How many times will this Lucy and the football game be played by various GOP senators before the administration catches on.
Instead of cartoons, why don’t we just look at another kind of drawing:
Since there aren’t enough Democratic votes for cloture, various Republican prima donnas are going to be drawn, like moths to the flame, to the potential fame of being #60. These drama queens will enjoy their moment in the sun as they become the center of media and Democratic attention. And, yes, they’ll often flake out, as narcissists are wont to do.
None of this has anything to do with the administration’s ignorance — they know full well that they’re playing Charlie Brown to the Lucy du jour. Atrios is certainly smart enough to realize this. I’d like to hear his alternative to kissing Lindsey Graham’s ass, because I have no clue what other, better strategy is waiting in the wings.
rootless-e
Atrios has shown himself to in the running for Wanker-emo Supremo with his year and a half of supercilious snotty teenage critique – and his absolute unwillingness to ever revisit his many errors.
My favorite Lucy and the football atrios moment was his much repeated sneering at the very notion that the WS banks would pay back TARP money. As far as I know the inconvenient gap between that or any other prediction and reality has never been noted on Eschaton.
Guster
The alternative, I suppose, would be screaming about it: personalizing the Republican goal of breaking the government by blaming just a handful of Republican senators, and making their names synonymous with ‘party of no’ and ‘broken Washington’ and ‘cashing in on Wall Street’ and ‘putting politics above American jobs’ and so forth.
Would it work better than kissing Lindsey Graham and Olympia Snowe’s asses? No idea. But it couldn’t possibly work _worse_.
They could at least develop some aggressive talking points, no? That’s the part that baffles me, the complete lack of podium pounding. What’s gonna happen, they’re gonna lose Republican votes? Why don’t they start blaming individual Republicans for this stuff? It’s not like they don’t _deserve_ blame.
General Egali Tarian Stuck
Nothing of consequence will get passed from here on out. The whistle has sounded for the silly season on which side can get the last ratfuck to make a 30 second ad. Wingers know they will pick up seats and are not playing no matter. Obama knows this and about anyone with half a brain that follows politics. Lindsay quit on climate change leg by whining that dems want to bring up immigration reform to punk the tea baggers in the SW, and get Hispanics more fired up to vote dem there, and also to help Harry Reid in NV. This issue is a mixed bag for dems as pushing Immi. reform will also piss off other labor dems, but I don’t think the teabaggers can get any more fired up. Obama isn’t playing like with HCR. Dems need to eat sleep and drink wall street reform obstruction by the wingnuts. Someone should propose a dem amendment for public flogging of bankers, and let wingnuts vote no. It is a golden issue and having control of the congressional agenda was made for this kind of election year politicking (theater).
The ads started today here in NM, so the circus is open and proactive governance closed till further notice.
Martin
What else can the WH do? Their options as I see it are:
1) Keep plugging away at a game they know is rigged against them.
2) Go all-in on partisanship knowing that they’ll still get nothing and give the GOP a reasonable platform in November.
3) Give up and do nothing.
At least with 1) they’re forcing the GOP to go bonkers insane in opposition. The Democrats as much as the Tea Partiers are forcing the GOP further and further right, even to the discomfort of many members of Congress. I don’t see how either other strategy helps the Dems more than what they’re doing.
As I was told in one of my management classes: sometimes you’re fucked no matter what. Best you can do is recognize that you’re fucked, tell the people counting on you that you’re fucked, and do the best you can in spite of it.
Rhoda
What frustrates me is that most progressives don’t recognize that this isn’t 2008 and the party in power is the party that gets blamed for the mess that is the economy: the administration knew that and set up a situation where if the party stayed together they could have rolled up several wins in 2008. The party didn’t.
NOW, they’re doing what should have been done a year ago.
Frankly, the whining over the stimulus was the first clue and the dysfunction of that fight marks the continued dysfunction and dissatisfaction of the left.
(1) Republicans stayed together to oppose the stimulus.
(2) Progressives bitched out the compromises to get a Republican on board instead of bitching out the irresponsibility of the other party. Any dem on dem fire was what would be reported and become the story: a key example is calling out Ben Nelson for the same crap Susan Collins was pulling.
(3) Progressives bitched about the victory since it wasn’t they didn’t get everything they wanted and thought it was too small. They didn’t defend it and they didn’t fight to continually sell it.
What happened?
Republicans defined the stimulus AND took credit for the local stimulus grants.
When progressives bitch out the administration given the complete power Democrats have in DC; that is the story. Republicans can hide behind the food fight between conservadems and progressives and shiv the entire party.
That this isn’t obvious bothers me.
arguingwithsignposts
@Guster:
I seem to see a different strategery, if you will. Obama remains in the “work with everyone” mode while the DNC, Reid, Pelosi, and others play the “Party of No” game.
electricgrendel
I don’t remember Republicans having to kiss much ass to cross the 60 vote threshold. Then again, the Republicans have reduced themselves to a hardened core of crazy. Those Senators “in the middle” with conservative leanings are Democrats now instead of conservatives. So we have to peel away the hardcore crazies to get anything done, while Republicans just had to work with the likes of Lieberman, Nelson, Landrieu and the rest.
