Steve Benen on a recent NBC/WSJ poll:
The point is, people are frustrated and pessimistic, but they don’t necessarily see President Obama as the culprit. Indeed, the poll asked, “When you think about the current economic conditions, do you feel that this is a situation that Barack Obama has inherited or is this a situation his policies are mostly responsible for?” A large 62% majority said he inherited the mess.
One of the common frustrations a lot of us have with Obama is his reluctance to mention the Bush-era mistakes that led to our current economic situation. But if people already believe that, why waste some of their limited attention span to tell them something they already know?
We spend a lot of time here dissecting the latest emanations from the noise machine. It’s good to remember that some truths are so self-evident that the noise machine isn’t making as big a dent as we might think.
norbizness
Forget literacy tests, the 38% of America I want disenfranchised were on the wrong side of that question.
Comrade Javamanphil
@norbizness A basic logic test should sort that out.
Captain Haddock
It might not be needed now, but really emphasizing how much Bush fucked up could be useful sometime down the road when another Republican president pulls the same crap.
cleek
plus, he does mention it. he mentions it all the fucking time.
and the wingnuts hate it.
jomo
Agreed. The people have had great patience. As the economy seems years from getting back on its feet – one hopes that these figures stay up at least through 2012
mistermix
@cleek: You’re right. Some of the complaining is because he works it in as a subtle reminder, not as the centerpiece of his speeches.
Linda Featheringill
It is encouraging to see that 62% of the respondents can see what has happened.
Maybe now we can just move on to examining ways to deal with the problems.
I saw something in the last few days about Obama looking into ways to may economic moves without approval from congress but was very busy at that time. Then when I looked for it, it was hiding?
Was I hallucinating or was this real?
lol
You saw it. He even offered to include some tax cuts.
Republicans said no, won’t even negotiate.
Edit: Oops, didn’t read your message right.
TreeBeard
For me the major gripe is how defensive he is as president, and doesn’t call out the bullshit that comes from the R camp enough. The times he’s done that he’s laid the smackdown beautifully, just those times don’t come often enough.
VOR
Let me quote Winston Churchill:
“If you have an important point to make, don’t try to be subtle or clever. Use a pile driver. Hit the point once. Then come back and hit it again. Then hit it a third time – a tremendous whack.”
Chris
@ TreeBeard:
It annoys me ofttimes too, but I have to admit, “the times he’s done that he’s laid the smackdown beautifully” indeed. Him sticking it to Trump, and timing it to coincide with the Osama raid, was PRICELESS. He may not do it enough for our liking, but when he does, damn if he doesn’t do it right.
rikryah
On one level it’s obvious, but I think it goes deeper than that.
Most White people aren’t this honest, but it’s there beneath the surface:
if George W. Bush hadn’t of been such a complete and utter failure as President…
this country would have never EVER considered electing a Black Man as President of the United States.
I used to laugh at that Onion article – you know the one – ‘ Black man gets worst job in history’.
but, if you know the history of Black folks and ‘ chances’, they never get chances in ‘ good times’. they only get a chance to shine once everything has gone to shyt.
MattF
Given that
1) the media won’t say out loud that Bush screwed us (e.g., ‘Opinions differ’),
2) anyone saying that Bush screwed us is being controversial and impolite and just really really really meanly and deliberately bruising the feelings of certain profoundly sensitive individuals,
3) wingers lie about economics the way most people lie about sex,
62% is really pretty good.
cleek
IMO, a lot of his appeal (to people who don’t live on blogs) is that he isn’t attacking the GOP all the time. when he speaks, he sounds like an adult. he sounds like he’s above all the bickering. wingnuts call this ‘arrogance’ because he won’t get down in the mud with them. but, my anecdotal evidence says that people love him for it.
YMMV
as a Dem, i’d love it if he used his position to take a few more shots at the GOP. but whatever he’s doing is working for him – his numbers are still pretty good, given the shitty state of the economy.
Linda Featheringill
That might be so.
