You know what they say: Never negotiate with terrorists. It only encourages them.
These last few months, much of the country has watched in horror as the Tea Party Republicans have waged jihad on the American people. Their intransigent demands for deep spending cuts, coupled with their almost gleeful willingness to destroy one of America’s most invaluable assets, its full faith and credit, were incredibly irresponsible. But they didn’t care. Their goal, they believed, was worth blowing up the country for, if that’s what it took.
[….]For now, the Tea Party Republicans can put aside their suicide vests. But rest assured: They’ll have them on again soon enough. After all, they’ve gotten so much encouragement.
Reader Interactions
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Freddie
It’s true with children, it’s true with dogs, it’s true with Republicans: when you reward bad behavior, you ensure that you’ll get more of it.
brendancalling
that’s not very hopeful or changeful Doug. But true: in a few weeks, we’ll see something else held hostage, and Obama will roll over again. And then in 2012, we’ll reward him for his hard work at rolling over with our votes! Hooray for “democracy”.
Keith G
What are you talking about? This was an 11th dementional chess win for the White House!
MikeJ
So during the campaign when Obama said he would talk to Iran with no preconditions, I thought that most people here agreed that it was a good idea. I certainly thought so.
But talking to the majority party in the House is bad, even when you kept the social safety net and got massive military cuts?
You’re fucking delusional.
Emma
I am sick and tired of all the stupid “we don’t negotiate with terrorists” bs. We do. ALL THE TIME. You have to, or they kill (edit: more) hostages. The bloody British negotiated with the IRA, and they were bombing London for thirty years.
Idiots.
And you know what? I hope Obama loses in 2012. I hope we get a Romney presidency with Republican supermajorities. I hope you then learn the difference between sane and crazy.
But I’m not holding out any hope.
Redshirt
What else do you expect from the “Liberal Media”?
Down the memory hole with ya!
OzoneR
People have been saying the same thing “Oh, all of a sudden you liberals don’t want to talk to terrorists”
The thing about the terrorist analogy is it doesn’t work. If we don’t negotiate with terrorists, we kill them. Is killing Republicans an option? Otherwise, enough with the analogy, it doesn’t work.
OzoneR
People have been saying the same thing “Oh, all of a sudden you liberals don’t want to talk to terrorists”
The thing about the terrorist analogy is it doesn’t work. If we don’t negotiate with terrorists, we kill them. Is killing Republicans an option? Otherwise, enough with the analogy, it doesn’t work.
OzoneR
@Emma:
the funny thing about this is what will happen when the next Democratic nominee for President makes Obama look like FDR.
Lolis
@brendancalling:
I don’t know if there are any hostages left since this deal also includes passage for the September budget by unanimous consent. That was a nice surprise, at least.
I actually think it would be smart if Obama and Senate Dems introduced various stimulative measures, one by one. One could be state aid for schools, another infrastructure money, another UI extension. Make Republicans pay for each defeat.
lamh34
Question, why is it always this side of the argument that is “shrill”?
I know it’s an inside thing, but it getting kinda stupid. So does ONLY thoses who are considered DFH allowed to be shrill? Or is anyone who feels strongly about any side of pro or con allowed to be “shrill”?
(I’m thinking from CW that being “shrill” is a good quality in a liberal blogger/commenter…right?)
i.e. Krugman is shrill! Greenwal is shrill! Hamsher is shrill!! Is ABL allowed to be “shrill” or is she just an O-BOT.
Are O-bot by nature of being an O-bot NOT allowed to be “shrill”? Or is it just a badge of honor for those who haven’t “drunk the kool-aid”.
JPL
@OzoneR: I couldn’t agree more. It all starts with Boehner. Bills originate in the house and Boehner decided to work with the extremists in his own party rather than work with the minority.
Scott
The Republicans are supposed to be the nihilists. Why do I keep hearing supposed liberals talking about how much they wish Obama had blown up the global economy?
A week ago, we were talking about what a disaster that would’ve been — now, we can’t stop talking about how much we wish that’d happened. Anything to keep from not getting everything we want! Oh, if only we’d solved the hostage crisis by having our sniper blow the hostage’s brains all over the wall…
OzoneR
@Lolis:
pay how? Do you think people will be get because they didn’t vote for spending? The public doesn’t believe more government spending works.
Hell, Democratic-leaning Nassau County, New York rejected fiscal stimulus at the ballot box last night by a 14-point margin.
OzoneR
Furthermore, the terrorist rhetoric is likely to unleash another round of “both sides do it”
remember when we criticized Palin over her “palling around with terrorists” comment?
Emma
@OzoneR: The same way there’s a bunch of jackasses wailing for their lost Clinton golden era. NAFTA. Don’t Ask Don’t Tell. The most botched health care reform attempt in years (edit: decades!). Oh, but the Big Dog would have…. but Hillary would have…
The Clintons invented triangulation. They moved the whole Democratic party to the right (they called it the center, but that was pure bs for the rubes). And we have forgotten it all.
If I wanted to live in fantasy land I’d move to Middle Earth.
Mark S.
@MikeJ:
What exactly could Iran hold over us in negotiations that is similar to what the GOP was doing with the threat of default? I suppose they could threaten to attack us, but that wouldn’t work out too well for them. The Republicans were so insane that most of them thought that default would be a good thing.
Ken
@Scott:
I don’t know, Scott. It’s a bit reductive to portray the liberal bad mood right now as a tantrum because “we didn’t get everything we wanted.”
I mean, I don’t know if liberals got anything they wanted, but that’s just me…
JPL
During the 2000 election some thought Nader was the better alternative. That during work out so good.
kdaug
Two words: “Hostage Negotiator”
Might of heard of it – standard-issue LEO job. Most large cities have one.
Minimum Masters in psychology, usually a PhD.
Jewish Steel
Be assured those bastards are going to find something else to demagogue while they are in congress. Could we possibly brace ourselves and not turn into a bunch of despairing teenage cutters the next time our political enemies (that’s what they are) do something we don’t like?
Can we be a little tougher?
Bob L
brendancalling @
Sigh, if only Obama was willing to exercise the Oliver Cromwell option; order the military to dissolve Congress and declare himself Protector of the United States for life.
Scott
@Ken: No, we got what we wanted. We got what we’d called Congressmen telling them we wanted. We got the debt ceiling raised so we wouldn’t crash the global economy. And we got it despite the crazy-ass motherfucking teabaggers insisting that crashing the global economy was going to be so fucking awesome, man. We saved the goddamn hostage, and all I hear now is people bitching that we never really cared about that dumb hostage. We could’ve killed the hostage and looked sooo tough.
4tehlulz
@kdaug: Is yelling “Do it if you have the balls!” considered good experience?
Just Some Fuckhead
Doug, all of you frontpagers had ample opportunity to put up a thread asking folks to call their congresspersons to encourage them to vote no. I’m not sure what’s the point of sitting on yer ass watching it go down, only to cheer on the complaining after it’s too late to do anything.
bkny
i hadn’t realized that the unemployment extension had been offered up by the dems.
but i’m sure mr hopey changey will negotiate an extension in the weeks to come …
Sinsiter Eyebrow
We’ve entered the era of government by crisis, primarily self-inflicted manufactured crisis.
I shudder to think of what the next idiotic “crisis” these bananaheads manufacture will look like, or what kind of shit sandwich they will serve up as a solution.
Honestly, how do you counter the “do it my way or I’ll burn the joint down” approach to policy making?
If any of you complainers were in Obama’s shoes and had the livelihood of 300+ million people in one hand, and the shit sandwich in the other, which one would you pick?
Samara Morgan
@DougJ
Chunky Bobo does not agree.
The teabaggers think they won….they cannot appreciate subtlety.
Obama and the dems have crafted a wedge issue for conservatives, and created a choice between increasing revenues and decreasing defense. The supercomission can reccommend raising tax revenues with actual tax increases on the rich and corporations, or let the hammer fall on defense– or Obama can let the Bush taxcuts expire to increase revenue by 3.6 trillion (CBO figure).
The teabaggers and the libertarians and the conservatives swore a no new taxes bloodoath– so O just did an end run around that.
and its just now starting to sink in to the semi-sapients like chunky bobo and yuval levin what he did there– O magically transmuted defense cuts into revenue. That is why Douchehat is whining about O treating defense cuts as revenue– because he is.
Redshirt
Did anyone mention at all in the latest brouhaha that contraception is now free from all US Insurance companies due to, in large part, Barack Obama?
Same as Bush though!
Hill Dweller
In other news, the House has gone on recess for 5 weeks, without passing the FAA authorization. That brilliant decision will cost the government approximately a billion dollars.
They are terrorists.
Bob L
Mark S @
Block the Straits of Hormuz with sunk supertankers, use their missiles to spread radioactive material over the Saudi oil fields. How is that?
Starfish
@lamh34: Look at the Balloon Juice Lexicon.
Shrill– Telling the unpopular truth. The polar opposite of a pundit whose slavish devotion to mainstream approval leads him or her to frequently wrong conclusions (see Serious person). Someone dubbed ‘shrill’ can be reliably accurate but nonetheless ignored for stepping outside the “acceptable” range of political opinion (see ‘Overton Window’). Particularly hated by Villagers, Beltway insiders, and ‘serious people’ because their example makes it impossible to claim that everyone believed a point that turned out to be wrong (e.g., WMDs in Iraq). Notable shrill people include Howard Dean, Al Gore, and Paul Krugman. The correct usage takes the form “Paul Krugman is shrill.” It should be noted, however, that Michael Moore is not shrill; rather, Michael Moore is fat.
Steve
I realize this is just a bunch of red meat, but still, it’s nice to see Nocera doubling down on the Biden comments that inspired so much Republican poutrage yesterday. “How dare you say in a closed-door meeting that we acted like terrorists? You take that back!”
stormhit
@Keith G:
Yes, because anything that’s planning ahead is “x-dimensional chess.”