I personally believe the middle is toxic. We have to compromise greatly to peel away their votes whereas we have a bunch of centrist Benedict Arnold’s that are all too willing to accommodate Republican crazies when they’re in power.
Elise
The WH is happy with this charade – it gives them the excuse they need to go ahead and pass legislation without Republicans. AND if they can’t do that because they don’t have the votes in the Senate, then they can blame the Republicans for refusing to regulate banks, or pass immigration reform, or pass a climate change bill – all incredibly popular things.
MikeJ
@Elise: Exactly. What is the downside of saying, “we want financial regulations but Republicans refuse to vote for it.”
Jim, Foolish Literalist
One of the reasons I pretty much gave up on Atrios a few months ago. Nothing Obama does or doesn’t do has anything to do with Constitutional process or political realities. He’s weak, he’s stupid, he’s a liar, a manipulator, a fraud…. Underlying all of it is the fantasy that if Obama really wanted X,Y or Z, he could simply make it so. And the comments section is worse.
zhak
Obama should take it to the people. He should name names of the politicians who are obstructing the Legislative branch from doing their collective job, and he should explain why.
Nick
@Guster: What’ll happen is they’ll go down in flames as the partisan hacks who couldn’t get shit done and just sat around blaming Republicans for their incompetence.
At least that’s how it’ll be spun.
There’s a no win scenario here…either Democrats are incomptent, useless and can’t get anything done, or they’re radical liberals cramming through new legislation. I think they’d rather be the latter and I don’t blame them. if they’re going to go down, they want to go down doing shit, not yelling at Republicans.
Elise
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: The only conclusion one can reach is: No, Atrios is NOT smart enough to realize this.
El Tiburon
@rootless-e:
You just put yourself in the lead for most senseless lead-off reply in the history of balloon juice.
Although you had me at “wanker emo supremo” Wtf?
Nick
@Elise:
too bad the media is going to be helping out Republicans by endlessly parading propaganda to make all three unpopular things ala healthcare and the stimulus.
Linkmeister
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Gasp! You actually read the comments over there?
Step away from the keyboard, Jim. You’ll be better off for it.
Seriously, this and about three other places are the only ones where I read comment sections; the rest of the blogs I read seem to draw the deranged (on my side, maybe, but still deranged).
General Egali Tarian Stuck
@Nick:
Won’t matter much on this issue. The public has had a belly full of banker shit with “banks bad” firmly glued to their neural nets.
El Tiburon
@Elise:
So, are you both saying the only way to move legislation is to kiss grahams ass?
I think many of us feel it is time to move on without the republicans instead of continuing to play their games. The public is getting wise to their antics.
So contrary to mister mix and you, There is a better strategy which is to craft good legislation and take it to the people.
Nick
@General Egali Tarian Stuck: True, but what happens when the media spins the Democrats’ financial reform bill AS helping big banks, like they’ve been doing?
There was a dude on our local morning show here in New York on Friday who proceeded to describe the financial reform bill as one that will cost thousands of jobs in New York (and send them to Chicago, which he suggested was because Obama was from Chicago and wanted to deliver jobs to his hometown at our expense), and as a permanent bailout from the big banks.
No one challenged him on it, instead it was played over and over again for the rest of the morning and on the evening news.
Little Dreamer
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
I gave up on Eschaton years ago, about the same time I picked up BJ. I can count the number of times I’ve visited that site since then on one hand with fingers left over.
rootless-e
@Rhoda: What’s bizzare is how when you point out to “progressives” that they are reinforcing Luntz points, they start yelling that they are being oppressed.
They keep telling the public that the reform President they supported (grudgingly) is a loser, a sellout a fool, and the that Democratic party is made up of cowards and corporate whores, and at the same time they complain that there is an “enthusiasm gap”. Sheesh.
Yutsano
@Nick:
You tell me as the resident media expert. How can they spin this back to an actual financial reform that help mainstream America WHEN THE MEDIA NARRATIVE REFUSES TO ACKNOWLEDGE IT? You yourself said that progressive/Democratic narratives don’t get any media play, so what’s the solution here? Take a few bankers hostage?
Elise
@Nick: It’s our job as activists to pressure the media to stop doing that, and to inform others of the facts.
MH
I have heard tell that it’s possible to do away with the filibuster, and to do so with only a simple majority, but that this has to come at the start of a session, when the Senate adopts the parliamentary rules it will use for the coming session.
That would be a nice option to have, but if we want that in the future, we need to start asking for it yesterday.
