Well, kinda. This is a long read first thing in the morning, but I figured I’d link it so you can enjoy it when you get a minute. Professor Krugman, for Rolling Stone, “In Defense of Obama“:
When it comes to Barack Obama, I’ve always been out of sync. Back in 2008, when many liberals were wildly enthusiastic about his candidacy and his press was strongly favorable, I was skeptical. I worried that he was naive, that his talk about transcending the political divide was a dangerous illusion given the unyielding extremism of the modern American right. Furthermore, it seemed clear to me that, far from being the transformational figure his supporters imagined, he was rather conventional-minded: Even before taking office, he showed signs of paying far too much attention to what some of us would later take to calling Very Serious People, people who regarded cutting budget deficits and a willingness to slash Social Security as the very essence of political virtue.
And I wasn’t wrong. Obama was indeed naive: He faced scorched-earth Republican opposition from Day One, and it took him years to start dealing with that opposition realistically. Furthermore, he came perilously close to doing terrible things to the U.S. safety net in pursuit of a budget Grand Bargain; we were saved from significant cuts to Social Security and a rise in the Medicare age only by Republican greed, the GOP’s unwillingness to make even token concessions.
But now the shoe is on the other foot: Obama faces trash talk left, right and center – literally – and doesn’t deserve it. Despite bitter opposition, despite having come close to self-inflicted disaster, Obama has emerged as one of the most consequential and, yes, successful presidents in American history. His health reform is imperfect but still a huge step forward – and it’s working better than anyone expected. Financial reform fell far short of what should have happened, but it’s much more effective than you’d think. Economic management has been half-crippled by Republican obstruction, but has nonetheless been much better than in other advanced countries. And environmental policy is starting to look like it could be a major legacy…
Yes, Obama has a low approval rating compared with earlier presidents. But there are a number of reasons to believe that presidential approval doesn’t mean the same thing that it used to: There is much more party-sorting (in which Republicans never, ever have a good word for a Democratic president, and vice versa), the public is negative on politicians in general, and so on. Obviously the midterm election hasn’t happened yet, but in a year when Republicans have a huge structural advantage – Democrats are defending a disproportionate number of Senate seats in deep-red states – most analyses suggest that control of the Senate is in doubt, with Democrats doing considerably better than they were supposed to. This isn’t what you’d expect to see if a failing president were dragging his party down.
More important, however, polls – or even elections – are not the measure of a president. High office shouldn’t be about putting points on the electoral scoreboard, it should be about changing the country for the better. Has Obama done that? Do his achievements look likely to endure? The answer to both questions is yes…
***********
Apart from keeping the faith, what’s on the agenda for the day?
Cermet
President Obama will, as the history is written, will not be remembered as the first black President but as one of the best since Carter and for many years (and terms of others) after. He set the US on Universal Health Care and supported the greatest civil rights change since the 60’s – marriage equality. President Obama also handle the greatest economic crash since the Great Depression of the 30’s and didn’t just weather that storm but prevented a far, far worse collapse and instead, turned the economy around.
raven
Mika piles on!!!!
BillinGlendaleCA
@raven: I’m a bit behind you, had trouble connecting to my drv. Reset my router. Completely miss them yesterday since I was out taking pics of the moon.
raven
@BillinGlendaleCA: Well, she just ran through all the critics, the usual “some say” bullshit. Barnicle was funny, “take a poll on how many people would rather have Jimmy Carter as president now”!
Mustang Bobby
Good news following up on a comment I posted in an Open Thread a couple of weeks ago: my friend’s wife with the rare form of esophageal cancer and desperate to scrape together the $65K co-pay was able to get it together with the help of a lot of people here in Miami. She got the treatment and is on the road to recovery. Thanks for the good vibes.
raven
@BillinGlendaleCA: This was the best I got since a cloud bank rolled in just as the eclipse was full. When it was obvious I wasn’t going to get the blood moon I jumped in the van to go to the bakery. Two neighbors told me that coyotes in the back yard lit it up as soon as I left.
Mustang Bobby
@BillinGlendaleCA: Thank you for letting me post that amazing picture of the blood moon yesterday. It got picked up for a blogaround at Shakesville and then tweeted and re-tweeted.
OzarkHillbilly
My only real disappointment with Obama is the lack of legal action against the major Wall Street players, and I mean the people, not the companies. Most of my other complaints are mere quibbles leavened by the political realities that exist today.
raven
@Mustang Bobby: Wow, great news. This stuff on the woman that has set the date for her suicide really gives me pause. Our friend died of brain cancer two weeks ago. It’s a bug secret but she actually took a cab to a gun shop in town to buy a gun to kill herself. The owner thought things were not right and he managed to get in touch with family who came and got her. This was over a year ago and her struggle was progressively awful.
Baud
Glad Krugman has come around, but Obama’s faced that trash talk since Day 1.
BillinGlendaleCA
@raven: Pretty good pic, I think most of mine were later in the eclipse. We had really clear weather, had a mild Santa Ana last weekend.
@Mustang Bobby: Wow sounds like it made the rounds.
raven
@BillinGlendaleCA: Yea, it was gone baby gone when it turned red.
Chris
I sympathize completely with Krugman. I honestly did not expect to like Obama as much as I’ve come to. I was fully prepared to be disappointed, especially since he was a relatively new face in Washington. But he’s done far better than I expected – *especially* when compared to the alternatives, all those people who have lost their fucking minds in the last five years (not just teabaggers, but Obama’s austerity obsessed counterparts across the Atlantic).
p.a.
Krugthulu dropped from Glenzilla’s Xmas list.
Schlemazel
@Mustang Bobby:
That is good news. Its good to know there are people out there helping.
I was not disappointed in Obama’s positions as President, I knew he was not the progressive I wanted when I voted for him. (my libertarian friend, who was a Republican in the 90’s but is now a Democrat) called Clinton ‘the best Republican President since TR’ and makes a good case for that position. He feels similar with our current President and on many issues he does represent a saner version of the old GOP, minus the racism. I always hoped for more but we could have gotten so much less so I’m OK with it. I was extremely put off by what I saw as a lack of fight. Unlike Kthug I did not suspect Obama was naive but he actually acted as if the Republicans in COngress were going to cooperate & compromise. That was stunningly naive in my opinion.
In a world with rational Republicans He would have been a great President. In this world he will be noted as a very good one who made decent progress and held the line as best he could against a sea of madness.
Comrade Jake
My major problem with Obama is the surge in Afghanistan. That has proven to be a pretty large fucking mistake.
Then there are the early giveaways to Republicans. Like proposing, almost from the outset, a stimulus package that was filled with tax cuts.
The “red-line” thing with Syria was also fairly idiotic.
There’s plenty for people on the left to criticize Obama over.
Baud
So this is interesting:
So the right wing media is starting to set their framing if the net neutrality advocates win at the FCC. I wonder why now. I haven’t heard that a decision is imminent.
Chris
@Schlemazel:
The question is whether Obama was really naive or whether he simply didn’t think he could afford not to make grand gestures of bipartisanship – that he had to let them incriminate themselves in view of the public by rrejecting, again and again, his offers of compromise. I find the latter fairly plausible.
Baud
@Comrade Jake:
Which does not distinguish Obama from any president we’ve ever had or will ever have.
Comrade Jake
@Baud: I didn’t say that it did.
I agree that Obama’s received a fair amount of criticism from the left that he didn’t deserve. My point is that there are legitimate reasons to criticize him.
Mustang Bobby
@Comrade Jake:
Agreed, but at least it will be a rational discussion instead of lunacy about birth certificates, secret gay mooslim lovers, and whether he’s a dictator/monarch or a weakling. Given the turds he was handed and the frothing from the opposition, it’s impressive he’s even showing up for work. A lot of people would have said “F*ck this, I’m outta here.”
Baud
@Comrade Jake:
And I didn’t say you said it did. ;-)
There are legitimate criticisms, obviously. But the problem has been that those have been overshadowed by stupid criticism.
BillinGlendaleCA
@Baud: Also criticism needs to be in the context of the constraints that the President faced.
amk
So krugman thought Obama naive and clueless and yet is impressed with what he has achieved after 4/6 years?
So we should take krugman’s political judgement seriously why?
Shakezula
I hear this a lot, but anyone who thinks an African-American who was also a Con Law scholar and was semi-conscious during the both elections (or at any point during the last 50 years) didn’t expect the Republican reaction, that person is dumb as a post. Or projecting.
Maybe it took years for him to be able to respond to it in a way that wouldn’t have large chunks of the country shitting their pants over President Barack Shaft Superfly Obama?
As for me, 2 much work = No dance class 2nite.
Raven
@Shakezula: No, he just tried to do what he said he was going to do how he said he was going to do it.
Davis X. Machina
@Mustang Bobby:
The Onion got there first, as always….December 1, 2009
Matt McIrvin
What I’m always wondering about is how to criticize him where he deserves and needs criticism, without feeding into implicit support for politicians who are worse than he is.
It’s a bit easier now that Obama’s reelection is over and done with. But when politics largely comes down to team affiliations, it’s still hard to do. And it’s not just the two-party system I’m talking about: criticism from the “left” on foreign policy so easily morphs into support for some daft libertarian or paleocon platform. In fact, the fringe right in various forms seems to have effectively conquered the field of opposition to the two-party system.
Bystander
I’ve found Krugman’s judgment is generally far more reliable than that of anonymous posters on a number of websites.
PBO has done a great job. Plus, he’s the first POTUS I have ever wanted to meet in person. He’s faced Herculean tasks while besieged by Lilliputi….wait, where did that metaphor get derailed?
NorthLeft12
@Chris: I agree with you. Unfortunately there are a lot of people, not only pundits/lobbyists and their ilk, who believe that the two parties MUST work together to craft legislation and in general run the country. When the Repubs basically refused to negotiate and compromise and then began to outright sabotage the US government and did not get called on it by the media or for the most part by the Democrats, the public looks to the leader and blames him for the lack of progress….because you guys have some kind of monarchy, right?
This whole idea of bipartisanship is one of the most destructive concepts I could imagine. Seems to me you would be better off [and some people would be happier] with just a single political party.
Iowa Old Lady
@Matt McIrvin: I’ve thought this about the president’s low approval ratings too. My disapproval of more war in Iraq doesn’t translate into voting for Ted Cruz or even Joanie Ernst.
Baud
@Matt McIrvin:
The left is weaker than the right in this country, for a variety of reasons. Treating them as equals in analyzing political dynamics leads to wrong conclusions, IMO.
Mustang Bobby
Another issue is that the left will have legitimate gripes about President Obama and they will air them in public. Republicans will never trash their own, even if it is staring them in the face. The culture of personality they’ve created around a bumbling and dim-witted president such as Ronald Reagan is enough to have the North Koreans taking notes on how to glorify their Dear Leader.