You circular firing squad assholes will absolutely never learn.
The Other Bob
As a liberal I too am pissed that people caved into the tea party economic terrorists.
BUT – The deal isn’t really much of anything. While I would prefer a second stimulus, $10b in cuts, half of which from Defense over the next two years won’t have a significant impact on the economy.
The Congressional Budget Office recently reported that if we let the Bush tax cuts expire, the deficit will be gone by 2014. Then we have a huge debt to start paying down.
Did liberal really think that we would be able to pay the debt down wihout AT LEAST $2.7 b in cuts over the next 10 years? I would have expected more under the best circumstances.
billy rae valentine
i’d just like to add that any viewing of right-wing blogs and news sites reveals that the debt ceiling deal is being described there as a huge loss for conservatives and a blank check giveaway to Obama and “libs”.
i find it very interesting that the bill is a huge loss in the minds of both sides; that it’s somehow Obama’s biggest pathetic cave-in yet they are insane with anger at redstate over how much they gave to “him” because they didn’t want to even raise the debt ceiling and these cuts aren’t real cuts (they are make-believe?). Two opposite perceptions of reality. To me, it looks like the definition of compromise, at least in a way.
NonyNony
@MikeJ:
I’m not going to comment one way or another about whether the deal was good or bad but this is serious, grade-A level radioactive bullshit right here.
Talking to Iran is NOT the same as bending over backwards to make a fucking deal with Iran on their terms. Obama was talking with the House majority leadership for months with “no preconditions” on those talks. Good enough. If he hadn’t had those talks and seriously tried to work a deal then THAT would be analogous to what Grampa Munster was warbling on about where he wouldn’t even TALK to Iran until they unilaterally disarmed, apologized to the US for kicking out the Shah, and offered to suck Grampa Muster off for the rest of his term in office.
The two are not remotely similar. If Obama went into negotiations with Iran and came out with a “deal” whereby they got to keep everything they wanted and we agreed to give them a suitcase full of money you’d have a situation that is slightly more analogous to what what happened here.
Just because you TALK with people doesn’t mean you fucking AGREE to do what they want. Perhaps Grampa Munster and some of his Republican flying monkeys believe shit like that but that’s not how negotiations are supposed to work.
Hill Dweller
@Jewish Steel: McConnell is already saying they are going to do the exact same thing in 2013, when the debt ceiling is due to be raised.
Baud
You know what else encourages terrorists. Winning elections.
Zach
What are the odds that enough of the House GOP has the stamina for another round of this in two months when the current continuing resolution runs out? Perhaps it’s Stockholm Syndrome talking, but I think there’s a good chance that more demands so soon would actually backfire this time. That said, the GOP’s stupid to not use the opportunity to demand permanent extensions of the Bush tax cuts. They’ll say that small businesses can’t plan beyond 2012 out of fear that taxes will rise in a year and that’s what’s really holding back the recovery.
stormhit
@Scott:
Because for all the talk about hating the beltway coverage and framing of events, political geeks on political blogs only actually care about playing little political games.
General Stuck
I can accept the charge of the republicans in congress as being similar to a kind of terrorist mentality. But only because the debt ceiling was such an insane and potentially causing mayhem around the world.
But they weren’t doing anything illegal, though clearly immoral and irresponsible to choose this venue to fight their ideological battles, with a piece of legislation that not passed would be like an econ bomb going off around the world. What they did, or threatened to do was within the duty and purview for agreeing, or not, on a legitimate legislative action. The fact that it was unconscionable to use as a bargaining chip is a separate matter. In a more perfect world, they would pay a steep political price for putting us through the bullshit they did. They will likely get away with it, to a large degree, this time.
While the public may give the white majority party a mulligan for their antics with the debt ceiling, like they are prone to do, I don’t agree that whatever they feel they won, the leadership and GOP braintrust will be eager to repeat this craziness, say with the regular budget battles and funding the government to operate. My impression is that the sane part that is still the majority of wingers in congress, are quite happy with dodging the bullet they fired at themselves and all of us.
I could well be wrong about this, and time will tell. But this event saturated the media for weeks, and a significant number of usually tuned out citizens have some idea that we were about to do something very destructive, that was initiated by republicans.
My guess is that Boehner and his plutocrat puppetmasters, are thinking to go back to more subtle and sly ways of using leverage, that does not include burning down the world, and big industry with it. 32 out of the 60 tea tard freshman in the house ended up voting for this bill, that they despised as much as liberals did. And while still nihilistic assholes, hopefully they will dial it down, the brinkmanship, or at least enough of them that they don’t threaten or take actions to blow it all up. But WoW, could I easily be very wrong about that. We shall see.
The Other Bob
@Redshirt:
Yes, I noticed and wanted to post the same thing.
Same as Bush…
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
The hostage taker analogy has a couple of failings. The biggest one being that the hostage taker does not have any power beyond the immediate situation. The Republicans, on the other hand, control one branch of Congress, and have enough people in the Senate to make things tough.
@MikeJ‘s point about dealing with Iran is much truer. I liken all of this to having to deal with that uncle during Christmas that everyone avoids most of the year, but you see when you go to grandma’s house.
People need to get over the fact that Obama is dealing with these people. He has to. And they make it much worse because not only do they threaten to take down the government if they don’t get their way, their “way” is to actually take down the government. They think this is a good thing. The only way to deal with them in the long run is to remove them from Congress and don’t let them near the presidency.
Zach
@Emma
I figure there’s about even odds that either party is the next to wind up with a unified House/Senate/Presidency. Given this, I’d totally support a compromise wherein both parties agree to allow the next party overseeing a unified government to fully implement their agenda (practically, this would only mean rewriting the Senate rules to have supermajority requirements set aside during times of unified government). I’d rather the GOP have had a free hand from 2005-2007 to do whatever they wanted and let the voters decide whether or not they did a good job in the next election. Ditto for Democrats from 2009-2011.
kdaug
@4tehlulz: Not generally.
mike in dc
I sincerely hope Obama wins, and the Dems retake the House and extend their majority in the Senate, come 2012. But if all this Third Way/New Democrat stuff fails, I think it’s time to roll out a new movement: Scorched Earth Democrats
RSA
I agree that the Republicans were (are) acting like terrorists, and I’d hoped for a better outcome. But not negotiating? The metaphor assumes that there are people on the outside negotiating with terrorists holding people hostage. In this case it’s as if we’re all in the same room with a suicide bomber. Negotiation seems reasonable. Now that the immediate emergency is over, though, it’s time to take care of the bad guys.
Norwonk
Oh, look:
Nobody could have predicted…
Starfish
This is funnier than most of the other stuff about the debt ceiling.
This shows you the real pain and frustration.
NonyNony
@billy rae valentine:
That’s because they’re extremists – they were not going to be happy with ANYTHING that came out of a negotiation because in the end it had to be something that Democrats could hold their nose and pass.
And that’s not good enough for them – if they aren’t seeing their enemies crushed and hearing the lamentations of their women then they’ve fucking lost the battle and the only solution is to BE MORE CONSERVATIVE — CONSERVATISM CANNOT FAIL IT CAN ONLY BE FAILED!!!!
They were never going to be happy with anything the Congress passed. Boehner was an idiot for thinking he could use this to score political points – you can’t score points with people whose politics are built around resentment and opposition to the black guy and anything liberals want.
Only in the stupid “both sides are unhappy so that makes it a compromise” sort of way. Look back at Cole’s description of negotiating with a crazy date where you suggest Italian for dinner and she demands a plate full of old tires covered in anthrax. Pouring some marinara on top of the tires and anthrax is not really a compromise is it?
And with these guys, pouring marinara on top of the tires and anthrax means THEY GAVE IN AND YOU “WON”. So next time it needs to be e coli and rusty nails or else. You can’t negotiate with that – you can only do damage control.
Mark S.
@Bob L:
Well, they might have some fun for a couple of months before the entire world declared war on them.
Hell, we negotiate with North Korea, and they’re crazier and could really fuck shit up. But even Kim Jong-il isn’t suicidal.
eric
I have said this multiple times already, but the dems employ the technocrats on the Hill, not the GOP and certainly not the TPers. This Bill will shake out just fine given the alternative of world financial turmoil, cuts to SS benefits, raising retirement ages. The last two will be fought again in response to the Commissions recommendations, because you know that is coming. So, we can have stand alone fights on matters that people understand as opposed to the slightly more esoteric “debt ceiling,” which most Americans did not get.
Liberals can still win this. I have yet to hear it explained how the Tanned One is going to get his caucus to agree to cuts that MUST pass the Senate TOO following the commission’s report.
Defense is the new revenue, except defense spending is largely keynsian, so that cuts will have anti-stimulative effects.
once more into the breach
Zach
@Belaphon
Yup. Had Obama unilaterally raised the debt ceiling (via the 14th Amendment or saying that spending resolution supercede the ceiling), he would’ve been forced to accept greater concessions in two months (the argument that he should’ve asked for more in exchange for extending the Bush cuts is very reasonable, though). There’s probably some legal rationale to ignore the debt ceiling that’d pan out, but there’s no way to spend without authority from Congress. If he’d acted alone on the debt ceiling, the dynamic would change a lot as to who would be responsible for government shutdown in September.
Keith G
@Bob L:
Sigh.
This fallacy of biforcation needs to be put away. Actually, I think Obama did rather well in the last hours, and (maybe) ok in the last weeks. It’s just that some feel it never should have come down to this. We saw a outcome that had some of it roots 6 to 24 months ago. And I wonder if this will continue onward.
debg
I’m less concerned with the labels for this behavior (it’s just name-calling, after all) and more concerned with its repetition. Mitch McConnell told Neil Cavuto yesterday that all future debt ceiling negotiations will be like this from now on–there’s a Think Progress story on it.