SiubhanDuinne
@zhak @Nick
Agree with both. Obama should (selectively and judiciously) name names of the worst GOPstructionists; and the Congressional Dems, if they’re going to go down, should go down legislating — which could end up meaning that they *don’t* go down after all.
@arguingwithsignposts: I’d rather like to know what Lady Smudge thinks of all this. She hasn’t made her views known recently. Moar Smudge plzkthxbai.
askew
The idea that the Obama administration is so naive that they actually believe in their bipartisanship nonsense is just absurd. Of course, they don’t believe it. But, it makes them look reasonable and it appeals to independents.
General Egali Tarian Stuck
@Nick: Pretty soon the ad wars will start in states, and dems can directly educate the public on what is happening. The media, in general, will not have an easy time going against reality when dems call actual cloture votes just to start the debate and bring a reform bill to the floor and wingnuts block that.
I don’t think the media will buck much the populist anger out there for “doing something” and wingers know if a bill comes to the floor, it’s chances of passing exists, and they then will in the end have to filibuster actual completed legislation. And dems on major media outlets will mostly get their say along side any wingnut or gooper friendly anchor.
Now on immigration reform and especially climate legislation, what you are talking about is a real problem, because the public has mixed feelings about those problems. No ambiguity on drawing and quartering bankers though.
Elise
@El Tiburon: No, that isn’t what I said at all. In fact, that’s not even close to what I said.
The fact is – we need 60 votes in the Senate to accomplish anything. We have two options as a result:
1. Appear reasonable and willing to include Republican ideas so that when the Republicans refuse to work with us, THEY appear to be the unreasonable ones who are killing legislation in favor of absolutely NOTHING. So that they are the ones who appear to be in favor of a status quo who fucks over middle America…and they are the ones who pay that price on election day.
2. Grandstand and demand legislation that we can never have – appearing unreasonable and unwilling to work with anyone else, so that when legislation fails, WE get the blame.
Anyone picking option 2 doesn’t have an ounce of political acumen within a mile of where they’re standing.
d.s.
I can’t stand this bullshit.
The only issue where the White House assumed they would get Republican support was the stimulus. Mistake made. They learned from it. On health care they waited way too long for the bipartisan “Gang of 6” to come to a deal, but they did have a backup plan and they were able to move forward.
But now with Scott Brown in the Senate they do need at least one Republican vote.
Lindsay Graham is an asshole, but we have to note that for the modern Republican party, engaging in negotiations with Democrats on any of their priorities is extreme apostasy. See Bob Bennett. If he’s willing to risk his entire political career to push climate change legislation, he should be able to expect that the Democratic leadership give it serious consideration and not push it back on the calendar into oblivion. I can see why he’s pissed.
Pushing immigration reform first is just a bad idea. Can it even pass the House in the current climate? Climate has already passed the House. Obama and the Dems are probably just assuming Republicans will shoot it down and then they’ll be able to blame Republicans for the immigration mess.
arguingwithsignposts
@Linkmeister:
so here, sadly, no and where else?
Nick
@Yutsano:
You do whatever you need to do to get the bill passed as fast as you possibly can so that the media will change the story. You don’t extend the debate. Democrats do not have the ability to have long debates, they’re always going to lose.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Linkmeister: Heh. Looked at the front page this a.m., and clicked on the thread just to see if the comments would be what I expected. They were. I could have written them. Including the totally un-aware “Have you noticed how many regular posters have stopped posting here? Why do you think that is?”
Nick
@General Egali Tarian Stuck:
IF we run the ads…without the Fairness Doctrine, we don’t have to.
But I think what you’re missing is that the media doesn’t need to go against populist anger, they just spin the populist anger AGAINST the Democrats by lying and saying the bill is for the banks and not the people.
See the recent ad by the swiftboaters.
Mike Kay
If Atrios (edwards supporter) can’t bash Obama, what else is he good for?
MikeJ
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Heh. I was a regular there up until election day, when I was told that Obama was already a failure. There were plenty of sane people there at the time, but we weren’t as well organized as the crazies.
DougJ
This is what I wonder too: I get that there’s a feeling the administration is being played, but what the fuck are they supposed to do?
More and more, this comment Jim Newell left here sums everything up for me:
Gus
@Elise: It also gives them cover to keep legislation in the center, rather than making it too progressive.
Mike Kay
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: This.
rootless-e
the bestest emo-story is the one that explains Obama gave away the store on stimulus (false), added Bushesque tax cuts (false), and still didn’t get any Republican votes (false).
It’s a Bushian trifecta of factesequeology.
rootless-e
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: snort.
I went by for my 3x/year visit a couple of days ago and saw a comment bashing Obama for talking to Republican Senators about his SC choice – expressing anger, bitterness, and etc. that Obama kept treating the SC as a bastion of white maleness.
I don’t think mere stupidity can explain it.
gbear
@SiubhanDuinne:
Obama’s been calling out McConnell left and right for lying about financial reform lately. Just because the press isn’t featuring it doesn’t mean that Obama, Reid, Gibbs and Axelrod haven’t been trying. They’ve been making the statements.