JMG
I think Krugman gets at what handicapped Obama at his start. At the time when he had the maximum political clout, everything was much worse than he had assumed, from the economy to the nature of his opposition. By the time he grasped how bad things were, the clout had faded. But then, he had never campaigned on the idea there was a crisis (many of his supporters assumed one), so it would’ve been hard to switch from optimism to crisis mode on Inauguration Day,
Sherparick
I am sure that Krugthu causes several morning talk show hosts (Scarborough, Kennan, the guys on Fox, etc., heads to explode this morning). Also, like guys and gals at LGM and most on this blog, it is nuanced and insists on seeing the President in historical context. Yes, I guess we are Obots, not because we worship the ground he walks on or failed to realize he has certain weaknesses and failures (Geithner, Summers, Emmanuel, and Arne Duncan: the names sum it up for me), but because we see in him historical context and without the imaginary Green Lantern powers that so many (Left, Right, and Center) appear to expect in a President. I put this in context of FDR (who had a huge advantage being not just a Wall Street insider, but actually born into one of the founding families of finance – he had no awe of these people), who is my liberal hero, but who shared with Barack Obama the “deficit fetish” and whose sins in creating the National Security State (again in the context of WWII) – from warrantless wiretapping and Japanese American internment – make President Obama a civil liberties paragon. (Only in history books do Presidents get any credit restraining themselves on civil liberties, and really not even there. Like would we really wish that Lincoln had not suspended habeas corpus in 1861 without Congressional authority, perhaps see Maryland and Missouri secede , and the South establish a militant and militarized Slave Autocracy in North America? Throw those assholes in jail and forget where one puts the key, I say.) Given the political context of the rabid Republican Party and the rabid 40% who vote for them regarding a priori assumption that a Democrat in the White House is always guilty of “weakness” (now defined as being unwilling to engage in endless wars and occupations in the Middle East) at best, and treason at worst), one only has to wonder at the result of an attack in the U.S. like 9/11 under Obama. The current ISIS and Ebola panics indicate how little it takes to create hysteria for political purposes and troubled and unhappy country.
Baud
@Mustang Bobby:
I’m not sure that’s as true as it used to be, but they do seem to know how to move on better than our side does.
Botsplainer
@Baud:
President Kucinich, on the other hand, would’ve been the shiz.
Bill E Pilgrim
I don’t think Krugman “came around”, I think Obama did. Krugman was pissed when Obama was doing the “families have to tighten their belts so the government has to tighten its belt also” thing in 2011as he announced a federal hiring and pay freeze. No, Obama couldn’t have instantly dissolved the austerity hysteria by speaking the truth about what a fairy tale it was, but who knows how much it would have helped to undermine that myth by calling it out, certainly better than him giving it credence.
Also, this column isn’t all unbridled praise:
On topics outside of economics Krugman basically dodges, which is just as well since as he says that’s not his field. This however:
The least impressive argument (often made here and elsewhere) about all this is “McCain would have been worse”. Of course he would have. If the question is “Is Obama so bad that you should have voted for McCain?” the answer is always no, to anyone sane.
The more reasonable, and more common, question is whether Obama deserves any criticism for his policy in continuing the “war on terror”. To respond “No he doesn’t, because McCain would have been worse” is not even close to a rational answer to that.
I give Krugman a B –
I’m sure he’s terribly dissappointed.
Matt McIrvin
@Iowa Old Lady: Similarly, legitimate lefty opposition to greedy Wall Street thieves slides really easily into the goldbug/Austrian/anti-fractional-reserve-banking/Zero Hedge fever swamp.
NotMax
Presidential approval ratings drop off well into year six?
I’m shocked, shocked.
Matt McIrvin
@Bill E Pilgrim:
True, but a lot of the heat around 2012 concerning Conor Friedersdorf, Greenwald, etc. actually had to do with a third position: “is Obama’s behavior a bad enough deal-breaker that you should stay home or vote third-party in 2012?” Together with a strong suspicion that some of the argument in favor was a stalking horse for the libertarian right. And I imagine we’ll be hearing similar, perhaps even more heated arguments over Hillary Clinton in 2016.
Baud
@Botsplainer:
That’s Fox News contributor President Kucinich, bub.
gelfling545
This is the reality. Unless the political situation in this country changes radically, which I don’t expect anytime soon, a truly liberal candidate remains essentially unelectable as most voters really want moderate, centrist types in office. I don’t even know what kind of event or change might precipitate the liberalization of the majority of voters but I don’t expect to see it however much I might want it.
Matt McIrvin
…A lot of the criticism over drones, civil liberties and Iraq also seems to revolve around this threshold of Obama being “worse than Bush.” If you can claim Obama is in some sense worse than Bush at the top of your article, it gives it a nice speaking-truth-to-power kick. But I see this statement and I always wonder what the agenda is behind it, whether the point is to criticize Obama or to fuzz out people’s memory of Bush. It would really take a lot to actually be worse than Bush without doing some very specific cherry-picking, and I don’t think Obama has ever been within a light-year of that.
RaflW
Krugman, again, nails it:
This is how we know that all the deficit blather on the right was always bullshit, weaponized to go after Social Security, Medicaid, and ultimately in service to tax cuts – always with the tax cuts!
And yet, watch the “debate” unfold in the next two years, and GOPers will yell “the deficit is killing us!” even as it is the smallest in a generation.
As far as Obama getting credit, of course he gets no credit. Democrats are tax-and-spend liberals, so the deficit isn’t falling, even if it is. (Likewise, Democrats are also soft on terror/suck on defense, even as we dronz most of the middle east and Bin Laden is still dead).
Gene108
@NorthLeft12:
We ain’t Canada. We do not have a Parliament.
Both parties need to work together, to some extent, for our government to function effectively. This used to happen in the past, but Rephblicans jumped the shark about wanting to actually pass needed legislation, when they lost control of Comgress after the 2006 elections,
Republicans in Comfress killed GWB’s proposed immigration reform and voted against GWB’s proposed bank bailout in 2008. It is almost as if they are mad at their Republican President for costing them thei control of Congress.
MomSense
Do people actually believe that the first black man elected President was stunningly naive about the Republicans?
Mark Schmitt figured it out. People with a background in community organizing recognized it immediately.
Baud
@MomSense:
I can’t speak for Obama, but I was naive at how many Americans would simply roll over in the face of GOP obstruction.
MomSense
@Baud:
It kills me but I can’t tell you how many people really believe in the both sides do it crap. I am phone banking and hear it all the time and I stay professional on the phone but I want to break something. Unless you are really paying attention, what filters through the media is that the President could just lead in a more leadery way and Republicans would help him just like good old Ronnie and Tipper.
The only people I’m disappointed in are the progressives who were so disappointed in Obama that they didn’t vote or help GOTV in 2010. Thanks a lot. A census year when the district maps would be redrawn is really not a good time to give the Congress and statehouses to Republicans.
Belafon
@MomSense: It’s almost like it’s not Obama that got the Republicans wrong, it’s those of us who elected him and then decided he was on his own in dealing with them.
MomSense
@Belafon:
Exactly–and he tried to tell us. He said “WE” in every damned speech.
Biscuits
@Shakezula:
This, one thousand times over!
RaflW
@MomSense: We use these tactics in Minnesota on racial equity and employment. We just won big against a construction contractor that was terrible, the worst in the state in fact, on hiring blacks, women and other underrepresented groups.
I think the thing Obama may not have calculated was how utterly shameless the GOP and their anonymous 501(c)4 paymasters are.
What we’re doing in MN works because when contractors or high officials get exposed in the way Schmitt describes, they are embarrassed and realize the game is up.
National Republicans never feel shame, never admit fault, never change tactic. They know where their power lies, and it’s not with the general public, so community organizing type tactics are of limited effect.
Now, the Village shares the blame. They could see what’s been done and turn up the heat. That, the GOP cares about. But the Villagers are really courtiers, so they know who not to attack, and comply in exchange for their precious “access.”
I admire Obama for trying the community organizing approach. It was worth a try. I do think he learned the lesson, and we’ve seen of late that he isn’t waiting for wider opprobrium to develop. ‘Cause it doesn’t, the system isn’t set up for that.
MattF
@raven: Some years ago there was a total lunar eclipse visible from my neighborhood. I had some fun explaining to the crowd that it was a dragon– first eating, then shitting the moon.
Gene108
@Bill E Pilgrim:
I think, in the context of 2011, with a very slow recovery that could be reversed and the need to continue the extension of unemployment benefits, keeping the Vush era tax cuts in place because the average American could not absorb another hit to their collective pocketbook, and extending the debt ceiling a compromise on long-term changes for needed short-term action may not have seemed like such a bad thing.
The economy is in much better shape today than it was in 2009, 2010, or 2011, so whatever stuff needed to be passed to throw a life line to John Q. Public had to go through some level of Republican approval, as they were using the filibuster, in the Senate, with devastating effect.
Obama can tell Republicans to pound sand, without risking an economic catastrophe,
Botsplainer
If I were Harry Reid, I’d create a special investigative committee and select David Vitter to run it, for the lulz.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/aides-despite-denials-knew-of-white-house-tie-to-cartagena-prostitution-scandal/2014/10/08/5b98dc90-4e7e-11e4-aa5e-7153e466a02d_story.html
Cartagena Hookergate! A 25 year old intern hired a (probably elegantly hot and totally desireable) escort.
Baud
@MomSense:
I’m sad to say I feel the same way. I became enamored with blogs during the Bush years, but they all seemed to fall part early in Obama’s term (which is why I’m mostly here now instead of at daily kos). 2014 is the first year that the blogs (at least the ones I still follow) seem to have regained some of their former sanity and focus, but for the most part it seems too little too late.
MomSense
@RaflW:
I don’t think he had to learn any lesson. He got a lot of the big policy achievements he wanted. The big problem was that too many liberals/progressives didn’t realize how much we were doing and dig in and fight the Republicans. Really good climate change legislation was held up in the Senate after passing the house in the summer of 2009. We really needed to focus on the midterm elections but instead liberals went after Dem Senators who weren’t liberal enough. It was really effing stupid. Yeah Arkansas was totally going to elect someone to the left of Blanche Lincoln in a midterm election after over a year of fear mongering about ObamaCare stealing money from seniors’ Medicare.
Ben Cisco
So the scales have fallen from K-Thugs eyes, have they? And at six-plus years in too.
How…enlightened.
debbie
@Baud:
I knew the GOP would not be happy, but I never thought they would actually risk destroying the country in the process of regaining power.
Baud
@debbie:
True, even the business interests have lost some control over the GOP, they have gone so far off the rails. But my naivete was in how non-GOP Americans would react.
RaflW
@MomSense:
Huh. We were just talking about how he had to give up on bipartisan sparkleponies and that he did eventually get more realistic and toughen his rhetoric (which, as I recall, caused much pearl-clutching among the civility chorus who never call out Republicans).
