
@gopher2b:
That’s not correct either. See http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/25380344/ , then click on “House” on the right. Also, there are plenty of GOPers in the state legislature, although short of a majority in both houses. http://www.ilga.gov/house/ ; http://www.ilga.gov/senate/ . And very many come from downstate, not just DuPage. (Compare those lists against http://www.illinoisatlas.com/illinois/political/pdf/il_legdist_state.pdf ).
John Quixote
@valdivia:
Agreed. Maybe if every pollster polled the public 6 times a day, everyday, we would get a clearer picture. There are not enough polls. Scott Rasmussen’s gotta eat, don’t he?
rootless_e
@Mnemosyne: What’s weird about these people is that they claim to be Democrats and liberals while they guilelessly swallow lies from Politico and worse (even Michael Barone) and at the same time assume that that the Democratic President is an inveterate liar.
Corner Stone
@BombIranForChrist:
But this isn’t what IMO is “H-P”. If you disagree with a policy or meme then that’s great. If you prefer some other set of solutions be enacted that’s great too.
But this is not what a H-P is.
Ash Can
To be honest, the contemporary term of “hippie” means little to me. The actual, original, real-life hippies I recall from the 60s were considerably more countercultural than political. The real left-wingers were the activists — SDS, Black Panthers, Women’s Liberation. The far left were the militants, e.g., the Weathermen. I take the contemporary meaning of “hippie” to be “fringe left,” which nowadays means anything from Code Pink to anyone not batshit, frothing-at-the-mouth insane, depending on who you talk to. As a result, the term “hippie-punching” means nothing more to me than “strawman-punching.” Big deal.
Having said that, I’m getting fed up with all the reasons Bayh and his associates/sympathizers have been giving for his resignation. I’ve heard the complaints about the Senate Republicans, the Senate Democrats, the White House, the lefty bloggers, Harry Reid… For fuck’s sake, is there anyone, other than him, who hasn’t been blamed? Being the parent of a young child, I’ve learned something about blame flying in evey direction like buckshot. It means that the problem stems from the blamer himself. Bayh was evidently in over his head, couldn’t do the job, and bailed. I’m realizing now that whether or not any wrongdoing was involved is actually beside the point. Fact is, he just couldn’t handle the gig, and he’s finally decided to take his ball and go home.
geg6
@Mnemosyne:
I guess I have to ask you, in this case, to please provide a link to where they have done that. I think you may be blinded by an understandable but irrational distaste for what a rag Politico is. But I haven’t seen them flat out make up quotes.
TuiMel
@geg6:
Right on (with apologies).
John Quixote
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Only when the POTUS is black. And a Democrat. Who fails at national security by killing terrorists instead of torturing them. Who didn’t cut anybody’s taxes. With a Black Panther wife. Who puts the country in danger by attending parent teacher conferences. Who won’t abolish Medicare like the teabaggers want. Am I forgetting any failures here? I’m sure that I am.
Bruce (formerly Steve S.)
Give us your source for a reliable whip count of House Dems right here:
Kryptik
The reason for the term “Dirty Fucking Hippies” and “Hippie Punching” is not about genuine hippies. It’s about the fact that most people to the left of Lieberman were tarred with a broad brush of radical leftism with which to marginalize them. Just about all Democrats except the likes of Lieberman, Bayh, and anyone else who essentially voted with the Republicans on any and all substantive issues were considered ‘Hippies’ by the right and the media.
“Hippie Punching” is basically reinforcing the perception that all democrats except those ‘principled centrists’ were Hippies, and that it was the duty of sane people to deny them any clout or credence at all.
cfaller96
True. But the original original original article’s author, Mike Allen, is not exactly a trustworthy guy on anonymous sourcing, either. He could have had 99 anonymous sources tell him everything’s fine with the House, and 1 guy tell him that “OMG the House is 100 votes short on the Senate bill!” and what do you think Mike Allen is going to run with?
This is the problem with anonymous sourcing, as I’m sure you’d agree. We have no good way to judge the accuracy (or even the existence!) of the quote. But because it advances a conservative meme and because a shit like Michael Barone approvingly links to it, it all seems a little too convenient for DougJ (and me, BTW).
(For the record, here is the quote that started this whole shitstorm:
The implication of the quote is that the Senate bill is not just a bit short of passage in the House, but approximately 100 votes short of passage, and thus no amount of phone calls to Pass The Damn Bill will overcome this. It’s not a small point, IMO, so it’s worth the argument.)
valdivia
@John Quixote:
LOL. I think the funny thing is that Obama’s numbers have been pretty damn stable (around 50) even with all the shit everyone throws at him. so now they have to start asking the questions that will really make news: like hypothetical match ups with generic republicans (last week Gallup did this, even though when they match him up to actual candidates he always wins) and now they are asking if he should be re-elected. Maybe next they will ask if he should resign?
Bruce (formerly Steve S.)
Mnemosyne flat out makes up quotes. See the “Hyping Wing-nut spin” thread.
Grumpy Code Monkey
BTD, dude, let it go. Some battles just aren’t worth fighting. You’re rapidly approaching Brick Oven Bll levels of douchebaggery.
rootless_e
@Mark S.: Barone was not “speculating” about what House Dems are thinking, he was selling the Luntz line.
Corner Stone
@geg6:
It’s meant to do many things, your example included. It’s close cousin is the derisive use of the “pony” analogy.
Just like if you walked up to any Democratic pol and said to him/her – “Liberal”. Probably 95% would jump straight up in the air like a scalded cat, then start furiously looking around for the ambush cameras taping the encounter.
IMO, I interchange the words liberal and hippie in these contexts but that probably isn’t correct some of the time.
Call someone a hippie and they’ll laugh at you. Call someone a liberal and they’ll probably sue you.
Mnemosyne
@geg6:
Media Matters did some coverage. Since it was in the early days you might be able to chalk it up to growing pains, but it’s awfully hard for me to trust anything they say with their track record.
My Name Here
@BTD
Really at this point you are just being an insufferable prick. Its clear you are either being willfully obtuse, or have not read the Ambinder article. The only quote in the thing, sourced or otherwise, is from Nate Silver, and its 3 words long. The rest of it is clearly an opinion/analysis piece. And I have never seen people here say that there is a problem with people writing posts saying what they think of an issue, or a person. In fact, that is a whole hell of a lot of what this site does. Its ridiculous to say that this piece relies on unsourced quotes if you actually read the piece. And the claim that somehow Ambinder should have a source for his interpretation of the motivations of Bayh’s actions is insane. If I say you are doing all this because I think you are an ass, I do not need to source anyone, I have observed your actions and have come to a conclusion, I have now shared this conclusion with the rest of the readers here. This is the same thing Ambinder did, and it in no way requires any sort of sourcing. I am now pissed at myself for trying to explain something to someone who is wrong on the internet, but i’ve been having a bad week and it felt good to vent.
arguingwithsignposts
The problem with punching hippies is a) it hurts your hand and b) it pisses off the hippie. other than that, it’s a win-win, right?
Now to go back and read what all the other pristine M-F’ers in the BJ commentariat have to say.
John Quixote
@valdivia:
I think he should go on TV and apologize for being black. And having the audacity to try and fix the nation’s problems. He can get a 5 point bump for bombing Iran. Saint Sarah of the North said so.
Kryptik
@John Quixote:
Hey, they already think he should be impeached. He may as well cut off the talk and resign for the crime of being a Democrat when Hippie Punching is the only ‘right’ choice.
Ash Can
@licensed to kill time: LOL! Remember the good old days when Gus Freakin’ Hall was a mainstay on the ballot? Could you just hear Michelle Bachmann or Glenn Beck if that happened today?
valdivia
@John Quixote:
yup.
the problem is that this very badly asked question in a poll is going to be the meme of the day. so his approval in a cnn poll does not measure anything, now we have to ask if he deserves (note the word choice too) to be re-elected. blows my mind.
