I’m still thrilled Obama is President. I don’t regret my vote for one minute. I still think he is a good man, and I will not only vote for him in 2012, but raise as much money as I can, and donate as much money and time as I can to get him re-elected.
That doesn’t mean I think he is infallible, though, and I’ve been disappointed with the seeming unwillingness to fight back. I still think we are super lucky to have the man at 1600.
So when I post something critical about him, quit acting like I’m flip-flopping or turning on him. I’m able to keep multiple thoughts in my head at once, and I can like someone and still think some of the things they are doing suck. And I don’t think there is anyone in the Democratic party who would be doing a better job than Obama.
freelancer
Fucking nuance, how does it work?
FlipYrWhig
Can we still ask about the timing? Because it seemed like a dam burst yesterday, everywhere in the left blogosphere, but I couldn’t fathom why that day was different from every other day.
Lolis
Yeah, seriously. Even when you don’t factor in what a loser/homophobe McCain is, and what a dumb psycho Palin is, I am glad that Barack Obama is our prez. I hope some of us are wrong on Obama caving on the tax thing without some worthy GOP concessions.
James Hare
Can you really think of ANY American politician who would do better at this point? We’ve got a pretty thin bench on both sides.
dand
My disappoint is that this is how I envisioned a Hillary term would be but without the health care. I suspect this is really a problem of the current crop of Dem advisers. I just want someone to stand up to the bullies. Sure, lose some but punch them in the nose a few times.
Bella Q
Thanks for clearing that up. This multiple thought thing sounds promising; I must look into it.
General Stuck
Never considered that you were flip flopping, or turning on him. I figure you are either too lazy to understand the entirety of what is going on, you know, like facts, nuance, all that thinking critically shit, or you just want the firebaggers to quit sending the whiny emails about us meany obots drinking their milkshake everyday. Either way, I will let you be you big guy, until you do jump ship. Though I might post a rebuttal with a fact or two attached, now and then.
Tom W.
Well said JC – agree with almost everything. The last point? More of a jump ball, actually – might or might not be true but it’s fantasy league stuff. Like what if Napoleon had a jet fighter at Waterloo. Not worth considering, even for lifetime Dems who didn’t supported Obama in the primaries (Iike me). And I’m weary of people asking that question.
Jules
@James Hare:
None.
And damn it is nice to have a place to read that is not constantly whining about how much Obama sucks.
Ella in New Mexico
Jesus, this is almost word for word the back-and-forth conversation my husband and I had in the Albertson’s parking lot last night.
This kinda progressive/genuine-reasonableness is why Balloon-Juice continues to be the place where I go everyday to feel sane. Thanks, John.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
The Senate has scheduled four votes for tomorrow
Any chance of movement on the other side: Voinavich? Brown? Maine?
mr. whipple
@FlipYrWhig:
“Watching an old friend or family member sink into alcoholism, psychosis. or some other self-destruction is sad, but at some point you half to accept that they are lost to insanity. Yesterday Daily Kos reached that point. The issue goes way past the issue of a blog post being right or wrong, but rather of economic blogging that isn’t a laughingstock. Sadly, it is clear that the largest number of participants there have completely abandoned the ability or desire to think critically when it comes to the economy, and are so invested in bad news that any story, no matter how nonsensical, that fits into that narrative, will be showered with accolades.”
Just Some Fuckhead
@General Stuck:
Weird, because what you actually said was that Jane Hamsher was prolly sitting on his face.
Dennis SGMM
@General Stuck:
You must be the smartest person in the whole universe.
Suck It Up!
Don’t you have some ‘Rosie is flipping out’ stories or something? triple digit threads of the same comments and the same arguments. its way too much for one week.
Teri
I like your ability to call bullshit on the people you support. Frankly I respect it a lot more than the lock step support that some republicans require for our “leaders”. Quite frankly, there are some absolute idiots that have been voted into office just because they have been “chosen” by the party. Working to make out elected officials not only accountable but responsive to their electorate is something we all should do via letters to the editor, emails to representatives and blog posts. Keep up the good work John. I respect your willingness to keep kick ass and taking names. Because after all, just because they don’t do what you want them to doesn’t mean you should quit or change your ideologies now does it?
Rick Taylor
@FlipYrWhig:
On a visceral level, I think having Obama tell the Republican leaders he hadn’t done enough to reach out to them right before they went nuclear was hard to take. And his unilateral decision to freeze federal employee salaries was difficult to defend. Also, the possibility he might pass the upper-income tax cuts after drawing a line is disillusioning (although it hasn’t happened yet). It makes my stomach turn to consider that within a few weeks of one another, we might possibly have frozen federal employee salaries because everyone has to sacrifice, while at the same time extending a huge pay out to the richest individuals in the country.
__
After having had time to calm down, I’m beginning to think maybe bargaining on the tax cuts might be the right thing to do. The trouble is that we left to many important things until the lame duck, when the Republicans could hold them hostage. That was a mistake, but it’s understandable. In the past it was reasonable to leave things that should easily pass until the end. The trouble is that with the current Republican party, even a treaty supported by the staff of the previous Republican administration is now a bargaining chip; Democrats are slow in coming to terms with how ruthless Republicans are.
General Stuck
@Just Some Fuckhead: @Dennis SGMM:
awwe, precious, here they come, out of the woodwork, all butthurt again.
Cataphract
Daily lurker here, rare poster. B-Rock is starting to lose me, and I have been a staunch supporter since I first learned about who he was and what he stood for. He has been inspirational. But now the time for inspiration is over and we need a goddamn fighter.
The Catfood Commission and the coming Bush tax giveaway to the Confederates (and that’s what it will be, you know it will if you have any sense) have both hit this week and they are about to be defined as penultimate and final straws. I will always vote “D” but dammit there is hardly a soul in that party that isn’t more interested in supporting the wealthy than anything or anyone else. Our choices are now solely between center-right and brownshirts.
Slowbama
I guess denial really is the strongest human emotion.
Ty Lookwell
(never mind, figured it out…)
J.W. Hamner
No! Black and white! Shades of grey are crimes against nature!!!
Whatevs… all I know is that the Ravens are going to pwn the Steelers and it’s going to be glorious.
Little Boots
I think I’m with you, John. I am disappointed, a lot lately, and for the first time I have serious doubts about what the hell they’re thinking in that White House, but overall, I think I’m with you. But good god, don’t stop the criticism. Shit is happening, no doubt, and people need to be called on their shit.
gbear
Yes. It’s good to have a sane man in the WH given the widespread insanity in every other corner. I can’t imagine how we’re going to get through the next two years with this House, Senate, Supreme Court and media climate, but I can’t think of anyone I’d rather have in the White House (although it would be fun to imagine Al Franken there).
Just Some Fuckhead
@J.W. Hamner:
Eeek! Don’t jinx it.
RinaX
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Thanks for the update.
Jo
Amen. He’s not perfect but he’s a damn sight better than the parade of losers that will be competing for the job in 2012…and I believe he has it in him to fight back, if he can show that side and put the Republicans in a corner, on anything, I think he will be formidable….
John W.
@James Hare:
The grind has really disincentivized anyone from joining politics. Why do it when you can be a CEO and buy the politician of your choice?
Anyways, I came into the comments to say Cole FTW, and I’m disappointed that such a noncontroversial post somehow brings out this level of crazy.
General Stuck
Lemme get this straight, the blog owner posts an article on the thread below about how the republicans are going full on nihilistic pyros on the American people, and it somehow is the democrats and Obama’s fault, for something that hasn’t even happened yet.
I want one of those tin foil hats.
Nick
The problem is this “seeming unwillingness to fight back” is a media-creative narrative based on a parsing of words from the WH from pundits with egos who are looking to both help Republicans in a difficult debate for them and throw the left off its rail. It ignores a lot of what has really been going on.
From the White House tonight;
nalbar
John, you have dogs AND a cat.
Of course you can keep two thoughts in your head.
marcel
Aw c’mon. In your heart, you know that Alan Grayson would be doing a better job than Obama.
Just Some Fuckhead
@John W.:
No, the real disappointment is that he has to make this post at all. It’s like the Obots are a bunch of children that have to be reassured over and over that there really is a Santa Claus.
Jade Jordan
I was a strong supporter in 2008. I suspect I will vote for him in 2012 based on the available options. However, no money, calls, organizing, etc.
As a strong member of the political left every day brings a body blow of suck.
Steamrolling Spain to protect the torture twins is only the latest shock to the system. Tomorrow tax cuts for the rich.
By next year I will be putting on my tin foil hat and snuggie, whipping out the plastic and duct tape, and hunkering down for the coming Armagedon.
I think I will have 5 fingers of something.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Rick Taylor:
This is one of those cases where you have to distinguish between the Frankens and Pelosis and the Feinsteins and the Nelsons when you talk about “Democrats”. I would have no trouble lumping all pundits into one lump under this heading (slow/refuse/whatever), since the exceptions to the Broderist rule are so rare.
geemoney
Yeah, I jumped on you about that, but you have to admit that it was the kind of thing that WyldPirate would say.
Ooooh, the money guys own him!
The day you become a Firebagger is the day that…I don’t know, I guess, but the image of Hamsher on your face is probably going to need to be a rotating tag, somehow.
ETA: I take it all back, except for the rotating tag request. Your other post was really about Congress. That kind of emo and cynicism is probably right on target with those clowns.
Little Boots
@marcel:
yeah, there’s always a perfect progressive who could do it if he was only given a chance, a chance that will never happen. we need to figure out how to deal with the non progressives.
And Another Thing...
While we’re doing a reality check, may I add that I think SecDef Gates is a very very good SecDef and that JCS Mike Mullen is a standup, mature leader who just doesn’t do bureaucratic speak. Nobody gets paid enough to have McCain lecture them on “leadership.” And John McCain is a worthless husk of a creature who deserves to have “He chose Sarah Palin” inscribed on his headstone.
And yes, a million times, we are damn lucky to have Barack Hussein Obama as President.
Oscar Leroy
If that’s true, we’re really screwed.
abject funk
Pelosi kicks a lot more ass as a Democrat than Obama.
Like them both, but just sayin’
Little Boots
Non progressives, like, say, Obama. He’s a decent man, who can do a lot for this country, and who also doesn’t share our world view. what to do, what to do.
Omnes Omnibus
@Just Some Fuckhead: No one made him post it.
Karen
@John Cole
My rant in that other post was in no way aimed towards you. Not that you probably thought it was but …yeah.
Anya
Congress Approves Child Nutrition Bill
General Stuck
@Just Some Fuckhead:
Let me clue you in fuckhead, I don’t give one shit who or how many of the people on this blog want to be uninformed idiots spouting nonsense, nor whether or not they support Obama.
You firebaggers could barely fill a padded room, and are inconsequential, the same as I am and Cole is. We just don’t matter that much in the big scheme of things. And especially the tiny number of dumbasses on the left that circle overhead like a bunch of vultures looking for someone’s bones to pick.
When it gets down to it, this blog is simply a place where a few people can come and chat. That is all it is.
sturunner
John,
Rather my sentiments. I grew up in a house 2 blocks from then IL rep Paul Simon’s home district office–the closest place I could get a beer.
BO inherited the best & worst of the then youngin’s from Sen Simon’s last staff. I knew, more than most, what we were getting.
Still, as with Paul (who more than any Dem since John Peter Altgeld transformed IL politics for the common good,) I am disappointed.
We elect visionaries to provide visions (Dem-speak for messaging,) & I thought BO was going to do that for us.
I thought the ghost of Robert Kennedy could finally stop stalking every next DNC convention.
Nick
@And Another Thing…:
but they didn’t have the professional left seal of approval, so, yeah
Little Boots
john, that’s what people like me are looking for. what to do to advance a progressive agenda in a very, very occasionally progressive country, with a very occasionally progressive president. I don’t know. do you?
Jeff Fecke
Do I contradict myself?
Very well then I contradict myself,
(I am large, I contain multitudes).
Spiffy McBang
I like Obama and all, but there are days I wonder what it would have been like with Hillary as pres. Those tend to be the days when Obama bends furthest over to allow Republicans the deepest access to his colon.
I’ll be the first to admit we might have had it worse with Hillary, and I’m not inclined to really examine the what-if scenario. I just remember the picture of Obama with “CHILL THE FUCK OUT, I GOT THIS” Photoshopped around him, absolutely agreeing that was his vibe, and it’s like actual politics make him almost literally the opposite of that. It’s frustrating, even keeping in mind what ABL said about how a black man in such a powerful position would be perceived.
Linda Featheringill
@Cataphract:
Relax. The Commission has no power. None. Zilch. Zero. And it looks like the members don’t have a lot of competence, either.
The tax cuts are a bigger problem.
A problem even bigger than the tax cuts is unemployment benefits, as well as other social services.
I understand that you would like to feel that somebody is on the side of the people. There are some major issues facing us. We are going to need all the help we can get.
But maybe it won’t be as bad as you fear it will be.
gwangung
@Oscar Leroy: Oh, yes, you’re the one silly enough to have hoped that we weren’t screwed two years ago….
Nick
@Spiffy McBang:
No one can “get this” when half the country is off its rocker.
Villago Delenda Est
Obama is far better than the alternative offered to us two years ago, to be sure.
Bear in mind that the disgrace to the uniform he once wore would have had an “accident” about three months in, and Mooselini would have already persuaded the rest of the world to form a coalition to stop the greatest terrorist state in history.
But Obama has failed, utterly, to deliver in the last two years. The ineptitude is either authentic, or feigned, as a way to further cement corporatist control.
It is looking more and more like a Jeffersonian solution is the only way out of this mess. If Mother Nature doesn’t solve the problem for us first.
I am of course reminded that the quite utopian future of Gene Roddenberry wasn’t possible until a global collapse took place. The process will be painful, to be sure. With a bit of consideration, it could be less so. But that’s not in the cards, that much is obvious at this point.
Oscar Leroy
@Nick:
What, exactly, does your quote have to do with fighting back? He’ll sign a bill if it gets before him. Alright, but how is he fighting for anything, rather than going around pathetically whimpering about how he should have been more conciliatory toward Republicans?
Oscar Leroy
@Linda Featheringill:
Both the House and the Senate promised to vote on its recommendations. I don’t know why you, Linda, refuse to acknowledge that, but it is true.
It may very well fail to provide a set of recommendations, but failure to use power and absence of power are, obviously, very different things.
Little Boots
can we all stop with the fantasies, and maybe come up with a halfway realistic scenario that gets us a couple of steps closer to a progressive agenda? Or are we all living in a dreamworld?
Nick
@Oscar Leroy:
throwing his support behind the bill that passed and calling out Republicans in three sentences isn’t fighting back? I mean, to you guys, flying around the country making the case for not extending tax cuts for two months wasn’t “fighting back” either.
I’m not sure what you want him to do? Smash Mitch McConnell’s head with a mallet?
gwangung
@sturunner:
Destructive visionaries can get to work very easily. Their vision is to tear down and destroy and it’s easy to hang on to that. Constructive visionaries last as long as it takes to try to construct one new thing–then reality sets in and it’s an unending series of compromises to get anything done.