And I give Obama more credit that this. One of the core tenets of community organizing (I did roughly the same weeklong Alinski-based training as Obama, some years later, in Chicago even) is that you always debrief your action, see what you can learn, and apply that in future actions. I’m sure he learned plenty about political judo and 11 dimensional chess. And I don’t mean that sarcastically.
FlipYrWhig
Even now the under-theorized, under-appreciated aspects of Obama’s presidency are these:
1. The 2008 financial crisis overtook all other matters, making the stimulus the first battle, when there had been no debate about how best to stimulate the economy and hence no consensus in the public or in the party about what to do to address it.
2. The persistence of center-right Democrats, especially in the Senate, whose support Obama has always needed for every goddamn thing. They aren’t liberals in their hearts, their constituents aren’t overwhelmingly liberals, and they genuinely believe in things like deficit reduction and bipartisanship. Look at any Mark Warner campaign commercial–let alone the Joe Manchin ones. Obama has to win them over too. He can’t just presume their support.
Gene108
@MomSense:
As much as it would irk liberal sensibilities, there needs to be a media voice that is purely supportive of incumbent Democrats.
There is a large media platform to polish Republicans image, so there is always a positive message about Republicans filtering into people’s concsiousness.
There is nothing similar on the Left and liberals do not care about the perception problem this creates.
When the PPACA was passed the Left pissed itself, because it was not single payer. All the headline skimming general public heard was “Obamacare bad” because the Right was uniformly trashing it and the Left was not rallying behind it.
I think we are at a point where we cannot have valid criticism of Democrats without feeding into the right-wing frenzy of trashing Democrats for everything from getting out of bed in the morning to killing coal mining jobs.
For every Left criticism of Democrats there needs to be three or four or more pieces highlighting good things Democrats have done, but that rarely seems to happen.
Bobby B.
Presidents are mere speed bumps to the progress of The Corporation and the Police State which have rolled on mightily. With a GOP president there would have been a smoother ride.
MomSense
@RaflW:
I don’t think he ever believed in
glocksman
I guess the stray cat I’ve fed told his girlfriend about the free food.
Pic
That said, the male gray cat didn’t seem too eager to share the bounty.
Culture of Truth
I agree with much of this, but would add whether Obama was genuinely naive in not underesting lack of GOP cooperation from day one, or reached out to at least bey seen aas making the effort, isn’t terribly important because in the end, if had ‘known’ they would be endlessly obstructionist, would it had made any real difference? And yet critics harp on this. I would further add, not only is this criticism weirdly condescending, especially from people with no experience in politics themselves, but in fact ‘reaching out’ highlights the GOP’s lack of cooperation and thus serves a valuable PR function.
WereBear
@Mustang Bobby: First of all: great news!
Second of all: $65K co-pay!
Is this a Florida not taking Medicaid thing?
Ben Cisco
@RaflW:
Sounds like a good name for a…waitaminit…
Elizabelle
@MomSense:
Good on you for phone banking. Three cheers!
glocksman
@Mustang Bobby:
Jeebus H Crist!
When I read this it makes me profoundly grateful that my max out of pocket is $800 thanks to my union contract.
I’m not very religious, but I will keep your family in mind and hope for the best.
Culture of Truth
It’s true there could have been more white collar prosecutions, but there have been some, and non-lawyers vastly, greatly, underestimate who difficult such prosecutions are. More to the point, causing a financial crisis is not a crime, and it’s very much not the President’s job to make sure important figures go to jail.
J.D. Rhoades
Yes, but Krugman is a Nobel Prize winner, and so is Al Gore, and Al Gore is fat and lives in a big house, so there. Also, Benghazi.
Belafon
@J.D. Rhoades: You have to work ebola in there somehow.
Just Some Fuckhead
Shorter Krugman: Obama’s half-assed accomplishments are better than nothing, yay!
NCSteve
@Gene108: The Republicans jumped the shark when a byzantine intriger named Newt Gingrich backstabbed his way into Bob Michel’s position in the House. The GOP has always had a hard core of xenophobic, paranoiac crazed nuts who advocated Total War, but it was Gingrich who opened the door to the “No Boundaries, No Limits, No Unwritten Rules!” nihilism that has turned the GOP from a normal American political party, into a right wing extremist movement.
No one give Gingrich sufficient credit for the hellstorm he unleashed on American politics. He’s the one who looked at the intricate framework of unwritten rules and limits that had been devised over decades to make our inherently unworkable constitutional order function and saw exploitable opportunities. He’s the one who advised candidates for national office to systematically use eliminationist, maximalist rhetoric in describing opponents. And he’s the one who set us the GOP on the path to becoming a party of the stupid that equates policy with complicity with evil.
FlipYrWhig
@Culture of Truth: I think Hypothetical Combative Obama would be in a far worse political position and probably would have lost in 2012. Because when you pick fights and lose, nobody likes you, including the people who say they long for toughness and fight-picking, who will still say the reason you lost the fight was that you weren’t fighting it properly. So a losing battle doesn’t galvanize support–far from it.
MomSense
@Just Some Fuckhead:
Fuckhead is a good nym for you.
I took my son to the doctor Wednesday and it didn’t bankrupt me. He needed tests and medication and follow up. We didn’t spend hours at the ER and end up with a bill that would take years to pay off. So what you call half-assed sure as hell is better than the nothing I had before. May seem like a small accomplishment to you but it makes a huge difference to my family.
SMignon
Long time reader, de-lurking for the first time. The topic of approval ratings and public opinion is dear to me, because of the part-time work I do with a private polling company. I want to assure you all that I understand your time is limited, that you have many other claims upon your energy and resources, and that you, Mr./Mrs./Miss John or Jane Public, would rather do anything else but answer survey questions.
And you’ve let me know this, in many, many ways. Whether the callee is nasty or nice, whether you pick up then hang up or pick up but don’t speak, whether you curse me out or politely decline, the result is still the same: your opinions are not tallied or tabulated, and therefore THEY DONT ‘COUNT.’
Sure, you approve of the president – you voted for him twice, right? But because you opted not to give that opinion in the question you did not answer, (Do you approve or disapprove of the job Barack Obama is doing as president?), your opinion here is as silent as you are. Do you know who I find DOES have the time to sit through a survey? People who SURELY watch Fox News on a regular basis, people who believe the Kenyan Socialist in the White House is actively plotting to destroy America, who believe the IRS and Benghazi ‘scandals’ are evidence of this imperial presidency’s evil designs.
But because they take the time to answer questions, their opinions DO count. Of course the President has low approval ratings – his supporters are sitting on the sidelines, smiling with grim satisfaction at having gotten rid of that ‘pesky caller.’ And listen, I will be fine. I’m paid to make the calls, I can get a fair amount of people to talk to me, and I fake smile my way through some odious answers to questions I consider loaded. But it breaks my heart for the President and for the country.
The people who do answer are setting the tone and expressing the attitudes upon which policy and public opinion are based; you can, too! We’ll have a nice conversation – I mean, how often is it that someone is genuinely seeking your opinion about issues that really matter, and in a format that can have an impact? To have the president’s back, and stand strong for the progressive community, please – just say ‘yes’
Mustang Bobby
@glocksman: Well, thanks, it’s not my family, but I just talked to her husband and he said she’s doing okay with some side effects.
The insurance company denied the co-pay because the procedure is “elective.” Yeah: pay or die. Nice choice.
Corner Stone
I think it’s interesting to see people claim Obama’s strategy of engagement was nothing more than a cynical ploy from the very beginning.
Johnnybuck
@NCSteve: This.
Newt is the Godfather of the modern Republican party. They may worship Reagan, but they owe it all to Newt.
Botsplainer
@Belafon:
The nuts have the solution – seal all borders. No international travel or trade.
WooHoo!
Given the completely irrational set of lurches driven by shrill screaming, I’m envisioning that the incoming screening will snag a number of unfortunates with routine colds, flu and “travelers sickness”. I’m hoping that the first fuckups will allow for looser rule applications for when my wife returns from her two week long Mozambique/Zambia/Zimbabwe/RSA adventure next month. Her greatest fear is to get stuck in a customs line with a slabhead whose brain stops at “Africa” without determining “where” in Africa, all while she suffers a mild fever from some cold (always happens – every long trip, she’s back with some sniffle).
She’s being a little coy with me though. Her initial flights were to connect through Dakar(we agreed – bad news there). She keeps saying that is changing, but can’t seem to tell me the how.
Botsplainer
BTW – breakfast included a blueberry donut with caramel frosting liberally covered in bacon (and some nuts). Got it while visiting the youngest last night
It might be the finest donut ever created, and I may have to move into some OTR Cincinnati shithole just so I can walk and get those daily.
Corner Stone
Greg Orman’s voice is about the most annoying sound I have heard outside of everything Ted Cruz has ever said.
beth
@Botsplainer:
So I guess now we’re finding out why some disgruntled SS agents are talking to the Washington Post. They’re pissed that a White House unpaid intern wasn’t punished as severely as the SS agents were for hiring hookers. Well boo-fucking-hoo. What a bunch of WATB. They got caught doing what they’ve been doing probably since Presidents started travelling and they don’t like it.
Botsplainer
@beth:
“Middle Aged Boys will be Middle Aged Boys”. Whitesplaination, ‘Murkan Exceptionalism and omertà within the ranks used to be enough to keep the cookie jar open while managing unfortunate spills and crumbs, and now the ni-CLANG has ruined that, too.
Belafon
@beth: Obama can just tell everyone the intern was punished with a pay cut.
Botsplainer
@Corner Stone:
Have you never listened to Mark Levin?
Eric U.
I think the only head-slappingly annoying thing Obama ever did as far as I’m concerned was the deficit hawk nonsense in the depth of the recession. Of course, that’s a big deal. OTOH, I don’t know if he could have done anything about it by that time anyway. The stimulus went through, but we weren’t going to get any more of that. Atrios points out he had the authority to do something to help out people who lost their homes. Not sure how much that would have helped and there was definitely a political disadvantage to that
Iowa Old Lady
@beth: Mr IOL works for John Deere. If he caused this kind of public flap on a business trip, they’d fire him. Of course, I’d have killed him first, so whatever.
askew
@Mustang Bobby:
I think the bigger issue is that the left is unwilling to voice praise for Dem presidents when deserved. They seem almost embarrassed or too cool to praise Obama for anything. Even Krugman’s article has an almost apologetic tone to it when praising Obama and they have to add negative disclaimers to every sentence when offering praise. I think that hurts us more than any criticism from the left does.
beth
@Botsplainer: I was kind of hoping that they went to the press because they were worried for the President’s safety. Now I think they were trying to punish the administration because they got punished and that guy didn’t. Didn’t these people learn the “life isn’t fair” lesson in kindergarten?
J.D. Rhoades
@Belafon:
Is EEBOOOOOLAAAAA! the new BENGHAAAAAAAZIIIIII! ?
catclub
@Comrade Jake:
yeah, but compared with what the previous genius did in Iraq, I’ll take the idiot.
rikyrah
SEE IT: NYPD cop allegedly took more than $1K in cash from Brooklyn construction worker’s pocket during stop-and-frisk
The Brooklyn District Attorney’s office is investigating the Sept. 16 incident against the officer, which were recorded by a witness on a cell phone, the Daily News has learned.