Mnemosyne
@Bruce (formerly Steve S.):
Bruce, the fact that you believe Politico and Barone and really think that the Democrats are lacking 100 votes (or, as you like to say, “several dozen votes”) is not really my problem. I’m sure the fact that Pelosi hasn’t passed the bill yet is solely due to those 100 votes you say she’s lacking and has absolutely nothing to do with the much-touted healthcare conference next week. Because there’s absolutely no reason why Pelosi would not be eager to step on the president’s heels by passing the bill and trumping the conference.
Tonal Crow
@valdivia: The poll question we really need to ask is “Do GOP Congresspeople deserve to be deported?”
Joy
Every time I venture into a thread and see BTD at the beginning I know it’s going to be a bumpy ride. It’s why I stopped reading TalkLeft. Doesn’t he have a day job?
licensed to kill time
@Ash Can:
Oh doG, yes! I also remember this:
Haha. Good times. Yippie!
rootless_e
gather round me people
and a song i will try to sing
about the hillary supporters
and their lives as wingdings
years after Hillary herself had moved along
the bitter enders were still explaining
we were wrong
they scrabbled for evidence in
every sewage pipe
saying Barone or Politico would
prove them right
rootless_e
@Ash Can:
Gus Hall!
and Angela for VP.
Jay B.
This place has quickly become a place where the commentariat sucks just as hard as the TalkLefts and FDLs. A self-satisfied, insular group of jackasses where every disagreement is filtered through the pleasing standards of groupthink. Now the fight is over anonymous quotes and the fucking definition of “hippie-punching”? Jesus Christ.
The staggering amount of bad faith, the automatic assumption that the other side is acting in bad faith, the One True Scotsman, the instant accusation of “lie”, the laundry list of past grievances. Get a grip.
I’ve found some real, honest disagreement here — and it’s helped me better understand the issue at hand. Sometime it’s helped me change my mind, other times, not. And even when I’ve gotten slagged, it’s cool, it’s the Internet. It’s not like I’m above firing back, plus, I like profanity.
But you can tell it’s gotten really, really bad over the quality of the disagreements. Most of the shit on this thread is indecipherable and utterly fucking pointless.
Darkmoth
@rootless_e:
This. Really this.
If Sanders was retiring because he was sick of too much hippy-punching, that would inflame the FDL wing for a week. Bayh’s retirement rationale puts the lie to too many cherished memes for it to be acknowledged.
bemused
@Ash Can:
Gus Hall…boy, it’s been a long time since I’ve heard his name mentioned He was born up in my neck of the northwoods.
John Quixote
@valdivia: But the Village needs to know what the ‘electorate’ wants now, now, now! We need copy! Quick, get someone to poll on Obama’s approval rating with those between the ages of 55 to 57! Let’s publish Saint Sarah’s attack on Family Guy! Who gives a shit about stupid ass things like policy and governance and facts, let’s kick the guy who won’t attend our cocktail parties or torture brown people to make us feel safe! People are concerned!
rootless_e
@Darkmoth: But note that the FDL-progressives wanted to run a primary challenge to Sanders, not to Bayh. They function as a wing of the republican party machinery.
Brian J
@Face:
Ehh. It’s mostly unfunded pension liabilities. I’m sure that’s what most big states, like New York and California, are just as bad, if not worse.
Mr Furious
@BTD:
Me, dummy.
In your haughty conclusion, you declare that Ambinder’s post is speculation. I described it as speculation in my first comment, and pointed that out.
Do you need to corroborate that source? I can check with myself.
Corner Stone
@Jay B.:
I’m curious. In your opinion, what is the groupthink in this thread?
Tonal Crow
@rootless_e: As far as I can tell, there are many fewer PUMAs than there are accusations of PUMA-hood. Please give it a rest.
Mr Furious
@Jay B.:
Thank BTD, among other threadjackers. We’re all Darrell now.
I agree to a large extent. I think the front page posting has improved, but the comments ain’t what they used to be.
Mr Furious
@Corner Stone:
LOL. Careful, BTD will be pitching his own tent over another anonymous source scandal!
Ash Can
@licensed to kill time:
@rootless_e:
I tell ya, kids nowadays. They don’t know from lefties. And they need to get the hell offa my lawn!
Max
@Joy: Thank you. I agree.
It really is too bad that the traffic on his clown car of a Free Roman site is so low that he has to come over here.
I could see if he added something to the discussion, but it’s always “John or Doug or Dennis or Tim sucks – Look at me!”
Tonybrown74
@BombIranForChrist:
Sigh …
You aren’t getting the point the point re: Hippie punching.
The truth of the matter is that the Washington Establishment treats anyone that is seen to be to the left of their conventional wisdom as a Hippie. It’s as if they treat anyone who is remotely liberal/progressive as if they are the anti-war protesters of the late 1960s.
That act of Democrats denigrating people who are the core of their base is called “hippie punching,” despite most of these people (myself included) are pretty straight laced, average Americans who just disagree with the conservative bent of many policy makers.
Jay B.
@Corner Stone:
Maybe not this ridiculous thread per se, but I think this neatly represents the past, oh, I don’t know, 4 months of thread fights:
Bruce (formerly Steve S.)
You have no idea what I believe.
You said, “So I’m wondering how we got from ‘the votes aren’t there’ to ‘half of the House Democrats will refuse to vote for the Senate bill.’” Where does the latter quote come from?
Give your source for a reliable whip count of House Dems right here:
Lying again, I see. Show us your arithmetic again about how “several dozen” = 100.
Then give us your source for a better number than either “several dozen” or 100.
Then please stop lying.
valdivia
@John Quixote:
Thank you. That made me laugh. You have it exactly right.
It is the statistical/numerical form of ‘it would be irresponsible not to speculate!’
rootless_e
@Tonal Crow: sadly, many of the most bitter obama critics today, people who incessantly whine about being thrown under the bus, who gladly reinforce Luntz lines, and who loudly proclaim their disappointment in hope and change were the same people who hated obama during the primaries. In fact, I’ve come to the conclusion that most of them were not pro-Hillary as much as anti-Obama from the start.
slag
@Jay B.:
I’m inclined to agree with this assessment. Although I don’t know what the solution is. Is it the subject matter that causes the problem or something else?
mai naem
Some people say that Bayh was dissing Obama by pulling a “neener neener, I am going home now that you won’t let me cut social security or medicare benefits wahhhhhh wahhhhhh and you aren’t extending those tax cuts for my kids wahhhhh wahhhh and also you picked Joey Biden over me, so there!”
cat48
@rootless_e:
And when would they have the time?? So many blogs to troll, so little time.
Corner Stone
@Jay B.: I’m sorry to belabor this – do you mean you agree with the sentiment you quoted, or do you think that quote is the underlying assumption/deeply held belief of the insular jackassess that engage in groupthink here?
Ash Can
@bemused: Seriously, this is one of the things that confounds me when I see old farts my age waving tea bags and wailing about socialism. Are they already so senile that they’ve forgotten that there was an American Communist Party? And that it was harmless?
Must have been all that pre-EPA lead and mercury and shit in the water supply.
valdivia
@rootless_e:
what you said.
JGabriel
194 posts in 122 minutes? That’s a new comment every ~38 seconds!
What the fuck are you kids doing in here?!
.
DougJ
@Jay B.:
I say we argue about the definition of “groupthink” instead.
Molly
@Kryptik:
Yes. Mr. Whipple, it’s probably easier to give a good example of what I’m talking about.
Getting out of Afghanistan. Our DFH’s were both passionate and rational about why we needed to leave, immediately. They pointed out the more time we spend “winding down,” the more money we throw down a black hole. This is a rational point. I respect it. Though I do not agree we need to leave Afghanistan immediately, I understand the logic, and I respect the argument.