Linkmeister
@arguingwithsignposts: A blog run by one of Tor’s editors and his wife Teresa called Making Light; topics are all over the map. The commenters have formed a community over seven or eight years, of which I’m an itsy-bitsy part.
I don’t read Sadly No’s comments, but that’s a function of time zones. I’m 3 hours behind the West Coast and 6 behind the East, so I’d have to scroll through hundreds of comments, and I rarely feel like it.
Sometimes I read TPM’s or Think Progress’s comments, and sometimes Yglesias’s. TBogg’s.
ChockFullO'Nuts
That sounds pretty much like a segment of the Balloon Juice commentariat.
Heh.
By the way, no mention today of Obama’s speech in West Virgina. I realize that WV is light years away from what interests this blog. But even so …
The speech was a thing of true beauty. It was a sort of Gettysburg Address of Mining, but with feeling. You can see the whole thing in CSPAN but you have to fast forward through the first 90 minutes of the video unless you handle excruciating boredom well …. and then Obama.
Lots of chatter about some crap Sarah Palin did or said, but Obama in WV is the money event today. Truly.
See it and learn. This is a speech for the archives.
BR
@ChockFullO’Nuts:
I was hoping John would comment on it and give a local perspective…
Davis X. Machina
Your basic Atriot is someone who voted for Obama hoping to get his or her very own Bush, didn’t, and is now repeating the process, hoping to get his or her very own Palin.
I know Duncan from Salon TableTalk impeachment days in 1998 when he was still a substitute gym teacher named ‘Kurt Foster’. He’s smart, he knows better, but he’s gotten lazy.
(TBogg began over there under his own name around the same time — it was the Bohr-in-Copenhagen of liberal blogging…)
Sic transit gloria mundi.
Mike Kay
RAHM it though reconciliation! That’s what Edwards would do!
Speaking of which, it’s been months since we’ve had any Rahm-is-root-of-all-evil conspiracy theories.
Linkmeister
@ChockFullO’Nuts: Text of the speech.
Citizen Alan
Here’s a little idea I’ve been playing around with — why doesn’t he call in the heads of the DNC and the DCCC and tell them to get off their lazy incompetent asses and get some decent Senate candidates for Florida, Arizona and every other state where the Teabaggers are on a rampage against moderate Republicans. Whichever moron decided back in 2009 that the Democratic Party would let John McCain essentially run unopposed in the general election should have already been fired.
I see two bright spots in the electoral bloodbath coming next November. One, that pathetic boneless ham Harry Reid will be gone so maybe we can get a serious Majority Leader. Two, it’s conceivable Tim Kaine will be so humiliated over his abject failure as a DNC chief that he will resign in shame and then maybe Obama et al will get over whatever piece of sand they have in their collective vagina and get Dean back on board so maybe we can salvage this by 2012.
Mike Kay
@ChockFullO’Nuts:
i really don’t see that. there are a small amount who will defend anything Glenn says. But I think that’s a separate issue.
Nick
@Citizen Alan:
and where are these candidates going to come from? Bob Menendez’s ass?
Are you running for Congress this year?
MikeJ
@Citizen Alan: Who do you think is going to be the Dem leader in the Senate if Reid goes down? Seriously. Remember that Reid is leader because the members voted for him. They’ll probably vote for somebody who is as much like him as possible.
Who do you think that will be?
General Egali Tarian Stuck
@Nick: I think you put too much influence with national media, especially cable teevee. Most folks get their news from local stations, and most of those anywhere I have ever lived, and that’s quite a few places in this country, give the news out pretty straight.
Maybe cause you work in it is why, I don’t know. But media, especially national media is hardly more believed these days than used car salesmen, except for the left/right ideologues tuning into Fox or MSNBC. These people are going to believe what they already do, and only soak up confirming information for their ideology. This is what Fox News has done to the cable news industry. Turned it into a cagematch to attract each others mouth breathing true believers. It is why I hardly watch it anymore,
MikeJ
@ChockFullO’Nuts: I’d like to hear more about it. NBC talked about how everybody set aside politics and let the coloured fella come talk out of respect for the dead, but that’s about all I’ve heard.
Little Dreamer
@Nick:
__
Swiftboaters pulling a fast one? Whowoulddathunkit?
Umm, they’ve been swiftboating for over four years now, isn’t it time for them to disembark?
Nick
@General Egali Tarian Stuck:
That story I told about that guy lying about financial reform…was on local news.
Local stations parrot what national networks say when they cover national news…usually they use national stories than ran previously on the nightly news.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@ChockFullO’Nuts:
I didn’t see it, but I did see the Kaplan Daily Hiatt story on how “even some Democrats” are worrying that Obama’s enviro-policies are costing good, Appalachian jobs. And that was the news section, not the Hiatt page
Citizen Alan
@Davis X. Machina:
Personally, I voted for Obama hoping that I wouldn’t get my very own Bush, and yet we remain: a lawless nation where now, not only does the torture of terrorism suspects carry the imprimatur of the Office of President, but so does the outright assassination of such terrorism suspects.