BY Kerry Burke , John Marzulli
NEW YORK DAILY NEWS
Published: Wednesday, October 8, 2014, 4:22 PM
Updated: Thursday, October 9, 2014, 12:06 AM
The Brooklyn district attorney’s office is investigating allegations that an NYPD cop swiped more than $1,000 from a man during a stop-and-frisk, then pepper-sprayed him and his sister when they complained, the Daily News has learned.
The encounter was captured on a cell phone video, which has been turned over to prosecutors and the NYPD Internal Affairs Bureau.
“One of the most disturbing things about the video is the other cops standing around watching and doing nothing to stop the wrongdoing,” lawyer Robert Marinelli said Wednesday.
Marinelli represents the siblings who were pepper-sprayed — Lamard Joye, who claims the cop took $1,300 from his pocket, money that has still not been accounted for, and his sister Lateefah Joye, a professional basketball player in Europe, who tried to get the cop’s badge number.
“I believe that this officer made an assumption that any money Mr. Joye possessed was obtained illegally and therefore he would not report the theft. This assumption was wrong. Mr. Joye is a hardworking taxpayer deserving respect,” said Marinelli.
http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/nyc-crime/nypd-allegedly-1-300-cash-man-pocket-article-1.1967792
Botsplainer
@beth:
Actually, the viewpoint is terrifying. They’re equating the actions of an unpaid baby political operative to paid professional security staff who are presumed to be smart enough to know the inherent danger presented to their security focus should a team member be compromised by blackmail. Wet-behind-the-ears 25 year olds are generally in married and thus valueless to extortionists. They’re still at an age of freebie fuckups.
Botsplainer
@rikyrah:
Why don’t you want to see that devoted public servant get home safe?
rikyrah
They kill me trying to find an explanation for anything other than good old-fashioned RACISM.
…………..
A Troubled American Moment
As conspiracy theories abound, voters are uncertain about what to believe
Joe Klein @JoeKleinTIME 6:11 AM ET
“How do you feel about the federal government buying tons of ammunition for the post office in order to raise the price of ammo for gun owners?” was the first question I got at a town meeting in Shreveport, La. Kevin and Lois Martello, a dentist and speech therapist, respectively, had put together a group of 15 friends and neighbors to talk politics, and it was pretty intense from the start. I asked Lee Foshee, who had raised the post-office question, where he’d heard that. He told me he had several sources. One of them may have been the right-wing Breitbart website, I later learned, which has been tracking ammo sales to federal agencies. Breitbart didn’t mention the price-raising strategy, but Bill Kostelka, a certified public accountant, confirmed that he’d had to stand in line to buy .22-caliber rounds recently. (For the record: the U.S. Postal Inspection Service is armed and needs ammo from time to time.)MOREThe Paperless Classroom is ComingWhite House’s Weak SecurityMissing Jet Spiraled Into Sea When Fuel Ran Out: Report NBC NewsKeep Out: Americans Want Flights Banned From Ebola Countries NBC News17 Shots: Teen’s Killing by Cop Sparks Protests Near Ferguson NBC News
It’s hard to know what to believe,” said Lois Martello, the host, who seemed as nonplussed by the post-office-ammo conspiracy as I was. She and her husband were a bit more moderate than some of their friends. “Especially in the election season,” she continued, “when all the ads are on the air. But even on the news, it’s hard to tell what’s real.” I was tempted to defend my profession, but we seemed to be in a full-fledged American Moment, and I didn’t want to kill the buzz. Anyway, Kevin Martello, Lois’ husband, tried to take the conversation “in a different direction,” he said. “I don’t know about you, but I’m pretty concerned that the top 1% of the population controls 40% of the wealth in this country.”
There were a couple of head nods but not much commentary. There was more concern about government waste than about unseen wealth. Indeed, another chorus of consternation ensued, this time about food stamps. Waylon Bates, the principal of the local middle school, said he’d seen people “buying T-bone steaks and giant bottles of orange soda” with government scrip. Others said they’d seen the very same thing. And Foshee said he’d seen long lines at a combination liquor store and check-cashing place–a fine establishment, no doubt–on the day the Social Security disability checks came out each month.
http://time.com/3483899/a-troubled-american-moment/
catclub
@debbie:
But the Democrats mistake is not pointing this out every single day.
“When McConnell says his priority is to make Obama a one term president, that means if it comes to choosing between doing harm to Obama and doing good for the country, he will pick doing harm to Obama, no matter how much that harms the country.”
They needed to repeat this until he repudiates what he said. Then say it some more.
mai naem
I think Obama did underestimate the GOP’s opposition. Hell, I think most people did. Seriously, its 2009, the economy is in free fall, you are the GOP and the first black president just became elected POTUS and you spend inauguration day strategeryzing how you are going to make things untenable for him and make him a one term president? Really? I think people forget how much the left wanted to accomplish after 8 years of Bush and two years of Pelosi as Speaker where the excesses of Bush hadn’t really been dug into. Add in Wall Street and the economy. They wanted stuff done and done right now! He gets a sorta crappy stimulus bill done and then almost immediately gets stuck in ACA sausage making thanks primarily to the GOP and Max Baucus which leads us to 2010.
askew
@Gene108:
I agree with you 100%. If MSNBC was smarter, they’d work towards that model as their is no news outlet that actually pushes the Dem party line right now and 2 that push the GOP party line. Instead, MSNBC has decided to lurch to the right by adding more libertarian and GOP talking heads/points which has turned MSNBC into another 24/7 Obama bashing network. And they wonder why their ratings are in the toilet. The audience who wants never-ending Obama sucks news coverage is already watching CNN or Fox News. MSNBC is never going to get that audience. But, they refuse to learn and seem to be determined on blaming the falling ratings on being too liberal.
People overlook how important CNN was to Bill Clinton’s presidency. That network helped push positive stories about his presidency out into the mainstream media. There is nothing similar to that now and Obama suffers for it.
Belafon
@catclub: yeah, I’m really having trouble finding fault – and especially calling it idiotic – when he got Syria to give up its chemical weapons without a single missile or bullet.
Chris
@RaflW:
The problem with the Village is that the “liberal media” meme has become so ingrained in the public consciousness (not just GOP) that it blunts any good they might do right out the door.
That’s not to say that they’re not center right courtisans. They totally are. But even if they did start doing their job, a whole bunch of the public would just go “oh, they’re at it again. We already knew they were liberally biased, they’re just being even more blatant about it.”
Kind of like academia: it almost doesn’t matter how many global warming or evolution studies are out there, because, say, 40% of the public will call it a liberal conspiracy no matter, and another 20 will hem and haw and say there need to be more studies and it’s important to avoid the appearanceof bias and reasonable people can disagree and whatnot.
In the last thirty years there’s been a massive backlash against the reality based community and any kind of expertise.
catclub
@Botsplainer:
Never. Not a word. Makes me happy to say it.
cmorenc
@Cermet:
Um…Carter makes a poor Presidential benchmark from which to measure “best” from, from the standpoint of effectiveness. He’s one of the genuinely best human beings to have ever been President, and certainly one of the best ex-Presidents in US History, but his actual one term in office was marked by flailing ineffectiveness, despite his giving it his sincere best efforts. Reagan was a shallow, callous person who foisted terrible policies on the country, but alas he was tremendously effective in doing so, and in building a lasting policy and political legacy. Even more than a quarter-century after he left office, every candidate for the GOP Presidential nomination has to obsequiously not only genuflect before Reagan as their idol, they have to verbally kiss his ass, and rather deeply – or their chances within the party are toast.
I will agree with you that Obama will turn out to be a far more positively consequential President than he’s yet being given credit for, for the reasons Krugman listed. However, his inexperience, naivete, and adherence to the conventional wisdom of very serious people (including especially Tim Geithner) during his first term, particularly his first two years, did grievous damage to his potential and the possibilities for greater progressive reform in this country. True, the quick turn of the GOP after his election into unyielding extremism and obstruction were a huge factor, facilitated by fecklessly selfish, vain assholes within his own party like Lieberman and Nelson – but nevertheless it’s also true that for the first six months or so in office, he had the GOP caught politically flat on its back in a position where they would have been unable to resist some well-chosen fundamental financial reform initiatives. He had several GOP Senators (McCain and Graham for instance) willing to openly consider at least temporary nationalization of the too-big-to-fail banks that were indeed failing due to derivative and mortgage shenanigans. He needed an Attorney General willing to make sure some high-level banksters were prosecuted and hung swinging from lampposts. But he balked under the influence of Geithner and the notion that the financial community had supported his election, and he didn’t want to alienate their newfound support of the democratic party. Bwahahaha!
Fair Economist
I think Obama’s problem is that he’s in a bubble of VSP. They dominate Washington politics, the big money donors at the fundraising events and – perhaps most important – the media. This is actually a pretty common problem in modern democracy, where various agent manipulate information channels to establish a very soft-glove authoritarianism/crony capitalism (think Berlusconi and Fidesz). The major Western countries differ in that there’s not one authority manipulating info – it’s a collusion, partially maintained by the fact that the people maintaining the bubble are also in it, so they delude themselves along with everybody else.
Obama has spent the last 10 years surrounded by David Brooks-type spouting nonsense about haw we just need to “compromise” and cut “wasteful” government spending (when the truth is that corporate spending is *far* more wasteful, just more exploitative.) You can hardly blame him for fallling for it.
Iowa Old Lady
I’m still getting Republican robocalls urging me to fill out an absentee ballot request which they will send me. This one was from Joni Ernst and included the claim that Democrats were rallying their voters to vote early and I should help her and the whole R slate catch up.
Chris
@FlipYrWhig:
A commenter here a couple years back said that what was.missing in modern day Washington was a moderate Republican faction, which in the past had avoided the kind of insanity we see now. I… agree. The problem with Washington since Gingrich’s revolution in 1994 is we have a center right faction among Democrats acting as a brake (which you described) but no equivalent center left faction among Republicans acting as a brake on their craziness. The result is the current “wired for Republicans” shitshow.
Corner Stone
@askew:
Is there another MSNBC on air somewhere? And does it have a small pointy beard on its logo?
Matt McIrvin
Brad DeLong has been slamming Obama and his administration on economic policy for years now; he seems to think Obama backed the wrong horses on monetary policy and could have done much more to stimulate the economy even without any help from Congress. I haven’t seen him respond to the Krugman column yet; generally he admires Krugman.