Then, we have the people who’s argument consisted basically of “Obama is just like Bush. He’s a neocon in principled centrist clothing. He sold us out. He threw us under the bus.” That’s not productive. That’s not approaching a problem with a viewpoint and an open mind to what other people have to say. It’s walking into a conversation with no pretense of good will from the other side and no ability to see shades of gray.
Someone can be liberal and always stand up for a progressive agenda and mindset and still see the other side of a debate. Many people here are like that, and we affectionately (for the most part) get to call them DFHs. We’ve also seen an influx of DKos denizens and they also trend to DFH. The reason this is happening right now is because we’re seeing a group of people, led by FDL and other left-wing blogs, who are no longer capable of rational discourse. We call them Firebaggers and FDL-Bots.
So, the DFH contingent is getting put in the middle of Obama defenders and Firebaggers. They’re the ones getting punched from both sides, as well as from the usual suspects on the Republican side. It’s a micro-reflection of the fragmentation of the Democratic party right now.
Jay B.
@Corner Stone:
I disagree with it. I’ve found that the wagons get circled here and the lines drawn whenever there’s an explicit or even implied criticism of Obama. It becomes axiomatic — disagreement = “firebagging” or pony-searching or whatever infantile dismissal comes out. There’s usually a caveat too: Of course, it’s ok to disagree, but you are a) using “rightwing framing”, b) being a PUMA or c) have no idea how politics work. Then there are the ones that dismiss the criticism entirely and attribute it to bad faith and/or lying.
You don’t have to scroll up too many posts to find this. I think this thinking is self-satisfied and lazy. And the assumptions that it makes are, of course, mirrored by the “other” side who have a different tactical approach but are largely similar in overall political outlook.
The Moar You Know
Fucking Armando. What kind of wood do I have to sharpen into a stake to put you back in your online coffin over at Talk Left for good, instead of coming here and shitting all over the threads?
slag
@DougJ: OK. That was funny.
Martin
@Molly: Here’s my read on things. You have ideological groups on both sides – liberals who put health care/welfare, immigration, labor, environment, anti-war all at the top of the agenda fighting amongst themselves and conservatives who put pro-war, no taxes, Bible everywhere, all at the top of their agendas fighting it out.
In the middle you get various progressive groups that really don’t have a big ideological bent but are happy to borrow from left and right as appropriate and work with either side. We usually get called centrists or pigfuckers, but generally we don’t lock into some utopian vision of free health care, no taxes, American global dominance, or whatever. We focus on what the real problems of today are and happily take a reasonable effort that addresses those problems that can actually be achieved. We’ll push for things that don’t look like they’re in the calculus today, but that could be sold with effort. Usually we’re accused of undermining that utopian policy objective by not pushing harder, which is probably true only because we don’t think that objective will ever or even should ever be achieved.
Currently, there is effectively no conservative progressive movement. If there is, they have no voice. You have guys like Bacevich that are cutting against the tide there, but there’s no movement. The non-ideological groups have nobody to work with. Liberals want all of their ideological ideas implemented, no matter how unrealistic they may be (even selling those ideas to Democrats) and there are conservative ideas that are worth considering but nobody on the right willing to champion them. That’s left anyone who is really focused on getting *anything* done fighting with both the ideological left and right, and the ideological left feeling ever more empowered to demand their ideas to the exclusion of all others. That’s really where I see ‘hippy punching’ in effect – the progressives pushing against the liberal ideologues who in return are complaining that they’re the only ones bringing ideas to the table. That’s true, but they aren’t realistic ideas in many cases and they’re too focused on party loyalty than actually solving the real problems. Not every Dem is going to blindly sign onto every liberal issue. The fact that the GOP did that is what got us into this mess, after all.
For example, on banking regulation, I think there’s a reasonable conservative argument to be made to not go overboard on regulation but instead to require that there be a federally managed insurance pool (like FDIC) to back up consumer accounts for reasonable categories. Extend it to money markets and a few other areas that consumers are clearly deeply invested in. Establish a regulation that no institution can have more in deposits than the federal pool can back up with a reasonable multiplier (i.e., the feds always need to be able to bail out the 3 largest or 5 largest or whatever institutions). But leave it to the market to decide which way they want to go to handle large institutions. If they want to allow for bigger banks, they need to pay more into the insurance pool to permit that. If they don’t want to pay in, then those large institutions need to break up until the ratio is re-established.
Other than the multiplier, there’s no arbitrary rules here, no favoritism. The largest institution in terms of accounts needs to split. In addition to ensuring that the taxpayers never need to bail these guys out, it restores competition to the marketplace by equalling out the size of the institutions.
Now, I may or may not agree with this idea, but it’s one worth considering against other ideas. But nobody on the right is even proposing anything to provide balance, so if progressives see problems with the more liberal ideas that are out there, there’s nobody else to argue against other than the left, and so it seems that everyone is ganging up on the left, which really isn’t the case.
gwangung
@Jay B.: I think you yourself are being fairly dishonest (Edit: hm…not the best word…maybe lazy is a better word) in lumping all the various factions here as being essentially the same. From an extreme viewpoint, yes, everything looks the same, but the practical differences are substantial.
dan
@Mr Furious: No, this is where you are wrong, and Jay B. is right. In fact, by pointing to the “infiltrators” as the problem shows what the real problem is.
The self-satisfaction in these threads is astounding. There are many here doing no more than striking the Sophisticated Villager pose. And then, to justify it, there is this constant undertone of just giving up, of the why-don’t-we-just-damn-it-to-hell comments.
Its a poisonous mix that (a) drowns out intelligent people commenting here, e.g., aimai, and (b) pisses of people who are both unwilling to just give up and at the same time unwilling to accept the centrist approach.
les
This summary of a NYT article, from their online headline service today, I think represents where the hippy stuff comes from:
Bayh was, outside of the Republicans, one of the most reliably conservative votes in the Senate. By describing him as center, they get to describe anyone even moderately progressive as insanely leftist–hippy–and then go back to High Broderism as the only serious adult approach.
Jay B.
@gwangung:
Actually, I think yours and Martin’s post just above yours proves my point.
Edit: To clarify, “factions”? That’s exactly what I’m finding to be the problem. Why should there be factions on a liberal-leaning blog? Why are “they” always wrong and/or dishonest, while “you” are always right? I mean just look at Martin’s diagnosis — both sides are unrealistic, only we in the besieged center have a rational outlook.
That’s a perfect summation of what I’ve found to be a seriously deficient problem in these threads. But he means it as a pat on the back for his steadfast clear-eyed thinking.
les
@Martin:
Instead, you maintain the valiant fight against the evil strawmen of the world. Be assured, mankind is grateful.
bemused
@Ash Can:
Communism, soshlism, marxism, fascism, it’s all the same to them.
There was strong red movement in northern MN in the 1930’s or around that time. There were even recruiters here to convince people to move to Russia & settle there. Many did go only to die in purges including an uncle of mine. Long before I was born.
Face
No, it’s $130 billion:
Midnight Marauder
Sweet merciful baby Jesus, BTD. Can you just talk about the thread topic FOR ONCE IN YOUR FUCKING LIFE?! I mean, really, is that concept really so fucking difficult for you? You have to drag your imbecilic rhetoric into every single post and pollute the discussion? REALLY?!
Give this shit a rest, man. It was old last year.
Batocchio
I’d remove “these days,” but otherwise, yeah.
As for BTD’s latest scolding-purity shtick – Mr. Furious quoted the full paragraph earlier, and the Ambinder post is a short read anyway. DougJ is somehow a hypocrite on unnamed sources for quoting analysis from Mark Ambinder? Interesting…
Darkmoth
@les:
I’m not sure the positions you listed are really that strawman-ey. During the healthcare debate, there was a significant contingent on GOS that believed it should essentially be free. Frankly, I’d count myself among that number.