Nick
@Citizen Alan:
I don’t know what this has to do with immigration or what Klein said or Tim Kaine, but I regret to inform you, that nation that you deride that we remain, has existed since about 1776.
I’m not sure what President you were looking for when you voted for Obama, but you sure weren’t looking for any of the previous 43.
General Egali Tarian Stuck
@Nick:
Maybe you should change stations. I don’t see that sort of thing much here, and there are hundreds of local stations around the country. Some are truly right wing, but very few in my experience. Try and not worry so much, jeesh.
Little Dreamer
@Mike Kay:
He’s talking about those on here who think Obama isn’t progressive enough (cause they never seemed to figure out that Obama himself said repeatedly he was a centrist).
taylormattd
The magical “reconciliation” will cure everything apparently.
Or maybe the mystical “declare the filibuster unconstitutional,” which is *certainly* on the horizon from Harry Reid.
Actually, the answer is that those people don’t think and / or don’t give a shit.
There is nothing but anger that Obama isn’t cleaving to their wet dream: flipping the republicans off and offering idealic progressive legislation.
That’s what they want. They don’t care if anything passes. They want Obama to act tough, tell the republicans to fuck off, and offer their perfect legislation.
After that, they don’t care what happens.
Nick
@General Egali Tarian Stuck:
Did that, saw the same thing. I am going to worry that much because this happens EVERY time. We sit around and laugh at the idea that the people would buy right wing talking points and then are repeatidly shocked and appalled when they do.
We aren’t going to win the message war and we NEVER WILL…no matter how much popular support we have for anything.
Mike Kay
@MikeJ: no. it’s actually a sad story.
back in 1995, after the Dems lost the senate, Reid was considering switching to the republicans, if only because he thought that was the way to get reelected. So to keep him in the democratic caucus, they made him minority whip (the position was empty at the time). When Daschle lost in 2004, by default he became minority leader. This time there will be a fight btwn the current whip drubin and Schumer. Neither of whom are good choices in my opinion because they’re both old. Durbin will be 66 and Schumer will be 61. In contrast when LBJ became minority leader, he was an energetic 44.
Punchy
Curious, John. Have you met these other bloggers in person? Duncan and Markos and Greenwald and Clemons, etc. Is there a blogging convention where all the big names gather? Serious question.
taylormattd
@Mike Kay: He was more of a Hillary guy than and Edwards guy I think.
rootless-e
@Citizen Alan: By golly, if only we could return to the bygone days when America Stood by its Constitutional Principles, the days of rule of law, pixie dust, and fair dealing when the Swift and Remorseless Sword of Justice cut down the Executive Miscreants, without delay or thumb twiddling, when Giants Roamed the Land, and so on.
Elise
@Gus: Yes, because the goal is always to screw progressives.
/eyeroll
General Egali Tarian Stuck
@DougJ: Actually, I had a comment link the other day, to where Senate Democrats are writing broad reconciliation instructions for the coming 2011 budget resolution coming later this year. Which will mean, that if they choose they can use the Reconciliation Process for about anything they want that the RP rules can handle. Theoretically, could include things like a PO, or whatever.
General Egali Tarian Stuck
@Nick: LOL. Okay, worry away,:)
Little Dreamer
@Mike Kay:
I don’t have a problem with the age of these guys so long as they don’t decide to give up office mid way through.
Their ages don’t seem to dictate that their stances would change. I like Durbin. I think Schumer is pretty cool too. I would rather see one of them in that position than Reid, so long as they don’t leave the office in a position of peril because they decided they needed to retire before their term expires.
Byrd has been in congress for ages (Thurmond was too), so I don’t think age should be a deciding factor as to whether one can govern in their sixties or seventies.
rootless-e
@Elise: Admit it elise, the US Senate is a hotbed of populist fervor, a literal landslide of leftwing legislation lamentably repulsed by the rabid rancid Rahm who bashes hippies in a frenzy to keep Comrades Blanch Lincoln and Ben Nelson from turning over control of industry to the People’s Soviets.
Right?
Mike Kay
@taylormattd: doesn’t that make it worse: he was more of a Mark Penn, Robert Rubin, repeal Glass-Steagall, NAFTA, Kyl-Lieberman, AIPAC, let’s invade iraq, DLC, Evan Bayh guy. If that’s true, then he has no business judging anyone for being insufficiently liberal.