Samara Morgan
@Jewish Steel: look for a ramp up to war with Iran. its their only hope.
Mullen is trying very hard to use Iran as an excuse to stay in Iraq past December.
But Muqtada is one step ahead of those retards.
Panetta tried to get the Kurdish bloc to vote to keep the Murricans on, but Malliki did an end run around that.
Mullen is ostensibly “worried” about Iran destabilizing Iraq…but really he’s worried about the new virtual shi’a caliphate…when Qom and Karbala become one. :)
And i dont think immunity is going to fly with the Mahdi Army.
The US is offering 10000 troops– the Mahdi Army was 60000 strong when Muqtada froze it, and 2.5 MILLION people just signed the petition to kick america out.
Consent of the governed, dudes and dudettes.
Violet
The country got to see how dysfunctional the Republicans are and how they’re held hostage by the Tea Party. I think that might be a positive outcome in the end. Even people who have supported the Tea Party or Republicans in the past were appalled. Not everyone, of course, but many were.
Munira
@Scott: You’ve hit on the similarity between the far left and far right. It’s always my way or the highway – no compromise – kill the hostage – whatever. There are always people who think like that on both sides of the political spectrum, and it’s fine if they rant and bitch forever, but it isn’t good when they actually get into positions of power. The problem we’re having now is that the extreme right is in a position of power. The extreme left has virtually no influence except among bloggers. I’m not impressed by people who are willing to kill the hostage – on the right or the left. It takes more courage to actually get in there and work things out no matter how messy it is. I’m still amazed by how many people really wanted Obama to jump in and save them by some executive action – including people in congress, who seemed to be saying, Oh this is just too hard, can’t you save us from ourselves?. I’m glad he didn’t do that though and congress was finally forced to take action even though no one – right or left – is particularly crazy about the compromise – but that’s the nature of compromise and it cannot possibly ever satisfy the perpetually persecuted on either the right or the left.
Zach
@Keith G: To me, the biggest failure of the 111th Congress and Obama, by far, was not passing an FY2011 budget. You only need 50 votes for a budget in the Senate; it could’ve been done, but everyone was too shell-shocked from the election to do anything afterwards and too worried about electoral consequences to do anything before the election.
Had a budget been passed, all of the government-shutdown talk would’ve been put off till October 2011. Paul Ryan’s budget would’ve come out right about now – with greater political consequences attached to axing Medicare, etc. Raising the debt ceiling would’ve been easier — the GOP could just blame Democrats who’d passed the budget requiring it, or Democrats could’ve raised it at the same time the budget was passed.
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
@debg: Except it will stop the moment a Republican president and a Republican Congress are in power.
Felanius Kootea
The only way to beat the tea-partiers is to ensure that most of them become one-term congresspeople, replaced by sane adults. Does the Democratic party have a plan for this? With all due respect to Nocera, if half of the population votes in terrorists, we all have to deal with the fallout. Now that the terrorists are emboldened, they will continue to overreach, right up to the next election. But the Democrats need a strategy to unseat them – most people I know are completely tuning out to the political process right now instead of viewing the tea party as the threat that it is.
General Stuck
Mcconnell is a posturing jackass. It was his plan that defused this bullshit. And that is not lost on the more extreme dark places of scorched earth wingnuttery. I am sure he and others intend to have “this discussion” after 2013, for raising the debt limit, but I seriously doubt they will push it to the last moment again.
Raven (formerly stuckinred)
@Samara Morgan: like I said, di di mau. . .unass that mofo
Raven (formerly stuckinred)
@Felanius Kootea: Shit, they have Georgia gerrymander so well there is no fucking chance to get rid of Broun.
Samara Morgan
hmm….2.5 million out of a population of 30.4 million.
that would be equivalent to roughly 27.1 million americans signing a petition.
henrythefifth
They definitely have been encouraged, haven’t they? On the cover of July 28’s Roll Call newspaper in DC, they had a picture of Sen. DeMint, on an empty stage, with a paltry three tea partiers standing behind him. There are about 20 news cameras spread out in front of him. Yet this was front page news in DC. A small, whacky, cultish group peddling divisiveness draws that much press. Could you imagine if Bernie Sanders and three hippies held a press conference? Would it get any press?
Jewish Steel
@Hill Dweller: Since we’ve turned the budget into a two step process there’s going to be fracas over one step or the other.
McTurtle can threaten whatever he likes but if this bruises the Rs more than it does us, look for this strategy to be quietly forgotten.
Loviatar
The thing that you Obots may not have realized is that while the not negotiating with terrorist may get the current hostage killed. It will preclude terrorist from believing that they can take hostages to get their way.
Yes it is difficult on the individual hostage but it serves society in the long run, because you won’t give a small group of people the ability to terrorize their way to their agenda.
Sack up Obots there are always someone out there who wants to terrorize the country. Shit LBJ got the Civil Rights law passed in the face of outright racist threatening to destroy the country and with the knowledge that he had irreparably harmed the Democratic party, but he got it done
Next time you talk about liberals being naive and not stepping up, look in the mirror for the real wusses. We know what the cost is and we’re willing to pay it for a better long term future, you, you’re just willing to go along to get along.
Raven (formerly stuckinred)
@henrythefifth: No but one doob would go pretty far!
wrb
I think the left has gone insane.
Obama started wanting a clean bill- one with none of this stuff that people claimed would be their if he hadn’t “rolled over.”
Republicans refused.
Her ended up with a bill that, as far as I can tell, is better much for Democrats and worse for Republicans than the clean bill. In a sane world that would be called a triumph.
If I recall the fight correctly, it was Republicans who always blocked cuts to provider compensation. It was Democrats who wanted to Make health care more affordable.
This bill does that, makes impossibly massive cuts to our bloated military, and it is rumored, cuts farm subsidies at least if we recognize how good this is and don’t let the super committee exchange it for crap. What is not to like?
We’re in a fight for the survival of this country but some self-indulgent jerks get so much pleasure running around screaming “he touched Medicare!!! aiiii!! aaaaiiiii!!!” they are willing to hand the government to Bachman and let the Tea Parties get away with treason because shifting the narrative to their strange psyco-sexual problems with Obama is more important.
Emma
@Zach: I am sure that any relatives or friends of yours who live off their social security and tiny savings, or who depend on Medicare for their survival will love it too. And I am SUUUUURE that people won’t vote against their own best interest — may I point you to Louisiana, Alabama, and Texas?
iriedc
@Baud
I was thinking something similar. I’m gonna lick my wounds for a few days and then get my ass in gear on Democratic party voter registrations.
Samara Morgan
@Raven (formerly stuckinred): Muqtada?
they can’t. he just spent 4 years in Iran studying to be the next Sayyid Sistani, the Grand Ayatollah of all the Shi’ia.
good luck with that.
the US mil needs to get the message– we are DONE in Iraq and A-stan.
gene108
What exactly is so bad about this bill?
From what I’ve read there will be modest cuts for the next two years and some unnamed cuts to be decided in the future.
Tax increases have not been ruled out as a method to reduce the deficit.
It’d be great for the Federal government to back stop state and local governments, so public sector lay offs would abate, but the political will do that seems to be non-existent.
No one on the left has really highlighted the fact that for every two private sector jobs created, since 2009, one public sector job is cut, which is what is really hurting the economy.
I think what this bill really does is pushing for Democratic majorities again in 2012, in both Houses of Congress imperative.
The cuts are to be named after the 2012 election. With Democrats in charge the damage will be less bad and / or this bill could be annulled by a future act of Congress.
Corner Stone
I’m loving the new meme that “defense cuts = revenue”.
Well you know what else equals revenue?
Samara Morgan
@wrb:
exactly. white male sexual jealousy of the Black Man is a component in all of this.
Corner Stone
@Just Some Fuckhead:
It seems your worst fears have been realized.
The frontpagers are all objectively pro Grover Norquist.
Raven (formerly stuckinred)
@Samara Morgan: From the Urban Dictionary
“Common expression amongst military personnel, on and off the job. meaning roughly, “get the fuck out quickly.”
“Dude, i just busted a beer bottle on that bouncers face, and there are cops everywhere, we gotta get the fuck out of here, di di mau! di di”
unass
To leave or vacate quickly.
We decided to unass that place when the shells started falling.
Corner Stone
@The Other Bob:
This is the prime meme coming out of this deal. “Cuts won’t have a significant impact on the economy.”
liberal
MikeJ wrote,
In what sense were the Iranians holding us hostage at the time?
Analogy fail.
General Stuck
@wrb:
I was reading this morning, if I was awake to understand what I read, and can’t remember where, that the enforcement mandatory cuts to defense would be about 900 billion, which is a stunning number out of the total cutting.
Corner Stone
And I see the Machiavellian Memer is in full effect on yet another thread telling us all how Obama = Wile E. Coyote, Soooper Genius.
kdaug
@Mark S.:
Neither are the Persians.
Samara Morgan
@Corner Stone: i will bite.
in a way, Obama is holding the Bush tax cuts hostage now.
and defense spending.
;)
wrb
How? Plenty of them wanted to destroy the economy. It would be blamed on Obama and bring them into power and in over the next four years they would have made the America of their dreams- no ACA, medicare, social security, education funding, sustainable energy initiatives, public lands, taxes on the “job creators” … well worth crashing the economy to a TP
liberal
@Emma:
Speak for yourself. I count myself as a liberal, deride O-bots for making excuses for Obama, and never liked Clinton because he moved the party to the right. I’ve certainly not forgotten.
gene108
I know the left has gone insane.