Obama is a constructive visionary. And that explains that.
Cataphract
@Linda Featheringill:
Thanks, I’ll try. (lifts head briefly from container of rum raisin ice cream)
Felonious Wench
I support him. I’m pissed at him. But I’m tired of preemptive anger at things people insist he’s going to fail them on.
I’d make a premature ejaculation pun, but I’m negative 1 on tequila and my wit is compromised.
Shalimar
I’m hugely disappointed in Obama, very close to giving up on national politics completely for the next 18 months and I think our country and the world are totally screwed. On the other hand, I don’t think there is a Dem who could win a national election who would have been any better and a primary challenge to Obama would be insane. And I fully anticipate volunteering in 2012 once I see who the crazy Republican alternative is.
Oscar Leroy
@General Stuck:
I think it’s time for a new entry in the lexicon:
“Pull a Stuck” (verb): to state you don’t care what a person says, then follow up with a multiple-paragraph rant attacking what that person said, including a stream of vulgarities and personal insults.
Little Boots
I agree.
about the support.
okay, a little about the tequila.
matoko_chan
@Cole
well i am the most devoted obamotaku evah, i worked on his campaign and i will again.
and i just sent Prez Obama mail sayin’ to quit playin keystone cops with Assange and offer him a fucking job, and that i will be giving his and michelles xmas present to my favorite charity– Wikileaks–just like he ax.
:)
Nick
@Little Boots:
Well I’ve often suggested taking on the MSM, embarrassing them, digging through scandals. Why isn’t anyone on the left mentioning how WikiLeaks showed the New York Post and Fox News is partially owned by a Saudi Prince who belongs to a royal family that funnels money to Al-Qaeda?
I mean, realistically, if 50% of the country will not change their opinions for nothing, then there is, as I get mocked for saying, nothing we can do.
But the first and foremost thing is to destroy the right wing message machine. Do that and see how bad GOP messaging becomes.
WyldPirate
Damn you Cole!! You used “Black Jimmy Carter” you pig-ignorant racist cracker!
/General Stuck and WATB Obotomized crew
Just like the Bush apologists. To the Obots, Obama walks on water and then turns it into wine.
gwangung
@Nick: Pretty sure that’s what he wants.
A lot of folks have constrained repertories of behavior. All they can think of is to destroy or to tear down their opponents. It’s beyond them to build better alternatives. Or to win/attract more support. All they can do is to make the other guy smaller than themselves, not build themselves up to be better.
E.D. Kain
John – I think being critical of those you support is far more valuable than cheering them on blindly. You’re not giving the Republicans a helping hand by offering criticism of your guy – quite the opposite. In fact, I suspect you’ll do more good in the long run offering smart critiques of your own guy then you will preaching to the choir on the GOP. So kudos for that.
Ron
I get frustrated with him at times too, but I’m with you too. I just want to know how the left expects him to magically make the filibuster rule disappear. Right now the tax cut thing is a gigantic game of chicken, trying to make the other side blink rather than have EVERYONE have their taxes go up.
The Dangerman
Let’s be real; people are angry that Obama won’t fight. He CAN’T fight; how many nonaseconds until the “angry black man” in the White House meme?
No, he has to be cool, composed … and productive. He’s going to have to cave on the 2 year extension for the 2%, but hopefully he gets a boatload for it.
In the meantime, the Republicans got played today and tomorrow should be fascinating. Pelosi gave them the shiv, but Obama (presumably) greenlighted it.
Oscar Leroy
@Nick:
No, it isn’t. Once the bill is on his desk the heavy lifting is done. If he did something to help it get there–twist arms in Congress, threaten representatives with holding back fundraising help, etc.–that’s great. But our problem isn’t that bills aren’t being signed; it’s that bills aren’t being passed. And while they aren’t being passed, our president is sitting up in his oval office telling us he has to keep his powder dry and save up his political capital for the big one.
Obama goes into a meeting with Republican leadership, comes out and meekly says “I’m sorry for not listening to Republicans more in my first two years. I’ll try to fix that in the next two, I promise!” and some people here say “That Obama–he’s a fighter!” I don’t get it.
Which two months was that?
Little Boots
@Nick:
I don’t know. I don’t know why that doesn’t work, or even matter? maybe we’re all just used to the media sucking? sadly, it does not seem to matter how many lies are pointed out. keep yelling, keep pointing out the lies, but I just don’t know. that is sad, but true.
LiberalTarian
Methinks you have a higher opinion of your commentariat than some of them deserve. When he knocked unions, which I noted, I was called a firebagger. If you were offended by “professional left”? Firebagger. Concerned about him rolling over for republicans? Firebagger.
parsimon
@Rick Taylor:
Agreed on this as a general explanation for why the ‘dam burst’ yesterday or the day before. Well said.
Just Some Fuckhead
@Oscar Leroy: He’s doing the best he can with what little the good Lord gave him to work with.
Oscar Leroy
@The Dangerman:
That’s nonsense. Who is going to turn off their support for Obama because he’s angry and black? White voters in Mississippi? Evangelicals in Ohklahoma?
aliasofwestgate
@Oscar Leroy:
Congress promised to vote on recommendations. But those recommendations never made it out of committee. So there’s NOTHING to vote on now.
For all the wailing and gnashing of teeth, it was a total waste of money and time.
Linda Featheringill
@Oscar Leroy:
[#56]
Well, they could have voted to accept the recommendations of the commission except for two things: 1. The commission can’t cobble together 14 votes, and
2. The commission has already gone past the deadline.
So Congress doesn’t have to vote on their recommendations.
Then there is also the fact that even if Congress voted to accept the commission’s recommendations, that acceptance is not a law. And from commission report to laws lie many steps.
Oscar Leroy
@Just Some Fuckhead:
I know, and that’s why I can’t get mad at him.
General Stuck
And Kain swoops in with wildypirate to defend Cole’s honor from the evil Obots, with some sage advice from the glibertarian zone.
I swear, you can’t make this shit up. It’s like a bad syfy pilot , that is so weird you can’t help but love it.
anyways, I think the world of Cole, and will shut up, and go shine me plastic unicorns. remember those, they are so lonesome these days, on planet libtard.
iriedc
JC — Yep. Though I’ll cop to occasionally wishing that Nancy P was President just for a few weeks so that she’s could give the Republicans the kind of asskicking that she’s so good at, and Obama is not simply hardwired to do.
@mr. whipple: Funny I just removed DKos from my blog roll. Not because I won’t read it anymore, but because I suddenly realized that reading it daily was giving me a knot in my stomach. Hoping it’s a phase and the DKos frontpagers will pull themselves back together. Glad to find it wasn’t just me. Dropped a lot of folks from my twitter feed too.
WyldPirate
@Just Some Fuckhead:
You forgot the Tooth Fairy and the Easter Bunny, JSF.
Little Boots
I’m really starting to sympathize with Obama more. I really want a plan, but I don’t have the faintest idea what that plan would be. We are one annoying country, and I don’t know how to get us to stop making the stupidest decision, whenever we actually get to decide.
The Dangerman
@Oscar Leroy:
Look up Wright, Reverend Jeremiah.
Wright damned near derailed his candidacy.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Nick:
Hear hear. Getting the media to believe in itself as “the liberal media” was one of the greatest tricks the GOP has pulled over the last thirty years.
BR
You know, I’ve been thinking about mistermix’s post, and about this one (which describes my feelings perfectly), and I think the only solution out of this is to play chicken with the GOP.
That is, Obama has to make some sort of big (if feigned) “fuck it” sort of comment to a reporter or someone, saying that he’s given up on trying to get anything done with a GOP that is intentionally jamming the gears of government, so he’s going to ensure the GOP doesn’t get to slip its harmful agenda through. That is, signal that he’s going to ensure no tax cut extension gets passed, not by veto, but by ensuring they expire. Only once the GOP loses something they want will they be put on the defensive.
Linda Featheringill
@WyldPirate:
And your point is?
[Have you forgotten to take your meds?]
Suck It Up!
@Little Boots:
there is no such person.
Nick
@Oscar Leroy:
twisting arms HAS NEVER WORKED and he doesn’t control fundraising.
what’s your next idea?
ARE
YOU
FUCKING
SERIOUS?
The two months before Congress decided, weeks before the election, not to vote on this after all even after the President demanded they do.
http://www.businessweek.com/news/2010-09-20/obama-says-extending-tax-cuts-to-rich-irresponsible-.html
http://www.thenewamerican.com/index.php/usnews/politics/4760-obama-opposes-tax-cuts-for-qrichq
Fox even has a timeline
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2010/10/13/timeline-obama-administrations-remarks-pledges-middle-class-taxes/
He called them “irresponsible.” He bashed Republicans for refusing to compromise.
And look at this
This STILL isn’t fighting for you? What more do you want?
Oscar Leroy
@Linda Featheringill:
The first half of your response goes right back to what I already said: having power but failing to take advantage of it and not having power in the first place are clearly not the same thing.
As for:
What “many steps”? Once a proposal is passed by both houses, all that’s left is the president’s signature. I suppose Obama might refuse to sign the recommendations of his panel that he created on his own accord and convinced Congress to vote on, but obviously that’s highly unlikely.
E.D. Kain
@General Stuck: Hey that whole ‘glibertarian’ thing – that’s really funny. You just made that up right? Clever.
Nick
@BR:
I don’t think the GOP really wants anything except full control of the government again.
DougJ
I think Obama has accomplished more than any Democratic president since Johnson. That said, the longer his presidency goes on, the more I think I was right in some ways to support John Edwards.
This accomodationist centrist shit doesn’t work.
Teri
@E.D. Kain: Gee, I knew I liked you : } Unless the republicans get some unkown awesome talent in the next two years, I am planning on forming a “Moderate Republicans for Obama” committee for the 2012 election. I am so fed up with the kowtowing to insane wing of the party for the past several years.
Baud
@E.D. Kain:
Why are the only two options I ever see on the blogs always either blind support or criticism? Is there no room in the e-consciousness of the Internet for reality-based, eyes-wide-open support for Democrats?
General Stuck
@E.D. Kain:
I would have used clueless idjit, but was trying to be nice.
Nick
@DougJ:
and John Edwards was what?
Tom Betz
@Ella in New Mexico:
That’s the saddest sentence I’ve read in a blog post in quite a while, especially inasmuch as it’s completely true.
Suck It Up!
@iriedc:
wow, how quickly people forget the day he alone stood in a room full of Republicans and called them out to their face. I mean seriously, the left and the media ate that shit for like a whole week. And it was not his first time giving it back to republicans.
lizzy
You need a “like” button, it’s so much easier……. yeah, I’m lazy, but proud :)
E.D. Kain
@DougJ: Obama has done a ton that Democrats should be proud of – but no president is going to be wholly good or wholly bad (okay, GWB was pretty much wholly bad) – most presidents are mixed bags. Obama has a seriously flawed record on civil liberties issues. I find criticism of his legislative success much, much less valid.
gerry
Careful what you say there, Mr. Cole. You’re either with us or you’re against us.
BR
@Nick:
I think there are things Obama can take away from them – things that benefit their corporate buddies. Granted, some of the crony buddies are buddies of both parties, but some, like oil companies, are mostly GOP. I think the offshore drilling moratorium is a good step in that direction. If they don’t extend the Bush tax giveaway and they hammer on some of these corporate buddies in various ways, Dems might turn it around. But it’s really the only way – the GOP won’t start hurting until you hit these key spots.
Oscar Leroy
@The Dangerman:
Good point: based upon your post, I highly suggest Barack Obama refrain from uttering the phrase “God damn America!”
Other than that, I reiterate: which faction that supports Obama will turn away from him if he gets angry? The young? Black voters? Latinos?
“Man, Obama really lashed out at Republicans and told them they would get nothing from him unless they extend my unemployment benefits. So now I can buy food instead of eating out of trash cans–but I’m done with the angry black man! I wish I’d voted for McCain!” etc.
Catsy
Co-fucking-signed.
Emerald
@Villago Delenda Est:
Try this link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5oygp9G5SM8
Linda Featheringill
@DougJ:
I agree.
E.D. Kain
@Teri: The GOP is essentially ruined – no matter how many political successes they have – for at least the next decade.
E.D. Kain
@Teri: The GOP is essentially ruined – no matter how many political successes they have – for at least the next decade.
Resident Firebagger
@Cataphract:
This. Cole has almost figured it out, even though he’s not ready to admit it. But no one with any real power is on our side. No one. We’re on our own, and have been for awhile. And it’ll only get worse — and crazier.
Suck It Up!
@Baud:
exactly.
Little Boots
@The Dangerman:
Yes, and that tells us a lot right there. Wright nearly derailed this candidate? what the hell is wrong with this country?
Ajay
John,
Thats wrong to conclude if you are wondering about the vote you cast couple of years ago. Given the facts that Obama has essentially been trying to appease the other party when other party kicks him hard every time, makes him look weak and embarassing. There is no way people who supported him would continue to do so with the same fervor. They may not vote for Rs but Obama and more importantly all the dems loose the edge.
I dont regret the vote either but standing up for whats right and not caving in every time(and still loosing) is much more attractive than playing to loose, especially for those who voted for him.
Teri
@Linda Featheringill: The whole process of the commission was a sham. The fact that they leaked the recommendations without the consent of the whole committee meant that they weren’t discussing true reform. Hopefully there is some true fiscal resolve coming in the near future. Because I am truly pissed that for the first time, despite the many advantages in the US, we are not doing the best for our children’s future.
General Stuck
@DougJ:
Oh Dougj, absolutely nothing will work with the wingnuts, it might as well be centrist, or reading the phone book to them. The only thing with dealing with them, is to do it with the most chance, to woo the most voters to your side. And there just aren’t enough liberals in this country to go that route. I wish there was, desperately. But it just isn’t so. Not in this country.
Nick
@BR:
who can now funnel endless amounts of money to bring him down, just like they did dozens of good Democrats this year
E.D. Kain
@Baud: There aren’t two options. There’s degrees of support and criticism. They are in no way mutually exclusive. You can be both at any given time. You can have serious problems with some Obama policies and still choose him over the other guy when it all comes down.
Merkin
@Oscar Leroy: which faction that supports Obama will turn away from him if he gets angry? The young? Black voters? Latinos?
Young voters would probably bail if some reasonable Republican shows up on the scene.
Oscar Leroy
@DougJ:
In that same vein, I think “The Last Airbender” was, by far, the best M. Night Shyamalan movie of 2010.
@E.D. Kain:
Yes, but he bears only partial responsibility for legislation. Without exception, the more control he has over something–civil rights, federal departments, military escalation, etc.–the worse that area has been in his presidency.
@Suck It Up!:
That will happen when you come out of a later meeting and whimper about how you should have been more conciliatory during your first two years.
WyldPirate
@LiberalTarian:
Yo, you have a big problem. You haven’t been properly Obotomized. And you are a racist for criticizing President
PerfectObama.Get a nice picture of the Prez and sleep with it under your pillow. Wake up with it in the morning and kiss it. Have a good wank three times daily while gazing lovingly at the Prez’s pic. This should cause the neurons to fray in the anti-Obama hater region of your brain. Finally, get a ten voodoo dolls of Jane Hamsher. Burn one a day until they are gone. Your Obotomy will be complete then.