SiubhanDuinne
@ChockFullO’Nuts: Yes, I agree, that was one of Obama’s best addresses. Biden, J-Rock, and Manchin too. There were a few of us kind of liveblogging it on one of John’s bird feeder threads, but there was no dedicated conversation about the WV memorial service. And I’m with BR, I’d be interested in John’s reaction to the Obama remarks and the whole service (yeah, we talked about it in his thread, but he was more interested in positioning the feeders and how humiliated he was because he hasn’t got around to slapping a coat of Rustoleum on his deplorable porch railings yet, the lazy slob).
Anya
@Mike Kay: As an Edward supporter he should be thankful that Obama won.
d.s.
The Republicans played hardball with reconciliation. They fired their parliamentarian when they didn’t get the result they wanted. They tried to use it for drilling in ANWR, and only failed because a few Republicans bucked the party.
Something like health care is a horrible horrible fit for reconciliation. If the Republicans succeeded in raising a point of order to strip out the insurance regulations, the whole thing would have failed. You needed every part in place to make it work.
But the Democrats should push the bounds of reconciliation to try to move forward on other issues.
Harry Reid promised action on the filibuster at the beginning of the next session. There’s a lot of precedent for changing the rules at the beginning of the session with a simple majority.
They can reform the filibuster, or axe it entirely if they find 51 senators willing to go along and fight that battle.
Little Dreamer
@Citizen Alan:
I don’t think you understood Davis X. Machina’s point. By saying you wanted to your very own Bush, he was alluding to one of the progressive stripe (aka: a Democrat’s version of an activist president – isn’t that what you wanted?)
Mike Kay
@Anya: but if Edwards had won, we’d be getting free soft serve ice cream coming out of our modems.
Mike Kay
@Little Dreamer: bush is over rated.
some people think bush got what ever he wanted, simply because though lies, a supine press, and a terrorized nation after 9.11, he manufactured consent for his mindless invasion.
in fact he failed, over and over. the two biggest being the failure to privatize social security, even though he had 55 republicans votes in the senate and the outright republican rejection of his supreme court nomination of his dear friend, Harriet E. Miers (talk about personal rebukes).
what obama doesn’t have is a complaint corporate media, a heterogeneous democratic caucus in congress, and entire propaganda apparatus (fixxed news/hate radio/think tanks/astrotuff groups). it’s an uphill struggle, not an even playing field.
Little Dreamer
@Mike Kay:
I’ll see your SS Privatization and Harriet Myers SC Nomination and raise you one Iraq War and Deregulation!
Nick
@Little Dreamer: Sure, but that flies in the face of the idea that he got whatever he wanted.
A war a little more than a year after 9/11 is not a hard thing to get. Even now, Obama would have almost no trouble getting authorization to invade Iran if he wanted it.
Little Dreamer
@Mike Kay:
__
You think we don’t already know this? It’s not going to change anytime soon either. We have to find ways to get the information out without a compliant media, because that ship has sailed.
Anya
@Mike Kay: Oh Lord, don’t even joke about that. If Edwards won, we would have had Palin and the old crank from Arizona.
Little Dreamer
@Nick:
Losing the SS Privatization and Harriet Myers nomination are small potatoes compared to what he did get and how those things did to screw this country.
So he didn’t win 100%, is this an all or nothing game we’re playing here? I don’t think so.
Mike Kay
@Little Dreamer: I said that. “mindless invasion” equals iraq war. and now that you set me off, that’s one thing I can’t stand about the blogosphere, they rightfully opposed the invasion (the worse foreign policy mistake in us history), yet they wildly supported Edwards, even though he was a full throated proponent of the invasion. And then these edwardsphiles have the nerve to tell me obama isn’t liberal enough, when it was obama, not johnny boy, who was on the right side of the touchstone issue of our generation.
Little Dreamer
@Anya:
Actually, we wouldn’t, we’d have Edward’s VP and Pelosi as the new VP.
Little Dreamer
@Mike Kay:
Well, I wasn’t an Edwards supporter, so flame away. ;)
Little Dreamer
@Nick:
__
I think you’re wrong about that, many Democrats seem to understand that the idea of a land war in Iran is a suicide mission.
Mike Kay
@Little Dreamer: that’s not my point. My point is that it’s easier to accomplish an activist agenda when you don’t have obstacles. case in point: dems didn’t abuse the filibuster, now the gop filibusters everything. Some people have a superficial view that obama isn’t activist or activist enough because they refuse to acknowledge and account for all the obstacles he faces in passing legislation.
MikeJ
@Mike Kay: To be fair to the other side: Edwards had acknowledged that his support of the invasion was wrong, which was far, far more than Hillary ever did. And Obama *is* a centrist ( not that Edwards isn’t, but at least he said the right things for the base).
Nick
@Little Dreamer:
Since Republicans would absolutely love a war with Iran, what many Democrats think is irrelevant if he were to do it.
Nick
@Little Dreamer:
It’s only small potatoes because it didn’t happen.
NobodySpecial
Well, except for that whole ‘Ben Frigging Nelson is supposed to be on OUR side when it comes to legislation’, I guess they’re exactly equal.