The institutional left is no longer interested in winning anything. They are only interested in stoking their own ego.
our government was built to function ONLY when opposing sides COMPROMISE.
Instead of touting this as a triumph for President Obama who compromised and worked with an unbelievably obstructionist House and made the government function instead of shut down, all the conventional wisdom that’s being peddled is about how Obama “sold out” and is a weak negotiator.
The Teabaggers haven’t gotten a damn thing yet. Almost everything is TBD at a future date, after the 2012 elections.
Now is the time to use this bill, the adultness of President Obama and the fact he is attempting to run government the way it was intended to be run, by compromising with what both sides want, to bush hard for Democrats in 2012.
On a side note, I truly respect right-wingers in keeping focused. For example, business interests want to privatize Social Security or gut it out right. That was not in this bill at all. Instead of throwing a fit about how the Republicans have betrayed them and how much better America would be without Social Security or with private accounts and lower taxes on “job creators”, they have declared victory.
They always declare victory, even when they haven’t won anything. To the casual observer, who reads the “horse race” reporting endemic in the media, this just comes across as Republicans being effective and Democrats being ineffectual.
At some point left-wingers need to highlight the positive things Democrats have done and not always focus on the negative.
OzoneR
@gene108:
It’s passage proves the left is politically irrelevant.
liberal
@OzoneR:
No, but saying “I’m not saying anything but a clean debt limit raise bill” was, combined with waiting for the business community to put the screws on the Republicans.
Loviatar
@ 74 – gene108:
Winners and losers: policy edition
Add in the fact that the Obama administration was willing to lift the Medicare eligibility age from 65 to 67, and perhaps Medicare is in more trouble than we thought.
.
Five cuts the debt commission might make to Medicare, Medicaid
.
What the debt ceiling deal means for the unemployed
.
How the debt deal will squeeze the states, in one infographic
.
Thats all from Ezra’s page yesterday afternoon. Let me know if you need any more on whats going to be cut and who is going to feel the pain.
OzoneR
@liberal:
both of which was done, and it didn’t work.
Cacti
@Loviatar:
You can always tell that someone occupies a fairly comfortable perch when they start talking about who needs to be sacrificed “because it serves society”.
Oddly enough, they never seem to offer themselves up on the altar to “serve society in the long run”. It’s always the life an unknown other that they’re willing to gamble.
Omnes Omnibus
@Samara Morgan: You do realize that no one here is arguing with you or disputing the need/advisability/requirement of getting out of Iraq or Afghanistan, right?
Culture of Truth
That could be true of negotiating with anyone, and if terrorists are different, it not the encouragement aspect that makes them so.
You might negotiate with a political radical or zealot or a criminal who has taken hostages, but the reason you cannot negotiate with a terrorist or suicide bomber if that they are not amenable to negotiation, because they are willing to sacrifice themselves in serice of their larger goals.
It’s clear some Tea Partiers are willing to wreck the economy and even their own future political prospects in furtherance of their goals of radically changing policy – this kind of asymmetrical warfare is relatively unknown in mainstream politics.
hildebrand
@Zach:
Correct me if I am wrong, but didn’t Obama try to get the Democrats to deal with this prior to the election, and they punted?
This is not unlike the purists screaming about Guantanamo – Obama wanted the thing shuttered immediately, and it was the Senate Democrats who helped to kill that plan.
Perhaps some rage might be offered up to those people who pushed Obama into the unenviable position of having to continually fight rear-guard actions. When have Senate Democrats ever helped? Vigorously? Vociferously? Hell, Reid started off just after the 2008 election by saying something to the effect that he didn’t ‘work for’ Obama. How the hell do you negotiate with the madmen on the other side when your fellow negotiators continually undercut your best efforts? (Yes, I know, this is old news, but honestly, don’t you imagine that Obama doesn’t quite trust the Democrats in the Senate to do anything other than run the wrong direction, or simply carp from the sidelines?)
RP
@gene108: This is where I am. I’m just not sure what’s so terrible about this. They basically kicked the can down the road a couple years and committed to significant cuts to defense, a pretty good outcome all things considered. Yes, the Dems should have included the debt ceiling in last December’s negotiations, but what’s done is done. This deal is infinitely better than one that might have included major immediate cuts to medicaid/medicare and other social programs, an agreement to make the Bush taxes permanent, or a short term debt ceiling increase.
Corner Stone
@Samara Morgan:
In another, more accurate way, the Bush Tax Cuts will be used against President Obama.
gene108
@wrb:
Color me selfish, but I don’t want the economy to suck any worse than it does now.
I can’t afford it for someone’s vanity to risk another wave of mass lay offs, like we had in 2009.
If this bill prevents that, then Good!
liberal
@Bob L:
Yawn. It’s not enough that they have some kind of opportunity; they have to express a willingness to use it, not negotiate in good faith, etc.
During the Bush era the Iranians offered sent us a pretty nice offer, which Bush of course rejected. When was the last time the Republicans did that?
Ol' Dirty DougJ
They would argue that touching Medicare is bad politics, just what would get Bachmann into the WH. I don’t think Krugman and Atrios are being self-indulgent when they make this point. They could be right.
Corner Stone
@OzoneR:
Who exactly is irrelevant after this deal passed? The president himself spent every Q&A talking about a “balanced approach”, “corporate jets”, “revenue”.
So, how much of that was in the final bill?
liberal
@NonyNony:
Exactly.
OzoneR
@Loviatar:
This is the stupidest thing I’ve read all day.
General Stuck
@Loviatar:
OOH! yer such a bloggy bad ass. Stepping up to the keyboard is the international standard for courage. AMIRITE?
gene108
@RP: I agree, which is why I don’t get the hand wringing about how Obama “surrendered”.
What is he supposed to do? Demand an FDR style public works program again? It wouldn’t pass Congress.
Villago Delenda Est
@eric:
The question here is defense spending the best bang for the buck.
The answer is, no, because it’s money basically down a rat hole. If you spend the same money on infrastructure, the economic payoffs are going to be much greater long term than sinking money into a M1A1, an F-22, or a destroyer. Because those things are economic dead ends, for the most part. R&D otoh can pay off in unanticipated and unexpected ways, and the government is good at that primarily because they don’t go in to it demanding an ROI. They just let them happen.
Loviatar
@85 – wrb:
Just like Clinton got the blame when he let Newt shut down the government. Oh wait that didn’t…
Look the American people can be stupid and have a short attention span, but just like they’ve clued into the fact that the Republicans were willing to crash the economy, I willing to believe they would have clued if the Republicans had actually crashed the economy. Particularly if you had the president on TV every day saying all we need is clean debit bill.
But like the Obots he wanted to go along to get along, so he caved. He fed us a shit sandwich and said eat and enjoy, because thats all I got. Bullshit
Raven (formerly stuckinred)
@Omnes Omnibus: Tell her Dai uy
Cacti
@hildebrand:
Yes indeed.
It was entirely within the power of the Dem-controlled Congress to raise the debt ceiling before the 2010 elections, but they didn’t because…shut up, that’s why.
RP
Yes! This drives me insane. We’re always whining about how effective the GOP messaging is, but never seem to learn anything. We complain about the media frames of “GOP=strong, Dem=wimp,” but we feed these frames all the time.
What’s even more depressing is the flat out gloating I see from a lot of people on this blog and a lot of my liberal friends. They’re happy about this outcome because it feeds their “Obama sucks and is a wimp” meme. They’d rather be right than accomplish anything. You see that most clearly with the calls to let the country default — who cares about the massive amount of pain it will inflict on the country. It’ll show strength! There really isn’t that much difference between the tea baggers and the far left at this point.
liberal
@Belafon (formerly anonevent):
Nope.
And Democrats not standing up for core principles is going to further that goal how, exactly?
Emma
@Loviatar: So marvelous of you to sacrifice total strangers for your principles. Until you have volunteered yourself and/or your parents or children for the chopping block, you’re just another example of armchair warrior.
OzoneR
@NonyNony:
Which, not to harp on this, is exactly what would happen if he negotiated with Iran, and yet you suggest he negotiate with them with no preconditions anyway, but not Republicans.
liberal
@Villago Delenda Est:
Heh. I usually refer to military spending as “the military rathole.”
The Other Bob
@Corner Stone:
No, that is not what I said. If it were significant cuts, it would hurt, and this cut won’t help, BUT $10 b in cuts is basicalling nothing.
If spread over 2 years, $5 b in cuts per year amounts to .13% of the FY 2011 budget. Big F’n deal. I call that a flat budget.
Now if the the economy is still slinking along over the next 10 years, the rest of the cuts will hurt, but the immediate cuts are nothing.
Ash Can
@General Stuck: I don’t know about that. It depends on how many teabaggers are in their caucuses after the next election, and, most importantly, whether or not the GOP still controls the House.
What’s made me crazy about all the dumping on Obama and the Democrats in the last few days, here and elsewhere, isn’t the policy points the dumpers are making (with which I tend to agree) but the fact that the dumpers steadfastly ignore the practical, logistical, and legal aspects of the situation. Do I think Obama made mistakes? Hell yeah, I do. He should have started out further to the left going into the negotiations. He shouldn’t have underestimated the ignorance, insanity, and viciousness of the teabaggers. But these are probably the only “hostage negotiations” that are mandated by law to take place, and by the highest law of the land, to boot. Like it or not, the Constitution gives the House the power of the purse, and when the voters fix it so that the House is controlled by the criminally insane, those criminal lunatics must nevertheless, by law, be negotiated with. The president is given no choice in the matter short of a nuclear option.
zzyzx
@Loviatar:
And that’s great if what you’re concerned about is the politics of the deal. However, real people would have been hurt by the economy crashing. Obama’s job is to not let that happen.
gypsy howell
Obama lost the battle against the ultra right wing way back when he started spouting off about tightening our belts, and running the US Government like a family household, and promulgating the idea that we need to cut, cut, cut government spending in a deep recession “to get our long term fiscal health in order”. That was just a load of right wing bullshit.