/snark
Jules
@Suck It Up!:
But, but he didn’t yell at them or shake his fist or say “shame on you!” or some shit like that so it does not count.
Little Boots
@E.D. Kain:
I think John gets that. I hope John gets that. but it’s a weird thing, the whole ex-conservative thing. we’re not quite rational. but I think he gets that, all the same.
Raenelle
I regret voting for Obama in the primaries. I wish I’d voted for Hillary. She may be a moderate Republican, like Obama, but she’s not fucking weak.
My bottom line is Social Security. I never ever ever thought I would contemplate not voting for a Democrat, especially given the scary crazies who are the alternative. But, if there is any signature issue that means “I’m a Democrat,” it’s Social Security. I mean this. I will never vote for anyone who participates in weakening/cutting Social Security. A Democrat who is too weak to stand up for something this clear and simple and definitive is no Democrat. I’ll never vote for a Republican, but I am about 2 seconds away from doing a full metal George Carlin on politics.
Linda Featheringill
@Oscar Leroy:
I might be wrong here but . . . If the president appoints a commission, it can write laws that congress merely votes up or down? Without comment and without amendment?
Wouldn’t that constitute the executive branch impinging on the role of the legislative branch?
Pat
Off the top of my head, Al Gore, Howard Dean, Nancy Pelosi, Al Franken seem clear choices. Dick Durbin and John Edwards are possibles. John Kerry’s possible, actually.
I didn’t get to vote for Obama, because I was out of state volunteering for him and my absentee ballot didn’t get there in time (this is me asserting my cred as an O-Bot). But to find a politician who would be doing better than he is doing, you really only need to think of a liberal technocrat who wants to find good policy solutions to public problems. I’m not sure what has motivated President Obama’s decisions this far, but I can’t give him the benefit of that doubt. The stimulus was 35% the size it needed to be, health care maybe went 10% of the way to single payer (and therefore no more than 20% of where we need to get), the military secrecy act from the last eight years isn’t slowed at all… there’s just too many areas where I simply can’t squint hard enough to make it look like the best we could have done. We could have been doing much, much better.
Ajay
@E.D. Kain:
You dont know american people. This is show of strength for the most who are uneducated, gullible, ignorant and/or color conscious. It will only get worse.
Lolis
@DougJ:
John Edwards said all the right words in the primary. But his actions never lived up to his lefty rhetoric. He was always a fraud.
Davis X. Machina
Hey, I thought I was over on DemocraticUnderground for a minute.
General Stuck
@Linda Featheringill:
it is a zombie meme from the left. the vote for the commission report has to first be approved by 14 of it’s 18 members, which will not happen, and then the called for vote on that is completely non binding. it is simple a sense of the House vote, or Senate.
Suck It Up!
@DougJ:
omg. what? the guy is slime. he manipulated, used and discarded people who bent over backwards for him and his family.
BR
@DougJ:
Maybe the way I’d say it is the attitude that Edwards expressed in his speeches is more what is needed.
As for Edwards himself, I felt the guy was full of crap before he ran, and when he ran, and after he ran. He was almost Romney-bad in shifting his views with the political winds and the needs of the primary election.
Maybe we just need Aaron Sorkin and George Lakoff to take over all WH and Dem messaging. I’m reminded of this:
Comrade Mary
@mr. whipple: So did anyone else using NoScript who followed this link get a pop-up asking them to run some JavaScript? I bailed. (Sorry, I got hit with some malware recently that managed to work its way around NoScript, and I now have no tolerance for pages that run fucking pop-ups requiring that you click OK to proceed.)
The Dangerman
@Oscar Leroy:
No, he has the African American, Latino, and young vote nicely sewn up; but, there are a whole lot of old White People that watch outlets like Fox. True, most of that demographic is unreachable, but there are still swing voters in that population.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Merkin:
“would”? they already did.
Young Voter Turnout Fell 60% from 2008 to 2010; Dems Won’t Win in 2012 If the Trend Continues
and this is the problem. Right Wing Republicans fought for thirty years to get where they are. Democrats and “progressives” want to give up after two years.
Big City Mary
You know, maybe its time to say “Oops, I made a mistake, my bad” or something. I have hung in there but no more. Maybe you are ok with Obama, I am not. My God, we had a huge House majority and a much better Senate majority than now and the Presidency, and we got…… Come on, we got what….nothing but huge heartburn. How about approving vast new off shore drilling 5 minutes before the BP disaster. Name ONE THING that got done that, as a progressive, you could really be proud of. Good grief, go to Hyde Park and listen to some of FDRs original speeches. Listen to him welcome the hatred of the upper class for turning on his own on our behalf.
What a pathetic waste of so many good intentions and good will and support. The most gutless Democratic administration EVER-and that is saying something considering what we have had since FDR !!
And do you know why I gave Obama so much slack-because of what has been done to every Democratic president in my life time-death or disgrace-Kennedy, Johnson, Carter, Clinton…
Over and over we are like Linus and Lucy and the football. We have have lived through so much incredible crap. The “so called ” election of 2000 & 2004, the Supreme Court decision that allowed Clinton to be procecuted for civilion crimes as a sitting president to the Supreme Court decision that gave Bush the presidency.
I was in Paris last week, my first ever trip to Europe in my 58 years and the history of the French revolution is front and center. From afar, the conduct of the revolutionaries is not so appealing, with all the beheadings and what not, but then I read that 60,000 people in Paris were killed before the revolution was successful. Around the same time, revolutions were successful in England and the US. And, as you know, not without alot of unfortunate circumstances. On a smaller scale, all the union activity in our country, that left so many dead, to achieve some kind of decent pay and living conditions should be noted-the textile mills in New England and then the move to the South in the early 20th century, the coal mines in the North East (go read about the real history of Jim Thorpe, Pa)-so much like the off shore circumstances today.
In a nut shell, have we actually arrived at a place that to make changes, things will have to get SO BAD, that we will actually have to start dying to make things better?
Teri
@E.D. Kain: So true, you said it twice! Sadly the national party sucks big time. Locally, as I have said before, we are much more reasonable. We have, as part of our state platform committee, tried to work reason into some of nutzo planks but unfortunately we get voted down. I can generate some agreement on an individual basis but some strange committee chemistry happens when you get a group together and people lose their nerve to call bullshit. Somehow my group of like minded friends, are working to change that, but it is a hard slog.
Angry Black Lady
@freelancer: LAWL out loud.
BR
@Nick:
Yeah, but those corporate shady PACs are going to attack Dems with the ferocity of 100 suns no matter how much Dems give them – the GOP will always give them more. So taking them down in a notch in the mean time is worth it.
Linda Featheringill
@Raenelle:
Who has done anything to Social Security?
I know that the two idiot “leaders” of the catfood commission wanted to mess with SS but that was completely outside of their mission. They weren’t charged with “fixing” social security. Those two guys just became intoxicated with the spotlight they were in and decided to throw out everything they had any opinions on. Nobody asked them their opinion on SS. They just decided to give it anyway.
There has not been any action on Social Security recently, good, bad, or indifferent.
John W.
@Just Some Fuckhead:
You know what? Fuck the Obot label. It’s dumb and doesn’t adequately capture reality in any meaningful way.
I’m not jumping for joy for everything Obama has done, but that doesn’t mean I treat him like Bush. I have the ability to filter myself and see the bigger picture, I plan on using it.
Suck It Up!
@Jules:
yeah, I guess it only counts when veins start popping out of his neck and starts saying “motherfucker” all the time.
Merkin
i@Big City Mary:
Yeah, I especially like the one about how we need to throw Japanese people into internment camps.
Merkin
@BR:
Taking them down a notch how?
Little Boots
awesome, no japanese in concentration camps. great. so do we have any other ideas?
Anne Laurie
@FlipYrWhig: __
Well, there have been some Great Disappointments taking up the mediaspace this week… Orange John, Can-skele-tor and the Hemmorhoidal Turtle are quite bad enough, without Obama giving the Simpson-Bowles uncomedy duo a chance to hog the spotlight. And this time of year, Seasonal Affective Disorder is always a factor.
But this particular week, I swear to goddess it feels like President Where’s-My-Pony is getting the blowback for the whole “Thanksgiving Is Family Time!” tradition. We can’t do anything about the fact that some members of our gene pool should’ve been drowned in the shallow end years ago, but by gum, we (meaning The Media Village Idiots, as well as the blogverse) can righteously whack those tippable clown dolls and strawmen to make ourselves feel less betrayed and vulnerable!
Martin
Nancy took the GOP out today. She got them voting against tax cuts. So far, the only one giving this fight up seems to be half of you guys.
mr. whipple
@Comrade Mary:
Wow, sorry. I didn’t get any warning and didn’t mean to lead anyone astray.
BR
@Suck It Up!:
True. I guess it’s whoever writes the official statements puts out such mealy mouthed crap that it sounds weak. For example, it’d be very easy for them to add a line to the statement on tax cuts, right after saying the Republicans are blocking everything, to say that the president will only sign a bill that extends the tax cuts for < 250k. If there are any giveaways for the rich in the bill, he will veto.
That'd be a one liner, and would draw a line in the sand.
nalbar
Wow,
the whole crowd is here.
Suck It Up!
On the catfood commission? ain’t going anywhere. Paul Ryan says he doesn’t like parts of it and he doesn’t like parts of it, he’s not voting for any of it and if he’s not voting for any of it, the entire Republican party ain’t gonna touch it. THIS congress is made up of people who are ideologically against the recommendations, some won’t touch it because Obama put it together, others are already prepping for 2012 and will not make difficult votes, the rest are deficit peacocks who talk tough until they have to actually do something.
Why do people think that this congress is suddenly going to find common ground and work together?
Raenelle
@Linda Featheringill: Crimminy. I’m just kinda happy you read what I wrote. I always like your stuff. Thanks for responding.
I’m just saying that Social Security is my line. I hope he won’t cross it. If he does, though, I’m done.
And, seriously, Linda, I’m actually sort of thrilled that you paid attention.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Sam Seder, back in the ’08 primaries, used to explain his support for Edwards (and yes, DougJ, I smelt your snark there) by saying that, of the three corporate-friendly centrists who had a chance of winning the nomination, he was the one who was at least paying lip-service to our increasing gap between rich and poor. That’s pretty much where I was. I guess that’s why, even though I share the disappointment with the pay freeze, and I wish there were a more vocal, aggressive fight on the Bush tax cuts, I can’t join in the self-righteous keening or the primary second-guessing
Nick
@BR:
I’m not saying placate them because they’re going to attack Dems relentlessly. I’m saying attacking them, or “taking them down a notch” as you say isn’t going to lessen the effect.
Hell, if we fuck with their profits, they’re just fire people to get enough money to fund campaigns against Democrats.
But i’m the guy who thinks Dems lose no matter what
BR
@Merkin:
Allowing the rich tax cuts to expire (and cap gains if possible) and hamstringing them through the agencies (ban on all offshore drilling, major EPA regulation, etc.)
jcricket
@E.D. Kain: This is exactly what I’ll be doing.
I live in WA State. I will continue to in every election. I will always vote Democrat – no matter what the office (Rob McKenna – FUCK YOU). I will push the Democrats around me to move more to the left. I will vote Democrat no matter who they nominate for the Presidency – because as pathetic as the Dems are performing right now, the idea of handing the Republicans free reign to gut Social Security, Medicare, destroy any chance for climate change regulation and fuck up our already fucked up immigration situation is BAT SHIT.
But I’m pissed as hell that the Democrats don’t understand the constant bickering and dicking around does nothing but make them look weak and lower their election chances. Had Democrats done some Republican-style ramming shit through we’d have way stronger healthcare reform, financial reform, already have dealt with this tax BS, etc. We might still have lost 70 House seats and 6 Senate seats but at least we would have done something.
On the other hand, part of me wants to say, “Fine, here, you take over.” Of course in the 6-8 years it’d take for America to go “holy shit” and throw the GOP bums (again) we’d be knee-deep in the next Great Depression (worldwide) and probably in a 3rd war with Iran. Sure, America recovered from the Depression and WWII but a lot of lives were lost and the people that actually lived through it were never the same on a micro (personal) level.
Comrade Mary
@mr. whipple: It’s OK. I’m just really paranoid. The site is probably OK. But if NoScript is supposed to block JS, then I shouldn’t be getting any pop-ups at all from a new site, unless that site is running site from a domain I’ve whitelisted. (Checking the URL: it’s on blogspot, which is whitelisted, but for all I know that script could be running from somewhere else.)
General Stuck
@Martin:
Amazing, isn’t it? Like walking into a twilight zone episode.
Baud
@Suck It Up!: Ha! He should go on tv and say:
“I’ve had it with these motherfucking
snakes onRepublicans in this motherfuckingplaneCongress.Suck It Up!
@BR:
lines in the sand can be washed away. Veto threats can be taken back if things don’t go as you expected. I don’t know about Obama, but I don’t make threats or ultimatums unless I know for sure that I am ready to walk away. People take you more seriously when you follow through on your threats. So if Obama is not ready to walk away, I don’t think he should threaten to veto.
junebug
I know exactly how you feel, John.
I read this from Scott Horton today.
A bit later, I read this from Bloomberg.
At times like these, even me, the go-tohopey changy person at work has her days.
I will still work for the Dems here in Texas — I still have hope — every day. I watched the vote about taxes today while it happened and was happy. I didn’t even think about how it could have happened before the election.
I’m a radiophile — listening to wingnut radio, one would think that this whole thing about a lame-duck congressional session was something new. 2006? Never happened. None of them said one word about the vote today. Not one word — that I heard. And that is the way it is. Dems do something good. Crickets on AM radio.
I hope someone somewhere finds a way for the AM band to be more useful for public safety, much like our teevee bandwidth was. Alas, AM is so archaic, that probably won’t happen, and so wingnut radio lives on.
Karen
@Nick:
They want him to apologize to the nation that he ever ran. Then they want him to kiss Hillary Clinton’s feet and beg her to take his place in office.
Then they want him to jump off a railroad platform since using a sword to commit hari kari would be too bloody for them.
Keith G
As per usual, I spent a bit of time reading through a 150+ BJ thread and decided to add my thoughts to an older thread only to then find that the latest thread was on the same topic and my comments are more relevant here. So:
Does anyone here remember that on Nov. 4 2008, we were all rejoicing the mortal wound suffered by the GOP? Does anyone here remember the comparisons to Lincoln and FDR? Today, the GOP seems to be doing just fine for a dead party.
It occurs to me that Obama is not a leader. He is a survivor. He does not want to lead a movement; he wants to get a few things done. The difficult balance is that sometimes you need to lead great movements to accomplish even small things.
The Birmingham bus boycott was tough pill for the Blacks of that city to swallow. Over 400 days of walking miles and miles just to get to work. They could have bargained for a two year extension, but they didn’t. King was at risk, but he decided to lead anyway.