As I am melanin-challenged, that didn’t occur to me. I’ll have to give it some thought.
japa21
I agree MattF. With all the crap coming from the media, that 62% still realize the reality of the situation, is somewhat amazing.
And Obama has been pretty relentless on reminding people, particularly in the lead up to the 2010 elections. The whole “don’t give them the keys back” was a major message. Part of the problem was that he was just about the only voice out there saying it. Most Dem candidates avoided it, just like they avoided everything else that occured the previous 2 years that was positive.
Sometimes I think the Dems pay too much attention to the polls if it is something negative and not enough when it is something positive.
Republicans just chose to ignore the polls and go full speed ahead no matter what. Thus they are seen as being principled and the Dems as weak.
boss bitch
Obama did spend a lot of time reminding people that he inherited this mess. I remember the right wing freak out and mocking of this part of his speeches. He doesn’t do it as much now.
Jamie
well it goes back to the Onion headline after the election 2008 “Black Man Hired for Worst job in World”
Neldob
Snar. It’s not only the Bush issue, it’s the fact Republicans want our prez to fail so bad they would take the whole country down to make it happen. This is an invitation to word salad… how many ways can you say unpatriotic, party first, country last, not really conservative and radical right.
sb
Republicans have had one strategy–one– for close to four years now: anything the black man in the hizzouse wants, we against it.
It is quite literally the only thing they have going for them. Popular opinion is against them, the public that so many BJers spend time ridiculing know a little more than they are given credit for (witness this poll), and the Repugs have a clown car of candidates. No, the only thing they have is the noise machine and, unfortunately, they have a press corps that loves the noise.
Obama isn’t disappointing me. I don’t like that we still have two-to-three wars going on, I don’t like Guantanamo being open, I think more could have been done about jobs and if I ever encounter Education Secretary Arne Duncan on the basketball court, I’d be morally obligated to lowbridge that Ivy League fuck at the first opportunity (two torn ACL’s and a lifetime of back pain, that’s all I ask). No, Obama has my vote. I’m confident he’ll win in 2012.
No, what pisses me off continuously is that the press–ably represented by my former classmate Mark Halperin–live in a different reality than the 62% of the respondents who don’t have their heads up their ass. The Republican party has never been more insane and the press corp has never, ever been worse. That’s what is disappointing.
Now, if you’ll excuse me, my anti-rant meds are waiting patiently to be swallowed.
Oh, and mix? FU for being right and my being wrong the other day. :)
UPDATE (always wanted to type that): What Matt said.
burnspbesq
For the first time in history, a woman general is in charge of the Marine base at Parris Island, S.C.
Watch out for exploding wingnut heads.
TJ
Because Obama’s polls on his economic performance suck big time. And you better not give the voters any opening to blame him instead of Bush.
tamied
rikrayh –
That seems to be quite often.
boss bitch
That’s what congressional Dems are for. At every moment of every day someone is trashing Obama. He can’t and shouldn’t respond to all of them so that’s where Dems in congress should step in. Most of those critics are just looking to get a rise out of him so they deserve to be ignored.
Daddy-O
When a President is two and a half years into a Depression…and he’s done too little too late because he was stooping and bowing to his enemies…it’s time to take responsibility.
Unless you want to get re-elected.
Obama has not done enough. The Democrats have not done enough. The Republicans do everything they can to help them fail, and they fall all over themselves to cooperate.
EVERYBODY knows this, too. NO ONE gets out of here without some of the blame, including Obama. He is the weakest President I’ve ever seen, with the possible exception of Gerald Ford…
We’re doomed.
yuninv
I believe another reason that 62% believe that it was an inherited mess is because many of them started to see the effect of it all before Bush left office – and neither side has done a damned thing about it since.
Record profits for Wall Street and CEOs – and the unemployment rate is still largely unchanged, the housing market is worse than the Great Depression, and Mitt Romney tells everyone that “he’s unemployed too.”