I’m really curious about what the plan is now to “pivot back to jobs” when all America has heard from both parties is that we need to cut spending. How is that going to work? Oh, right. I’m forgetting about the miracle of the free market. We can still eliminate pesky regulations and cut corporate taxes to bring back “confidence.” Seems to me that’s the only tool he conveniently left in his tool box. That’ll be great.
Sad Iron
No, actually, less of this. I despise the Tea Party folks, and most republican politicians in general, but the rhetoric here is ridiculous. They’re not terrorists, it’s not a jihad, there’s no “hostage situation”–so what’s the logic? We should send the military to kill them? A drone? A SWAT team? I remember a lot of people getting upset about rhetorical crosshairs, about the use of the word “reload,” etc, etc. How’s this different? This isn’t illegal and it doesn’t inspire true terror, so let’s just stop. The fact is, we had a choice–Congress did, Obama did, and they chose not to take the really tough options and then cover themselves in this nonsense rhetoric. The main problem is we never let the country actually experience the ramifications of republican decisions, we never let them filibuster when they threaten to, etc, etc. If this is a hostage situation, I’ve never seen such willing hostages. If this is a hostage situation, Obama and democrats have Stockholm syndrome. If this is “jihad” and “terrorism” then I’ve never seen such unsurprised, unscared, willing victims. No, less of this.
OzoneR
@liberal:
Democrats had one core principle in this, don’t let the country default. That was it.
Mainly because the Democratic Party has no core principles because it’s voting block goes from communists to tea party white racists, but that’s another story.
liberal
@OzoneR:
Huh? To repeat myself from the previous time someone made this objection, the point was for Obama to insist on a clean bill, and then stick to it. He didn’t do that; he entered negotations.
Samara Morgan
@Freddie: as i have found with horses, exploiting the bad behavior is more successful.
i was in a clinic with the great olympian Karen O’Connor when i was young, but i never forgot what she taught me about my wicked pony Taffy.
She said open a door.
Obama opened a door for the teabaggers and the conservative/libertarians like yourself.
Do you see how he did it?
I think you are “bright” enough.
ramadan kareem, freddie.
kdaug
@Corner Stone:
Tax cuts!
Suffern ACE
@gene108:
It wouldn’t pass a democratic congress, let alone a republican one. And it wouldn’t be pleasing to online progressives because “infrastructure” isn’t creative and exciting enough. Just remembering how well Obama’s infrastructure jobs plan went over with supposed liberals last October. I believe “nothingburger” was as much enthusiasm it generated.
liberal
@Sad Iron:
You’re kidding, right? The economic costs of not increasing the debt limit, period, would far outweigh those of many terrorist attacks.
Just because the terrorist analogy fails in that dimension doesn’t mean it’s an overall bad one.
Just Some Fuckhead
@liberal:
And he could have gotten the same outcome while doing absolutely nothing to advance a Republican agenda.
slightly_peeved
@debg:
As long as people vote in Republicans, Republicans will have power. No solution for that but to stop voting in Republicans.
Given their solid majority in the House, and the role of the House in passing budgets, they were probably going in expecting to get some of their big ticket items (end of Social Security, end of the ACA, end of days). People voted for them, god knows why. Did they get any of those items here?
liberal
@Ash Can:
Simply, utterly false. The platinum coin option was legal and constitutional. So Obama certainly had a choice in the matter.
Samara Morgan
@kdaug: not in RL.
but Obama just made defense cuts into political capital that can be exchanged for revenue like tax increases on the rich and tax reform on big bidness.
that is what douchebag and levin and Dr. K are whinging BOUT.
too late they see the trap.
meep meep
General Stuck
@Ash Can:
I fully agree with this, though I suspect Obama was flying by the seat of his pants through this madness, as it has never been done before, with something as explosive as the debt ceiling.
OzoneR
@Loviatar:
Actually, he did. Clinton’s approval rating plummeted while the government was shut down, it went up after the shut down ended,
liberal
@Suffern ACE:
I don’t know who you’re polling, but every “progressive”/”liberal” I know or read and respect thinks that spending money on infrastructure is exactly what should be done.
rickstersherpa
This thread on Nocera’s column is good entry point for the following comment from Dean Baker at his “Beat the Press Blog.” Do I agree with it with his implication? Yes, I do think Obama set up this whole engagement with the idea of getting a grand bargain of exchanging a “reform” of social security and medicare for the Republicans agreeing to restore Bush era tax rates on singles earing $250,000 after deductions, and married couples earning $375,000 a year after deductions and other changes that would increas taxes on the wealthy. And just as a preface, I intend to vote for Obama under the circumstances that will exist next November. But I refuse to have illusions and will work to change the conditions and constraints our politicians have to work under from the grass roots.
Did President Obama Want to Give the Kidnappers Hostages?
Tuesday, 02 August 2011 04:59
Joe Noccera and Paul Krugman both see President Obama as having been taken for a ride by a Tea Party gang who were prepared to blow up the house if they didn’t get their way. This is one possibility, but there is another way to interpret recent events.
President Obama had other options all along the way. As Krugman notes, he could have insisted last December that the debt ceiling was part of the deal to extend the Bush tax cuts. After all, contrary to what his National Economic Adviser seems to think, the Democrats did still control Congress at the time.
In the context of the debt ceiling being hit, he could have taken the 14th amendment route that a substantial number of legal scholars believe to be kosher. It probably passes the laugh test better than the non-war in Libya. He was prepared to challenge Congress for the latter, why not the former?
He could have also tried the stand tough approach. As we know, in the meltdown scenario Wall Street is on the front line. The J.P. Morgan-Goldman Sachs gang would be pretty damn furious at the Republicans if they actually put them out of business. It’s very hard to believe that Boehner and company don’t buckle in this scenario.
Finally, the whole debate has hugely misrepresented the Tea Party. Poll after poll shows that they are not really against what government does. In fact, they are huge supporters of Social Security and Medicare and other programs that support the middle class. And, after we pull out the military, this is in fact the vast majority of the government.
The Tea Party is against some nonsense notion of massive government waste that does not exist. Like President Reagan, they want to eliminate the Department of Waste, Fraud, and Abuse.
President Obama could have insisted that he would protect the core middle class programs that enjoy support across the political spectrum. And he could have said that the Republicans want to gut them.
Instead, he contributed to the nonsense. He made up a false story about the origins of the deficit, wrongly telling the country that the huge deficit came about from the Bush tax cuts, the cost of the wars, and the Medicare drug benefit. This implied that we had large deficits before the downturn, that large deficits were a chronic problem.
In fact, the numbers are clear as day and it’s impossible to believe that President Obama and his advisers do not know them. The large deficits of the past few years came about because of the collapse of the housing bubble, end of story.
So we can believe that President Obama is just a really bad poker player, as Paul Krugman suggests, or we can believe that he is getting what he wants. I report, you decide.
Cacti
@Sad Iron:
The main problem with the “make them hurt to prove our philosophy is right and true” strategy is it never thinks about what happens after the thought experiment is over.
After the default, you don’t get to snap your fingers and go back to a world where default never happened. The damage is done at that point and will take years to mend.
Ash Can
@liberal: Like I said, “short of a nuclear option.” This situation wasn’t nearly extreme enough to warrant resorting to radical gimmickry.
Sad Iron
@liberal: In some sense you’re right, especially about the analogy. That said, I’m with Greenwald and Tiabbi on this–the analogy fails because there are no real hostages. Obama and congressional democrats are actually ok with what we’re getting. Sure, lots of public denials and handwringing, but how else to explain Democrats controlling the White House and the Senate, and giving away everything, every time as if they are powerless? Sorry, they are not hostages, so no, I’m not kidding. They are not “terrorized” and forced into doing these unpleasant things. Maybe we, the people are screwed, but it’s not any Tea Party jihadists that are doing that to us.
Corner Stone
Let’s see a show of hands. Who here honestly thinks the trigger in this bill will ever be engaged?
I’m going to chalk me up on the “No way in Hell” side of the ledger.
liberal
@zzyzx:
Yes, that’s a short term cost. But you also have to consider long-term costs. (Not saying that Obama should have necessarily let the government run up against the debt limit.)
Same thing with the UE extension the Dems bought when they extended the tax cuts. People here screamed that “real people” would be hurt if the extension wasn’t made. True enough, and an argument can be made that it was worth it from a cost-benefit point of view. But it’s hardly obvious that a fairly complete cost-benefit calculus would have shown it was the right thing to do.
schrodinger's cat
This is not a great deal but I am going to stop fretting about it. I need a vacation from reading about politics for at least a week.
Sad Iron
@Cacti: Exactly. So you’d always rather be a willing hostage to the deemed “lesser evil.” That’s what I mean about the rhetoric–there are no “hostages” and “terrorists” here. Just people making a lot of (bad) choices.
Anya
@Sad Iron:
Thank you!
OzoneR
@gene108:
It didn’t even pass FDR’s Congress.
liberal
@The Other Bob:
Agreed about the effect of the immediate cuts (putting aside the issue that we should be increase the deficit right now, not cutting, but the Repubs won’t let us, blah blah blah). Re long term, though, the chance that we’re still going to be stuck in this recession for a few years is fairly high because it’s a balance sheet recession.
Culture of Truth
I could be wrong, but I believe the hostage in the above analogy is the credit of the U.S., the world economy and the possibility of recession.
It’s only an analogy, but the GOP was very clear about this – they were willing to “give” Obama his debt ceiling raise, but they wanted something in return for not defaulting on the nation’s debts.
There was no particular benefit for Obama, except they were trading on his concern the national well-being.