Violet
@Iowa Old Lady: Why don’t you get their absentee ballot and do what an acquaintance did in another race years ago when the Republican kept begging for money. Cut a piece of lead the exact shape of the envelope and send it back to them. The envelope included in the packet should not require a stamp so you just drop it in a mailbox. He did that every time he got something from the Republican candidate. Very satisfying.
mai naem
i cannot believe Mark Levin has a radio show. He’s got this real high pitched nasally feminine voice. Worse than Ramesh Ponumurunuru. Forget his odious opinions. His voice should not be allowed on radio.
Iowa Old Lady
@Violet: You are evil.
Amir Khalid
@Iowa Old Lady:
Yes, but she’s evil for a good cause.
Corner Stone
@Iowa Old Lady: You can’t spell Violet without it.
Violet
@Iowa Old Lady: It wasn’t me. It was this guy who was a friend of a woman I worked for. He had some kind of shop or was a metalworker or something. He came in and showed us the thin envelope-sized pieces of lead he was sending to the Republican. He got super annoyed by all the mailings he was getting and fashioned these things to send back to them–at their cost of course since all the envelopes are postage-paid. I’ve never forgotten it. He was such a character.
Corner Stone
Mary Landrieu is changing campaign managers at this point in the cycle?
Violet
@Corner Stone: Ha! That made me laugh. And I’m stealing it. Very funny.
@Amir Khalid: Yes, all for a good cause.
stinger
@Chris: I’ve always thought that too.
Iowa Old Lady
@Violet: I haven’t seen their mailing yet. I’ll keep this guy’s idea mind.
Mnemosyne
@FlipYrWhig:
This right here. It always amazes me that people think it’s been Obama vs. the Republicans when from Day One it’s been Obama vs. the Republicans and Conservative Democrats. Conservative Democrats have had zero qualms about undermining Obama whenever it suits their own electoral needs.
Hell, even otherwise liberal Democrats have shot us in the foot, like the group who went to Obama and begged him not to make them come up with a budget for that year because it was going to hurt them in the midterms. He eventually agreed, and it totally fucked us all over and handed power to the Republicans. Sadly for me, one of the senators who led that charge was one of mine, Barbara Boxer.
IMO, anyone who wants to blame Obama for any domestic policy (and a lot of foreign policy) can’t honestly do it without including Democratic senators and representatives in the equation, because they keep shoving him into holes and refusing to help him back out.
Violet
@Iowa Old Lady: I’ve wanted to do it but I don’t know how to get a thin piece of lead like that. This guy made his own. I haven’t really looked into it but I doubt they sell them at Home Depot.
Matt McIrvin
@RaflW: The thing is, I don’t even really want to praise Obama for helping the deficit come down, because I don’t like that the deficit is down; I think that’s a bad thing and we would be better off right now with a bigger deficit! The deficit being down is just a sign that the spending-cutters are in control.
Belafon
@Mnemosyne: It was conservative Democrats in the 30s that killed FDR’s agenda.
Corner Stone
@Matt McIrvin:
I also see that as a mild negative. But, I’m not sure what Obama could have effectively done about it. He could have advocated for different outcomes and policies but at the end of the day the Congress was not going to pass budgetary measures that ended up hiring more teachers, local govt, etc.
AxelFoley
@Shakezula:
Exactly.
And folks on the left wonder why black folks throw them the side eye.
President Obama’s been black in America longer than three days. He knew, and all other black folks with common sense, knew what he was up against from jump. Just being a black man in America, even one who is President, is like walking in a minefield. It’s time for our white so-called allies to understand that.
Corner Stone
However, it must be noted that some of the policies Obama did advocate for were absolutely awful ideas. I include in that category the infrastructure bank, his absolutely awful awful awful positions on education policies, and all the hooey about “jobs retraining” scams.
a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)
@raven: It’s a nasty tumor. My friend who died of the same in August was said to be in agonizing pain for the last 2+ weeks. Which is shameful to me since in this age of chemistry it seems he could have at least been kept comfortable. I thought of him and your friend when I read that story.
I suspect David was “luckier” than your friend as once he had some shrinking chemo, he had a really good year. He was back to riding and won a Grand Prix in May. Then it was downhill quite quickly.
stinger
@Violet: Barring access to envelope-shaped pieces of lead (what a great idea!), you can stuff the return envelope with their original envelope and all the other crap that came in it. Just send their own stuff back to them, at their cost. Saves you having to recycle it, too — win-win!
Cacti
I think part of the reason Clinton, and now apparently Carter, are bitter towards Obama is that history is going to view his Presidency as far more consequential than either of theirs.
Obama has advanced more liberal policy priorities than any Dem President since LBJ. His team also created the 21st century campaign apparatus that made full use of digital technology, and he showed Dems how to win nationally without having chase after racist/reagan Democrat voters.
Fair Economist
@Matt McIrvin:
That’s a strange complaint, and he should know better. Monetary policy is controlled by the Federal Reserve Board; the President has no say at all unless the board chooses to listen to him. Half the board is appointed by the big banks; in combination with the fact the some political appointees will inevitably be sympathetic to the banks that means Fed policy is set by J.P. Morgan, Bank of America, and Citibank. If DeLong has a beef with monetary policy he should be criticizing somebody who really has influence on it like Jamie Dimon.
I think he’s wrong on a technical level too; Fed monetary policy has been *very* accommodative. Too much monetary stimulus tends to create asset bubbles rather than real growth; indeed, that’s just what we’ve seen with record stock prices and a return to bubble property prices in some markets, combined with viciously high unemployment.
The shortfall has been on the fiscal side, with a stimulus which was too small and – more importantly – poorly spent. Too much on tax cuts and infrastructure spending, which don’t stimulate much; too little on expanding the safety net, and *nothing* on WPA-style jobs programs, which is what we most needed.
FlipYrWhig
@Mnemosyne: I just get frustrated with prescriptions for what “the Democrats need to do” that don’t take into account that there are a lot of Democrats who wouldn’t agree with any of the suggestions. Like single-payer. Like aggressiveness towards banking and the financial sector. The median position of Senate Democrats is way to the right of the people who offer these suggestions and think of them as common sense. They’re not temporarily embarrassed
millionairesliberals, they’re genuine believers in lean government, efficiency, deregulation, and so forth, especially in high-tech and finance. That’s a huge factor in the way Democrats behave. It includes how Obama behaves, of course. But there’s this feeling out there, especially in the blogosphere, that “the Democrats” are this monolithic entity that either the people or the President just need to activate, and that their disorganization and disagreement are signs that no one is trying to organize them and make them agree. No. They don’t agree and don’t care to change their minds, mostly due to conviction. Their convictions may be asinine, but they’re genuine. And that’s something that has to be included in the analysis.Fair Economist
@Cacti:
True for Carter. I think for Clinton the problem is not that he was inconsequential, but that many of his consequences were bad (NAFTA, welfare deform, repealing Glass-Steagal, and the stock market bubble). Good consequences would be tax increases, minimum wage increases, SCHIP, and a decent resolution to the Yugoslavia civil war. It’s a much more mixed bag that with Obama.
FlipYrWhig
@Corner Stone: I think if there had been a grand and noisy debate in the 2008 campaign about deficit spending as a recovery strategy, and if Obama had won, he might have been able to pull it off due to “mandate” logic. But there never really was such a debate. We just moved from emergency to emergency, got the bank bailout and then as much stimulus as the majority could stand, and then healthcare, and then the window closed–I think because of deficit-leery and welfare-leery center-right Democrats deciding they’d had about enough.
Corner Stone
@Cacti:
Not agreeing with your setup, but the part quoted above is undoubtedly true. As a president, Carter will be a blip on the timeline. I’m not sure how much credit Clinton actually deserves for the economic boom of the mid 90’s, but that will be about the biggest positive consequence of his presidency. Clinton’s presidency was consequential for other reasons, most of which are a grab bag of pluses and minuses, certainly not all shining on a hill.
max
@Fair Economist: That’s a strange complaint, and he should know better. Monetary policy is controlled by the Federal Reserve Board; the President has no say at all unless the board chooses to listen to him. Half the board is appointed by the big banks; in combination with the fact the some political appointees will inevitably be sympathetic to the banks that means Fed policy is set by J.P. Morgan, Bank of America, and Citibank. If DeLong has a beef with monetary policy he should be criticizing somebody who really has influence on it like Jamie Dimon.
DeLong (Yglesias as well) complained about the President not moving to nominate permanent members of the FOMC, which, in fact, Obama was slow to do (there are still open, unfilled slots). Those seats could offset the members from regional banks if necessary. (Not all regional bank heads are hard libertarians.) Meantime, Treasury under Geithner was entirely too enthusiastic for protecting banks and deficit reduction and not nearly as enthusiastic about helping underwater homeowners financially.
I haven’t seen DeLong say that the Fed stance isn’t accommodative, as it certainly is. The argument is whether it is accomodative enough.
Meantime, Janet Yellen is doing a good job. Yay.
max
[‘Whee.’]
Cacti
@Fair Economist:
I also think it’s extra personal for Clinton, who will probably never get over the ego bruise of the Obama campaign besting Hillary in 2008.
FlipYrWhig
@Cacti: I expect Obama will become one of the more admired ex-Presidents. There’s no doubt that he’ll be remembered as someone who presided over lost opportunities and so forth, so I’m not sure there’s going to be a litany of great achievements that everyone agrees on, much less a memory of happy times in the country at large, but hopefully it’ll be remembered as a little oasis of sanity and good intentions, punctuated by some bigger moments of accomplishment.
boatboy_srq
@askew: It’s a question of politesse. The left still adheres to the idea that self-aggrandizement is bad, and they’re less willing to toot their own horns. The Reichwing traded their shame for power – and it shows: look at Vitter, Perdue, Gingrich and any other pol caught with his/her hand in the till or down somebody’s underthings, and you’ll see that the only remorse s/he feels is for the “pain and suffering” s/he caused his/her family and not the betrayal of public trust evinced by the abuse of office. Rmoney was the clearest example, but by no means the only one, of a party so enamoured of wealth/power/privilege and so obviously expecting that as their just due that there’s not even the awareness that it’s unseemly or worse.
FlipYrWhig
@Cacti: I’m a pretty loud-and-proud Obot, but there’s no doubt to me that if Hillary had prevailed and been in charge these past 6 years, (1) things would be about the same as now, (2) the Obama supporters from 2008 would be insufferable gloating-in-sorrow backseat-drivers.
boatboy_srq
@Chris: Moderate Republicans have been very thoroughly ousted from the GOTea for heresy and insufficient dedication to The Cause. Modern GOTea primaries are merely contests to see who can run furthest to the right. It’s the reason they can have so many legislators but so few executives: appealing to The Crayzee in a single district is a lot less difficult than glossing over the same state- or nation- wide.
mai naem mobile
If the USSC doesnt strike the subsidy piece of O-care, Obama will have the most positively consequential presidency since LBJ. O-care will significantly affect more American lives than anything Clinton did. Dubbya will be the most consequential modern presidency in basically forever because he was just so very incompetent. I cannot believe that GOP bigwigs actually think Jeb! can win a national election.