Yeah – I think those 62% know exactly what is going on – and it doesn’t have to do with party lines either.
kd bart
I was watching Hardball earlier this week and Tweety had, I believe Fineman and Walsh on to discuss what Obama can do to get the economy. Kept going on and on about government investment in infrastructure that would help create jobs but kept avoiding and refusing to mention the giant elephant in the room. The Republicans in Congress who won’t provide one dollar for such a stimulus package because they want the economy to stay in the dumper through the 2012 election.
Ghanima Atreides
I wonder what will happen in December if the 47000 troops stationed in Iraq have to leave, and we have to turn over the three largest airbases ever built on foreign soil to the iraqis. Maliki has been rejecting the US offer to stay and “protect” but a crack just opened in the door. You can bet there has been furious pressure on him under the table to retract his rejection.
But now, there may be an oppo.
Interesting what the headline spin is.
The headline says “Maliki wont reject longer Us troop stay” but Malilikis actual words dont say that at all.
Maliki was only able to form a government because of the Sadrite support this time around. He is largely viewed as an american puppet..
I think we all know what the other political blocs are going to say.
Daddy-O
I see a lot of blame for the MEDIA in this comments thread. If the MEDIA really was to blame as much as you like to think it is…why is the public still able to put the real story together and give Obama a pass, as this poll suggests?
Obama does not get off scot-free here. I focus on him a lot because of what he’s DONE, or FAILED to do that he could have done, and is not likely to do. A good 40% of his policies–domestic, economic, foreign, military, intelligence–are George W. Bush’s policies, and that’s about as distasteful a President as I’ll ever cast a vote for.
cleek
false.
if one cannot ‘know’ a falsehood, then EVERYBODY certainly can’t.
rikyrah
Linda,
this is part of what I wrote over at Jack and Jill Politics in January 2008, when I wrote in favor of Barack Obama:
I cheered Obama on because I thought it was time that places who had never seen a Black candidate up close and personal in this country, would get that opportunity. I wanted for the country to see that a Black Man could run a credible, serious campaign for President and the republic would not fall apart. I had wanted to see that with Colin Powell, but I didn’t get it with him.
The initial question was: was it the ‘ right time’?
I had to laugh at that one, because nobody ever uses ‘ Black’ and ‘ the right time’ in the same sentence. You take the time given to you and you run like hell with it. Obama understood that the door opens rarely like this, so you have to step up or let it pass you by.
Ivan Ivanovich Renko
Those who kvetch that Obama isn’t tough enough or hard enough on the disloyal opposition elide America’s history of being really really harsh on the “angry black man.”
Look I don’t know how to break this to you whitely privileged folk, but the mere fact that the man IS black puts him behind the eight-ball. Most white people won’t vote for him as it is, period full stop. Let the “he’s an angry black Kenyan anti-colonialist who hates white people” meme get ANY traction, and those white people who DID support him will abandon him in droves.
AND YOU FUCKING WELL KNOW IT.
Omnes Omnibus
@ Daddy-O: You have totally convinced me with your huge capitalization skills.
Daddy-O
cleek, the Democrats know it; the Republicans know it; only those who aren’t watching don’t know it.
Close enough for me.
geg6
This. A thousand times this. As an old lefty, it drives me nuts sometimes but then I remember that I’m an old lefty and hardly anyone else is.
Daddy-O
Ivan, I’ll grant you that…for only so much. Yes, Obama has a steeper hill to climb than a white Democratic President would.
But if that’s the case, then he shouldn’t be President. If him not being able to take the heat in the kitchen really is (or is even a large part of) what’s keeping us in a Depression, kept us from a public option, raising taxes on the super-rich…then he’s not doing his job. He’s playing it SAFE.
And that deserves criticism!
We need an FDR. We didn’t get that in Obama. I’m disappointed. VERY disappointed. If that makes you mad…sorry, Charley, I have a right to my opinion, and you have the right to make fun of me…
Ivan Ivanovich Renko
As an aside– I am coming to the conclusion that too many white people are actively looking for a reason to abandon this president.