Imagine if Lincoln had formed a study group and spent 6 months deciding what to do about Ft. Sumter. Imagine if he gave the rebellious states a two year extension to reflect on their mistakes.
Leaders take risks, but often it is the boldness of the risk taking that is their own best ally.
Martin
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Oh, grow a pair.
Voter trends weren’t remarkably different from presidential to midterm except that the blue hairs turned out like a fucking army this year because Rush and Beck scared the shit out of them. Youth vote always drops 60%, and then it comes back for the next general. That’s the trend, and that’ll continue. Since these things are bounded, the ability for the >65 crowd to turn out in even higher numbers is limited (plus 8% of them will die before Nov 2011).
The sky is not falling. 2012 may not look exactly like 2008, but it sure as fuck won’t look anything like 2010.
Odie Hugh Manatee
I am shocked, absolutely shocked! My world is crashing down around me as I speak. Somehow I will survive. I know, I know… it’ll be a struggle but believe that in the end I will somehow persevere.
Nutpicking: title of a user diary at Kos:
If Obama keeps letting us down, white people aren’t gonna trust black people anymore.
Wow.
More nutpicking at Kos: four Wreck List diary titles regarding Obama:
OK, Bud. You’ve Lost Me For GOOD.
It’s Time to Get Radical, Obviously
“A Dangerous President” Howard Zinn Warned Us
Robert Reich: Obama “legitimizes everything the right has been saying”
Righteous wanking, ubetcha!
BR
@Keith G:
You know, this is the reason I’m saddened that Plouffe didn’t go with Obama to the White House. Plouffe mentioned that one of his biggest lessons of the campaign was that taking risks and being bold during the campaign turned out to work out much better than the risk averse strategy. Meanwhile, most other old school (Clinton-era) Dem advisers are probably of the duck-and-cover school-uniforms wing.
Suck It Up!
@Baud:
yep.
Or maybe at the SOTU address he could get up there and say: “FUCK ALL YA’LL”. grab Michelle and walk out while Cee-Lo Green’s “Fuck You” plays in the background.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@jcricket:
again, what’s a Democrat? I don’t know Rob McKenna, but every person here can name the Democrats who would have stopped any ramming, either because they aren’t really Democrats (Feinstein, Baucus, Webb) or because the very idea of ramming might be seen as uncivil by Vice Principal Broder. People keep talking about “our” majorities– the Senate 60 included Joe Lieberman, fercrissake. I’m surprised he wasn’t a bigger asshole for the last two years. Ben Nelson wasn’t even on my radar two years ago, but I think the only reason we’re all not cursing the name of Mark Pryor and Bill Nelson is because Blanche and Ben allowed them to fly under the radar. A lot of people don’t like Salazar at Interior, but to this Coloradan getting that loathesome little weasel out of the Senate is one of the best things Obama has done. People talk about ramming and fighting not being in Obama’s nature, even if it were, the loudest voices (most amplified by the MSM) criticizing him for doing so would Concern Trolling Elected Democrats.
WyldPirate
@Keith G:
Nice post, Keith G. Your thoughts perfectly sum up most of my disappointment with Obama and how the last two years have unfolded.
I guess I bought into the soaring rhetoric and the hope that the change he spoke of was real. I pumped myself up too high and the fall has been hard. The hardest realization was that, in the end, he is a typical garden-variety spineless politician looking to merely survive instead of aspiring to greatness.
Linda Featheringill
@Raenelle:
Thank you. I feel all validated. :-)
But yes, we do have limits of what we will tolerate. That is the basis of freedom.
jcricket
@Raenelle: I’m with you. To me if Dems vote to weaken or materially fuck up SS and/or Medicare I will stop voting for them, and start looking for other places to live.
I never thought I’d say that, but I’m not going to waste the remaining 1/2 of my life in a country that so clearly is trying to fuck all of us over.
Little Boots
so, nobody seems to have a better idea. okay. so we can still bitch (Americans’ sacred right) but we don’t have to come up with any answers. awesome.
thejoz
John I think you’re right that we’re lucky in that we don’t have McCain/Palin bombing the shit out of anyone who looks at us wrong. Aside from the countries we’re already bombing, of course.
But I think you’re pretty wrong on the notion that “nobody” could be doing better than Obama.
To be clear, there are a lot of people who could be doing a lot worse than Obama, but there are certainly people who would more than likely be doing a lot better than him as well.
No, Hillary is not necessarily one of those choices.
Jules
John McCain + The Daily Show = Comedy Gold
Suck It Up!
@Odie Hugh Manatee:
they all deserve each other.
Yutsano
@iriedc:
You do realize with a few selective, incapacitating, but non-fatal doses of food poisoning this could actually occur. Not that I mean to plant ideas in your head, but there is an order of succession, and right now she’s Number Three.
Karen
@Odie Hugh Manatee:
And that’s why the GOS, Jane Hamsher and her groupies and her acolytes even formed PUMA to begin with.
Corner Stone, so I don’t destroy the natural order of things I promise to say PUMA every night until I don’t see any more comments as stated above.
junebug
@WyldPirate:
Bitter.
jcricket
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: I know – our bigger tent, and esp. the “radical centrist” weasels (both within the party and the press) make everything hard to do.
But I’d argue the Republican party, while a smaller tent to begin with, has a lot of factions. But they know how to keep their infighting to a minimum. Or at least they negotiate well in private ahead of time to get what they each want, so the leaders can pass signature legislation without endless debate. That’s what almost killed healthcare reform.
Personally, I’d support killing the filibuster, even if it means in 2 years Republican controlled Senate can do whatever it wants. This whole “Congress is bad” (not one party) attitude of the populace is driven by all the parliamentary bullshit in the Senate (and to a lesser extend the House) that prevent stuff from, you know, happening. If people saw stuff happening they might have a chance to say “Gee, I actually see what each party stands for.”
The only thing that’s giving me any hope is that the turnout/profile in 2010 was way different than 2008. The country didn’t change that much, but who voted did. If 2012 looks more like 2008 it won’t be quite the bloodbath.
But if Dems start rolling over on the key social safety net issues (SS, Medicare) like they’ve already caved on financial issues why would anyone come out and vote.
Martin
@General Stuck: It really is. I put the odds of the Dems winning this thing at better than 50/50. The Dem caucus in the Senate will hold. It’s held for every previous key vote. Nancy will bury anything she doesn’t like. Done. And then the GOP will cry about how the Dems hurt their feelings.
Hal
The more I think about it, the more I believe that much of the rancor on the left is due to a lack of finesse in criticizing the President.
What I mean by that is that the minute Obama did something some on the left didn’t like, such as FISA, they went from 0 to 60. Obama has betrayed us! He’s just like Bush! Primary him!
If you start off like that, where do you go from there? The “other side”, as in those who don’t buy into that rhetoric push back, and instead of having relevant, calm, meaningful dialog, we end up with Obamabots! Firebaggers! You suck! No, you suck!
Meanwhile, Republicans are back on the mend and Dems would rather fight amongst themselves.
There has to be some happy medium in which we can accomplish what we want and still manage to keep the differing coalitions together. I hope so, because I firmly believe it is too late to hit the big reset button in the sky again.
Little Boots
@junebug:
I think he has a point. I like Obama still, despite the annoyances, but the annoyances do have to count, too.
junebug
@thejoz:
Names please.
Kryptik
I echo John’s post for the most part, but here’s my personal rationale for my current frustration and despair.
Yes, we got some ridiculously progressive stuff done with the shit sandwiches we got dropped in our laps. But…looking back, getting some perspective, we see a lot of things. The health care bill is the most progressive thing to tackle our bloated health care system ever…but it’s still barely to the left of what Nixon himself fucking proposed. We got the stimulus, which was an absolute necessity…but bogged down putting money toward plenty of stupid (and to be fair, not so stupid) tax breaks, rather than infrastructure and foundational shit which is necessary.
And what we see after all this is continued tarring of the Dems and anyone who supports these things as out of control, psychotic, sociopathic anti-American liberal menaces wanting to destroy the country. A health care bill that would have fit with Nixon’s agenda, and nearly exactly the same kind of system Mitt Romney got passed in MA simply expanded in scale, has suddenly turned into LIBERAL TYRANNY!!! MARZIZMSSSZZ!! Republicans have fucking full free reign to shit on anything they dont’ like, throw tantrums and generally be absolute shithogs…and the American people thing that the DEMOCRATS are the most extreme party in the country, more extreme than the fucking Teabaggers.
And what do we get out of the Dems? “We wuz too liberal.” “We need to work with the GOP more” “Why do we keep shutting the GOP out, why are liberals ruining our party” bullshit. Our leaders basically fucking hippie punch themselves outside of a handful of stalwarts who, unfortunately, are severely outnumbered by weakkneed assholes and Blue Dogs who basically are GOP lite (and often without the ‘lite’). And then this week, we get what? Obama saying ‘It’s my fault the tone in DC is so bad, I didn’t work with the GOP enough, I’m sorry’, and basically showing all ass as far as giving concessions, and more importantly, CREDENCE to not only GOP policy but the rhetoric of ‘Dems are the REAL extreme partisans’.
And it fucking drives me insane. It fucking drives me insane that we have such bullshit conception of center that continues to veer hard fucking right and it’s helped along by Dems who continue to fucking give away the argument before it even fucking starts out of either misguided wishes for bipartisanship, eagerness to fuck over the ‘hippies’, or simply weakkneed resignation of ‘Oh well, we can’t beat the GOP ever, they’re just too damn strong’. And the American people seem all too fucking eager to believe that despite the shitstorm, somehow Dems are super psycho liberal and evil and fuck all and are willing to vote in the same jackasses who caused most of the problems the last 10 years, because apparently the country fucking hates Liberals more than they want to fix any fucking thing in this country.
Obama is the best president we could have gotten. I concede that. But the fucking rhetoric and the fucking concessions made with such limited progress and continued enabling of the fucking hippie punching we get from public option makes me realize that this is more a cause for depression than celebration. It makes me realize that we are institutionally fucked for the next decade at the very least.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@junebug: Thank you.
junebug
@Little Boots:
really?
All bitter all the time is a point?
Yutsano
@jcricket:
Mutahfucking THIS!!
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
He’s our douchebag Republican Attorney General who decided to go full metal wingnut and sue against the heath care law behind our Dem governor’s back. And she was PISSED. To the point of about to de-fund his office pissed. Up until then he projected himself as a reasonable Republican. Now he’s dogshit.
junebug
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
You are more than welcome.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@jcricket: But I’d argue the Republican party, while a smaller tent to begin with, has a lot of factions. But they know how to keep their infighting to a minimum.
Yeah, RINOs (Collins, Snowe, Voinavich) are stupid and weak; DINOs (Lincoln, Bayh, Nelson) are stupid and supremely confident. Of course, those DINOs have been told they’re the “grown ups” in the party for twenty years, ’cause they do smart things like vote for pointless, illegal wars and upper-class tax cuts.
Sasha
Amen, JC. I am so glad we have a grown-up as President.
Linda Featheringill
Great thread, folks. Really enjoyed it.
But I gotta get up in the morning. Night.
Odie Hugh Manatee
@Hal: “The more I think about it, the more I believe that much of the rancor on the left is due to a lack of finesse in criticizing the President.”
Bingo. It’s not that they have a problem with Obama, it’s how they went from 0 to HITLER! right out of the gate. When your Outrageometer is pegged the instant it’s engaged, there’s nowhere left to go but crazy.
And boy have they gone there.
RinaX
@Odie Hugh Manatee:
Wow. I only scrolled through once today, but happened to miss this little gem.
WyldPirate
@Kryptik:
Damn. I need a cigarette after that.
Jc
I am tired of the following untruths:
A. Unwillingness to fight back.
Seen Obama beat down the entire group of house rethuglicans, and not break a sweat. Not to mention calling out objectively again and again the obstructionism, many times the last two years.
B. Is just a center – right guy.
From the Lilly Ledbetter act to the health care act, to a host of regulatory actions, this is obviously untrue.
C. Is a ‘bad’ choice we have, compared to others.
With Clinton would have had the whole monica lewinsky scandal all over again, the media would have been MUCH harsher.
Hilary is just not smooth like Obama.
Edwards – we’d have McCain in office. A 34 hour day of news about his child out of wedlock.
‘what the president needs to do to show ge is progressive is’
That is over now. As a community we need to recognize the sad fact that this last two years are as good as it will get for progressivism, for the next decade at least.
I pray that Obama can protect what did get passed, and use the office of president to extend the reach through regulatory agencies.
Mt fear is that we are in gridlock for the foreseeable future.
D.
junebug
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Since I’ve got you :)
Redistricting based on the census (that Obama was supposedly rigging) will backfire on the wingnuts.
You heard it here first.
jeff
John, you’d be hide-rated at GOS, where they’re agitating for impeachment of Obama and, I guess, abdication of any future relevance for progressive voices.
DougJ
@BR:
Maybe that’s a better way of putting it.
I’ll admit he is slime but the problem for me is that he was slime in a way that can be self-defeating.
I would not have said this a year ago, but I think a Huey Long type could do a lot of good right now. And that guy was slime.
Corner Stone
@Martin:
Did you happen to notice what went down right after the vote?
The compromise group announced there was a compromise in place. And the R’s will get their vote for all tax cuts this Saturday it appears.
So right after Nancy “took out” the GOP, the WH put them right back into equilibrium.
No one’s going to remember this House vote.
Odie Hugh Manatee
@RinaX:
The diarist changed it to:
If Obama keeps letting us down, people aren’t gonna trust people anymore.
lol! Here is the title of a diary of theirs from yesterday:
Obama to attend Confederacy anniversary celebration. to hear their side of things.
The author claims it would be a sketch comedy that Chapelle would love!
Martin
Whoops. 4 vote deal fell through. Reid going ahead with Nancy’s bill on Sat. It’ll get blocked. No deal will get reached because the GOP is too busy fucking with everyone. Cuts will expire for everyone, and the GOP will have to start negotiating from Clinton levels in the next Congress.
goblue72
@Nick: A philandering, blow-dried, talks out of both sides of his mouth, faux progressive yuppie.
RinaX
@Martin:
I was just about to say that the last update I read was that only the Pelosi plan would be voted on Saturday.
RinaX
@Odie Hugh Manatee:
Heh. I think I’m going to bed.
Martin
@Corner Stone: That deal fell through as of an hour ago. You have something more recent than that?
Look, every time the GOP runs to the media and reports something that might happen but makes the Dems look weak, it runs as fact and you guys all swallow it whole.
goblue72
@jeff: The fools over there have completely lost their minds. It went from an interesting community of reality-based liberlish folks to the Left wing version of LGF or Redstate.
Odie Hugh Manatee
@RinaX:
Check my ETA above…lol!
Corner Stone
@Martin: Nope, been watching Texans game streaming.
Sorry if I took Harry Reid at his word two hours ago.
Binzinerator
@DougJ:
Yes.
And yes.
Question is, can Obama make the transition from accommodationist to a much more aggressive posture.
I will assume for my own sake he understands such a transition is necessary.
jcricket
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Yeah, the idea that being reasonable means ending up in the “middle” of an argument about what the moon is made up when one side says “rock” and the other side says “green cheese”. NFW.