I think the “no taxes” and “American global dominance” ones refer to right wing positions. People holding those positions do exist in non-trivial numbers.
Martin
@les: Really, you find me erecting strawmen frequently here?
Let me trot out a very specific example. I’m 100% in favor of single-payer for critical care (extend Medicare Part A to everyone). It’s the only stable health insurance system that doesn’t require crushing amounts of regulation that I don’t think this nation would ever embrace. Outside of critical care, there are a variety of workable options that I’m pretty agnostic toward, but I wouldn’t favor dismantling Medicare Parts B, C, D to get there, but I would support a variety of reforms, including requiring people pay at least something into Med Part A even as it currently stands.
All that said, single-payer is a non-starter right now. I’m not strongly in favor of a different public option, simply because I don’t see that a proliferation of differently managed health plans really helps us, but I wouldn’t oppose it either. I’m certainly not about to hold up HCR in order to get a public option so long as there are other reasonable efforts made to extend coverage. There are problems with the public option that most of the folks arguing from the left either prefer to ignore, and there are things they think it will solve that quite honestly it never will.
I don’t think the left is in any way wrong about wanting single-payer, though I think they are routinely unrealistic about the form it would need to take and the cost to get it done. But I think they are also totally unrealistic about the ability to achieve it in the near term. Even without a filibuster, even without campaign contributions and lobbyist, I don’t think the 51 votes would be there just inside the Democratic caucus in the Senate, or even in the House – it’s arguable if there are the votes just for a consensus form of the public option. I think Congress is wrong in 99% of the arguments they make against it and single payer, but even with all of that, the current Senate bill is an improvement – a big one – and should be supported. If it works, getting the next piece will be easier to sell.
Pangloss
Don’t make the Republicans so mad that they’ll have to burglarize their political opponents, install phone taps, use the FBI and IRS to harass their enemies, or develop enemies lists with thousands of names again, because that’s just so distasteful. Better to give in to their demands before they have to go all felonious all over our ass.
Molly
@Martin:
I agree with you on them not being realistic ideas in many cases. Doesn’t mean I don’t think they’re RIGHT, and that’s what’s getting lost. It’s not personal, it’s not an indictment, it’s simply not practical. Which means I get the label of O-Bot or Centrist, and that’s fine with me. I am.
Party loyalty is going both ways. People who equate the Democratic party with the Left think centrists who don’t always agree with the Left aren’t real Democrats and are not loyal to the party. Centrists are pissed because Obama is Grand Chief Democrat right now, and it can seem like some Democrats are determined to undermine the work TRYING to get done, in the name of ideological purity.
Personally, I respond to logic. Don’t care who it comes from. As you said, not much that is valid is coming from the Right. From the Left, though I agree with the goals and ideals, I don’t necessarily agree with how to get there, or if getting there is even possible. Again, not personal, and not an indictment. Pragmatism.
gopher2b
@Tonal Crow:
The dems here control the House, the Senate, the governor’s office, the supreme court, and the attorney general’s office, the mayor’s office of the largest city, the city council of the largest city, the presidency of the largest county, and the council of the largest county. Put down your Google and stop being purposely obtuse.
Martin
@Face: That’s debt, not deficit. Different things. If you have no deficit, that means (nominally) the debt is being paid off as needed.
Not saying that debt isn’t a concern, but I think the understanding above was that you were talking about deficit.
Mnemosyne
@Bruce (formerly Steve S.):
From the Michael Barone article in question. Did you read it?
I didn’t realize it was incumbent upon me to shoot down right-wing bullshit by coming up with a number myself. If you think that Politico and Barone are correct and there are over 100 House Democrats who won’t vote for the bill, then say so instead of running around insisting that I have to prove them wrong before you’ll disbelieve their number.
Again, you’re the one defending the 100 number, not me. I’m shooting it down, and you keep propping it back up. If you’re trying to say that Barone is wrong about it being 100 votes but it could be as many as 36 or 48 — you know, several dozen — you’re certainly not getting that across. All that’s coming across is you demanding that I prove Barone wrong, which would seem to imply that you think he’s right and there are over 100 votes lacking.
Since you seem to find Michael Barone and his anonymous source from Politico to be reliable, you go with that. Don’t let all of the evidence of Barone’s previous mendacity discourage you from buying into his Luntz-tested, right-wing bullshit, by all means.
gwangung
Well, this makes it a little clearer, but I think you’re being not as rigorous as you can be in thinking about this. For example, I find it puzzling that you think there shouldn’t be factions. I would be astounded that there WOULDN’T be factions, given that I’ve hung out with everything from Marxists to classic liberals to soc1alists to bog standard libertarians. You get enough people in one spot and you’ll eventually factionalize. Further, I will always think I am right–until I am persuaded I am wrong. Being passionate about something means thinking I am right; most folks aren’t in the habit of arguing forcefully for a position they know is wrong (conversely, I do hold out the possibility that I could be wrong—I could be persuaded to another course)(hm…is that what you call smug self satisfaction? Because if you do, I’m not sure I could change my style of thought)….
Ash Can
@bemused: I got a kick out of some old labor-union pamphlets I came across at a local estate sale last year. The woman who lived in the house was of Finnish descent, originally from northern Minnesota (where, along with the Upper Peninsula, most Finnish immigrants settled), and was moving back up north at the age of 100 to live with relatives. Her father had been active in his labor union, and these pamphlets, which were from the 20s, were Finnish-language, printed in MN, and unabashedly communist. I mean, hammer, sickle, Communist-Party this, worker-oppression that, the real deal. Cracked me right up. How times have changed.
And yes, I’m aware that Gus Hall was an ethnic Finn.
les
@Darkmoth:
Sorry, should have been more clear (although the notion of free health care is pretty straw laden); I meant, I don’t think I’ve seen non-spoof commenters on this blog advancing any of the cited positions.
Darkmoth
@Molly:
I think that idea of “right” versus “realistic” gets lost in the debate. I think Single Payer is the right way to go, but I’m leery of such massive change in a single bill. In that sense, I see incrementalism as a feature, a way to address a limited subset of problems at a time. I’m not confident that any group of humans can set up something so complex in one go.
Mr Furious
@dan: I’m not sure those positions are mutually exclusive.
Thought-provoking comments are lost in a sea of back and forth between two people arguing a point into the ground or concern troll threadjacking like Armando pulled today.
I don’t resent BTD because he’s an “outsider.” But because he took a post and its comment thread into the weeds on a pretty inconsequential tangent—and one that really had no basis to start with.
I know I don’t comment or contribute to the discussion as much as days past, so I speak with less day-to-day knowledge when I say this, but I think there is still plenty of solid talk going on here, but it’s harder to find. And Armando shoveling shit into the pile makes that job harder and more discouraging.
I also plead guilty for feeding it today, when I should have left it alone.
Tonal Crow
@gopher2b: I get it. When your first assertion (“there aren’t any GOPers in Illinois outside of Dupage”) is knocked down, substitute another (the message to which I’m responding) and insult the person who knocked it down.
Good luck with that.
les
@Martin:
All fine and good; single payer is where we might get in a decade or two if we’re lucky and start something now, but it ain’t happenin’ in the real world in 2010. My point was, you seemed to be commenting about BJ, and I don’t see anyone here making any of the arguments you used as examples.
Darkmoth
@les:
Ah, understood. I misread the scope of the comment.
les
@Darkmoth:
I don’t know about the complexity factor–as Martin said, Medicare for all (yeah, yeah, I paraphrase) is pretty straightforward, and there are more examples working in the world of single payer than of hybrid systems that keep private insurance as the central, primary payment system. But you’re right on the politics–in the US, with a thoroughly dysfunctional press and The World’s Worst Deliberative Body holding all the cards, there’s no way to get there in one step.