Maybe its because they’re uncomfortable being known as Obama supporters by their suburban neighbors. Maybe that sub-conscious element of white privilege is taking the reins and reminding them that competence is a white thing. Maybe they’re just tired of watching negroes laud the president for doing what we generally think is a damn good job under the circumstances. (We’ve- no, fuck that, I’ve been voting for white men for president since 1976; and I never expected to get everything I wanted from any of them. But they were usually better than their evil republican opponents, so there we are.)
I don’t know. But the polls show that most white people will not vote for a black guy.
THAT’S the elephant in the room.
Ivan Ivanovich Renko
Congratulations, Daddy-o- you’ve found your reason. Enjoy your Mitt.
Jennifer
Actually, I’d guess the number that REALLY blame Obama, as in failing to understand what a monumental fuck-up Bush was, is lower than 38%, since a certain portion of that 38% are probably soulless hacks who simply hate Obama and will not let an opportunity pass to blame him even for things they know are not his fault.
That having been said, I sure wish Obama and the rest of the Dems would start pounding home the message that what’s going on now is that the GOP has determined that they can never again hold the balance of power while the country enjoys widespread prosperity, and as a result, they are dedicated to insuring that we never again have widespread prosperity. They’ve gone from being more aligned on balance with the wealthy to being the de facto enemies of everyone who isn’t wealthy. I mean, sure, a lot of them are dumb…but most of them aren’t dumb enough to actually believe the bullshit they continually spew about how rich people will “create jobs” if only we stop taxing them entirely. Even your average Joe has woken up to the fact that any jobs they create will be created in China or India.
At this point, Republicans are asking average voters to agree that the taxes they pay should be used in furthering the goal of turning them into serfs.
They aren’t Republicans; they’re Tories, and their only goal is to protect an aristocracy of wealth that they’ve helped to create through their undemocratic policies. It’s to the point where now we’re being told that old people are too expensive to care for, if it means raising a billionaire’s taxes in the slightest, which is just another way of saying that once the aristocracy of wealth has extracted every last bit of profit they can from a worker’s labor, they’re being generous in even allowing the worker to continue living.
Daddy-O
geg6, maybe Obama’s speech-making skills get your approval…but what he DOES is all that gets MINE.
I admit: I’ve been wrong, or off in my critiques. I was pleased to discover that one of the benefits of the highly-flawed Affordable Care Act was this: It saves money. It brings down the cost of health care in this country. Until I knew that, I thought it was a pure corporate giveaway. But it’s more complicated than that.
Some things are. Some aren’t, like persecuting Private Manning and refusing to end the Bush Tax Cuts and putting a Democratic President’s name on them instead…
Daddy-O
Ivan, you can blame me for the election of Mitt Romney, if you want to. I’m to blame? In your mind, dude.
If you really think there are not enough reasons to criticize Obama publicly, why don’t you just say so…?
burnspbesq
False premise, which inevitably leads to false conclusion.
Or have you failed to notice the behavior of Congressional Republicans since 1/20/09?
Daddy-O
“…I am coming to the conclusion that too many white people are actively looking for a reason to abandon this president.”
Wow, dude, are you ever going to look bad when Obama gets re-elected. At this point, most white people think of Obama as President FIRST, black somewhere far behind.
I’m getting the taste that you’re foundering in your arguments if you have to resort to this.
Ivan Ivanovich Renko
Daddy-O: Whatever, white man, whatever.
Daddy-O
burns, I guess I have to spell out my reasoning, then.
The ‘heat’ is the Teabaggers and the out-of-proportion pressure they bring to bear on the GOP and Obama, both. The ‘heat’ is what gave us, among many other serious ECONOMIC mistakes, the extension of the Bush Tax Cuts, now known as the Obama Tax Cuts. A direct flip-flop of a key campaign promise, giving away $700 billion to the super-rich, for $54 billion in TEMPORARY unemployment benefits.
Like that conclusion any better? Didn’t think so. But I like your ‘serious’ dilution of my premise. Very economical, few words needed to make your point, but you didn’t change MY mind.