There is nothing “reasonable” about being a centrist. What’s reasonable is being a pragmatist – examining evidence, and deciding what your opinion is based on that. If all the Democrats happen to do that and believe thing X, and Republicans decide instead to believe Y, then being a Democratic partisan is the smart, reasonable, practical thing to do. Frankly, outside of Kucinich and maybe McDermott and Sanders there aren’t any real leftists in the US Congress. The entire Democratic party is basically centrist. The “centrists” we’re talking about are really egotistical, flip-flopping, center-right jackholes.
You know “why can’t we all just get along?” – because some people are bat-shit insane and stupid. I don’t give a shit if creationists and homophobes and racists and anti-government zealots and Laffer curve lovers get their fee-fees hurts when I completely ignore them. They are stupid, and they hold this country back. I have no more time to debate them and get consensus than I do flat-earthers.
goblue72
@Odie Hugh Manatee: The Left has completely lost whatever tenuous hold it had on its own mind. Its like the gits who voted for Nader because Gore was “just like Bush” have completely taken over. They are, quite literally, morons.
WyldPirate
@Martin:
I think you are wrong for several reasons.
1. Obama and Dems are afraid of getting the “largest tax increase in history tag” hung on them.
2. Obama and Dems are afraid that the Rethugs deep six the UI extension and the START treaty.
3. The votes may not be there in the Senate to get anything less than a two-year extension 9on the cuts now. It will be even harder to get them in the next Congress. It will be harder to negotiate any sort of trade unless it’s done now. The Dems lose too much if the cuts aren’t extended at the very least. The Rethugs know the electorate has a short memory and they hung things o9n Obama and the Dems that they didn’t even do.
The Dems and Obama are painted into a corner. Today was Kabuki theater.
jcricket
@Binzinerator: Ditto.
I understand the need to appear bipartisan to woo “independents” or whatever. But I don’t understand how Dems don’t get that appearing bipartisan doesn’t require compromising with Republicans at all.
Republicans have proved you can claim whatever you want and as long as you act confident and pass shit, people won’t call you on your bullshit.
Frankly, bipartisan is voter-code-speak for “gets stuff done”. It doesn’t actually mean always gets the other side to go along.
I frankly predict years and years of gridlock, with lots of blame heaped on both sides, and no voter recognition of the fact that as pathetic as Dems are, there’s hope Dems might actually vote for things that make the average Joe’s life better. Republicans are a lost cause unless you’re already ultra-wealthy.
Martin
@Corner Stone: Well, someone in the GOP objected to unanimous consent and an up-or-down vote. They pulled out of the deal. Tactically, they were smart to do it – they would have lost on their two bills, the Dems would have won on theirs, Nancy would have buried the $1M Dem bill.
The GOP is losing this battle and they know they’re losing it. I can’t tell if that’s just Nancy or if Obama is playing good cop to her bad (they’ve regularly been on the same page in the past), but either way they’re winning this things so far.
General Stuck
@Martin:
That’s about how I see it, and I don’t really think the wingnuts are all that interested in even a temp extension for all cuts if they even got that concession. Not reading their absolute obstinate mindset right now. They may well want taxes to go up for the mc on Obama’s watch. And who can blame them, they have all the megaphones that matter in the media, and got reelected being total obstructionists.
And I doubt Pelosi will go for any extension without some concessions on the other pending stuff. People forget, the House dems are about as ideological as the wingnuts there, especially with less blue dogs to contend with. They believe deeply the rich need to pay higher taxes, and really, the mc too, at least to Clinton levels.
She might go for a one year ext of both, but that would be it, if I had to guess right now. Anyways, this is all bumming me out, the ship jumping, and pearl clutching, so I’m going galt for a little while.
Kryptik
@jcricket:
This. This, this, this, all of fucking this.
RinaX
@Odie Hugh Manatee:
Caught that. I’d like to think that poster was HR’d to oblivion, but with the way the GOS is these days…and I’m in no mood to go check.
@Martin:
Yeah, I feel like today was a pretty good day for the Dems, but what do I know…ok I’m really gone now.
KDP
What John said. No more to add, I have finals this week and work has kept me too busy to do more than blog-skim.
Martin
@WyldPirate: Just like Dems were afraid of having the ‘healthcare mandate’ tag hung around their necks? Oh, yeah, they passed that in spite of your fear.
The GOP won’t settle for a 2 year extension. They’re insisting on at least 5. And what makes anyone think that Nancy will settle for even 2?
My guess is that if the GOP keeps overplaying their hand, that the cuts expire for everyone and we come back in January negotiating for the Obama tax cuts.
Joseph Nobles
I have decided that all the left carping at Obama is only going to help him. The louder they yell, the more independent voters will hear that he’s willing and trying to work with Republicans. And the more the Republicans obstruct and play one-upmanship games, the more independent voters will see they aren’t willing or trying to work with him.
2012 will be a landslide.
Odie Hugh Manatee
@goblue72:
I remember when groups on the left organized to fight for what they believed in and were able to do it without shooting themselves in the foot (or ass) in the process. My high school American Government teacher said it best: ‘Our government is like a large, heavy pendulum. It does not change direction quickly.’
No it doesn’t. You have to push hard for a long time to get what you want and that is just too much for some in the fast-paced instant gratification world of today.
If you go to 11 right from the start then you have nothing left to work with. Try running a foot race with that as a plan and you will lose and lose badly. You have to be in this for the long haul and it will be a long painful slog if you are doing nothing but bitching and attacking your own the whole time. People are going to tire of you and your cause if you keep the outrage cranked. You need supporters yet you spit on anyone who isn’t in your Purity Parade. Screaming and spittle flinging are not good substitutes for progressive movements that attract support and accomplish things.
Shit happens but it will never happen at the pace you want and it never will so get over it. Plan for the long haul and you will not be disappointed if you do it right. Politics are not for the weak willed or impatient, it rewards doggedness, determination and a will to fight the long fight.
jcricket
@Kryptik: Can I quote you on that to my boss. Look, I know I’m ignoring my job instead commenting on a site that I swear isn’t pr0n even though it’s named Balloon Juice. Can you just grade me based on how well people like my snarky posts?
Shawn in ShowMe
Because its impossible for a nation of 300 million strangers to get along.
Uncle Clarence Thomas
.
.
I think we can all agree that every cult of personality needs loyal cultists. Yes, we can!
.
.
Angry Black Lady
@Big City Mary: oh for crying out loud. hyperbole is killing america’s children. nonetheless, i’ll bite: lily ledbetter act.
jcricket
@Shawn in ShowMe: You’re not going to get me to disagree – I was basically saying we don’t get along because we fucking disagree on important issues.
I’m fine with that. I have no problem with “not getting along” with homophobes, racists, Christian zealots, anti-taxers, creationists, anti-vax nonsense peddlers, etc.
I’m not interested in compromising my principles so some white, Christian, creationist-believing wingnut doesn’t feel “persecuted” by poor old me, the left-leaning, coastal-living Jew (and my vast left-wing conspiracy that runs America from my basement)
Uncle Clarence Thomas
@Joseph Nobles:
.
.
That’s the ticket – the old Good Carp, Bad Carp strategy. I hereby legislate that balloonbaggers are the bad carp.
.
.
VincentN
Some of you guys have short memories. Plenty of good stuff got done these past two years and anybody who acts like Obama has literally done absolutely nothing to improve the country is full of shit. I’ve seen a lot of good things happen on the regulatory level but because they’re not sexy, exciting things nobody cares. But the people helped by them care.
I am disappointed with the attitude the White House has taken lately and would prefer a more aggressive approach. I wish Obama was a better negotiator. Because he’s so reasonable, he apparently can’t accept that other people can be wholly irrational. But just because I don’t like the attitude or some of the actions taken, that doesn’t mean my entire perception of what good has actually been done just disappears. That’s not being reality-based at all.
Judge the man by what he has done, good and bad, instead of comparing him to some FDR construct that is just as mythical as the one about Reagan.
ino shinola
Yes Keith G,
That’s what’s maddening about the guy, he had a once in a lifetime political opportunity and he seemed to have enough popular appeal to exploit it.
The entire country was (justifiably) furious at the financial sector. All the signs of a rotting economy that had been expressed in trends too gradual for the electorate to grasp: increasing income inequality, disappearance of middle class jobs, out of control health-care costs, the neglect of places like New Orleans,etc…..were suddenly brought into crystal clear focus by the collapse of the Great Casino. No one could deny that the Reagan Revolution had utterly and catastrophically failed. Everyone in the country could see that things needed to change. Alan freakin’ Greenspan was near tears testifying to Congress that his entire economic philosophy was based on a flawed assumption; that markets would regulate themselves. If ever there was an opportunity for a principled, charismatic, leader to make a difference…
How did he respond to the opportunity? Well, he didn’t.
I’m glad McCain isn’t president but really can’t feel too overjoyed about who we have.
Odie Hugh Manatee
@Uncle Clarence Thomas:
Know how to cook and serve a good carp? Preheat the oven to 425, nail the carp to a board, season to taste, bake for 25 minutes, remove carp from the board and then serve the board.
priscianus jr
@Linda Featheringill: I might be wrong here but . . . If the president appoints a commission, it can write laws that congress merely votes up or down? Without comment and without amendment? Wouldn’t that constitute the executive branch impinging on the role of the legislative branch?
You’re not wrong. It’s only a goddamn presidential commission. All they did was issue a report with recommendations, not a piece of legislation. Of course they don’t have the power to introduce a bill.
sparky
unfortunate, or telling, sequence of JC posts. should we infer that there was a torrent of complaints about the last line in the prior post? cranks like me thought was spot on, so it seems reasonable to suspect that a great number of people found it unpalatable. i take this, then, as an opportunity to commend our host for having the fortitude to look at what has been going on, which, despite a seeming preference by all to adopt certain fashionable French theories, remains stubbornly distinct from what people say about said goings-on.
after two years of an Obama presidency, it is past time to continue to blame the media, blame the Rs, blame everyone except the person (and his party) who, sophistry aside, began with a tremendous amount of power. the Ds, their leadership and their national chief have muffed, blown, or frittered away every advantage they gained in 2008, so much so that a bunch of buffoons had no difficulty making a campaign based on blaming the Ds for the continued destruction of post–WWII america. it was easy for the Rs to do so, because while they lied about the why, the evidence of where true power lies was there for all to see. bankers and insurance companies made out like bandits while Obama declared himself lord high executioner and appointed “deficit commissioners” who told the working class to drop dead. the Ds found themselves unable to counter the inanity because they could not; after all, they had continued the wealth transfer the Rs started. all the Ds had was rhetoric that bore an increasingly tenuous relationship with reality, though it continued on its lofty, lonely rhetorical heights. at least the Rs could pretend they believed in a crackpot theory while the Ds were, indeed, socialists who lacked even a fig leaf of rhetoric to cover their servitude. but then, a socialistic oligarchy is not the stuff of great populist phrasemaking.
to put it a bit more precisely, on every single major issue, this administration has sided with the wealthy and the profiteers and poltroons of perpetual war and the attendant destruction of civil liberties. after this amount of time, one can continue to concoct rationalizations, or one can start to, perhaps, infer that something is amiss with this picture, namely, that the Ds don’t side with their voters, because that’s not who they represent.
it is undoubtedly difficult to come to terms with the idea that the political party you have worked in, for, and perhaps most of all, have believed in, sees you as a commodity rather than its principal. but then, why should they see you as anything other than cattle? their true principals don’t sit in smoke filled rooms, or man picket lines or call centers. they don’t even run unions, though Ds might in a few places still care about those relics. no, these commanders of the spigots of jobs and cash run board meetings and can be found at places like Aspen that are properly fenced off from the increasingly impoverished voters.
now, someone will say that this overstates the case and that of course the Ds care about their “voters”. and yes, they do. like the Rs did during Junior’s tenure, they can throw the “base” a few trinkets along the social lines so as to have something to point to. and it’s not as if their masters mind these gestures: after all, the end of DADT means more cannon fodder and coffins to sell, and it’s a hell of a lot easier to write the health insurance regulations in DC where you don’t have to deal with those pesky state regulators. just don’t even think of changing the tax rates. come to think of it, don’t even talk about it.
even assuming one considers all of the above, it’s still difficult to think about. on top of that, there’s any number of clever people, some paid, some not, some of whom post here, who continue to argue that you should just ignore what has actually happened in favor of what might have happened otherwise, or how much legislation has been enacted. until this administration, i had never been alerted to the notion that quantity of legislation was more important than its substance. anyway who cares what they say because they are just negative haters. the Ds can only be failed by disloyal Ds not by their party, just as america is still a great, special nation that’s just having some problems at the moment.
perhaps here lies part of the problem. leaving the R mouthpieces, jingoes and out and out fascists aside, it’s interesting to note how the vast majority of americans are wholly unable to come to terms with the notion that perhaps the country they inhabit is, well, pretty much like every other empire has been. in a word, icky. that’s if you are a citizen of said empire. if you are not, well, you take your chances; after all, the perception of safety amongst the citizenry of the empire is much more important than your life.
it may also be true that those of us who have come to the view that the US has become something much closer to a merchant of death have been too strident about making such arguments. after all, to some extent we are talking about feelings and beliefs and ideology, despite the many clever references to policy and pragmatism. or perhaps it is just a failure of imagination on my part; i just don’t get how it’s pragmatic to kill people in other countries for domestic political reasons. perhaps those are the same folks who say it’s pragmatic to write toothless bills and champion them as “reforms”. and since nothing else could be done, this was necessarily the best of all possible outcomes. because, you see, nothing else could be done. yes.
Corner Stone
@Martin: I read the Reuters link. It was hard to tell exactly but ISTM the GOP didn’t feel like getting punked on a couple votes before they got the vote they wanted. So they’re walking down the timeline, and using this short session as their buddy.
IMO, the GOP will settle for a two year extension, their five year claim notwithstanding. And as President Obama and all his WH staff keep reiterating, the number one priority Obama has is stability for MC rates.
I believe all the tax cuts will be extended before the lame duck session is over.
Martin
@priscianus jr:
Well, more specifically, it’s a presidential commission that has House and Senate majority and minority leaders who have agreed to bring anything that passes the commission to an up-or-down unamended vote.
The whole point of the commission is to pass something that Congress can pass. And since the people that bring bills to the floor are on the commission, when combined with the above goal it should be be assumed that anything that passes the commission *will* be brought to a vote.
Corner Stone
scarshapedstar
I’m still thrilled
ObamaBush is President. I don’t regret my vote for one minute. I still think he is a good man, and I will not only vote for him in20122004, but raise as much money as I can, and donate as much money and time as I can to get him re-elected.That doesn’t mean I think he is infallible, though, and I’ve been disappointed with the seeming unwillingness to
fight backbomb France. I still think we are super lucky to have the man at 1600.So when I post something critical about him, quit acting like I’m flip-flopping or turning on him. I’m able to keep multiple thoughts in my head at once, and I can like someone and still think some of the things they are doing suck. And I don’t think there is anyone in the
DemocraticRepublican party who would be doing a better job thanObamaBush.Plus çole change… bwahahahahaha!