Corner Stone
@Molly:
The only people who do this are Republicans or Independents who are too shamed to admit they are really Republicans.
If a “centrist” equates the D party with the Left then they epitomize the dream target of all the Republican PR flackery.
dan
@Mr Furious: I agree there are things worth reading here.
But it is hard to take seriously the level of vitriol directed towards “BTD” or “FDL” or take seriously the way these entities are thoughtlessly lumped into one homogeneous group looking for a “pony”. (You could say BTD threadjacked, but you could also say he was goaded by a lot of thoughtless and ad hominem attacks on his position. The real problem was that it was either a minor issue, or just too ‘meta.’)
If one did nothing but read these threads one would think the far left was the most important, most powerful wing of the Democratic party. It isn’t even close to that. What it has become is an obsession of many people who write here. I’d say discussing why would make for an interesting conversation, but it would really just degenerate into a bunch of oneliners about Jane Hamsher and how horribly Obama has been undermined by a couple of blogs.
Martin
@les: I wasn’t commenting about BJ, and I’m not sure why anyone would assume that. We’re accused of punching hippies here not because the ideological liberal arguments are being offered here, but because the arguments being offered at FDL or GOS or wherever are being criticized/ridiculed here.
So yes, I will keep punching Jane from here because she deserves it, and I’ll punch anyone who comes along and makes similarly stupid political/policy suggestions from either left or right. The problem is a serious lack of policy ideas from the right so I can’t give the comment villagers the kind of ‘balance’ they so deeply crave.
Molly
@Darkmoth:
Yes, Law of Unintended Consequences. Complexity Theory. Human Nature. Take your pick. Doesn’t mean we don’t act, but it means knowing the risks.
@Mr Furious:
I find myself skimming more than I used to and posting less, but the gems are still here. It will settle down soon, once we’re done adjusting to the influx of new commentators….and learning who our new trolls are. We’ll stop feeding them unawares.
les
@Martin:
Cool. I’ve been having trouble telling the innies from the outies lately here, especially since BTD went under the pie filter. It’s more confusing, since he draws so many responses, but I’m much calmer. Sorry I missed your point.
arguingwithsignposts
@The Moar You Know:
My neighbors are probably wondering what went on, but that made me laugh out loud.
Face
@Martin: I never said deficet. I said they were $130 supahlarge in the hole. Debt is in the red. In a hole.
Semantics, I guess.
Darkmoth
@les:
Medicare for all is actually a good example, I think. While it seems fairly simple at first blush (take the number 65 and change it to 18), what happens the next morning when 200 billion dollars of stock market capital is erased? Buh-Bye Wellpoint et al. Bunch of people out of work, CT is taking a huge employment/tax base hit. In the teeth of a recession.
Then of course, since these are insurance companies, they’ve probably hedged against catastrophic losses. Operating capital falls below some trigger value, and the hidden Credit Default Swaps start kicking in. BAM, Allstate and Nationwide are looking at a bunch of questionable crap on their books. It’s AIG all over again, and Obama is The President Who Trashed Wall Street. Or something.
Obviously much of that is probably overblown. But I’m not confident that our Greatest Legislative Body would even consider the possibilities. Repealing Glass-Steagall didn’t seem to engender much in the way of “what if” thinking.
les
@Darkmoth:
Geeze, I didn’t know I could laugh out loud from terror.
Yeah, a shitload of people work for insurance companies; but surely a skill at denying coverage and consigning your fellow citizens to a lifetime of pain, suffering and poverty can be reapplied somewhere?
Darkmoth
@les:
Well…now that the Credit Card agencies are pre-screwing everyone we could always use more Collection Agents.
Mnemosyne
@les:
There are a few examples of countries that used private insurance as a stepping-stone to single payer — South Korea turned up as the most recent example when I Googled. Given the huge chunk of our economy that is for-profit healthcare, that seems like the most practical way to go: phase it out rather than just shooting a hole in the boat.
Of course, with our effed-up political system, there’s no guarantee that we’ll be able to get the transition in motion before the Repugs end up back in office and throw a monkey wrench in the whole damn thing, so I definitely understand the appeal of trying to do the whole switch at once.
gopher2b
@Tonal Crow:
You’re right, I literally meant there is not a single Republican in Illinois outside of DuPage county. That is what I meant and that is how you interpreted it. Right, okay, dork.
Bruce (formerly Steve S.)
What Barone article are you talking about, this one?
It is incumbent upon any minimally honest person to explain one’s position, not simply hurl mindless epithets at someone else’s. So tell us, what do you think the whip count is?
I don’t give a shit what the exact number is, though it seems to be important to you. I’ve said that it is “at minimum several dozen”. Barone said, “an anonymous quote from a House Democratic leader suggests that they are 100 votes short of passing the Senate bill. I wouldn’t take that 100 votes as a precise number, but as an approximation.” You’re obsessing about trivia because if you can just wave away everything as “right-wing bullshit” then you won’t have to engage anything on the merits. Sad.
Lying yet again. What’s your number, and how do you arrive at it?
arguingwithsignposts
@gopher2b: I don’t know what you and Tonal Crow are going on about, but the entire south of IL is republican. Look at a map of the 2008 election. Between Coles County and St. Louis, it was all red. Tim Johnson – dickhead extraordinaire – represents part of the state. There are plenty of GOPers in IL, along with some white sheets. Chicago tends to tip the scales the other way, but it’s not all pretty.
les
@Mnemosyne:
True, it’s been done; Switzerland recently as well, if memory serves. I don’t really care; I just wish we’d fucking take step one and see what we can do. Aren’t we supposed to be the fount of innovation and business savvy, for fuck’s sake? The US is terrified of everything these days, and bound hand and foot to existing corporate welfare.
Darkmoth
@les:
Pardon me, but since Citizens United, the polite term is “Corporation-Americans”. Nor should we begrudge our new citizens access to welfare.
/snark
/hurl
les
@Darkmoth:
Point; I need to update my PC term list. OT/sorta funny–on This American Life, the producers were tasked with doing a story that their parents wanted; one Dad wanted his producer son to find out, “if corporations are people, who do they think they are?” His attempt to get a response from big corporate-Amerkin pr departments was kinda funny.
gopher2b
@arguingwithsignposts:
We’re not arguing about anything. I made a tongue and cheek comment about how there are no GOPers in Illinois outside DuPage and he turned it into a demonstration about how he can Google facts to disprove points I didn’t make. I should have been more explicit and said they don’t run anything major outside of DuPage, but I didn’t realize I was dealing with a toddler stuck in the concrete operational stage.
arguingwithsignposts
@gopher2b:
Good enuf. seems this thread is pretty pissy. I’m surrounded by GOPers in central IL, so it perked my ears.
cheers.
Brachiator
Disagree.
Progressives can’t get elected, and so imagine themselves to be the sole reason Obama got elected, and thus the only group he should listen to.
Hippie policies are not particularly smart, and they lack even a hint of a practical method to implement them. The worst are policies which have languished in some drawer since 1972, and are trotted out as though they must be enacted right away even though the world has changed, and sometimes moved on.
The hippies, for example, insist that health care must be single payer and blast the Obama/Democratic plan for failing to live up to their expectations, but can’t intelligently explain why single payer has never been universally adopted by countries which have universal health care plans.
Economic policy? The hippies begin and end with punishing the venal bankers which, while a worthy goal, is not going to jump start the economy. Aside from this, they got no clue.
I’ll give teh hippies full credit for vision with respect to social policies, from gay marriage to ending DADT. But they need better strategies to deal with the wall of resistance that’s pushing back.
The worst hippies remind me of the worst of Rumsfeld and the neocons. They are intent on fighting old wars and settling even older scores.