Gosh, I love the fantasies on this board about the all-powerful progressives who had the ability to destroy every piece of Obama’s agenda by saying things about it and then voting FOR it, rather than the obstructionists who said things about it and then voted AGAINST it.
Nick
@NobodySpecial:
Ben Nelson is never on our side on major pieces of legislation. The only good he does to the caucus is gives us another vote within the caucus and thus larger majorities in committees. Calling out Republicans in blue states is more beneficial because in Nebraska, Nelson WANTS to be pick a fight with progressives and in Arkansas, Lincoln WANTS to fight with liberals.
Republicans in blue states have more to fear from progressives than the Nelsons and Lincolns.
jwb
@Rhoda: I don’t disagree. On the other hand, there you are bitching out the progressives for bitching at Obama instead of turning your pitchfork on the Goopers. No, we Dems are a seriously dysfunctional group.
Mike Kay
@MikeJ: that was ridiculous. if Lieberman said he was sorry, would the blogosphere welcome him with open arms? But cutie pie edwards said sorry, so that made his balls out support for an invasion that killed atleast 100,000 Iraqis okay. Now, that’s principal.
And obama is not a centrist, he’s a liberal pragmatist. Only in the ivory tower of the blogosphere does a president who passed a health care bill that eluded TR, FDR, Truman, LBJ and includes a trillion dollars of subsidies in the first ten years considered centrist.
NobodySpecial
Except no one’s BEEN called out. Instead of being called out, they’re getting their asses fondled, and Cole claims there’s no better plan than fondling LIndsey Graham’s ass, and all his buddies on the message board have nothing better to do than slam Atrios for not cheering on the frottage loudly enough.
ChockFullO'Nuts
@MikeJ:
Mike, you can see the whole thing at CPSAN’s website, just pull the slider up to the 1:30:00 mark (an hour and a half into the video, about where you see Biden talking), and Obama follows Biden.
Little Dreamer
@Mike Kay:
__
To be pragmatic in this political environment, you have to be a centrist. A progressive presidency just ain’t happening these days. Perhaps in the future, but not anytime soon.
Little Dreamer
@Nick:
__
Yeah, I forgot, McCain and Palin are running their reelection campain in 2012.
Nick, I think Obama also realizes that a land war in Iran is a suicide mission. I don’t expect him to do it, and if he did, I’d be coming out strongly against it.
Nick
@NobodySpecial: I’m talking about called out by US.
The president isn’t going to call them out because he needs them and the country hates partisan bickering. We have the forum to do it.
Nick
@Little Dreamer: He’s not going to do it, i’m just saying, he almsot certainly could find enough support TO do it if he wanted to
Anya
@Little Dreamer: You think republican’s opposition research would not have uncovered Ms. new age?
I’ve presonally found Edwards’ Huey Long imitation off putting. He looked so insincere that I am suspicious of anyone who supported him. It seems to me that they are the type of people who only respond to gestures rather than action. That’s why most Edward supporters are still bashing Obama because they are not getting the big gesture from him.
ChockFullO'Nuts
Interesting comment, and I am not sure that we can really nail that all down yet. Maybe after his second term, and some time passes, he writes some memoirs.
I think he is a social liberal for the most part, but definitely a progressive when it comes to policy. By that I mean, a guy who is the anti-Reagan: Government is not the problem, lack of faith in the capacity of good government is the problem.
The latter is what I believe, and because I think Obama believes it too, I tend to think he and I are the same page most of the time.
When it comes to realpolitik, I definitely agree that he is the consummate pragmatist, and for that reason, I think he ends up winning most of the fights he picks.
burnspbesq
@El Tiburon:
“So contrary to mister mix and you, There is a better strategy which is to craft good legislation and take it to the people.”
That’s not a strategy. That’s a recipe for no progress. One assumes that you are aware of the following: (1) there is no provision in the US Constitution for initiative or referendum; (2) the House is gerrymandered all to hell, so that the chances of unseating an incumbent Republican Congressmen who is not under indictment is not significantly different from zero. So, given those things, exactly how is “taking it to the people” going to accomplish anything?
Yes, sucking Lindsey Graham’s dick to get a bill passed is icky and degrading. So just tell all your friends you were drunk at the time.
NobodySpecial
@Nick:
Because, of course, we are all-powerful. /snicker. Just like we moved the bar on healthcare and the stimulus.
Why not just repeat after Bobo? “The US is a center-right nation”.
Calvin Jones and the 13th Apostle
@Mike Kay: Harriet Miers never even got a hearing before the Senate Judicial Committee. The Fundies revolted because she didn’t have enough of a paper trail to assure them she wouldn’t turn into a David Souter.
Nick
@NobodySpecial: The US IS a center-right nation. If that isn’t obvious by now, I’d like to know if you knew the sky was blue.
If you don’t think you have any power, and you might be right, then shut the hell up. THAT would be why the President isn’t attacking Republicans, because it does nothing for him, it only makes the irrelevant happy.