FlipYrWhig
So, after reading the whole thread, I still have no idea what happened yesterday in particular that made everyone go totally mental, except that Obama–like all the Democrats and all the Republicans–had said blandly nice things about “working together” after that meeting, and then the Republicans sent a letter demanding tax cuts or nothing. Which was Obama’s fault and proved that he sucked, why? Can anyone explain that?
It’s been like the Twilight Zone ever since. I feel like I’m the one person who slept through the apocalypse.
Then today there are encouraging noises about further plans and a good vote and, still, full-on balls-out explosive rage. What am I missing?
And, no, don’t say that what I’m missing is something about how Obama is too corporate or doesn’t fight enough or whatever, because if you say that now you would have said that the day _before_ yesterday too. What happened _yesterday_ that got everyone so mad?
(edited slightly after posting)
E.D. Kain
@Little Boots: I do too. I’m just chiming in my support.
E.D. Kain
@Teri: Totally. Everything is a house of mirrors nationally. National politics do not reflect local politics, and then of course it all varies from region to region, city to city.
E.D. Kain
@jcricket: I disagree. Your mistake is confusing the Big Tent of the Democratic Party (at least the last four years of the Democratic Party) with the much smaller Republican tent. You can’t ram shit through when your tent is that big, because it’s much harder to get everyone to agree. It’s just not at all the same dynamic.
arguingwithsignposts
Clearly, the problem is that Obama doesn’t have a Mrs. Landingham. (just had to get something in before the thread dies)
Kerry Reid
@goblue72:
Yeah, I’d love for all the rear-view mirror Edwards supporters here to remind me again of all the TOTALLY balls-out, in-your-face, populist, fight-fight-fight-to-the-death-for-the-little-people legislation that SENATOR Edwards supported. The GOP Bankruptcy “Reform” measure of 2000, perhaps? That’s the one he said in 2004 as a candidate that he was “wrong” to have supported, thus setting the tone for 2007-08 as the Born-Again Faux-Populist Rolling Thunder Tour, with such rousing hit numbers as “I Was Wrong About AUMF,” “I Was Wrong About the Patriot Act,” and “I Was Wrong About Yucca Mountain.”
Seriously, when JOHN FUCKING EDWARDS is your notion of a populist fighting man, it’s no wonder the left in this country can’t get its shit together.
General Stuck
@FlipYrWhig:
Been building for a long time whig, you can choose your own reasons why, and why now. Didn’t take much to push it past the failsafe point. The hounds are out, and now, not just the gooper ones. Nor just the media. Go read Krugman’s latest, it’s like he’s been reading BJ the past few days, and finally got the nerve to go full Obama’s gotta go. None of the problems are with congress, it is all on Obama. unreal, really.
We are past the point of factual information changing things on the blogs, even this one.
WyldPirate
@sparky:
Oh my. I need another cigarette.
very nice, sparky.
WyldPirate
@General Stuck:
Damn, Stuck. Krugman’s article is full of irrefutable facts.
You have gone round the bend into lala land.
General Stuck
@WyldPirate:
LOL, you are a live wire wildy, I give you that. “irrefutable facts” lol again.
scarshapedstar
@FlipYrWhig:
Because the Christ Figure routine is getting old. You can’t compromise with people bent on your destruction. There is no middle ground to the right of “your head on a platter”.
You can go through the motions and pretend that you’re a glass-half-full kinda guy and get punched in the nose, and then turn to everyone and say “see? see what assholes they are?” but we already get it. Just like we know without looking at the third panel that Lucy pulled the football away. We fucking get it.
We’re no madder than we were the last time this happened. It’s the same kabuki show again and again and again and again and again. News flash: this is not business as usual, and they really will derail nuclear arms treaties and let people go hungry and generally wreck the country, and the ref is not going to throw a flag. It’s abundantly clear.
He can state the reality, which is that the Republicans have made the calculated decision to sabotage the country for political gain, or he can state the fairy tale, which is that they agree on most things and ‘Washington’ just keeps getting in the way.
Odie Hugh Manatee
@General Stuck:
Thus my post in another thread about how responses here just don’t matter. Batshit crazy is the normal operating mode now and all we can really do is watch and comment from the sidelines.
Once again, stupid is beating smart to a pulp.
LikeableInMyOwnWay
Skipped the thread, pretty sure I have already seen all this a hundred times before.
But as to the top post …. ditto. Total ditto, my exact thoughts, and stated better than I could.
General Stuck
@Odie Hugh Manatee:
Yea, I read your post in the other thread, and for some reason I too, feel kind of relieved. The stupid on the left fringe has congealed and become the undead zombie and fully self contained. No more need to try and talk sense to it.
scarshapedstar
@General Stuck:
Give me one reason why it was a good idea to hire a bunch of Goldman crooks to “fix” the economy instead of Paul Krugman.
Krugman was on board, he gave plenty of advice, and he got the cold shoulder. Again and again and again.
I tell you what, if I get a Nobel Prize in medicine someday, and one of my patients has a limb amputated after I tell them to take antibiotics every fucking day and they refuse every fucking day, I will probably be really pissed off. Disappointed, too, but definitely pissed off.
FlipYrWhig
@General Stuck: Still, you’d think it would be prompted by something in particular. This is like having a shitty day at work, coming out to the parking lot and finding a scratch on your car, and then just saying, Fuck it all, and smashing all your own windows. How does the reaction match up with the stimulus? I don’t get it.
Anne Laurie had this theory earlier:
Has the deficit commission been in the news? What it looked like to me was that the Congressional session started back up, there was some buildup to a meeting, at the meeting various platitudes were exchanged, then the Senate Republicans issued a letter about the tax cuts, and then everything totally exploded _at Obama_. Either because the existence of the letter proved that Obama was weak, or because the existence of the letter suggested that Obama would roll over. Not that it had happened, but it would, so now was the time to vent about it, but not at anyone who could do something about it, but at each other. John did it too. The crazier precincts of the blogosphere got even crazier. I, but, wha, I, huh? That doesn’t really make sense, does it?
General Stuck
@scarshapedstar:
you know it’s funny. I was one of maybe one or two people on this blog who raised hell with Obama’s pick of Gheitner and Summers, two weasel of the first degree. And got shouted down by others because these two guys were supposedly the only ones who knew enough about the mess to unwind it.
I’m done arguing now with disappointed liberals, the floor is all yours.
WyldPirate
@General Stuck:
Okey-dokey…
Fact.
Fact.
Fact.
Fact
all facts.
For those of you wondering why the “left” is losing it’s cookies, Krugman points out why….that’s the rest of Krugman’s column.
Maybe you folks that worship Obama might want to question why the entire left is going bonkers over this display of ineptitude. Krugman summarizes the reasons quite deftly.
WyldPirate
@General Stuck:
Damn. a rare point of agreement. geithner and summers are fucking scum.
FlipYrWhig
@scarshapedstar:
OK, so he does it your way and he comes out swinging. He says Republicans poison everything they touch, so they might as well go fuck themselves. Beautiful. Everyone in the blogosphere cheers.
Then what happens?
The whole tone of this discussion is just like when you have a sucky job and you hate your boss and you’re having drinks after work with some of the other people who work there and you’re like, Damn, you know what I should do, I should walk right into Harris’s office and just take a shit right in his coffee mug and tell him, I’ve had it, I quit. And all your buddies are like, Yeah, that’d be fucking awesome.
What do you do for work the next week?
General Stuck
@WyldPirate:
well, there are “facts” or simply what happened, then there is interpretation of what happened. It is the interpretations where I part company with Krugman and most of the left.
No biggie, but to be serious, you folks will need to find a replacement for Obama, otherwise, your little revolution in the dem camp means not much but raw nihilism.
FlipYrWhig
@WyldPirate: Except that people weren’t angry the day of the wage freeze (which I thought was stupid), they were angry because of something having to do with the letter from Republican senators and how it made Obama look “weak.” Everyone repeated that all day. Why was that “weak”? Why wasn’t it just another day of Republican assholitude?
ruemara
@Nick:
I think the issue, as I have parsed it from my progressive brethren, is that this press release doesn’t use enough tough language. Gibbs should come out and say something akin to:
“The President wants his motherfucking tax cuts for the middle class. His nigs in the House know which way shit is flowing and fuckers did their goddamn jobs. Fucking Senate better pass them damn middle class tax cuts with no bullshit. Fuck the Republicans, puss asses shilling for the man. Those bitches done made it clear that they would get fucked by a bull in a Macys window Christmas display if a Koch Brother waved a $20 at them. And Fuck them blue dogs too. And if y’all in the media report this as ‘I’m a scary black president’, I will cut a bitch’s balls off right here in the press room. Go Fuck Yourself. And God Bless America.”
Odie Hugh Manatee
@FlipYrWhig:
It’s clear that once Obama stands up on his bully pulpit and publicly declares that the Republican party is an enemy of the nation and out to destroy it, everyone will worship and praise his brilliance and insight.
Then the unicorns will arrive, delivering rainbows and ponies that crap candy bars while farting a heavily perfumed fairy dust which magically solves all of our problems.
WyldPirate
@General Stuck:
C’mon, Stuck. You’re way smarter than this.
Most of the things I listed from Krugthulu’s column have numbers in them. Krugman is a careful guy. A Nobel prize winning economist. This isn’t George effing Will we are dealing with here. He did not pull those numbers out of his ass.
One of the things that I quoted that did not have numbers is at the heart of Keyenesian economics. I think Krugman knows a bit about that. Moreover, the preponderance of economists agree with him that the stimulus was too small. I’ll grant you that this could probably fall into the realm of opinion, but it has previous evidence–from the Great Depression–that government spending when no other part of the economy is clicking can stimulate recovery of the economy.
General Stuck
If a primary challenger were to run and beat Obama, i would vote for them. Because despite claims of Obama worship, my entire focus is, has been, and will continue to be beating the GOP. I defend Obama mostly because he occupies the highest political office in the land. The fact that I really like the dude, as well as think he is a competent president under some very bad conditions, is only an additive that makes defending him easier. But my real loyalty is centered on keeping the republicans out of the WH>
nothing about this is personal to me
FlipYrWhig
@ruemara:
Something weird psychosexually happened over the past few weeks with this idea that everything in politics is supposed to be tough and strong and manly. I can haz ruff traid?
WyldPirate
@FlipYrWhig:
I was pissed as hell about the wage freeze. Krugman points out why. All sorts of people have pointed out why. It is a meaningless, inconsequential gesture. It is giving away something for nothing. It takes five billion dollars a year out of the economy that would have had a primarily stimulative effect when we have 15 million unemployed people.\
He didn’t have to do it. It was fucking stupid do do it. He got zero “goodwill” from it as well.
General Stuck
@FlipYrWhig:
Absolutely creepy it is, also too.
FlipYrWhig
@WyldPirate:
Well, now we’re back to the same old, old discussion about whether there was any way to get a bigger stimulus through the Congress. Lord knows that just because something is good policy doesn’t mean that it’s easy to pass through a dysfunctional legislature whose function recalls, from the “cudlip” thread, an intermediatary reverse anus.
FlipYrWhig
@WyldPirate: Yes, I also think it was stupid, but while that contributed to the two-day meltdown, it wasn’t the proximate cause.
eemom
I’ve had to work this evening, so I haven’t had time to catch up on the various gems of wisdom contained on this and the earlier thread — but I am pissed off at where this has been going all week, so I’m gonna say this.
Know what you are, John Cole? Not a deep thinker. Not much of a thinker at all, actually. I wasn’t here back then, but it’s becoming increasingly obvious to me how you were dumb enough to be a republican all those years and vote for GWB twice.
You ARE a fundamentally decent person who loves animals, and that is worth a lot in my book. In fact if I had a Noah’s ark, I’d fill it with people like you after I stocked all the animals by twosies, even if you were STILL a republican.
You are fundamentally decent towards people too, and that is why your pre-programmed brain finally crashed and posted a 404: ERROR message when Terri Schiavo or whatever it was finally convinced you that “republican” plus “decent” does not compute.
But in this tense era of transition in the Obama presidency, you’ve lapsed right back into the lazy-ass knee-jerk sheep you must have been for Bush all those years. You’ve yielded to the torrent of “conventional wisdom” du jour from emmessemmbots and bloggerbots that, for this moment at least, have come to agree on the mantra that
four legs good two legs betterObama Is A Disappointment and The Democrats Always Fuck Up.But you still like Obama and would vote for him again, you say? Well, why, really? If you had the courage of any kind of conviction at all, you’d follow those two points to their logical conclusion, which wouldn’t be that.
But it IS so much easier to float along on that mindless “disappointed Democrat” boat, and spend your days parroting the palatable wisdom of the Really Serious Bloggers, isn’t it?
Dollared
@flip, @General
No, it is JC’s bitch slap theory of politics. It is true, it is still true, and it is still amazing that outside of every single Republican and every single journalist, only Nancy Pelosi seems to understand it.
General Stuck
@Dollared:
I love Nancy Pelosi, but she runs, or has run a strictly majoritarian wing of congress, and while it is all of our good fortune she has run that body, it cannot be realistically compared with either Reid’s or Obama’s job, both of which are far more complicated and difficult.
FlipYrWhig
@eemom: I don’t know if I’d go that far. I just don’t get why there’s so much stress and distress on a day that featured many positive developments. The intensity of our outrage when things go badly always far exceeds the intensity of our joy when things go well. That I’m prepared for. But intense outrage and disappointment based on… something… that no one has quite articulated? That’s weird. I mean, weirder than usual.
Uncle Clarence Thomas
@Odie Hugh Manatee:
.
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You’re not right about much, but goddamit you’re right-tawn this time! I’m gonna submit this one to Firebagger Foodie Friday or whatever the fuck they call it. Chow!
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FlipYrWhig
@Dollared: So on a day when Nancy Pelosi left John Boehner sputtering about “chickencrap,” a day when a Democrat did some slapping for a change, why is the tone so bleak and despairing?
Dollared
@eemom
You are too harsh. John’s sense of basic decency, IMHO, runs deeper than you think. But…..
I live in a country where the basic economic model for the working person is upside down. Wages and employment are going down. Evil people steal billions from innocents and walk away, encouraging sharp practices at all levels of society. Health care costs double what it should, meaning real wages for heads of families are actually declining 3-5% per year. Our government still subsidizes outsourcing of jobs and our national ethic cannot understand why anyone would hire anyone over the age of 50 except to be a greeter at Wal-Mart.
It really will not be long before young people will not be able to form families. It really does look like middle class Latin America out there.
And the grifters are literally extracting every last accumulated bit of wealth from the middle class, with credit card fees, with overdraft charges, with buying your gold, with hidden clauses in auto leases, with foreclosure fraud to grab that last bit of home equity, with reverse mortgages, with going after the Social Security Trust fund.
And BO stands as the reasonable man and tries to do what he can, WITHOUT ANGER OR CONFLICT. Well fuck that.
What is happening deserves anger and conflict, it deserves an f-ing war.