Daddy-O
Ivan, if I didn’t know any better, I’d say you had nothing left to offer. Damn, looks like I won an argument–on the Internet!
How do you know I’m white, and even if I were, why do you make that sound somewhat like an insult?
Why are people pretty close to attacking me, when all I’m trying to do is exactly what Obama SAID I should do–MAKE him do it?
Daddy-O
Ivan wrote:
“But the polls show that most white people will not vote for a black guy.”
Huh. I guess Obama STOLE that last election, then.
People get all out of sorts when their hero is criticized. I do, too. But sometimes they deserve it. Sometimes it’s important enough to actually listen to and respond to criticism, especially when a country is in the depths of a terrible Depression. Sometimes a hero isn’t enough.
Omnes Omnibus
@ Daddy-O at 46:
There is a difference between winning an argument and having people decide not to beat their collective heads against a brick wall.
Daddy-O
Omnes, if you can’t take a joke…then people aren’t going to listen to your arguments anyway.
If EVERYONE beat their head against a wall, Obama would have to listen to what they think. Something like that.
No one knows better than I do that anyone who wins an argument on the Internet has accomplished the equivalent of winning in the Special Olympics.
eemom
Considering that the $$ savings was a well-known, constantly discussed feature of the bill long before it was actually passed, this kind of suggests you draw conclusions without, you know, bothering to learn the facts.
Idiot.
Ash Can
@ Daddy-O:
Calling him the weakest president you’ve ever seen is “making” him do it?
All you’re doing is, at best, demonstrating that your expectations for him were utterly delusional. If it’s any consolation, you’re not the only one around here who’s like that.
eemom
so now we’re gonna insult disabled people just for the hell of it.
hey Cole, this guy is a real prize. Where’d you find him?
Chris
@ Daddy-O:
Well, with respect – Obama won the overall popular vote, proving that the majority of Americans would vote for a black guy, given the chance. But he didn’t win a majority of the white vote. The point stands.
In fairness, no Democratic candidate since (I think) Carter has gotten a majority of the white vote. But then, a big part of the reason for that is because so many white people see the Democrats as working primarily for “somebody else.” Racial hangups = still an issue.
Ivan Ivanovich Renko
The majority of white people voted for McPain/Failin’, Daddy-O. It was the “minorities” that pushed Obama over the top.
Only a white man would consider that a “stolen” election.
Mnemosyne
So the fact that you weren’t paying attention to the actual bill because you were so fixated on your assumption that the ACA was a “pure corporate giveaway” is supposed to make us think that you must be right about all of your other assumptions?
Last year, Obama signed into law a bill that updated food safety laws for the first time in 70 years. But, hey, who cares about, like, facts and shit when you know in your heart Obama hasn’t done anything you like?
Congratulations. You have officially become one of these guys.
kindness
The need to continue to repeat that the crisis developed before President Obama gained office is because otherwise the Republicans & their syncophants at Phaux Pnews would never acknowledge it.
Linnaeus
My views on the president are mixed, but more positive than negative; I’d definitely much rather have him in the White House than any Republican out there. I’ll be voting for him in 2012 because he will be the best candidate available. Ideal? No, but I’ve never voted for an ideal candidate, if such a being even exists.
That said, the fact that every politician is a flawed human being operating in social and institutional contexts constructed by other flawed human beings doesn’t mean we can’t continue to find the problems in those contexts and seek to fix those. The mess this country is in goes way, way beyond the president. We have a Republican Party that is now openly neofeudalist and a Democratic Party that, IMHO, has really lost its way. Both of those situations are themselves manifestations of a core problem: the drive by economic elites in particular to capture more and more of the nation’s wealth, which in turn gives them political leverage in DC, in state capitals, and in city halls, which in turn enhances their ability to amass more money and power, and the cycle continues. All of our major political institutions have been influenced (or even corrupted) by this elite political program. Stopping that and reversing it has to be a priority, and it will take many years to do it.