Just Some Fuckhead
@Corner Stone: Greg Orman is a breath of fresh air. Finally, a sensible Republican who wants to break Republican-imposed gridlock and work with the other side to enact Republican ideas.
WereBear
I know she has better things to do right now, but she should sue when she feels better.
Start a foundation for people in her situation so that all those folks are still giving back.
Cervantes
Any thoughts about Martha Coakley’s MA gubernatorial candidacy, now that (predictably enough) Republican Charlie Baker is either tied with her or leading?
Corner Stone
@Just Some Fuckhead: There’s a lot of “Republican” in that comment. I kind of lost track about who wanted what.
Cacti
@FlipYrWhig:
Disagree.
Economically, I think things would be about the same.
I believe she would have jettisoned health care reform when it became politically difficult and kicked it down the road another 20 years.
We’d also be years into a boots on the ground invasion and occupation of Syria.
Cervantes
@Just Some Fuckhead:
!
Just Some Fuckhead
@Corner Stone: The good news is Republican.
askew
@Cacti:
It’s Bill’s worst nightmare. The man who beat his wife to her entitled presidency is going to be viewed as a transformational president who succeeded at so many things Bill failed at. It’s one of the reasons you see so many Clintonites on tv sneering about Obama. They know his successful presidency diminishes Bill’s legacy.
Matt McIrvin
@Corner Stone: The criticism on education is a minefield, too, because there’s a lot of right-wing opposition to Common Core that is classic nonsense about the scourge of unpatriotic history education, combined with 50-year-old recycled complaints about New Math. It has to be teased out from the complaints teachers’ unions have, opposition to the charter school movement and the explosion of high-stakes standardized testing.
Matt McIrvin
@Cacti:
I always get suspicious of claims about the judgment of history; it assumes history won’t be written by liars and fools.
Professional historians may well do all right. I’m less sanguine about popular history, the history you get from your dad and the conventional wisdom. Obama may well be forever described as a terrible President in that book, the one where Reagan was a mighty world-straddling hero.
SatanicPanic
@Cacti: This is true, but it’s not totally their fault either. No, I take that back. They were both more conservative than Obama. Nevermind.
Corner Stone
@Matt McIrvin:
All of these are part of what I was referencing. The nutjobs that want to get rid of the DoEd, and their criticisms (to be generous), have been able to further muddy the water and gain footholds due to some really awful decisions on education policy.
We can’t take steps to make it any easier for them to continue their wonton destruction of our edu system(s).
ETA, and I feel that’s what has happened during the Obama admin.
El Caganer
@Matt McIrvin: Worse than Bush? Pfffftttt……anybody can be worse than Bush if they put their back into it. Now, worse than Hitler, then you’ve got something.
askew
@FlipYrWhig:
This argument makes me nuts because there is nothing in Hillary’s career that shows she’d be as effective as a president as Obama has been. She’s never successfully led any piece of legislation to be enacted in her entire career yet we are supposed to believe she would have been able to get Obamacare enacted? What, based on her amazing success with health care in the 1990s? Hillary’s entire career has demonstrated 4 key facts that make it impossible to believe that she would have been as successful as Obama – she’s never led on any issue to a successful policy end, when facing setbacks she retreats and takes the safe approach, she is a poor manager whose teams end up as disorganized, infighting messes that cause damage to Hillary and her goals, she is more concerned with getting beltway approval than in pursuing the right policy. Those traits make it almost guaranteed that she would have abandoned any health care fight after Scott Brown’s election in 2010 like Rahm and other Clintonites were suggesting Obama do. Obama was the one who said he wasn’t sent to the WH to do little things like school uniforms but to pursue big changes and then he went to Congress and gave an inspiring speech to keep Dems onboard for passing ACA. Hillary doesn’t have it in her to do the same. She just doesn’t.
Matt McIrvin
@Cervantes: It’s actually not clear that Baker is “tied or leading”. HuffPo’s aggregator seems to give Coakley a microscopic edge, though it’s lost in the noise.
Cervantes
@Matt McIrvin: A microscopic edge that’s lost in the noise is, well, a tie.
Frankensteinbeck
How did he deal with his opposition unrealistically? What would firebrand bitching have accomplished that he didn’t get? If he raged against Republican evil, the stimulus, ACA, and fin-reg would not have been one drop better. It would not have helped us in 2010. If anything, we’re seeing the benefit now, because everyone whose eyes aren’t tight shut sees an adult on one side of the political aisle, and a screaming toddler on the other. Demanding everything he wanted would have resulted in getting nothing done, just like when Clinton tried to pass health care reform. Obama hedged his bets, as he usually does. He extended a legitimate hand of friendship, because if they accepted he wins big, and if they didn’t accept he’s no worse off than he was before. Oh, and it was morally right. I do think that he didn’t expect the sheer extent of the obstructionism, but so what? His strategy remained the best one for the circumstances.
It’s people who think publicly calling the Republicans enemies would have solved anything who are naive.
@AxelFoley:
I’m white, and I’m with you guys. He dealt with a racist freakout the way that usually works.
@Bill E Pilgrim:
The article contradicts you. Krugman says clearly that during the period Krugman disliked Obama’s performance Obama got so much great stuff done that it dwarfs the importance of Krugman’s criticisms. It was Krugman’s change of perception, not Obama’s change of behavior. We call that ‘coming around.’
Liquid
@El Caganer: I’m of a mind to believe that they would welcome the comparison. Fuck, that recent farce on the History Channel was obsessed with that “Great Man” thing.
Chris
@Matt McIrvin:
Your first paragraph, word.
Let’s not forget how “history” chose to record the Civil War for over a hundred years (in some ways to this day).
Brian R.
@Belafon:
Just thought that deserved repeating. It wasn’t Obama who stayed at home in 2010 and let the Tea Party monster rise and wreak havoc.
Cervantes
@AxelFoley:
All of that is true.
Even so — asking for a president not to be criticized is silly.
Glad no one is making such a request.
lol
@FlipYrWhig:
This this this
Most “concessions to Republicans” that people hyperventilate about were concessions to *conservative Democrats*. Optically, it’s useful to portray those concessions as being to Republicans to make it look like he was reaching out to a public that has a fetish for bipartisanship. In practice, every bill was as liberal as it could be and still get Joe Lieberman, Ben Nelson, Evan Bayh, Blanche Lincoln, Jim Webb, Max Baucus, Arlen Specter, Susan Collins, and Olympia Snowe (plus a few other problem children on any given issue) to sign off on it because they had veto power over every piece of legislation.
Obama didn’t drop the public option to appease Republicans. He dropped it because there weren’t 50 Democratic votes for it let alone 60. It’s like people don’t even remember all the turds we had to placate in our caucus.
Frankensteinbeck
@lol:
And yet, and this is the point of Krugman’s article, Obama got some truly fantastic stuff done in the face of all these problems. Both the obstacles and the accomplishments are true, which means Obama must be political Hercules, not naive and foolish.
askew
@lol:
Part of the reason lefties blame Obama for no public option is that FDL had that stupid whip count that counted anyone whoever said something positive about the public option as a yes vote and concluded there were 60 votes for it. When in reality, Lieberman and other Dems were pushing quite hard to get it removed from the bill by threatening to vote no on the whole ACA bill.
A Humble Lurker
@Cervantes:
Me too.
Matt McIrvin
@mai naem mobile:
If Hillary Clinton actually doesn’t run, or if some unexpected event takes her out of the contest, a lot of things could happen. I could see someone winning who is just perceived as Generic Republican, because people are pissed off in a free-floating way and the incumbent is a Democrat. A Bush who is not actually Dubya could be as good as anyone for that purpose.
Liquid
I just visited whitehouse.gov on a lark. If one of the Required Fields asked me whether or not I’m circumcised I would not be surprised.
Just Some Fuckhead
Say what you want about Hillary but she would have fought Republicans with everything she had way before six years in when Obama finally figured out Republicans weren’t starstruck with his transcendence.
Villago Delenda Est
@p.a.:
How will he ever recover from the rejection.
askew
@Just Some Fuckhead:
Nope. Hillary as a fighter has always been a myth. During her time in the Senate, she never took one tough stand against W. As president, she’ll give more fire-breathing speeches and then turnaround and support conservative policies or water down progressive policies as she has done her entire career.
Joel Hanes
@Violet:
Lead is a cumulative neurotoxin.
Wash your hands immediately after handling items made of lead.
El Caganer
@Just Some Fuckhead: What would she be fighting them about?
FlipYrWhig
@Just Some Fuckhead: Even if that’s true, and I don’t think it is, I think what would have happened is this: the conventional wisdom would then become that Mean Girl Hillary was to blame for everything the Republicans did, Democrats in the middle would moan about tone, Democrats on the left would moan about the lack of accomplishments, and she’d lose in 2012. I don’t think this “fighting” thing is a winner. In politics, if you fight and lose, you’re still tagged as a loser, not as a fighter.
MomSense
@Frankensteinbeck:
Thank you. The people who say this are also being extremely condescending.
FlipYrWhig
@askew: Eh. On balance, I think it’s the same presidency. If they pulled the plug on health care, it’d be balanced out by something else, like better education policy, or better environmental policy, or something of the kind.
Joel Hanes
@Matt McIrvin:
I cannot believe that GOP bigwigs actually think Jeb! can win a national election.
The GOP played fast and loose with non-auditable electronic voting in obscure Ohio precincts in 2004, a major factor in putting W back in the White House. They got called on it by a few activists, but stonewalled, and appear to have weathered the storm without anyone getting prosecuted (it helped that the foremost whistleblower died in a conveniently-timed small plane crash before he could testify under oath).
Why would they not think they can do it again, in more places?
Especially after 2010, when a wave of true-believer movement conservatives washed over many statehouses?
Cervantes
@Botsplainer:
Yes, save us from the political resuscitation of Dennis Kucinich!
¡No pasarán!
FlipYrWhig
@lol: There are many more problem children than even that, when you consider people like T. Johnson, the other Nelson, Landrieu, Kent Conrad, Carper, Warner, Feinstein, McCaskill, and more. It’s not a handful of “moderate” Democrats, it’s a lot. Probably close to half of the caucus likes to go slow, keep their heads down, not make any big sudden movements, watch the deficit, deregulate, and otherwise go along to get along unless there’s a palpable crisis or a media circus.
AxelFoley
@Matt McIrvin:
Thank you.
Cacti
@askew:
This.
“Hillary the fighter for liberal values” is straight out of an alternate universe.
It took her 11-years to finally suggest that she was wrong to support Dubya and Dick’s excellent Iraq adventure.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Cacti: I was shocked when the Hillary-is-a-fighter! thing started to get a little traction in ’08. If she had ever once shown half the anger towards Bush and Cheney that she showed towards Obama in the primary campaign, who knows how the world would be different.
Liquid
War. War never changes.
Marc
@Cermet:
So… Black Jimmy Carter?