Mnemosyne
@Bruce (formerly Steve S.):
As I said multiple times in the other thread, I think it’s about 10 to 15 votes short. Go back and look. The fact that I got tired of repeating myself in the face of your refusal to read correctly doesn’t mean I never provided a number.
If you don’t care what the number is, why are you still posting to defend Barone’s number?
I’m sorry, but pointing out that a right-wing hack is deliberately inflating his numbers so he can give us sad-faced “advice” on What Democrats Should Do Now based on that bullshit number is not “trivia.” It is absolutely germane to the point to say that Barone is full of shit and is using scare tactics to try and kill healthcare reform, and that supposed progressives should not be saying we should follow his advice.
So tell me, what is the “merit” of Barone’s argument? Not are there dozens of votes or 100 votes, but the quality of his advice to Democrats about what we should do? After all, that’s what you keep claiming I’m ignoring. Please explain for all of us the wonderful advice that Barone is giving that we should all be following.
Nick
Sometimes hippies need to be punched, not because of their policies, but because of the counterproductive and rather imbecilic ways they try to implement them.
For example, if you want a liberal healthcare bill, why aren’t you putting a million people on the street demanding one? Instead, you’re undermining leaders who are attempting to get you ANYTHING and then scoffing at suggestions that you need to counter the tea parties and prove that the numbers you cite in polls exist.
Here’s a hint, when politicians go out and face droves of angry people who oppose healthcare and no one who supports it, they think the angry people who showed up with vote (against them) while the people on their side who didn’t won’t vote (for them).
You want progressive policy, show them you exist and you’ll back them up in more numbers than the crazy teabaggers.
If you claim to have a popular movement, prove it like the teabaggers do.
Jay B.
@Nick:
How about you help win what you thought of as a watershed election chock full with elected Democrats who pledged health care reform and give them the largest majorities in a few generations? Would that be a big enough “popular movement” for you?
I’m sure your marching for health care (which we did too), is almost as important as getting them elected in landslides. All words, no action. That’ll show ’em!
This is the kind of witless reactionary bullshit that’s making this place insufferable.
Nick
@Jay B.:
Elections don’t end activism, they begin it…that’s the biggest mistake the left makes. Politicians say stuff to get elected, if you pay attention, very few Senators who oppose the public option were married to it when they ran for office. I think only Blanche Lincoln and Joe Lieberman were caught supporting a public option while campaigning. Lincoln’s support was always questionable as you could look at co-ops or a trigger as a possible example of what she supported and Lieberman is Lieberman.
When they campaign, they use broad terms like “I support healthcare reform that lowers costs and increases access” That’s great, but there’s 5,000 different opinions on how that’s done…that’s why post-election activism is so important.
Tonal Crow
@gopher2b: Canna stand to say, “I was mistaken” or “It was a (not very good) figure of speech”, eh?
Tonal Crow
@arguingwithsignposts: Better not do that, or you’ll get accused of being a “dork”.
Tonal Crow
@gopher2b: That speaks for itself.
Jay B.
Elections don’t end activism, they begin it…that’s the biggest mistake the left makes.
Oh Jesus. Enough. Seriously. When we’re not “whining” about not getting our pony and putting pressure on our elected representatives, we don’t know about activism. When not winning elections, we’re not following through enough and we’re unrealistic about our goals.
We mobilize and march against wars. That doesn’t do shit. We get people elected. That doesn’t work. We elect Democrats who supported robust health care reform (it’s more than a “promise” they make, it’s one of the bedrock principles of why they’re Democrats to begin with, really. It’s been 50 fucking years of carrying the torch.), that doesn’t work. The “left” has scores of health care activists, we’ve took to the streets, we’ve been activists and often times, when we are, people think it’s unrealistic.
But yeah, thanks for the patronizing insights on what “the left’s” problem is.
Nick
@Jay B.:
Where? I’ve been to a dozen different demonstrations in NYC and Washington DC and the largest turnout I’ve seen was about 100 people. No wonder people think you’re unrealistic.
For crying out loud, Republicans don’t just get people elected, they don’t just march once and then sit back and wait. THEY NEVER STOP! If they don’t get what they want, they try harder…they increase their numbers, they get out more voters. They don’t sit around and go “Wah, we elected Republicans and they’re not doing what we want.” They get their asses out and remind them how important they are. They never fucking give up.
Not liberals, oh no, an election and that’s it. Time to give up. A few dozen people in Union Square, why isn’t anyone listening to us?
Liberal activism is a fucking joke. GET PEOPLE TO PAY ATTENTION TO YOU!
Or maybe it’s not working because there aren’t enough of you in the country…if that’s the case, deal with it. If it’s not, get these people out and make people pay attention to you.
Christ, even the MoveOn organizer I marched with last fall thought liberals were pathetic.
Corner Stone
@Nick: Are you fucking serious?
I knew you were an idiot before but god damn, this is some primo shit right here.
I want to know when one of the FP’s is going to come along and tell you to seriously fuck off, and stop wanking here.
This is ridiculuous.
Nick
@Corner Stone: Yes, I am fucking serious. The support for healthcare reform last year was pathetic among the activists…just pathetic. Oh, except on the blogs, that no one fucking reads. I really don’t understand what everyone’s problem with this argument is. You seriously think we made any dent in the debate? You seriously think we have even half the influence the teabaggers have? You’re seriously satisfied with how the activists fought? I’m far from satisfied. I don’t even blame the activists, they tried. That MoveOn organizer I told you about…he got 800 people to respond to his invitation to protest in favor of a public option…20 showed up. 20! WTF?!?
Do you really think a teabagger demonstration would yield that type of response? If we think we’re going to get our agenda through by being invisible or hiding off in the far corners of the internet, then we’re pathetic.
I suspect the FP’s agree with me somewhat.
Corner Stone
@Brachiator: I have to admit, I do not know where you buy your hippies but they are a far different vintage than the ones I am acquainted with.
I disagree with your opinion in full frothy spittle flecked mouth agapeness.
Policies from 1972? Settling old scores? As bad as Rumsfeld?
Show us on the doll where the hippie touched you.
h/t cleek
Corner Stone
@Nick: If anyone wants to see some of the fabled right-wing framing of an issue, your post is a great place to start.
And unlike Stuck I don’t fantasize about speaking for Cole but have you read any of his epic rants recently, ex. the wurlitzer one?
Give me a fucking break.
Nick
@Corner Stone: What right-wing framing of the issue? I believe the numbers in support of progressive legislation are out there, while the right wing frame would be that they aren’t.
I just don’t believe liberals have an desire to show they exist, to prove their numbers are there, to intimidate and outflank the right. They want Obama to do it by himself, or Congress to do it…that’s what’s pathetic. They won’t move until Obama does it first, or they leave him out there to fight on his own.
YOU give ME a fucking break.
El Cid
Is there a good example in recent decades of liberals organizing [grassroots support] to positively push for policy goals under a Democratic President? [i.e., not elections themselves] Maybe I’m forgetting one or more. If not, then it would suggest that this need is fairly unfulfilled and one without lots of precedent and organizational depth.
Nick
@El Cid:
Civil Rights, the last time any major progressive policy goals actually passed.
In recent decades, we only had two Democratic presidents and neither yielded any major progressive policies…in part because of this, I think
Corner Stone
@Nick: Goodness. What a bucket full of fail you are.
Liberals want their elected representatives to *do* something they were elected to do? Those fools!
Liberals don’t want to show up? They don’t organize?
You were probably cheerleading the Iraq War cause it gave you a nice second hand stiffy but some people actually organized to protest it. Millions of people actually. Multiple times.
For anyone to believe that people (left) who want HCR and other outcomes have not organized or fought for it is just the tops of stupidity.