Here’s the thing: Glenn Beck’s follower’s have the right emotion, they have the wrong target. A great Democratic president would be a populist. BO is an egghead with far too much pride.
I’ll vote for him again. But I would vote for anyone willing to fight in the primary.
ruemara
@FlipYrWhig:
Because it wasn’t Obama doing it. He’s not being cool and frightening the bullies, he’s governing which is boring, with no good come back lines. So fuck him.
@Dollared:
I must ask this. What do you consider “fighting”? What form would it take, how do you think it would be done?
eemom
@FlipYrWhig:
That is exactly where I’m coming from.
Have you noticed Cole saying jack shit today about ANY of those positive developments?
Put Obama to the side. I was proud as hell today of Pelosi and the other House Democrats who fucking TRIED to do the right thing while they still can……regardless of what the outcome ends up being after the Senate is finished fucking it over.
But what did we get here? Regurgitated bullshit of yesterday’s brilliance from P*ker Master Ezra Klein and another vague, whiny screed from John about stuff that, exactly as you say, hasn’t even materialized yet.
Odie Hugh Manatee
@Uncle Clarence Thomas:
The best part is that it’s packed with plenty of fiber. Plus you can save a sliver to use as an after dinner toothpick.
Dollared
@flip
Because 1) it was too late, it should have been done before the goddamn election, and 2) because Nancy Pelosi isn’t in charge, Barry what-can-I-do-for-you is in charge.
General Stuck
@FlipYrWhig:
think about it. what is one of the most powerful and painful national things that exists in this country. It is our long national nightmare and struggle with racial issues. It permeates everything social and economic. Our senses have been bombarded with racial and racist events about every minute of every day, and the teabaggers and wingnuts have made certain this is the case and have shot thru our national dialogue with race as a political weapon against dems and Obama. It is not by accident.
Something we all historically, have not wanted to discuss, because it is painful to confront, both our past and present. I think it may be sensory overload of an already gut wrenching issue and topic, that may be behind it. Not that the left is inherently racist, because they are not, at least to a toxic level. Maybe they and we are just tired of the race issue being front and center every day, and are reacting to it in some fairly irrational ways, to make it go away and out of our heads.
I don’t know why it exploded just recently, nor am I anywhere near being sure I am right about this. But I can think of nothing else to explain it.
Dollared
@ruemara
I think FDR governed. I think Obama cringes.
Uncle Clarence Thomas
@FlipYrWhig:
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Oh, this one definitely goes into my balloonbagger cult scrapbook. Please, baby, please, babybabyplease develop this meme!
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eemom
yeah, I’m harsh. I don’t give a shit. I have no patience for anybody who doesn’t THINK — especially when they control a public forum.
eemom
@Uncle Clarence Thomas:
go away asshole. You’re the last thing we need right now.
Uncle Clarence Thomas
@Odie Hugh Manatee:
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And far less dangerous without the zillions of bones!
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Yutsano
@eemom: Don’t bite. Please don’t bite. I get the whole Greek temper thing and all but the best reaction to that thing is to treat it like the dog making a show of cleaning his balls in the middle of the living room and ignore it. It will eventually fade.
WyldPirate
@FlipYrWhig:
I’ll certainly grant you that the wage freeze wasn’t the proximate cause. Obama’s been cocking things up for quite a while.
A lot of straw hit the camel’s back in the past week or so, though. Poor bastard has bad swayback now and is close to going down.
Obama has going to have to pull a rabbit out of his hat, PDQ.
Uncle Clarence Thomas
@eemom:
.
.
No. I am the Alpha and the Omega of what you need right now. I can’t quit you, fartsicle. I won’t quit you. Deal.
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ruemara
@Dollared:
Not really. And it doesn’t cover what you think “fighting” means in regard to governance. While you’re adoring FDR’s progressive creds, try to ignore the internment camps and the lynching. Now, what is fighting, according to you.
WyldPirate
@eemom:
You need to look in the mirror for the person that isn’t thinking.
You’re Obotomy is still an open wound.
FlipYrWhig
@Dollared: Apparently it wasn’t done before the goddamn election because Democrats running for reelection didn’t want it messing up their campaigns. Think that sounds stupid? Take it up with them. It includes Boxer and Murray, at least according to this NYT article: Tax Cut Timing Proves Elusive for Democrats
Matthew
@eemom: Forget the fact that you’re calling someone out for lack of depth on an internet comment thread. You’re calling someone a sheep, among other insulting things, because his loyalty is not complete enough? Go take a nap.
Dollared
@General Stuck,
Fuck race.
It’s about the money. The Bush tax cuts are still the greatest theft in the history of mankind. Really. My 3 year old daughter will spend her entire working life paying for them.
They are more than half of both the deficit and the projected national debt. By themselves.
Their dual purpose was to give money to all of Cheney’s contributors, tenfold return for their contributions, and to make it impossible to govern effectively.
The despair is very simple: If those cuts are not allowed to expire, we are Argentina. And people know that. And some people want to be the Argentine upper class, which, you know, have a nice life. And the rest of us know we don’t want to spend the 21st century in as misearable condition as the suffering middle and lower classes in Argentina spent the last half of the 20th century.
The tax cuts really are a litmus test for Obama. If he won’t fight to sunset them, he really won’t fight for anything (excepting, of course, for his right to spy on and assassinate US citizens, and of course, for the rights of Hamid Karzai as the duly elected leader of Afghanistan)
And we are watching him fail us in this most critical test. From here, one term or not, without revenue he cannot make this country a better place.
FlipYrWhig
@Uncle Clarence Thomas: No, you’re right, there was nothing strange at all about hundreds of people suddenly simultaneously longing for a president who would show off his rampaging phallic power.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@FlipYrWhig: Yup, Repubilcans hadn’t really started to push back when Blue Dogs (Michael Acuri and some guy from NJ at the front of the pack, IIRC) started saying that repealing cuts for the top brackets was bad for the economy.
General Stuck
@Dollared:
There is absolutely nothing, zilch, zero, that I agree with what you just said.
WyldPirate
@General Stuck:
I’m not buying the racism from everyone. Some, yes, but not everyone.
Anecdotally, I’m calm now compared to Bush. I was fucking livid at Kerry’s timidity during the Swiftboating shit. The Clenis, I had sympathy for him at first, but I was astounded by the fact that he wasn’t smart enough to keep from getting caught fucking out on Hillary. It just made shit worse. I was livid at his triangulation adn Republican-lite chickenshit. George H. W.–I thought he was criminal for pardoning the Iran-Contra shit and covering Ronnie Rayguns ass. raygun, I think, did shit that hhe should have been impeached for, I was livid by the time he left office and I voted for him twice.
I have high standards for my Prez. I expect them to toe the line legally and live up to the ideals of America. I expect him to put the collective good of the citizens of the country first. I realize there are policies that I won’t agree with, but some things are non-negotiable WRT maintaining my support.
Dollared
@ruemara, see my post @292.
And really, I don’t care about the internment camps and the lynchings. You know, I don’t really blame George Washington for failing to outlaw slavery, either. And I forgive Solomon for having concubines.
But exactly where BO should know better, he is not willing to fight.
I am with Krugman. And I have a simple explanation. For all his life, everybody has loved Barry the overachiever. Well, he is not going to charm the Koch Brothers into the 39% tax bracket. He is going to have to find a way to beat them into it, via the exercise of raw, fearful power. Or it just won’t happen.
And it must.
Elizabelle
Well said, John.
Dollared
@general stuck.
You don’t think the Bush tax cuts matter?
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Dollared:
Wow. Moral questions aside, let’s look at the logic “I brought up the historical comparison, but I really don’t care about it”
@Dollared:
Such as? What do you want him to do?
FlipYrWhig
@Dollared:
Um, he said clearly that he didn’t want them and that we couldn’t afford them and that they were bad policy. Unfortunately there’s this other branch of the political system where the majority has a different view. And they have this habit of “making laws” and “voting” on them.
So if they want those things he doesn’t, he has two choices. He can accept the thing he doesn’t want, or he can veto it. Would you like to see him veto the continuation of the tax cuts for dollars $250K-infinity? Because that’s what you’d be asking him to do.(1) I think you can make a case for it being a wise move on policy terms. I _really_ don’t know how it would play politically. I can’t imagine conservative and “centrist” Democrats in the Senate doing anything other than rush to the nearest camera to disparage the decision. Do you think he could come out of that looking better and stronger than he did going in?
I’m persuadable. Show me how you think it would pay off.
(1) You might say that he wouldn’t have to veto anything if the Democrats in the Senate stuck together to hold the line on the policy he articulated in the campaign and he has continued to defend. But that doesn’t seem likely, does it?
Andrew
OK, a question for everyone bitching about how we passed a “Republican” health care plan:
I realize it was close-to-identical to the ’94 Republican Senate alternative to the Clinton plan. But all the Republicans but John Chafee (a liberal Republican) disowned that bill in 1994! Bob Dole voted against his own health care bill! Most of the Republican co-sponsors just saw it as a cynical attempt to claim they cared about health care too. Then once they killed the Clinton plan, they were happy to let “their plan” die too.
The question is this: if Republicans were so in love with the health care bill, why didn’t *they* pass it? Why didn’t they pass it under Bush?
As for bitching about how ACA was to the right of Nixon’s plan – Nixon was not a true conservative on economic issues. And the Republican Party included a large liberal wing still. He proposed it to outflank the Dems, and even then it failed to pass. The reason ACA was to the right of previous efforts isn’t because “OMG! Obama’s a secret Republican!!!” It’s because every other effort to pass something approximating universal health care failed. So understandably, advocates moved towards the next-best alternative that could pass.
Andrew
Also, on why yesterday seemed to mark such a big collective freakout among the left-wing blogs: I think it was a delayed reaction to the midterms.
Fact is, because we all saw the results coming, there was shockingly little handwringing after Election Day. Way less than in ’94. Way less than ’04. Way less even than after the MA special election.
But only in the last couple of days has the shittiness of the situation been revealed. And while I’m not happy with how the WH has been handling it, it really is a knotty situation. People now see that, and they’re lashing out.
General Stuck
@Dollared:
we don’t know how it’s going to turn out, because we won’t know until it does turn out.
I want them all repealed and have always wanted that, and they are very important. Obama wants to keep the mc cuts, and has firmly ruled out making the wealthy tax cuts permanent. when the negotiating is done, then I will render my judgments, but not till then. But whatever happens, my disappointment or approval will likely not cause me to turn on Obama. Unless the wealthy cuts were made permanent, or more than a year or two temp extended.
Uncle Clarence Thomas
@FlipYrWhig:
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Yes!! That is exactly what happened! Everyone can see that so clearly! Here’s what Stuck sez:
Now you come back with how to tie the racial stuff with the sexual stuff… Being me, I know you can do it… Go for it! Tell me what it’s all about!!!!!
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Dollared
@Flip
He can veto. Then negotiate. It’s that simple. Try negotiating from a position in control of the process. It really, really does work better.
FlipYrWhig
@Uncle Clarence Thomas: Do you have a purpose for coming here other than “neener-neener” and “I’m not touching you”?
Dollared
@Jim
You are being literal, I give you credit for honesty. I had hoped my further examples would give you a clue as to how I really felt. I’ll give another clue: I wish George Washington could have outlawed slavery. But he wouldn’t have had a country then, soo….
Similarly, FDR couldn’t have won without the South. So the profound irony was that he could allow the continued oppression of 15% of the population, and in return have enough power to raise the standard of living and political power of 60% of the people. He made that calculation. What would you have done?
And what should Obama do? Veto, discover his inner populist, and wage class war. For the 98%.
Uncle Clarence Thomas
@FlipYrWhig:
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You’re avoiding the issue. That’s not very mature and eemom will be very disappointed in you. Get back to me when your meme has ripened.
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Dollared
@general, then we agree on more than you think (for example, I can live with the health care bill. For now.).
But the president is not the Supreme Court. Barry always wants to be the dealer and play his cards last. And his team sucks – unforgivably – on message discipline.
He should be way, way, way out in front. And dare his party to fail him, and punish those who don’t play ball.
If he is a one term president, it is because of his wait-and-see act. He looks and acts weak. People want more.
Andrew
One more thing, then off to bed:
I’m pissed about Obama’s tax cut position too, but I think some of the handwringing about Obama’s overall political position is completely unjustified. The guy has a 45% approval rating amidst the worst economic conditions most of us have ever experienced. Higher than Clinton, for example, under much better circumstances.
Frankly, 45% under these circumstances seems awfully high. And it’s very easy to imagine most other potential presidents – Democrats or Republicans – polling far worse under these conditions.
Martin
@Matthew: I don’t think it was about loyalty. Cole is relatively sensitive, at least compared to say DougJ, to the media narrative. I’m reminded of this little bit I read the other day:
I think that applies to the news as well. All of this, these hour-by-hour dramas unfolding, these neverending narratives by the pundits and blogs and 24 hours news sites all amount to clutter – and they cause us to underappreciate the stuff that happened last week, last month, last year. Cole lives pretty deep in that space and he pretty regularly, at least temporarily, loses his shit over something that gets reported. There’s nothing wrong with that, but I think it’s representative of Cole having lost that perspective for that moment.
It’s not a question of loyalty but one of perspective and being a little too lazy about riding along with the tsunami of stupid that flows out of the DC press. eemom was pretty harsh, but I don’t disagree with her. I don’t fault Cole either – it just makes him normal.
eemom
@Matthew:
no, that wasn’t what I said at ALL, asshole. I am not talking about “loyalty” at all.
You take a nap. And after you wake up, ask Mommy to teach you the alphabet so you can learn to read.
Fucking idiot.
FlipYrWhig
@Dollared: OK, I have to play out your suggestion, because you’re not giving the details.
So he vetoes. Maybe he makes a speech about how it’s important to give tax relief to everyone’s first $250K but we just can’t afford more than that. It’s well-received, because this is what the polls say people want. The measure dies in the lame-duck session. Tax rates reset for everyone because there’s no time to put it all back together and try again anyway.
Then the Republican-dominated House draws up a more sweeping tax cut bill, and it blows through the House. I think it would clear the Senate too. It lands back on Obama’s desk. He vetoes it again. Does it ever end? Does all the vetoing and continued articulation of his position that taxes should be cut on $1-$250K but not beyond that actually result in that becoming policy? Maybe after he got reelected and there was a Democratic counter-sweep? After everyone got stuck paying extra taxes for two years during a recession? I dunno.
In that Kobayashi Maru exercise I get Obama looking strong but never getting the policy in place, while presiding over two years of tax increases on everyone during a bad economic climate. What do you get?
eemom
@Uncle Clarence Thomas:
ok, if you won’t quit, then at least answer one simple question: what the fuck is up with the vertical ellipses?
Because you might — might — look marginally less stupid if you didn’t do that.
scarshapedstar
@FlipYrWhig:
I dunno, ever see Network?