Samara Morgan
@Omnes Omnibus: i was just explaining the next move in the
conservativewhite (NHC) christian nativist playbook.Ramping up to war with Iran.
having failed to crash the economy due to Obama’s opportunistic exploitation of their basic lack of intelligent substrate, i think the conservative elite will try to push Israel and Iran into a war, starting in September.
The media is already playing along with Panetta and Mullen on the Iraq withdrawal.
im just pointing that out so you juicers wont be surprised.
its going to get worse, not better, in the runup to the election.
The Wingularity is near.
OzoneR
@Sad Iron:
I don’t have much of an issue with the rhetoric, it’s the backup. If Republicans are really what the left is saying they are, then we should be eliminating them, not getting into arguments with them.
Loviatar
Hey Obots here is another one from that shit sandwich you keep cheering.
Research Desk: What’s the balance of stimulus and austerity?
liberal
@OzoneR:
On what evidence do you base that?
I’m not sure about the Iranians now, but IIRC it was in the first Bush 43 term that they offered us a package that was pretty attractive as a starting point of negotiations.
OTOH, we don’t need to negotiate with the Iranians to give them what they want. Bush 43 already did that by removing from power their #1 geopolitical enemy.
Jay B.
Lie. And stupid. Who said anything remotely like this? Even among your cult’s Goldsteins, people like Atrios and Krugman, were screaming for more infrastructure funds. You guys really are on a planet made of mass psychosis.
OK, so the economy crashing is bad. How about helping the economy slowly sink? How does that grab you? Once again the best thing you can say about the President is that he averted disaster by embracing the merely awful and politically stupid. He did this when he had massive Democratic majorities and now he’s doing this when the GOP controls all of one house of Congress.
Basically, no one, especially the poor, can afford another “success”. He fucked up HAMP, fucked up the stimulus numbers, trimmed on health care reform (which, in turn, is also a major deficit driver), neutered financial regulation, passed on any kind of solid job proposal (save for an infrastructure bank, which he’s all but abandoned) — all with the help of a hopeless Democratic Party and Congress.
You guys can crow about this in your desperate, hilariously sheltered way, but it ain’t a victory for the poor or the middle class. It is a near total loss. Whipped up by the GOP and hand delivered to a rudderless, overmatched Democratic Party and Administration.
But sure, wave your foam fingers. Brag about it. I’m sure the people will rally to support the message — we are almost totally helpless in the face of the Tea Party, but we know how to trick them by giving them almost 90% of what they want!
Sad Iron
@OzoneR: I’m not really sure what you mean by “eliminating.” I would simply say that what we should be doing is passing good legislation in spite of them, joining the battles at the local levels, etc.
Loviatar
Here is another. the shit sandwich that just keeps giving.
Who will sit on the Supercommittee?
.
yummy
wrb
@liberal:
True, I think, but I also think it would have seemed so ridiculous that it would have probably assured a president Bachman. It would have been good for late-night comedians though.
The current bill is much better.
Cacti
“We could have gotten what we wanted if the President had just been willing to let the country default and started minting platinum coins.”
Seriously progs, try saying that out loud in the mirror sometime, just to get the full effect of how desperately stupid it sounds.
Culture of Truth
Also, Goldman Sachs is not actually a vampire squid, and not every person who supports Obama is in a cult.
slightly_peeved
If the House doesn’t want to pass any law on a subject, if they just want to block every single item of law and let the country go fallow, what power does the Senate and White House actually have to stop them? They can make them look bad, can use the bully pulpit, but until the next election what legal recourse do they have?
liberal
@RSA:
No, because you’re leaving something out—the boss of the bad guys (the business community) is in the same room.
OzoneR
@liberal: I was talking about the Iranians now. The Iranians in 2004 would’ve offered a better deal.
OzoneR
@Sad Iron:
which we did in 2009-2010 and can’t do now.
Jay B.
No, just the ones who insist that, no matter the final product and no matter how he arrived at it, it was the absolute best outcome that could have been expected.
Keith G
@Corner Stone:
I donno. I think it depends of the makeup of the Super Groupers ™ and the ultimate influence of teabaggers. Many of that ilk would see the trigger as a good thing.
But..don’t ya just love the rationalizations flying around today?
TK421
@Cacti:
What a remarkably foolish statement. Not least because no one actually suggested the president let the country default.
The Other Bob
For amusement only, I would have liked to see the minting of the trillion dollar coin.
Whose picture would have been on it? I would recommend Ronald Reagan. That would have drove the Tea-Freaks bonkers.
Culture of Truth
You just made Sad Iron sad.
TK421
@Sad Iron:
That is one of the best comments in a long time.
OzoneR
@Jay B.:
I see what you did there.
TK421
@wrb:
Well it’s sure a good thing we didn’t take the course that looked ridiculous!
Pew Poll: Americans Say Debt Fiasco ‘Ridiculous’
Some of you people really need to wake up.
TK421
@Sinsiter Eyebrow:
False choice.
Loviatar
@ 167 – TK421:
yeah, but don’t you it made Obama look like the adult in the room so it was all worth it.
TK421
@Scott:
Who, precisely, has said that?
celticdragonchick
@Ken:
If Obama cannot hold onto his base because he looks weak, then he will not be re-elected. Right now, he looks weak. We can debate how canny he was, and how many secret upsides to the bill there are for us if we would only stop and look closely…but the Tea Party looks wildly victorious in this morning after…and Obama does not. Optics matter in Washington, and they sure as fuck matter in elections now matter how committed an Obot you are.
Longish letter here posted at Sully today that illustrates this.
TK421
@Loviatar:
Yes, Obama really wants to look like “the adult”. So he blithely assumes the Republicans will want to raise revenues, assumes they won’t hold the country hostage, assumes they won’t threaten our nation’s economy with default.
That isn’t being an adult. That’s being a starry-eyed woolly-headed fantasist. An adult doesn’t hand a child a loaded handgun and say “oh I’m sure he won’t do the wrong thing.”
Loviatar
The Next Capitol Hill Battle: The Gas Tax
I’ll rework that heading for you Obots:
The Next Capitol Hill Hostage Taking: The Gas Tax
celticdragonchick
@Corner Stone:
I put it up there with “The oil revenues will pay for the war”.
Samara Morgan
@Sully ;)
only the stupid ones…the ones as stupid as the teabaggers.
and yes, Cornerstone, the trigger will engage.
because it drops before Obama gets to let the Bush taxcuts expire, and there is NOTHING the repubs can do to prevent a presidential veto.
FlipYrWhig
@gypsy howell:
“We just put our house in order. It was an important step, like rebuilding a credit rating. Now we’re ready to invest in the economy all over again.”
That wasn’t hard.
Keith G
@celticdragonchick: That is scary and similar to what I am hearing from the younger cohort at my work place which is urban and very diverse. They want a fighter.
They. Feel. Left. Behind.
Once you lose a supporter/client/customer, you play hell getting them back.
Keith G
@TK421:
What the fuck?
Loviatar
man I can’t get enough of that shit sandwich.
UNINTENDED CONSEQUENCES: How The Debt Deal Could Hurt The Wisconsin Recalls
.
that was so good, can I have another.
FlipYrWhig
@Sad Iron:
There are Democrats in the House and Senate, and also loyal Democrats who vote, who, yes, truly believe that there needed to be a long-term plan to reduce deficits and debts. For some reason that never enters into the collective mind of the blogosphere when it attempts to figure out why “The Democrats” are behaving as they do, and instead there’s a set of ever more elaborate theories about Obama’s personal failings. If you think of the whole episode from the perspective of Democrats-who-want-cuts, it makes a lot more sense than if you think of it from the perspective of Democrats-who-abhor-cuts. And the former group is bigger than the latter. As usual, the power center Obama has to engage is “fiscal conservative” _Democrats_, even when their ideas are kind of dopey.
MazeDancer
@Lolis:
Nice idea. Many more media control (AKA “the dialogue”) opps than one big bill. And it helps with the Real Reality: Public perception is everything. Everytime the Repubs vote down necessary stuff, another Dem campaign asset.
And tie each jobs increase to being just part of what gets paid for by the expiration of the Bush tax cut for upper income. Look, it’s paid for already.
FlipYrWhig
@TK421: I’m sure that if Obama had drawn a line and refused to negotiate those numbers would have shot right up. Also, I hear the public loves the idea of secretly minting trillion-dollar coins.
OzoneR
@Samara Morgan:
The Senate will never give him a bill extending them anyway.
TK421
@FlipYrWhig:
Too bad the vast majority of cuts in this deal come from investment: roads, bridges, schools, research, etc.
But hey, maybe President Obama will come out and say it’s time for the government to create some jobs–
September 27, 2010–Remarks by the President
FlipYrWhig
@Keith G:
Say, here’s an idea. How about NOT having every liberal-leaning person flinging themselves upon the fainting couch to complain about how Obama never fights every fucking time he’s just been through a fucking fight?
TK421
@Keith G:
fantasist–noun; a person who indulges in fantasies
Sad Iron
@FlipYrWhig: Agreed.
TK421
@FlipYrWhig:
Those numbers literally could not be lower.
Also, I hear the public loves the idea of secretly minting trillion-dollar coins.
“Aw man, the president just used American laws to mint a coin and hire me to repair the bridge my children use to get to school! I’m so bummed about that!”
FlipYrWhig
@TK421: Of course the full paragraph is this:
You’re quoting “Government can’t replace — can’t create jobs.” Obama is saying government “can’t create jobs to replace the millions that we lost in the recession.” The point is scale. The point is “millions.” Don’t play James O’Keeffe games with quotations.
FlipYrWhig
@TK421:
Show me where “the vast majority of cuts” have been delineated.