El Cid
@Nick: That’s partly the point. If you have to go back to the Civil / Voting Rights efforts — which were under dramatically different contexts as well — it kind of highlights the absence. You could go back to the 1930s as well. But it doesn’t say much about now.
I think a lot of people agree that such a thing would be helpful, but it would actually be quite an astounding change and development on the U.S. political scene. I wish it weren’t the case, but I try to bear in mind the newness of the thing I would want there to be.
Protest wars? Okay, that can happen, based on what we’ve seen in the last few decades, though with little effect. A few marches against some particularly opposed policy, especially under a Republican President. Yes, that can probably be done. Maybe. And turning out people to knock on doors and fundraise in elections — that, that has a lot of precedents, even when there are innovations in styles.
But elections are special time periods. The public gets more attuned to politics. And all the rest of the drama, inspiration, and dread fears mixed in, with easy, identifiable goals.
I’d like to think that some steps toward organized grassroots policy advocacy on a nation-wide basis by liberals / Democratic leaning organizations would start to coalesce given some amount of time under a Democratic President. But it didn’t happen during Clinton’s 8 years, either, so it’s certainly possible that such new forms of social organizing are just unlikely outside election periods and opposition to particular policies (especially under Republican Presidents).
Looking at our recent history, does it seem natural that an unprecedented level of grassroots organizing on the left / liberal / Democratic side to positively push for and organize for preferred policies under Democratic Presidents would just emerge?
No matter how much I have long wished for such a thing, I think it would be a huge innovation in American political and social life. I’m disappointed that there isn’t such, but given the zillion factors of non-integration which political scientists or sociologists or anthropologists or labor union organizers might go on about, I’m not surprised.
Bruce (formerly Steve S.)
And what do you base that on?
I’m not, but you’ve already established that you’re incapable of understanding simple points.
You have no idea who is doing what, if it doesn’t fit neatly through your little filter it’s just beyond your ken.
I guess we’ve established that you think something like 40-50 House Dems are not on board with the Senate bill. Now all we need is your reasoning/sources.
Once we’ve established that we’ve established something not entirely interesting, but at least you’ll have demonstrated a bare minimum level of honesty. Then we can take a look at what McJoan said, which ought to be the real point of contention, and you can tell me what’s wrong with it.
It’s only “merit” that I can see is that it repeats some fairly standard conventional wisdom. That is, whatever quantity of House Dems we decide we’re talking about, they don’t want to commit to the Senate bill unless there is some sort of guarantee it will be improved, because aspects of the Senate bill are unpopular in the districts in question. That’s not right-wing bullshit, that’s common sense. What other explanation would you posit? The House bill passed the House, the Senate bill can’t, therefore there’s stuff in the Senate bill that some House members consider electoral poison. Well, there’s one other possibility, that some quantity of House Dems can’t vote for the Senate bill out of principle, but principle in a politician is never my default assumption. So Barone’s main point, and by extension McJoan’s is that some quantity of House Dems can’t vote for the Senate bill because it would be electorally difficult and they don’t trust Harry Reid to help them out. That’s not terribly controversial, is it?
But I’m probably wasting my breath, because you’ve demonstrated that base tribal identification is more important to you than the truth value of what’s being said.
Nick
@Corner Stone:
Actually, one of my first organizing experiences was organizing protests against the war on my college campus, which was fairly successful…until we tried to organize off campus…then we realized while we ruled our own little world, we were vastly outnumbered outside of it.
Really? You could have fooled me. Since no one was showing up to tell them to do it or show them they were behind them when they do, well, might as well assume they just dropped out of the picture and don’t care.
Well if that was organized fighting, then no wonder we lost, we’re way outnumbered. 20 people? That’s all we are? 20 people?
Nick
@El Cid: I’m not surprised either, I’m frustrated…but I’m also not surprised nothing progressive is getting passed.
Look, if we want to get progressive policies enacted, we’re going to have to do more than just vote.
Jay B.
I don’t quite think this is true, and when liberal organizations turn out to advocate for issues, it’s usually for things that rankle a lot of elected Democrats. Health care being one of them. Organizing, beyond Nick’s simple way of looking at it, has coalesced around more progressive legislation. This is partly why the Progressive caucus in the house is looking for promises from the Senate to fix it later — this is, whether a positive or a negative, the result of activists pressing the people they elected.
Another thing that a lot of progressives have been active in is to continue protesting government infringement on civil liberties. This activism doesn’t happen in fucking marches — although it has — it happens by taking the government to court. Again, this is something that the elected Democrats don’t like because things like the Bill of Rights are controversial, evidently.
Meanwhile, the gays and their allies, another influential group of Democrats are pressing for their civil rights. They had dozens of huge rallies in California and pressed for marriage rights. They even had the fucking thing pass the Legislature. And then lost, a close loss, but a loss nonetheless, in the initiative process.
Unions too, have organized — everything from canvassing to getting politicians on board for card check, which, again, elected Democrats have let drift. What more unions have to do for Democrats to get their votes on the union issues remains unclear.
It may be that the Democratic coalition is too fractured to even have a supportable position. But there are ample examples of recent liberal activism — grassroots and otherwise — on local and national levels which has had various levels of success. It just might not be the success many Democrats want.
Nick
@Jay B.:
I don’t think liberals have failed completely at activism, I was speaking specifically on healthcare. I think the anti-Prop 8 marches after Prop 8 passed were very helpful and definitely helped turn the tide on the issue, even with the Maine loss. I think that’s just an issue we don’t have the country one yet.
The National Equality March back in the summer was a great example of activism gone right. Since then DC passed a same-sex marriage law, hate crimes passed, and the DADT has gotten much more attention, etc.
On civil liberties, yeah, you go to court, but failing that, you make your position known in numbers. In Lower Manhattan, there has been endless advocacy from community boards in Manhattan and Brooklyn against the KSM trial for weeks. The numbers just got bigger and bigger, and what happened? The administration pulled his trial from New York.
Nick
@Jay B.: On this
The unions have influenced every Senator they could possibly influence…Specter, for example, even Bennet considering Colorado has minimal union action. I don’t know how powerful unions are in Arkansas, but I suspect because it’s a right to work state, not much.
Again, another thing in fault here is that the GOP pays no price for opposing these things. Senators like Richard Burr or Lisa Murkowski or Chuck Grassley should have a lot to fear from unions in their states, but they don’t, because card check or not, they’re getting reelected.
El Cid
@Jay B.: We could just be differing on a question of scale. There’s always quite a lot going on, struggles made and pushed for and occasionally won. And occasionally won for a while and then lost again.
This is exactly the type of questions which need to be asked. Is the answer ‘nothing, because nothing more is possible’ or that many elected politicians think they have successfully deduced their own self-interests and it doesn’t line up with what unions overwhelmingly want? Is it something unions could do themselves by doing something different? If there were a broader coalition supporting those union organizing goals (probably among other goals) outside of election campaigns, would that change things in any way? I.e., more calls, more letters, marches, advertising?
Jay B.
@Nick:
Right.
“Not liberals, oh no, an election and that’s it. Time to give up. A few dozen people in Union Square, why isn’t anyone listening to us?”
“Liberal activism is a fucking joke. GET PEOPLE TO PAY ATTENTION TO YOU!”
It’s difficult to square the last two sentiments with the one I put in a blockquote. If you want to argue that liberals have failed on health care because you went to small rallies for what many liberals think is a fatally flawed bill — fine. I’d argue that activists had a different bill in mind and lobbied hard to have more of it enacted. Which, again, is why the Progressive Caucus is holding out on the Senate. For good or ill.
But then you seem to have selective memory. When progressives mobilize and fail, it’s their fault. When progressives then decide not only to mobilize, but get people elected it’s their fault for not doing more. Except when all of the above happens and still nothing happens but then it’s just because it’s the Senate.