Chris
And the people’s decision to let them do it, or indifference to whether or not they do it. Wall Street wasn’t any less greedy in the mid-20th century – popular outrage is what reined them in by force during the New Deal years and popular vigilance (e.g. sending Barry Goldwater home in a McGovern/Mondale-worthy landslide) is what kept them in line afterward. We stopped doing that, and this is the result.
Joe Buck
Just what is the Obama administration telling the public then? They could say “we’d like to do X, but the Republicans are blocking us”, but it seems that they aren’t. The message seems to be that we should stay the course and things will get better.
Linnaeus
@Chris, #58:
Yes, that’s definitely a significant part of the cause of the problem. How and why that happened is a more complex question, but it did.
Catsy
@eemom:
You do not appear to be aware of all Internet traditions.
@Ivan Ivanovich Renko:
You know, it’s funny. In a thread filled with people who are white, black, yellow, orange (I’m looking at you, Boehner–we know you read B-J) and all sorts of shades in between, the only person here making sweeping generalizations based on skin color is… well, you.
That might give a person with some self-awareness a moment of pause. Just sayin’.
Bender
Blaming Bush might work great in 2011, but not in 2012. As even David Gregory had to point out to Debbie Whatsserface-Schlitz, the most of the important economic numbers have gotten much, much worse under Obama’s policies. Obama is on record as saying that if the economy doesn’t turn around by next year, “then there is going to be a one term proposition” (never mind that that Pres. McGenius’s actual phrase makes as much sense than Sarah Palin on crystal meth, we know what he’s saying: he’s likely done — damn those pesky ATMs!).
That interpreting that NBC poll as great news for Obama is a small joke, too. First of all, it’s an poll famous for undersampling Republicans (what? from NBC? no way!). Gallup averages partisan affiliation at about 46% GOP (-2% w/r/t Dems), including leaners. This poll: 34% GOP (32% McCain voters) with leaners (-8% to Dems).
Second, the internals on all recent polls, including NBC’s, are bad for Obama. The deficit is a big concern, the stimulus is seen as a failure, and the bin Laden bounce is gone. Most importantly, people see that the economy has not turned around. No recovery beats recovery 57-42% (sorry, no sale, Debbie Whatswithherhair-Scruntz!).
Approve/disapprove on Obama and the economy, he’s minus-13% (minus-19% in WaPo’s more realistically-sampled poll). NBC doesn’t even ask about the deficit — he’s minus-19% (minus-29% stonglies) at WaPo. Wrong track beats right track 62-29%. Gallup says Generic Republican beats Obama 44-39% now.
Sound like a winner to anyone? These numbers will only get worse for Obama when we narrow to likely voters, and then to actual voters, as the “heat” is all for the GOP this time.
catclub
Joe Buck @ 58 “They could say “we’d like to do X, but the Republicans are blocking us”, ”
But they are not. I believe the reason is that if you say that you look and sound helpless, so they do not say it.
I am not sure I understand this either.
Judas Escargot
@Daddy-O
And I need to be a 6’5″ billionaire with a striking resemblance to George Clooney.
I, too, am disappointed. Very, VERY disappointed.
(Just a friendly little heads’ up: The universe was not created to meet your needs.)
VERBERNE
If 62% think Obama inherited this economic mess, just how did the Republican’s take back the House in the last election?
Bender
@Ivan Ivanovich Renko
The fact that he’s black put him in the Oval Office.
His failed stimulus and unconstitutional health-care plans put President “I guess shovel-ready wasn’t as shovel-ready as we thought! Hyuk! Hyuk! Hyuk!” Obama behind the 8-ball.
Daddy-O
Like our host, Juan Cole, I’m willing to admit mistakes, PUBLICLY, as a way to demonstrate my open-mindedness, but also because I’m looking for reality-based solutions, every single day.
When someone attacks me for that honesty, they look much more out-of-it than I will ever be.
How did I discover that the Affordable Care Act saves money (for the government, if not for me)? I read it on a REPUTABLE PROGRESSIVE BLOG by an economics professor from Berkeley, Brad DeLong, ANOTHER Obama critic.