(ducks)
gvg
I am positive Hillary voted for the Iraq war because she thought a no vote would be held against her later. The Dems who voted against the first Iraq war looked pretty foolish after the massive apparent success due to Bush I being much more competent and experienced in international cooperation, not to mention smart enough to stop. I think most of the nos lost reelection.
I should have saved the story during the Obama/Hillary primaries pointing out how older Democratic pols were always in a defensive crouch because they were used to losing to the then rising conservatives. It was a very on target article IMO. She anticipates attacks and it influences her to back down before trying. I also feel that because she has been protected as the spouse of an ex President, it’s been too long since she has had enough contact with ordinary people and she doesn’t really know how some things have changed.
If she gets the nomination I will have to vote for her but I hold out hope of better. In fact my memories of Bill involve awareness that some of what I needed him to do were veto a lot of bad Republican legislation especially defending women’s rights. I noticed that during the Paula Jones lawsuit and then Monica. Some of the GOP wanted to know why women preferred Clinton when he was clearly a rather sleezy guy around women and I realized, that while that was personally true, he still consistantly Voted and Vetoed in ways that protected women so as an elected official he was better for my interests. That made me think out the differences between personal associations and political and to think more carefully about scandals. Veto’s and nominations are a big part of what you need to think about when picking a presidential vote. Hillary will be better than any Republican.
scav
People project their desires onto Hillery just as they project them onto Obama. It also goes a way toward explaining the rapid cavalcade of most bestest ever will save the election (until the next debate) candidates the Repubs shuffled through. There seems to be a national need for the next Big Simple Quick Authoritative Uber-Fix. Elect X! No, Elect Y! Close the Borders! Buy the next release of Z! Eat Superfood Theta and Cancer runs away! Humanely Execute all people who have visited Liberia!
Marc
@Shakezula:
Quoted for truth. (Though I prefer Barack “The Islamic Shock” Superallah Hussein Obama.)
Joel Hanes
@gvg:
The Dems who voted against the first Iraq war looked pretty foolish
Only if you re-define “pretty foolish” as “courageous and correct”.
Tone In DC
@AxelFoley:
I hear that.
Mnemosyne
@lol:
The guy who killed the idea of expanding Medicare down to people 55+? Joe Lieberman (technically I but caucused with D’s). So, yeah, claiming that all of the concessions that Obama made were to get Republicans on board is stupidly ahistorical, to say the least.
Cervantes
@gvg:
In the Senate 45 Democrats and 2 Republicans voted against authorizing war. In the House 179 Democrats, 3 Republicans, and one Independent voted against. Are you suggesting most of these people lost their seats at the next election?
Also, re looking pretty foolish, you might want to read about the work PR firm Hill & Knowlton did for the Kuwaitis and the White House. Key words in your search: “babies,” “incubators,” and maybe “princess.”
Liquid
I think the most bitter pill is that the recovery only focuses on Dicks fucking Assholes.
Steeplejack
@Just Some Fuckhead:
Good to see you back! You’re a little rusty, but you’ll be in midseason form in no time.
chopper
@Marc:
Muslim? As all hell.
Kathleen
@Botsplainer: Did you get this at Holtman’s on Vine by chance?
patrick II
I have been on a similar path to Krugthulu, from Obama as being too moderate and conciliatory Obama has become a president who has done what it takes to get important things done in the face of a ruthless, racist opposition. So he has turned out to be a very good president.
However, what I would like to add to that is that over time I have come to realize what a great man he is personally. In the face of insults, bigotry, ignorance and hate he has kept his personal grace and his very unique combination of humility (I know I don’t know everything) and confidence (I know I am the smartest guy in the room). When it must be tempting for to respond in kind with anger he has kept the long view. Which is why I enjoy the White House correspondents dinner more with him than any other president. He pulls out his rapier and says sharp things he has probably wanted to say forever but does so with a smile that displays almost as much glee as he must feel.
I think he is one of the greatest presidents of all time. It is too bad that his accomplishments will be measured against a headwind of accumulated wealth, greed, and bigotry.
Whether or not he eventually gets rated as a great president, I think he is a great man.
Liquid
If I were trying to pull a “General Ramon Esperanza” I would be waaaaay more intimidated by lady fighter-pilots. Sure, their physiology lets them pull more Gs but there is no way I would [EVAR] defy lady-pilots.
Ben Cisco
@AxelFoley:
Damned straight.
brantl
What the hell is this supposed to be based on? We dragged Europe and everybody else down, not the other way around.
Turgidson
@askew:
In Joe’s case, he wasn’t just threatening to vote no, which would have been shitty enough but at least still allowed for a 50+1 majority to pass the bill. He threatened to FILIBUSTER if a public option or Medicare buy-in was in the final bill. This, barely two years after he campaigned for reelection with a fucking Medicare buy-in as part of his platform.
So in the interim, either his corporate paymasters told him to fuck off with the Medicare buy-in nonsense, or he just wanted to sabotage the newly-elected president (of the party he claimed to be a member of when convenient) he had campaigned against in favor of an angry senile warmonger. Or both. Either way he’s one of the biggest assholes on the planet.
brantl
@askew: That’s mostly Bill’s career, though it’s also true of Hillary.
catclub
@brantl:
Nope, wrong. We have recovered faster and have resorted to fewer stupid things that make things worse. Spain and Greece have 25% unemployment and 50% youth unemployment. Europe-wide unemployment is over 11%. England resorted to stupid budget cutting (anti-stimulus) that has limited their recovery.
Botsplainer
@Kathleen:
Yup. Holtman’s on “Long Vine” (using my daughter’s parlance).
We ate at Quan Hapa (kinda across the street), which had some awesome Vietnamese fusion dishes. Small plates were amazing.
RaflW
@mai naem:
Yep. The GOP was (and still is) engaged in active economic sabotage of our own country to, originally, defeat Obama, and, in bitterly sour grapes, to deny Obama a legacy as great president.
The GOP went pretty nuts on Clinton, but the scale of the opposition in these past six years has been staggering. I don’t get how they’ve earned such a pass. But then, they didn’t earn it: their masters bought that pass for them through orchestrated propaganda on a national scale.
brantl
@Comrade Jake: That’s not what you said, you said there are plenty of people on the left to criticize Obama. I don’t give a shit how many people there are to do that, 50% of people are below average.
Frankensteinbeck
@RaflW:
They earned the pass for going nuts for the same reason they went nuts. A whole lot of people who you wouldn’t have thought were racists, who don’t think of themselves as hating blacks, are actually racist as fuck and Obama scares them and they’ll believe anything because of it. National journalism is dominated by these people.
Mike E
@askew: As long as it’s their surrogates and/or former employees doing the squawking, then I can see Bill & Hill keeping a credible distance from said backstabbin’. I’m of the opinion that only Bill could pull off that whole ‘New Dem’ deal (or, as Michael Moore put it, be the best repub pres in our lifetime) purely on his considerable political talent/genius which exposes all the rest of these neolibs as hacks or mere players. Downplaying Bill by lumping him with these shitheads IMO really hilights why “Green Lantern” thinking is a thing now…just like “only Nixon could go to China”, only Bill can be the Big Dog. Any of these Blue Dogs thinking they could thread this needle like Pres Clinton are seriously delusional, and looking like fools now trying to break out the magic ring of leadership. Bill’s still a rock star. PBO is a rock star slogging it out on a shit pile. I hope Hillary is taking careful notes.
Oh, and to her credit, after the ’08 primary fight ended, she said about the frothy Obama critics, “People criticize him for walking on water because he didn’t swim freestyle.” Heh. I guess that’s when she no longer had a thing to lose, so it’ll be interesting to hear her thoughts now that she’s positioning herself again.
RaflW
@Matt McIrvin: To be clear, I don’t think progressives should praise Obama for the deficit coming down. I think progressives should point and laugh derisively at Pete Wehner and all those fuckhead deficit fetishists.
Botsplainer
Obnoxious fuckhead who is a big part of why ISIS exists continues being an obnoxious fuckhead.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/checkpoint/wp/2014/10/09/let-contractors-fight-the-islamic-state-blackwater-founder-erik-prince-says/?hpid=z2
Trollhattan
@askew: So long as they have Squint-in-the-Morning MSNBC’s “brand” is muddied to the point of opaque. They must be harvesting some portion of the shout-at-the-teebee cohort, because there’s no reason for a sane person to even pause there. I’d sooner watch Al Roker iceskate in a tutu.
gene108
@RaflW:
Yes. Yes. Do not praise Obama or the Democrats for something generally seen as a net positive outcome by most folks. You play right into my evil little hands. BWAHAHAHAHAHA BWAHAHAHAHAHA! (rubs evil hands in evil delight, grinning maniacally).
You want to know why things are tougher than they should be for Democrats, because people refuse to push the good news Democrats have done as hard as they push their criticisms of Democrats.
All bad news all the time leaves a mark.
Kerry Reid
@Chris: Well, I’d say it’s not for nothing that he kept a poster of Muhammad Ali in his Senate office. Problem of course is there are so very many dopes to rope.
Mnemosyne
@gene108:
To be (somewhat) fair, that’s part of the problem with being a coalition. Everyone has their own pet issue(s) that they feel must be pushed forward, and they frequently get huffy if someone else’s pet issue seems to be getting more attention. Republicans have an extremely short list of issues that they all push — basically tax cuts and no abortion — so it’s easier to get everyone pushing in the same direction than it is when you have one group who thinks health care is the most important issue and another group that thinks internet privacy is the most important issue.
Rhoda
@FlipYrWhig:
I can not disagree with you more.
(1) The lost of power and prestige losing on healthcare would cause is amazing; there is a reason why the President recieved congratulations from around the world when healthcare passed. This was a must win political fight. No matter the freakout that followed; a loss would have been INFINITELY WORST with no policy goods that can be pointed too – like now people are getting good insurance and seeing REAL CHANGE in the their lives they LOVE even if they’re too racist to credit POTUS (hello Kentucky!).
(2) There would be NO CAPITAL to do ANYTHING. The reason Clinton passed a bunch of Republican light bills is because he failed on healthcare and lost his political capital and then the Lewinsky scandal killed whatever support he had left. His saving grace was the tech rise that saved the economy and that the bubble that created didn’t burst til President Bush came on the seen; also he was luckily impeached which is what everyone blames for him not doing any damn thing to create a real legacy.
By real legacy I mean: Nixon had the EPA/China/Ending the draft/Title IX, Carter had the peace talks, Kennedy was killed but he got the NASA program going, LBJ and the Great Society Eisenhower and the creation of America’s infrastructure, and Roosevelt and the New Deal, Clinton and ?, meanwhile we have Obama and the Affordable Care Act/ending Iraq/ending Afghanistan/presiding over the dissolution of the Middle East (no clue how that’ll turn out)/Financial Reform/Consumer Protection Bureau/and we’ll see how the last two years turn out.