TK421
@FlipYrWhig:
If Obama had said “government can’t create millions of jobs, but it can create one million jobs” you would be right. But he said “government can’t create millions of jobs, but it can [insert Republican talking points here]”
By the way, who said anything about doing that in secret? Would you deal in reality, please?
FlipYrWhig
@TK421: More like, “He wants to do what?” And “What kind of bullshit is that?”
Keith G
@TK421: Thanks, but I was more concerned about you referring to Obama as “woolly headed”.
TK421
@FlipYrWhig:
The Impact of the Budget Deal for Those Who Don’t Carry Around the Budget in Their Pocket
“most of the cuts would likely come from the $6.7 trillion of spending on the domestic discretionary portion of the budget. This is the portion that includes spending on infrastructure, education, research, and other areas that are considered investment.”
FlipYrWhig
@TK421: He said government can’t create (the millions of jobs that were lost in the recession). You could complain that he’s dismissing the possibility of WPA-type direct-hiring efforts, wherein the government actually hires millions of people. That’d be fair. But there’s no fair way to read that statement as Obama saying that the government can’t create jobs, period.
“Secretly” may have been the wrong word. That whole coin plan was like a discussion of how Superman could go back in time by reversing the rotation of the earth.
Loviatar
hey Obots, here is another one for you.
Jon Stewart Rips President Obama For Debt Ceiling ‘Dealageddon’
He just eviscerates Obama with his own words, particularly his asinine comments from last year where he said that the Republicans wouldn’t hold the economy hostage over a debt ceiling bill (4:10).
celticdragonchick
@FlipYrWhig:
Complaining about angry and disaffected voters is an awesome winning stratagy, I’m sure.
If the President cannot hang onto his base, then he will lose. Period. End of the fucking discussion. You may have other ideas, but most American like their leaders to look like…leaders. They do not like their leaders to look like punching bags who cannnot fight back, no matter how canny and smart they are. You can whine about “fainting couches” all you like, and that will not change the dynamics one fucking iota. If the President looks weak, he will not win re-election. We are down to having to make excuses for the President at this point, along the lines of: The teatards are just soooo crazy! There is not help for it! It is the best he could do!
Maybe so, but when you are having to make excuses for your leaders…people start looking for new leaders.
Deal with that. Reality does not give a damn about your contempt for other dems.
TK421
@FlipYrWhig:
Right, most Americans have no experience with a coin minted by the United States government, so such a thing would be alien to them.
TK421
@celticdragonchick:
What?!? It worked so great in 2010!
FlipYrWhig
@TK421:
“most of the cuts would likely come from the $6.7 trillion of spending on the domestic discretionary portion of the budget. This is the portion that includes spending on infrastructure, education, research, and other areas that are considered investment.”
Considering that Obama has consistently said that he wants to spend _more_ on infrastructure and _more_ on research, I’m guessing that the targets for cuts are going to be among the portion that does NOT include those very things. And, for that matter, not every cut to “Medicare” is a cut to health care services for beneficiaries.
celticdragonchick
@Keith G:
I thought that was a poor choice of words too.
In this context, “woolly headed” means confused and vague; used especially of thinking; “muddleheaded ideas”
I usually associate it with just waking up from sleep.
Smiling Mortician
@TK421:
There’s a really big “if” in the article you link as evidence of this . . .
Keith G
@FlipYrWhig: Tell you what: Craft a message to the urban 20 something, (a few in their 30s) entry-level workers at (one of) my jobs.
I am sure that they will enjoy your “fainting couch” reference – though a couple of them you might want to stay arms length from. These are young workers who voted Democratic in 08 and now wonder if it was pointless.
OzoneR
@Loviatar: John “We have to stop calling each other names and work together” Stewart? yeah ok
FlipYrWhig
@celticdragonchick: I guess you have your whine, and I have mine. Neither one is a political strategy.
TK421
@FlipYrWhig:
Good, because that’s exactly what I’m saying. And since that’s exactly what we need right now, Obama is doomed to failure.@FlipYrWhig:
Except that changing the Earth’s spin to reverse time violates the law, but minting coins does not. Here everyone, see for yourself:
http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/31/usc_sec_31_00005112—-000-.html
Bold formatting by me.
Has such a thing ever been done before? It’s been done about as often as the debt ceiling has been used by one party as a ransom demand.
OzoneR
@Keith G:
Older people are screwing you in their last attempt to stick it to minorities, don’t let them.
TK421
@Smiling Mortician:
See #194 on this page.
OzoneR
Obama was doomed to failure as soon as he won, what we need was never going to happen, whether he “fought” or not, because even if he fought, you’d never admit it.
celticdragonchick
@FlipYrWhig:
I have an observation on public perceptions. No need to whine, although I have done so at points. It simply is what it is. What you are left with are remedies. The President had better start working on that if he wants re-election.
TK421
@FlipYrWhig:
Oh, he says he wants to. Well, I put so much stock in what President Obama says.
FlipYrWhig
@Keith G: I didn’t say _they_ were heading to the fainting couches, I said that all they hear is about weakness and loss and not fighting properly, a message _produced by_ people heading to the fainting couches, and that starts to have a cumulative effect.
But the pitch is simple. Obama is dealing with a coordinated assault from people who don’t listen to reason and don’t care who gets hurt. They won a majority in the part of the government that controls funding. He’s fighting to reduce the damage they do. It’s frustrating to see, no doubt. But if you abandon him, you make it worse.
Corner Stone
@Keith G: Use some analogy about keeping their “powder dry”, or being adult enough to pick the right “hill to die on”.
I’m sure they’ll be sympathetic and emerge engaged and invigorated.
FlipYrWhig
@TK421: It’s very important to continually presume the worst possible intentions from a Democratic president. That way you win! Well, not win, exactly, but you can be proud of how cynical you are and say “Pfft” a lot.
Smiling Mortician
@TK421: I did. That’s the link I was referring to. The article says:
See the big “if” there? You conveniently forgot to mention it in your definitive claim about where cuts will come from.
Corner Stone
@Keith G:
Another deal another day ending in Y and another bunch of rationalizations.
BTW, I’m having my home A/C replaced today. Pray for me.
Zach
@hildebrand:
Yup. Note that the 109th Congress, months before being swept out of office, passed the FY2007 budget in May 2006. The debt ceiling is a different-but-related deal, but I think it would’ve been much easier to handle if it weren’t entangled with these semiannual continuing resolution debates.
Loviatar
Said it befor,e will say it again; Obama is a moderate Republican and the Debt Ceiling deal is what he wanted all along.
Now he can say it was forced on him and he’ll have the Obots manning the line defending him.
Debt Ceiling Deal: The Democrats Take a Dive
boss bitch
This is stupid. Terrorists don’t need encourage to continue their destructive behavior. They will continue to blow shit up until they get their way or until no one has anything. Look to the fucking Middle East.
TK421
@FlipYrWhig:
Why should I not do that? Fact: Barack Obama has no problem with firing cruise missiles and Predator drones at innocent people. Fact: he thinks whistle-blowers should be prosecuted but not torturers. Fact: he thinks the government can lock people up indefinitely without trial. Fact: trillions for bankers and Wall Street, spending cuts for children, the poor, and the hungry.
FlipYrWhig
@Smiling Mortician: If cuts are to X, then additional cuts to Y will likely incorporate Z, which includes A, B, and the Cute Puppy Administration.
Oh my God! He’s slashing cute puppies!
TK421
@Smiling Mortician:
So you think it unlikely that the Defense Department will be exempt from large-scale spending cuts? Okay then.
celticdragonchick
@FlipYrWhig:
People are entirely capable of making up their own minds on how this looks. One side got almost all of what they wanted in a very nasty and very high profile fight. Our side…not so much. Controlling damage is not at all the same thing as victory. Not even close. We got damage control. We sure as hell didn’t win this one, and even as hapless as Boehner looked in this, it has been observed that he walked away in better shape then the President.
Yes, I agree that we will be worse off if we walk away from the President…but ultimately, it is Obama’s responsibility to hold his own followers. If he cannot do that, then he is a failed President by definition and he will suffer as such.
Corner Stone
@Loviatar: From the article:
Ouch.
TK421
@Corner Stone:
Good call.
FlipYrWhig
@TK421: Show me one spending cut authorized by Barack Obama for children, the poor, or the hungry. Not someone’s projection for where future spending cuts might possibly come from. An actual cut that has happened.
Loviatar
Hey Obots, I hope you’re practicing your hostage negotiating skills.
McConnell on debt-ceiling hostage-taking: ‘We’ll be doing it all over’
TK421
@Loviatar:
Why, what do you mean?
For Fundraising, Obama Relies Even More on Wall Street
Those silly Wall Street investors–giving money to someone who wants to help the little guy instead of them! (sarcasm)
General Stuck
@celticdragonchick:
Just bullshit. A handful of loudmouths on the internet and teevee bloviating that the “president surrendered” doesn’t make it true, nor is it predictive of how the other 99.999 percent of dems perceive this compromise. You are just talking out your ass, the same as when you were a regular commenter at Little Green Footballs during the Bush years.
What a load of self important twits you all are going scorched earth on Obama, almost like you were just waiting to all along. I predict that Obama’s already and persistent all time record approval from the ‘real’ dem base will do just fine. And it might even improve some.
hildebrand
@Loviatar: I know I will regret this, but my curiosity is getting the best of me – who would you run in the primary against Obama? Keep in mind, this person has to be real, and they must actually have a legitimate chance of winning.
celticdragonchick
@General Stuck:
As usual, your overwhelming logic leaves me speechless.