Where did Juan Cole find me, eemom? Under the same rock you crawled out from…we are more similar in politics than you would like to admit, and when I say that, I’m giving YOU an awful lot of credit.
Final point: Anyone who thinks Obama shouldn’t be criticized is no better than the 27% Dead-Enders who still support the Worst President Ever. Disappointed in Obama? You bet your sweet ass. The alternatives bad enough to give him my vote AGAIN? You bet your sweet ass, they are. And EVERYBODY knows that.
Daddy-O
Judas, the Universe may or may not have been created to provide my needs…but from childhood I have been told that our system of government IS.
It SHOULD be, in theory, and anyone who reads and understands the Constitution knows that, too.
Daddy-O
Mnemosyne, we’ve clashed in the past.
“So the fact that you weren’t paying attention to the actual bill because you were so fixated on your assumption that the ACA was a “pure corporate giveaway” is supposed to make us think that you must be right about all of your other assumptions?”
Your leading question deserves an answer. I’ll phrase it in the form of a substantial, fact-driven question to you:
What is the percentage of what Obama has done–concrete, legislation, Exec Orders, etc–that is GOOD, compared with what he has done that is BAD?
My off-the-cuff answer is, forty percent bad, sixty percent good. He’s a weak, weak President. The Food laws you mentioned…how strongly are they going to be enforced? The law may be in place…but how much BETTER is our food supply going to be compared with before the legislation?
Better, yes, but how much better, with corporatism still running rampant–and most importantly, UNPUNISHED?
It’s NOT OKIYAR, and it’s NOT OKIYA Democrat, either.
piratedan
@sb #20
wanted to give you a “well said” and a “ditto”, topped with a “THIS”.
WereBear
That was then. This is now.
As always, people fell for the Republican lies. Ever wonder why some people run after a person who treats them badly? Because they lie so wonderfully, and push all the right buttons.
But this time the Republicans turned on a dime and were seen whooping it up in CrazyTown instead of jobs jobs jobs; and people are desperate enough to notice, instead of cruising along watching reality shows and not paying attention.
Ivan Ivanovich Renko
Oh, I see, Bender– the man won BECAUSE he’s black.
Jesus, you are fucking delusional.
Ivan Ivanovich Renko
Catsy: Skin color and gender. Because the vast majority of those who bitch about Obama are white men. The vast majority of Republicans are white men.
Also– most white people won’t vote for the guy. Sorry, dem’s just the facts. Sorry.
After a lifetime of having to answer for every piece of black crime, black stupidity, black poverty, black “pathology,” it feels good to turn around and note that yeah, you white men need to talk to your white brothers about the obvious– fucking OBVIOUS racism they exhibit.
Yeah, I’m making sweeping generalizations about straight white men. It’s not like they haven’t spent the last fucking four hundred years making sweeping generalizations about non-white people, is it?
Citizen_X
@Daddy-O #69
Christ on a cracker! Considering the psychotic alternative, that kind of a win percentage is enough to get me to crawl over broken glass to ensure that Mr. “weak, weak President” gets re-elected.
JGabriel
mistermix:
Reinforcement, to make sure they continue to associate the bad economy with Republican policies; and redundancy, to make sure the message continues to get through, especially to newcomers to the argument. See Claude Shannon and information theory for the importance of redundancy in noisy, high entropy, communication systems.
Personally, I’d like to see 80-85% agreeing that the current mess was created by Bush & the GOP. But one could argue that 80% is an unreasonably high expectation, and that getting even 62% means that Obama is already employing the right amount of redundancy.
.
JGabriel
Me:
Adding, on the other hand, that one could argue, as I would, that if the message had been getting through properly, then Republicans wouldn’t have won back the House in 2010.
.
Evolved Deep Southerner
@ Daddy-O
Do I smell Gass or is it just me?
Evolved Deep Southerner
John, if you keep letting Daddy-O call you “Juan Cole” over and over, you’re going to have the FBI digging through your garbage and tapping your phones and dis-inviting you to conferences and shi.