So it’s the day after he says he’s mad as hell and he’s not gonna take it anymore. Well, let’s see, the Republicans will say they’re shocked, shocked that anyone would dare impugn their good faith efforts to reach common ground. And he can laugh and say
“Yeah, I guess somebody might have believed that before the two-year blanket filibuster. I think there was a time when I even believed it, but like I said, this has been going on for two years and at this point my memory is fuzzy. In any event, thanks for sending me that little ransom note as a reminder. It’s nice of you to finally formally threaten to do something that you started doing two years ago, although the way I learned it was that you usually send the threat first. But hey, maybe that means we ended up working together to bring about a change after all!
Speaking of changes, I’ve asked Harry Reid to change the Senate rules so that you guys will have to filibuster all night just like in the good ol’ days. Bring a blanket! Get it? Blanket? Filibuster? Oh, man, I got another one: what’s a Mitch McConnell filibuster smell like? Depends.
Seriously, though, we’re gonna pass bills in the Senate, and then it falls on John Boehner, who’s already said that he doesn’t agree with Mitch McConnell that unseating me should be Priority #1. Common ground! I couldn’t agree more! Of course, really you need to impress the American people, and not myself.
Oh, and also, I don’t like any of the deficit reduction proposals I’ve heard, so I’m just going to end the wars, completely, before the next election. Everyone’s coming home.
By the way, if anyone in Congress – Democrat or Republican – wants to opt out of your government health care plan, just drop a note on my desk. Thanks, and God bless America.”
Now you tell me that this wouldn’t be a game changer.
General Stuck
@eemom:
I thought about setting the record straight for you, but figured you’d do it yourself. I agree with the lack of effort for critical thinking, and said so upthread, I just think Cole is mostly tired of the bullshit that he especially as blog owner gets a lot more of than we do. And the fact that is unchangeable, I doubt he even really cares much anymore and just goes along with the flow. Not to excuse it, but putting myself in his shoes, I’d likely be the same way, or just close down or convert the blog to something other than politics. The netroots is really a full on borg collective, and in the end, resistance is futile.
I’m going to bed and forget about all this weird shit. :)
Dollared
@scarshapedstar.
This. Or some equivalent that a bunch of really great Frank Luntz types work over with him, polish to a fine hone, and then slap Boehner with, again and again.
Followed by a 30 day bus tour where he takes all these talking heads, shows them a little one on one love, and then takes them to a house of a real poor person. Or working person. Or unemployed person.
This is not that goddamned hard, that is why we are all so fucking frustrated. Barry really doesn’t seem to like to get his hands dirty.
eemom
@Yutsano:
I suppose. Though there IS that option of taking him to the vet to get his balls removed, ya know.
And that IS, after all, the responsible thing to do. Also too.
C’mere Uncle. No, it’s ok…….c’mere. Look, here’s a treat! We’re just gonna go for a little ride in the car……
eemom
@Dollared:
You know what is a good clue that someone is full of shit?
Calling the President “Barry.”
Maureen Dowd does it. Is that the company you want to be in?
Dollared
@Flip,
I hear you. Then he needs to get on the bus tour and show all the unemployed people to John King.
That will put pressure on Republicans. Oh, and watch how fast they compromise when the hedge fund guys have to pay taxes. Those guys will compromise if the ground shifts underneath them. They are only about the money.
And Obama has $50B in HAMP funds to spend, so he is not completely tied up.
And who cares if the taxes are paid for two years? A two year war with a do-nothing GOP, and then Obama gets the House back?
Because at current course and speed, Obama is strongly at risk, and the Senate is clearly lost. Look at the Dem seats at risk in 2012.
Dollared
@eemom,
Get a life. Discuss something of substance.
FlipYrWhig
@Andrew:
What’s funny is that I have a pretty strong feeling that part of the reason the overall political position hasn’t utterly cratered is that people who don’t follow politics or policy very closely get the impression that he’s a reasonable, well-intentioned guy. Bush fucked up everything he touched and won reelection based on (1) security concerns and (2) seeming likeable. Now, I despise Bush and did so immediately and find people similar to him, like Rick Perry, just skin-crawlingly awful. But whatever it was, he connected with enough people to make his policy stuff _not_ determine his fate.
And my sense is that Obama’s handlers have that in mind. It might not be enough to save him if economic conditions stay dismal, but it’s a component of his staying afloat. And acting like a hardass would chip away at that aspect of the Tao of Obama. You have to _really_ make it worthwhile for him to give up a piece of that appeal. You’d have to be _really_ sure that you’d get such better policy that the economy would be better and buoy him all over again.
This goes back to my continual refrain, which is that if you want a politician to do something differently, you have to be able to show him or her that it will be worthwhile. You have to demonstrate that the new course will be better than the current course, and that it is likely to work. I don’t think enough of the critics of Obama and Democrats have taken the time to figure out how to make their suggestions look like they’re worth taking. Everyone would prefer Ben Nelson to be a progressive and an economic populist. But he isn’t one now, so you’ll have to convert him and deprogram him, and that’s a tall order.
Yes, a bigger stimulus would be better for the economy, and single-payer health care would be better for health _and_ for the economy, and a comprehensive green jobs/energy/climate plan would be fucking awesome. Great plans, noble motives, works elsewhere, let’s do it! OK, _how_? You’re going to have trouble persuading the Democrats on hand to take them up, and growing a new crop of better Democrats is going to take a long time (especially after the Clinton-era DLC types think they already figured out how to have a long “Democratic” career by siding with business and free trade and such, so they’re particularly dug in).
aimai said that she works on trying to get these kinds of changes percolating up through the ranks of her local political organizations. I salute that. How many of us do that? I don’t. You’re looking at the limits of my political involvement. How many of us will it take to make politics work the way we want to see it work? Millions, and years.
That’s why I tend to come down on the side that given the present moment, Democrats have to take what they can get, even if it feels like a pittance, because making things significantly better is going to take way too long, and I don’t want to wait, so making them marginally less awful will have to do.
eemom
@General Stuck:
Good night good General. I’m going to bed too.
Let us dream of a better world. Failing that, at least a blog with smarter trolls.
Uncle Clarence Thomas
@eemom:
.
.
I find that the spacing makes it easier for me to scan. My eyes aren’t so good, if you must pry. What does tough cookie mean girl have to say about that?
.
.
Mnemosyne
@scarshapedstar:
I always find it amazing that people somehow forget that Howard Beale does a 180 and starts kissing corporate ass after Arthur Jensen (Ned Beatty) explains how the world really works. Are people falling asleep before the end of the movie?
Dollared
@flip,
Again, I hear what you said to Andrew. It’s a reasonable calculation if your only goal is reelection.
I think the political calculation has been shown to be well, riskier than they thought, since he now has lost the best House of Representatives in a generation.
More to my points, I think we cannot live with taking what we can get. The economic model for working Americans is upside down. The very functioning of government is at risk. It’s so easy to just look across the border at Canada and see how just a bit of integrity in financial regulation and some rationality in health care administration lowers the unemployment rate by half. Why can’t the Democratic party find the constituency for rational work on behalf of working people?
We don’t have time. America with 20% unemployment and 11 aircraft carrier battle groups really has the potential to be the greatest disaster the world has ever known.
And I am disappointed with the calculation. Whatever happened to “the fierce urgency of now?”
FlipYrWhig
@scarshapedstar: I think it would be immensely gratifying to us, and I think Republicans would throw a fit (but what else is new). I’m less confident than you and Dollared are about the reaction the not-very-well-informed portion of the electorate would have. The media would spin it as “Obama’s new combative tone” and hold panels about “Is Obama too partisan?” and some of the people who like the grown-up good-daddy qualities of Obama would be _very_ turned off. So some people would leap to their feet and others would shake their heads ruefully. I just don’t know about the quantities in each camp. Would the invigoration of, for lack of a more precise term, the base outweigh the effect on the people who choose the politicians they support or oppose based on personality and impression about character? You guys think so? I don’t have that kind of faith. Part of me really wants to think so, but the rest of me doesn’t see it.
FlipYrWhig
@Dollared:
IMHO it’s because a generation of Democrats, between 1988 and 2006 or so, convinced themselves that, since the public had turned against “liberals,” the way to get elected and reelected as Democrats was to run against liberal orthodoxy: traditional Democrats raised taxes too high, so they would cut them and cut spending. Traditional Democrats favored unions too much, so they would side with business and management and free trade. Traditional Democrats liked to give handouts, so they would stand for “personal responsibility.” And it worked, faster than anyone thought. They raised money and won elections. So that generation is slick and full of self-regard and they care a lot about how they are portrayed in the media. And they are opposed to “work on behalf of working people” because it’s bad for business. And they are really hard to flip _towards_ working people in a populist way because they think their voters will turn against them for engaging in “class warfare” and “social engineering” and “welfare.”
Dollared
Flip,
We certainly agree on all the basics, and on the history.
And on the corruption of Democrats, don’t forget the role that careerism plays. In our society, somehow, some way, you gotta get to $3M to say FU, and you gotta get to $1M or your kids don’t get to college. So once they get on that DLC gravy train, it’s hard to get them off.
I guess, for me, it comes down to this: I’m willing to risk failure, because I think just being competent within the status quo means things just keep getting worse for most Americans.
G’night.
bob h
I am as thrilled as you are that this good man is President. But I think Hillary, with her taste for combat, might be doing a bit better dealing with the Republicans.
Mike M
This is really going to put a cramp on the “Ponies!!!” shoutdown/circle jerk. Hopefully.
Incidentally, this is pretty much what everybody was saying when they were criticizing his pitiful performance during the healthcare debate as well.
Tim F.
So before you loved Obama, and yesterday you hate Obama, and today you have nuance. FLIP FLOPPER.
Ajay
@jcricket:
My thoughts exactly. They really dont have much to show for the losses. They did a lot but they could have done much much more. Bush did so much with 50 senate votes. Dems are just ineffective. But the problem is much more. Lot of dems are really nothing but Rs who pretend to be Ds for reasons based on their base or they dont like affiliation with D.
Dems just dont know how to stand up. They tend to cave in whenever a R questions them.
Suck It Up!
@bob h:
oh yeah, Hillary Clinton would be able to get what she wanted from Republicans. right.
all of you who think this, do you NOT remember the intense hate they have for Hillary Clinton? If you need a reminder of how the right hates strong outspoken Democratic women take a look at Nancy Pelosi. And no, Nancy Pelosi didn’t get republicans to go along with her plans, she kept her Democrats together, presented a united front, got bills passed and in so doing made her look like she kicked republican ass. Hillary Clinton wouldn’t have gotten shit from Republicans. She wouldn’t have them behaving any better than Obama. The right hates the Clintons, they despise women with actual power and the venom they would have shown would have been the same or worse than what they gave to Obama.
Now the one Hillary might have done better is have the full DLC behind her or the part of the Dem establishment that never liked Obama and still don’t support him now. I know the left would have loved that right?
Suzanne
Just when I was about to give up on the internets, I come here and get a nice dose of sanity along with my coffee. So thank you for this.
Sure, Obama ought to be tougher. Obama can and should do a helluva lot more. He does come across as a hypocrite on certain issues, but he’s done a lot already in the past two years and so many are giving up on him already. Ultimately, I know that when 2012 rolls around, I’m gonna be at my polling place ready to cast my support for him again.
To even talk about him resigning/getting primaried gives me a headache, what with the banging my head on my desk over and over again.
Kerry Reid
@Suck It Up!:
When did Hillary ever fight and win against the GOP? Same question I posed upthread for the Edwards supporters: name a time that SENATOR Clinton went all-out with her “taste for combat” and vehemently and consistently opposed George W. Bush’s agenda? What fabulous populist initiatives did she introduce in the Senate? Hell, she didn’t even publicly oppose her own husband on NAFTA and welfare reform (the part that kicked poor kids off Medicaid, anyway), which she supposedly didn’t think should pass without healthcare reform. She’s a good centrist soldier who occasionally makes good speeches — much like Edwards. Much like Obama, for that matter — except he actually managed to sign some meaningful legislation.
Face it, the Paul Wellstones of the world are few and far between — and they don’t win national office because we don’t elect progressive presidents. Why? Because the left fails to sell progressivism in any longterm way that translates outside its own echo chambers. Despite proclaiming a pronounced distaste for authoritarianism and hierarchical modes of leadership as hallmarks of what GOP voters go for, many lefties seem to fall just as easily into the trap of thinking “Why hasn’t Daddy President FIXED things for us already so I can go back to NOT caring about politics?”
The exceptions I’ve seen to this in my lifetime all come from people who consistently work both within and without the system for years and years at a time, taking the hits, making compromises if that’s the best they could do, and keeping the eyes on the prize — black civil rights activists (100 years from the end of the Civil War to the Voting Rights Act — that’s some starch in the spine!), feminist activists, gay rights activists. And I’d argue that they are the ones who truly worked transformations in both public perception and legislation.
Of course, they also had to be tough enough not to say “All is lost!” every time an election didn’t go their way.
Kerry Reid
@Suck It Up!:
Sorry to be unclear, Suck — I meant the part about Hillary as a response to Bob H — so yeah, basically agreeing with you there! It’s so funny to me that all the “Edwards is more of a fighter! Hillary is more of a fighter” rhetoric comes down to is that — they occasionally said tough things that sounded good without backing it up with meaningful legislative stances, let alone successes.
Nick
@Keith G:
King was not the Mayor of Birmingham. King is the reason people shouldn’t run for office if they want to lead a movement.
Someone needs a history lesson. The Confederacy was already formed before he took office. Read Lincoln’s first inaugural speech. The one where he said he didn’t want war with the Southern states, he wouldn’t end slavery and he wanted to “repair the bonds” with the South.
Tax Analyst
@Nick:
Nick, when Obama was finished saying he rejected the notion he failed to loudly call George’s manhood into question, sucker punch him in the face, place a vicious jump-kick directly to his groin, pick up a baseball bat and pummel about the face, chest, arms and legs and then do a victory dance over the bloody wreckage of what remained of Stephanopoulos’s limp rag-doll body.
Some people don’t believe that anything less than bellicose ad hominem bluster followed by a demonstration of brutal physical overkill constitutes “fighting” for your cause or position.
lethargytartare
@WyldPirate:
coming in way late just to note that you clearly don’t know what the definition of “fact” is.
hint: it’s not simply something you agree with and find obvious.
you’re a buffoon.
eemom
those last 5 or so comments iz fer teh win.
Thank God there’s still a few sane staffers left in this inmate-infested asylum. Y’all need to get more aggressive with the meds, though. asap.
trixie larue
This is my first visit to this site. I have not been able to pay attention to what has been going on for the last two weeks and the little I got to read was not good.
But I am like others who know that at the end of the day President Obama is still/always the smartest man in the room. We are such morons – how do you govern that? Sarah Palin believes she is a political figure because she “can” tweet. Boener (rhymes with donor) is f**ing up our economy further to continue tax cuts to the wealthiest.
How do WE get going again? The rally for Sanity/Fear was very successful, but it was not for realz in the sense that we actually came out and said we are not even close to having it right. Where is OUR fight? WHEN do we gather up a storm and start demanding our democracy stand for we the people?
Apologies for caps – emphasis necessary i think
Street
You and Tbogg are totally pathetic.