Jay B.
@El Cid:
What and draw attention away from [whatever issue needs moderate votes]? They should be happy with what they get. Obama is a bigger friend to them than [Republican idiot de jour].
Let me know if that starts to sound familiar.
Nick
@El Cid:
I don’t think that’s the answer…the answer might be elect more Democrats…and as annoying as an answer as that may be, that’s what I got.
I count five Republican Senators in office from states where unions have a lot of pull…Murkowksi, Burr, Grassley, Voinovich and Scott Brown. Four of the five are up for reelection If Democrats were able to beat all four and hold on to all the pro-union Democratic seats (I’m eliminating Lincoln from that list), they’d have enough votes to not only pass card check, but break the a filibuster of it. You’d have 58 plus 4 would equal 62, with Landrieu and Ben Nelson being the votes against, you’d have 60.
I think it’s fairly obvious there are 50 votes for card check, but the filibuster screws us again.
Nick
@Jay B.:
I’m sorry, did liberals ALWAYS think this was a fatally-flawed bill, because the rallies I’m talking about were in July and August when you said this was happening;
That’s exactly what we were doing, all 20 of us, lobbying for a bill with a robust public option. This is what I’m talking about.
Corner Stone
@Nick:
Ha!
You and your “20”, arguing for a “robust” PO.
Fucking joke.
Nick
@Corner Stone:
You’re damn right it was a fucking joke. How many were at the rallies you went to Corner Stone?
Or maybe you were on of the 780 people who thought just responding yes to an invitation would get the job done?
Corner Stone
@El Cid: I have totally lost the thread of whatever it is you are trying to say.
Corner Stone
@Nick: Yes. Those responders represent the entirety of the HCR movement among people on the D side of the spectrum.
I’ve seen you mention this “20” number on at least 8 threads. It means what to you? It means what to anyone here?
You think it encompasses something outside of what you’re pushing?
You’re a clown.
Nick
@Corner Stone: What does it mean to me? It means 20 people out of 800 felt healthcare was so important that they should go out and show their face in public and demand a progressive healthcare policy. The rest of them apparently figured it wasn’t that important, and they’re surprised that it didn’t get through Congress?
I’m the clown? That’s fucking rich.
Again, how many people were at the rallies you were at Corner Stone? Simple question. Maybe it was just the ones I went to.
Corner Stone
@Nick:
I’m curious. This rally you purport to have attended? That defines peoples’ seriousness to get HCR passed?
Because you keep mentioning it. Again and again.
Have you read any thread at BJ on HCR? Have there been more than 20 engaged people?
Does Tim F. strike any kind of note with you?
There were at least 21 people there.
Nick
@Corner Stone: Oh yay, so that’s 41…all we need is another 149,999,959 and we have half the country!
You don’t seem to get it. Of course there are more than 20 engaged people in the country on this issue…there are more than 20 in the damn Senate engaged…but that still doesn’t help when you bring 20 people to a Congressman’s office on a Saturday one week after ten times that number showed up with teabags in a district where Obama won 60% of the vote…guess who gets more attention?
and he voted for the damn bill and might lose because of it.
Mr Furious
I think Nick’s got a valid point. He’s overplaying it, but the fact remains that there was no (or insufficient) liberal counter to the Tea Baggers.
And if there was, it wasn’t covered.
That could be because the numbers weren’t there. Or it could be that the liberal marchers didn’t dress Obama up as Hitler and scream obscenities and brandish misspelled signs.
But the fact remains, I don’t think too many Representatives had to face angry hordes of pro-HCR liberals.
And if the response is going to be “but didn’t you read this blog?” you might want to consider falling trees and forests…
Mr Furious
I called Heath Shuler’s offices (all of them) repeatedly, hand-delivered a letter to his office in Asheville, and I’m not sure it does anything to impact his position.
At the end of the day, he knows I’m a rational person and come election time, I’m not voting against him for a Republican.
On the other side, when I see footage of angry mobs ambushing politicians at appearences I wonder “do these freaks have fucking jobs? How do they have time for all this tea party bullshit?”
My next question is “why the fuck does Democrat Senator or Representative X think for a second that any of these asshats ever did or ever will vote for them?”
But I suppose they are (probably) constituents and that counts for something…
—
Regretably, as long as politics is covered as—and decided by—a shouting match, the more rational, less maniacal side is likely to lose.
Nick
@Mr Furious:
I don’t think it’s a question of getting them to vote for you, it’s a question of figuring out how to mitigate their impact in the next election.
That’s what makes numbers so important…if a Congressman sees 50 people in support of the bill and 500 opposed, it means all those who didn’t show up for either side is exposed to a propaganda machine that’s 10-1 against, it makes it more likely a Congressman will oppose a bill so that s/he can say s/he didn’t support the bill or at least didn’t vote lock step with the party.
It succeeds more often than we’d like to admit.
Jay B.
@Mr Furious:
Well, that’s one way of looking at it. Another, of course, will come in November, when overwhelming Democratic Majorities who decided to run askeerd from screaming idiots and ignore the people who elected them receive incredibly predictable results.
But since actual votes don’t seem to matter as much as futile gestures and “authentic” anger, I guess we have to throw bricks through their windows. Or march around screaming that we need To Bring Everyone to The Table and Continue the Everlasting Health Care Debate!
Jay B.
@Nick:
It succeeds more often than we’d like to admit.
Only if it’s easier for them to vote that way to begin with. Voting for war is easy, even if it’s against your constituents interests. Witness the overwhelming opposition to the Iraq War before it happened. They didn’t give a shit. Similarly, they think that “anger” gives them cover for voting with the insurance industry’s interests. It’s easier that way.
National Security. “Questions” about health care reform. Anything for those who really matter — the lobbyists with the checkbooks.
It’s nice you believe that popular will — in the form of semi-big protests and not in the form of elections — is really the deciding factor. It’s cute, really.
Nick
@Jay B.:
As much as it pains everyone to admit it, some of those screaming idiots ARE the same people who elected them.
22% of Scott Brown’s voters in Massachusetts voted for Obama, something like 30% voted for Ted Kennedy. I know the blogsphere likes to throw around polls that showed they wanted a public option (cause that makes tons of sense), but the reality is they voted for a Republican who ran on obstructing the agenda. Either these voters are irreconcilably stupid or the blogsphere is doing a terrible spin job. We lost that race because we lost our own, whether because Coakley sucked or they’ve turned on Democrats, who knows…but Mass isn’t the only place that’s true. Two New York Assembly seats, historically Democratic, overwhelmingly for Obama, flipped last week in high turnout special election…People who had voted Democrat voted Republican. Any idea as to why?
And don’t feed me that tripe about “the base didn’t turn out”…It’s been 20 years since a Democrat who got as many votes as Martha Coakley lost a statewide election in Massachusetts. The last time it happened was with John Sibler for Governor in 1990 in a regularly scheduled November midterm…this was in a special election in the middle of January, mind you one with the record high turnout on both sides. Scott Brown got more votes than John McCain, George W. Bush, Mitt Romney, and Paul Celluci. If we lose Congress this year, it’s not going to be because the base didn’t turn out, it’s going to be because ONLY the base turned out.
Popular will changes in short periods of time. Election results are merely a snapshot in history. You want to stay relevant after elections, you make sure people see your face and you make sure people see those numbers from election day, otherwise the assumption is that they’ve faded away or they’ve been lost.
Plus election results don’t mean shit when the people winning aren’t liberals. A lot of conservative Democrats won last November, a lot of progressive Democrats did not. I’m very sure the people of the Second Congressional district of Alabama had a public option in mind when they cast their ballots for John McCain and Bobby Bright. I’m sure the people of Maine wanted Republicans to be marginalized when they voted for Barack Obama and Susan Collins.