Triassic Sands
First of all, 62% is not a high enough percentage for something that is simple fact. Obviously, the message needs to be hammered home and hammered and hammered.
Further, those 62% are going to be bombarded with contrary messages, and in the absence of reinforcement, it is entirely possible that their perfectly reasonable perception will be replaced by some preposterous GOP talking point.
Nothing can be taken for granted in a system so filled with people who are so “stupignorant.”
Judas Escargot
@Daddy-O
I’m pretty sure that the United States wasn’t created to meet all of your (or my) needs, either.
Catsy
Aaaand, just for a moment ladies and gentlemen, Bender lets the white hood slip.
You’re either a racist piece of shit or a really low-quality spoof. Take your pick.
Catsy
Yeah, and guess what, Sparky? It doesn’t get any more noble or high-minded when the racism is flowing from black to white rather than the other way around. It’s still indefensible bullshit, it’s just that now it’s indefensible bullshit that’s coming from you rather than an asshole in a white hood. Worse, it’s indefensible bullshit that you’re directing at your allies in a fit of pique.
‘Cause guess what? Unless you haven’t been paying attention, you’re commenting on a blog that regularly highlights the racism at the heart of the teabaggers, where one of the front-pagers has a recurring theme of demonstrating how the Republican Party is becoming the Confederate Party, and where the overwhelmingly vast majority of the commenters are 100% on board with your desire to see my fellow privileged white men put their shit in order and stop being racist fucks.
But you’re not helping anything by acting like a racist fuck yourself. It just makes you part of the problem you hate so much.
Ivan Ivanovich Renko
Catsy:
Oh, gotdammit. You’re right. It’s just that I’ve seen so much shit over the last two and a half years, it’s really taken a toll.
But still, point taken. This is the Juice, where the real assholes get beat down regularly.
Catsy
Ivan: I can but imagine. And I mean that literally.
It is damn scary how blatant the racism and insanity from the right has become. The Bush years were bad, but Obama’s election seems to have really driven the neo-Confederates in the GOP over the edge. They’re barely hiding it anymore.
Epicurus
Whether or not Obama inherited a mess (which he demonstrably did), the simple fact is that the agenda of the Republican Party is to deny him reelection. They have therefore made their business to prevent any significant legislation from passing and helping to improve the economy. Their hypocrisy and failure to do their jobs should shame every single member of the GOP in Congress.
OzoneR
If you spend a few minutes Googling the name Huey Long, you’ll find we didn’t get that in FDR either.
Cerberus
cleek @14
Actually, the main problem for progressives is that a lot of progressive policy ends up in the “attacking the GOP” camp. Standing up for women’s rights, black civil rights, non-war-based foreign policy, Keynesian economics, gay rights, the poor in general, etc… ends up being cast by our bought and sold media as being mean to Republicans.
I don’t think there would be many minding if he was just refusing to call Republicans fuckers if there wasn’t this sense among Democrats that doing things like standing up for basic reality and popular policies were equivalent and Obama wasn’t often getting distracted by those viewpoints to water down already compromised legislation with more Republican wish list items like meaningless tax cuts or removal of actual checks against abuse.
It’s especially frustrating when we here on the ground are literally dying by these compromises.
As example, a good close friend is struggling to make enough money on her own to pay for an anti-cancer regimen. Why?
Because she was a victim of recision, one of the few things the useless PPACA was supposed to fix. She’s dying because good fixes were thrown out in compromise until what got produced had no beneficial effect on anyone.
And a weak stimulus and some bad compromises has led to the “deficit obsession” bullshit that Obama can’t do anything to escape because saying “it’s complete and utter bullshit to obsess about it in a Depression, read a fucking book about Hoover” would be as “too confrontational” as just calling Republicans fuckwads.
I don’t think anyone cares if Obama thinks he needs to be friendly to Republicans but we’re getting tired of having the debate and solutions handicapped because too many democrats in general are too frightened to stand up for reality and good policy.