Or something.
grandpajohn
@billy rae valentine:
Which means then that it was a good compromise bill
FlipYrWhig
@celticdragonchick:
Fair enough. I’ll take damage control, when the alternative is damage. But it still seems to me the reckoning of wins and losses is all taking place in a difference space, and it has almost nothing to do with the specifics of the deal. He agreed to too many cuts and not enough revenues? OK, fine. Cuts to what and revenues from what? That’s all totally nebulous. To me, it’s baffling to see people _this_ mad about meta stuff, “leadership” and symbolism. To me, that’s immaterial. “Obama looks like a wuss” is a kind of peculiar complaint, especially when compared to “Obama cut X, and my friend really needed that program.” But we get no stories of that latter kind, and a flood of stories about frustration and even despair at… style. I don’t think anyone is well-served by that kind of analysis.
TK421
@FlipYrWhig:
Wow, where to start? Can I still only post three links per post?
Obama Budget Proposal: Cuts To Target Working Poor, Middle Class & Students
President Obama Cuts Funding For Successful Educational Programs
President’s plan to slash CAP to cost jobs
Corner Stone
@grandpajohn: The difference is the nutters wanted 100% but got 98% and are pissed. Because they are insane.
The left wanted a scrap of revenue or something to offset the 100% cuts and got…
General Stuck
There is nothing like a pack of self righteous Hyenas going for blood on the president of their own party, and none are so vicious than on a dem president, when something happened that wasn’t the greatest victory on earth against the villainous republicans.
Pathetic, and mostly why dems have a time getting and holding the WH/ I saw it first during the Carter years, and at times during the Clinton years, but he was crafty enough to goad the wingers into over reaching with impeachment, and keeping the co dependent liberal faction on his side, out of some warped sense of sympathy to some really bad behavior by a sitting president, dem or wingers/
TK421
@billy rae valentine:
Boehner: I got 98 percent of what I wanted
FlipYrWhig
@hildebrand: I can’t tell if Loviatar is a really young liberal purist, or just a troll. There’s not much difference in content between what Loviatar posts and “Reality Check.” It’s a steady stream of “bwahaha Obots suck rotfl no rly.”
Corner Stone
@FlipYrWhig:
What revenues?
TK421
@Loviatar:
Well I’m sure the next time will be different!
grandpajohn
>Hill Dweller:
Guess the chief asshole traitor forgot to notice what the 1st Tuesday is November 2012 is. Or we could get extremely lucky and the black organ that is his substitute for a heart, could decide to adopt the same attitude as its owner and quit working for the benefit of its constituent
Loviatar
@ 230 – hildebrand:
First choice: Hilary Clinton if she could be talked into it, she wont but she would be my first choice. Better democrat all along, I thought so in 2008 and I know so now.
Second choice: Governor Peter Shumlin, Vermont. Only state with Universal Healthcare and a true progressive.
Third choice, any Democrat with a backbone who is willing to govern with Democratic ideals and policies.
TK421
@Loviatar:
“Second choice: Governor Peter Shumlin, Vermont. Only state with Universal Healthcare and a true progressive.”
Interesting. I’ve long thought that we need a governor to run for president.
celticdragonchick
@FlipYrWhig:
Quite so. The deal is better then what many dems understand, I suspect…but perception is reality in politics. Boehner looks like he won (and he is quite vocal about it), ergo…he won. He may have just saved his political neck. The President set himself up for this months ago by not challenging the “ZOMG WE IZ GONNA GETS NOM NOM’ED BY TEH DEFICIT! SRSLY!” bullshit being put out. He consistently allowed the GOP to set the narrative and parameters of the debate. Small wonder they chose ground most favorable to them : “The dems are spendthrifts who buy t-bones for young bucks dontchaknow”.
The President simply does not seem to be the sort of person many dems (myself included) thought he would be in the campaign. He is cool, rational and smart. He does not publicly fight with his opposition, however, and he makes little effort to rally his troops (House and Senate Dems are reportedly furious with him. Believe me, people noticed that Nancy Smash refused to whip the dems to vote yesterday. That was a direct rebuke to the President). I think he makes a serious miscalculation in basic human interactions and psychology in all of this.
Of course, General Stuck disagrees since he is burnt about something I wrote at LGM 6 years ago, I guess.
celticdragonchick
@Loviatar:
I allow that the President can screw up badly enough to piss his base off and cause them to desert. That being said, I must say that it would be counterproductive for all involved…and actually mounting a primary challenge to the President would be foolish in the extreme, no matter how risible he may seem to angry former supporters.
I still support the President, btw, but I am increasingly worried that he does not understand how upset some of his followers are getting.
FlipYrWhig
@Loviatar: Because if your chief priorities are no cuts to social programs and no concessions to Republican policy priorities, history shows that you can’t do better than a Clinton!
FlipYrWhig
@celticdragonchick:
But here’s the thing. The deal doesn’t appear to target social programs. If anything, it’s a highly wonkish-technocrat arrangement of pulleys and levers that set future cuts. That really isn’t a good match for Republican priorities or Republican language about who’s responsible for the bloated size of the government. I haven’t seen a lot of red meat for conservatives in descriptions of what was just agreed to. If anything it looks like the kind of bill Mark Warner or Evan Bayh would love. That still sucks from a die-hard progressive perspective, but it doesn’t suck as a capitulation to the worst elements in the Republican party. And it’s pretty much all the worst element.
Loviatar
@celticdragonchick:
So what is a good democrat to do when his party leaders (President and Congress) govern like Republicans. I’ve given up on supporting any of the current party leadership (maybe Nancy Pelosi) whether financially or with actual get out the vote support.
The former republicans and corporatist running the party are not very successful in implementing Democratic policies, in fact I’ve come to believe they are quite happy with most of the right wing policies being implemented.
As far as supporting a primary challenge, if it was Hilary Clinton, I would definitely support a challenge. I would have to do further research on Governor Shumlin before committing to support a primary challenge. In my quick purview so far I like what I see.
.
Now a question to you:
You say we shouldn’t primary Obama, so what should former Obama supporters do if they truly believe that the President is not working for the best interest of the country. At this time I really believe he is governing as a moderate Republican, which is not a good thing when we have a far right wing branch of Congress.
FlipYrWhig
@Loviatar:
Perhaps begin by reassessing their beliefs, and separate what they “truly believe” from what they’ve chosen to believe. And then factor in that liberals don’t get everything they want out of politics because liberals don’t have enough representation in politics, so to be a liberal is inevitably to have to find a way to manage disappointment.
stinkfoot
Sorry to clutch pearls, but I can’t stand the misuse of “jihad” – a complex concept that involves struggle for social justice – as a rhetorical device to cast Tea Party morons as “terrorists.” It only furthers the conflation of Islam with terrorism. Given the religious orientation of the Teabaggers, wouldn’t “crusade” be more appropriate? Even so, I suspect plenty of Christians would find that pretty objectionable, too.
Call it destructive, call it ruinous, call it irresponsible and even sociopathic or “hostage taking” (a more appropriate metaphor); but the actions of conservative fundamentalists in Congress are a form of class warfare, an instance of “disaster capitalism,” ginning up a crisis to force further robbery of the treasury and social service programs. Yes, it stands to cause a great deal of harm to people. But it’s not “jihad” nor is it even “terrorism.” Just because you’re angry doesn’t mean you get to shit all over a religion and people that have nothing to do with the source of your rage.
Loviatar
@FlipYrWhig:
you believe you want to believe, I believe what I believe.
I’m willing to bet though that my beliefs are closer to the facts.
.
Clap harder, reality is calling and its getting louder.
stinkfoot
Yeah, hippie! Suck it up and deal! Stop whining! Stop complaining! Get in line! Shut up! Do it live!
This is ridiculous. Obama deserves credit for doing good things, but he also deserves criticism for doing bad things. We don’t OWE him shit. We certainly don’t owe him unquestioning, blinkered support. Of course we should recognize that the GOP is batshit insane and we should fight them with every tool we have, including the current president as the most powerful weapon in the arsenal. But that means we need to push and prod and cajole him into action.
Ugh. I get so sick of this Firebaggers-vs-Obamabots nonsense. Our government continues to fail us, regardless of who is in charge, yet again and again the debates get sucked into competing cults of personality.
Citizen Alan
@OzoneR:
Can we put it to a vote?
Tonal Crow
But but but Dougj, you know that rhetoric doesn’t matter…except that it’s really really really important to police what Jane Hamster says because rhetoric isn’t important at all.
hildebrand
@Loviatar: If Hillary was the better candidate back in 2008, why didn’t she win? If she was outwitted by Obama then, does that not make her a worse candidate now? I mean, if she couldn’t even beat the loser Obama, how could she possibly have done better than him?
(Yes, I am being hyperbolic, but is there not something to this particular argument? How one campaigns is a tell for how one will govern, no?)
Loviatar
@hildebrand:
Re-read my post, I said Hilary was the better Democrat.
.
Obots, please use facts, Republicans are the only ones who distort the truth.
FlipYrWhig
@stinkfoot: In case it wasn’t clear, I was counting myself as a liberal. Measured against what liberals would actually like, whatever the government does is going to be disappointing. How you choose to handle that is up to you. You can either get preoccupied with finely calibrating how disappointed you are, or you can admit that there’s a baseline level of disappointment that isn’t fixable anytime soon, and concentrate on the particular disappointments that exceed that standard.
hildebrand
@Loviatar: What makes her a better Democrat? What policy decisions would she have made that reinforce your belief that she would still be a better Democrat? Was there really that much difference between Hillary and Obama as Democrats?
debbie
@ General Stuck:
I agree with you about the hyenas, but something that continues to frustrate me is how lousy Democrats are at messaging. You can compromise and still point out the lies spewing from the Republicans.
For instance, all this conservative yakking about “American Exceptionalism.” Considering how they’re demolishing public education and Pell grants, why not point out that what conservatives seem to want to create is a nation of Exceptionally stupid people?
TenguPhule
At this point? It should be.