I really do believe Hillary would have taken Rahm’s advice and walked away from healthcare reform and done something smaller as she and Bill did in ’93 and that would have destroyed her political capital and I doubt she’d have a similar legacy. JMHO
The speech she’s given saying we should consider repealing the medical device tax and she apparently can’t decide what the right answer is doesn’t fill me with confidence in her.
drkrick
@Brian R.:
That myth needs to be put to bed. Dem voters turned out at the usual historic rates for a midterm. It was GOP voters coming out in larger than usual numbers that produced those results, not lefties punishing Obama and the Dems by staying home.
Kerry Reid
@Just Some Fuckhead: When did the Clintons ever fight the GOP, other than to save Bill’s job during the impeachment nonsense? Seriously, I just want to see where and when that happened. They didn’t fight them on welfare reform that kicked poor kids off Medicaid (in fact, Hillary acquiesced and supported NAFTA, even though she was PO’d by many accounts that she didn’t get ANYTHING in healthcare reform in return). They didn’t fight on DOMA. They didn’t fight gutting Glass-Steagall.
I will give Bill points for trying to overturn the ban on gays in the military outright — DADT ended up being a lousy compromise, but he went in trying to do the right thing and got screwed by ConservaDems (see a pattern here?) But Hillary wasn’t a particularly big liberal “fighter” in the Senate. Where is the proof that she would have fought as POTUS? I honestly think she would have accepted even MORE compromises in healthcare reform rather than see it go down TWICE under her leadership.
FlipYrWhig
@Rhoda: My counterfactual is different. I suspect that Hillary wouldn’t have made much of an effort on healthcare in the first place, not after the bruising battles of the stimulus. On the whole general subject, if it were anything, it’d be something smaller and more tentative. But I imagine there being some other kind of pitched battle that would be a squeaker for her side — for all the same reasons you just adduced: a losing fight is just another loss, no matter how bold the attempt.
FlipYrWhig
@drkrick: Agreed. It’s a little too convenient for both sides.
Waynski
@OzarkHillbilly: Laws weren’t broken. Laws were bought. Until you get real campaign finance reform it will ever be thus. We may well see another financial crisis before the end of the decade.
AxelFoley
@MomSense:
This.
FlipYrWhig
@AxelFoley: What liberals and Democrats should have done in 2010 was beat the snot out of Charles Grassley for the way he acted during the healthcare debate. Single him out, knock him around, and capitalize on the Obama campaign apparatus that had just won Iowa 2 years earlier. Nobody put a finger on him. He won 2:1 over his opponent.
AxelFoley
@NCSteve:
Thank you! Pisses me off more supposedly informed followers of politics fail to recognize Gingrich as the architect of the political climate we have in D.C.
Turgidson
On the “was Obama naive to think he could be bipartisan” thing, I don’t know what the man actually thought at the time, but I’m guessing he knew exactly who the Republicans were and that they’d try to destroy him…eventually.
I think he thought it would be good for his (and Dems) brand to make a show of trying to work with them while they spit in his face. If that dynamic was reported accurately, the Dems win that PR campaign. But aside from a brief honeymoon, the villagers decided pretty early on to treat GOP mendacity and obstruction as a legitimate policy difference without picking apart the lies or the truly despicable motives (party before country in a time of economic calamity) underlying them.
I also think the Obama team believed, while harboring no illusion that the GOP would offer help passing his agenda in the long run, that they would be absolutely head-injury-insane to oppose him from the very outset, given the size of his win and the condition the country was in. I think they genuinely expected a 10-20 GOP votes, minimum, on an economic rescue bill as long as it had some tax cuts in it. They probably also thought they’d get some cooperation on a financial reform bill, and maybe cap and trade. I’d be surprised if they thought they’d get much help on health care given the way Hillarycare went down and the Kristol memo (the one time that asshole was actually right about something, it had to carry the consequence of fucking the nation over, naturally), but they probably thought they had a chance at Grassley or one of the Maine faux-moderate ladies. They were obviously badly mistaken about all of this, and I don’t think they knew how to react to it at first. That’s on them of course, and on the Village idiots who let the GOP get away with injecting incalculable amounts of bullshit into the conversation day after day.
So IMO, the “new kind of politics” happy talk wasn’t a completely empty cynical ploy to the extent that they would have been thrilled with some cooperation and did, for a while, seek it out. But it wasn’t a naive belief in unicorns either.
askew
@FlipYrWhig:
How can you say we’d be in the same place with President Hillary if we didn’t have healthcare reform? That piece of legislation is the biggest accomplishment of any president since LBJ and without it there is no way Hillary would be in the same place. There is no other reform that would even come close to what Obama did on healthcare.
Personally, I think President Hillary would have failed to pass a stimulus bill right out of the gate, stumbled over a lot of personnel issues in the WH because she is a poor manager and limped along until 2010 when the economy would have been in a worse position causing us to lose both Senate and House and her to lose the 2012 election. And that’s not even touching the mess she would have made on FP. Hillary just doesn’t have the leadership skills to be an effective president which has been shown throughout her entire career. And trying to say that she’d be able to match Obama’s drama free and competent administration’s successes just doesn’t pass the smell test.
grandpa john
@FlipYrWhig: I expect that he will also be fondly remembered for the disasters that DID NOT happen and the lives saved from continuous wars if McCain or Romney had been elected.
Mnemosyne
@drkrick:
Right, but “turnout at the usual rates” is what the problem was. It was as though everyone who voted for Obama in 2008 thought, Well, that’s it, we’re all done and went back to not paying attention to politics. It’s exactly what we’re all complaining about here — Democratic voters thought that everything would be solved by electing a Democratic president, so they didn’t bother to come back out for the midterms and we all got screwed.
Even if both Democratic and Republican turnout rates had remained at historic levels, Democrats still would have lost. And that’s the problem.
AxelFoley
@Cacti:
Bingo.
AxelFoley
@Just Some Fuckhead:
It’s like you didn’t live in the 1990s.
Kathleen
@Botsplainer: Oh, my! What these young kids say these days! Shows how out of touch I am (had no clue it was called “Long Vine”).
Yes, you should visit more often! Does she live in OTR?
Kerry Reid
@Turgidson: Fuck fuck fuck I hated Lieberman. I suppose I can credit him for always being in favor of full rights for gay members of the military and I’ve read he was very useful in persuading some votes for overturning DADT, but still… other than missing Jon Stewart’s Droopy Dog impression of him, I’m so glad he’s gone.
I mean, Ben Nelson was a jerk too — but at least he had the plausible cover of being from a pretty red state like Nebraska. There was NO political downside for Lieberman being more moderate/progressive. Like his buddy McCain, he’s a pissy vindictive little narcissist.
lol
@Turgidson:
With health care, I don’t think *Obama* actually thought Grassley and the Maine Twins were in play. But he did have to deal with several Democratic Senators who did.
Rhoda
@FlipYrWhig: I still disagree because I think she’d have gotten rolled on the stimulus fight when she saw conservative democrats siding with Republicans.
The stimulus was a huge lift and I have yet to see Hillary win big.
Meanwhile, if not healthcare what? She would have to do healthcare having campaigned that heavily – that was a huge part of the democratic primary and then the general election.
Healthcare
Cap & Trade
These things couldn’t happen because the second Great Depression started and we had to do the stimulus – that President Obama managed to produce such incredibly consequential legislation in two years is a testament to his administration and Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid who stood by him and fought with him on this.
Given what I’ve seen of Hillary and the fact you don’t think she’d have pushed a healthcare bill; what would she have done?
Honestly, that was a huge part of my problem with her in the primary. I had no idea why she wanted to be president and what she’d do once she got there; she just seemed to think it was her turn.
Still does. Through, at least she has a platform this time around in her fight for the middle class.
Rhoda
@Turgidson: IMO, that was a black man making white America comfortable with him as President.
That he wasn’t going to be seeking reparations. That he didn’t want to kill all the white devils in America. That he was genuinely here for all people.
He kept saying that and saying that and he’s stopped making such a big deal after he got re-elected; but it was for one reason.
He’s black. And he’s the first. And he’s had to hold the hands of a lot of people making them comfortable with him. It’s the same reasons Negros got dressed in church clothes to get their heads bashed in on national TV; they were telling white America we are good, clean, decent folks getting the shit kicked out of us for living.
If you’re black, you know, you gotta show your hands and move slow in this world. And you may still get killed by a motherfucker.
Rhoda
@Just Some Fuckhead:
I honestly feel like I’m on a different planet from folks sometimes.
First of all: Barack Obama has a legacy and he cemented it in two years when he had a majority and the proof is in the pudding. This country is a beacon of economic prosperity in the world; I’m scared the rest of the world will drag us down if they don’t get off this austerity kick in Europe.
Second, the President and his team have fought the Republicans. They may have made nice, they may have co-opted their language, they may have outraged progressives, but they’ve held the line in insanely difficult budget negotiations with an unreliable partner that is more than willing to fucking blow this country’s economy and credit.
Google Barack Obama’s accomplishments: that happened while people marched in the street with images of him and his wife that are disgusting and the disgraceful treatment and disrespect of this President that is historic and unprecedented and clearly because of race.
He didn’t do that with blinders on and he didn’t do it rolling over and playing dead and letting the Republicans win all the time. Fact of the matter is; he did it with a lot of fucking fair weather allies and dealing with the fact that every President has a learning curve.
And really, given Hillary’s political history, I don’t think she’d have done a quarter of what Barack’s accomplished. Hell, I’m terrified this party will nominate her because while she’s better than the Republicans I think the same can be said of any high school student that got a C in a decent civics class. Hopefully, someone will step up and take her on.
Keith G
@Cacti:
I will leave WJC out of this since vanity was an issue with him, but what you hypothesize about Jimmy Carter is puerile and mean-spirited without provocation. Quite a bubble you got going there.
Cervantes
@Keith G: Trust me, vanity is an issue with Carter as well.
(I’m not arguing here that vanity has anything to do with his view of Obama — although my comments on what he said re Obama can be found here et sequentia.)
brantl
@catclub: And we allowed all the crazy investments that they invested in, to lose their money.
Matt McIrvin
@SMignon:
This sounds plausible, but if it were a significant effect, wouldn’t election polls be much worse than they actually are at predicting election results?
David Koch
This must be a bitter, bitter pill for “liberals” who hate Obama.
K-Thug even goes out of his way to attack their long held, retarded “bully pulpit” fantasies.
Of course the emoprogs, knee jerk haters, and Griftwald-losers will now try to smear my dear friend Dr. Krugman.
brantl
@Matt McIrvin: They’ve sucked for accurately predicting election results for 20 + years, although it might be caused by wholesale digital election fraud.
Matt McIrvin
@brantl: This is false, as Nate Silver, Sam Wang, etc. have shown. You can actually predict elections pretty accurately by aggregating a lot of polls on election eve.
If there’s wholesale digital election fraud swinging all the elections, then the same conspiracy must be manipulating every poll in the world to be consistent with them.