Mike Kay
@Anya: This. 1,000 times.
what bothered me the most was how they forgave his atrocious, horrid, obscene six year voting record because he gave them lip service. And yet they consider themselves serious and principled political observers.
Calvin Jones and the 13th Apostle
@MikeJ: If you remember, Edwards also spoke on the campaign trail about how Big Business(and other assorted evils) would never give up any power willingly. Basically, he pointed out what we all know with stuff like Wall Street reform. Letting lobbyist write the bills(or have significant input) is a recipe for sucktitude.
Calvin Jones and the 13th Apostle
@Mike Kay: Well, he was representing what at the time was a red state(if you go by all that red/blue nonsense).
Nick
@Calvin Jones and the 13th Apostle: and as we know Edwards was a man of his word.
Yes, he pointed out the obvious, so does Eliot Spitzer, so did Eric Massa…those who are in a position never be able to do anything about it say it because they’ll never have to deliver on it.
It’s called grandstanding.
Calvin Jones and the 13th Apostle
@Nick: How do you figure? Just because more people identify themselves as Conservative? I call bullshit because when you ask people about particular issues, progressive positions win the day on a great many things.
Nick
@Calvin Jones and the 13th Apostle: So can we stop pissing all over Ben Nelson, Blanche Lincoln and Mary Landrieu now?
Edwards has a conservative voting record, it’s alright, Nelson has one and he’s a traitor?
glasnost
because I have no clue what other, better strategy is waiting in the wings.
Most people would say something along the lines of “Use the power of the mighty bully pulpit to intimidate those Republicans into playing ball! Make no concessions! Dare them to say no! And if they do, crush them with it!”
Personally, I sometimes wonder what world these guys are living in. (And I say that as someone totally in favor of being aggressive and calling guys out).
I mean, the power of the bully pulpit? What? How many people actually listen to anything Barack Obama says? The guy makes 3 speeches a day, I’d say maybe 20% of the population might listen to 8 minutes, total in a given year, and 80% even less than that. And the 20% is his base.
Media reports of what he says – neutered, watered down, and muddled beyond any sense of inspiration, passion, or context, might occassionally reaches maybe twice that. But who the fuck has ever been intimidated by a couple of six-word sound bites from an AP report on an Obama Speech?
The bully pulpit, except for speeches coinciding with major events, ideally happening live, is deader than dead. It doesn’t exist.
Similarly, Obama’s approval ratings aren’t high enough to initimidate any Republican in one-on-one, if they ever were. As Yglesias says, the only thing that matters is a credible threat, and Republican Senators don’t see one. And who can blame them?
As for daring Republicans to vote against financial reform – with all the BS in the media, with the Teabaggers totally indifferent, and given the overwhelming cynicism I personally see around me every day about government’s ability, and thus the usefulness, of any regulation whatever, I’m amazed this is working at all. I think the Repubs could cheerfully vote down financial reform every week from here until November without shifting polls by so much as a point. Hard to understand, but the American people don’t give a crap about financial reform. Nobody gets it, the thought leaders are split, it’s highly complicated, the press is full of demonstrations of the banks’ apparent continued potency and no one believes they’ll be put down. The media has latched on to a few simplistic slogans like “too big to fail” and people just aren’t smart enough to understand what else is needed, the problems with using that metric, or ever whether the bill deals with that or not.
It’s a blizzard of conflicting stories, lies, and apparent impotence out there, and nobody believes in the remedies. I mean, personally, I do, and hopefully some people do who read the blogs real closely. But we’re the 5% Wonk Bloc. Beyond that, it’s just all a loud buzzing noise to the median voter.
Nick
@Calvin Jones and the 13th Apostle: Because in almost every single poll, the public tends to line up behind right wing framing.
On torture, Israel, deficits, taxes, border security, death penalty, marriage equality.
Far more times the public supports a conservative viewpoint than a liberal one.
Calvin Jones and the 13th Apostle
@Nick: You can say the same thing about Obama, too. Do I need to give you examples?
Calvin Jones and the 13th Apostle
@Nick: Really? Point me to those polls. Especially Israel. Because that’s one area I know you are wrong. The American public isn’t in AIPAC’s pocket like all of Congress is. In fact, just the opposite.
Nick
@Calvin Jones and the 13th Apostle: Funny, because I was always told Edwards was the only one who “got it” and all Obama and Hillary did was copy him.
General Egali Tarian Stuck
my oh my. The progressive fatalists are out in force tonight. Those cyanide shakes ready to serve , senor Cole?
A round of razor blades for all. On the house.
Mike Kay
@Calvin Jones and the 13th Apostle:
hahahahhahahhahahahhahahhahahhahahahahha
thanks for the laugh. laugh provides rich endorphins. The rationals were always priceless.
I guess he voted to repeal Glass-Steagall because he was from a red state.
I guess he voted for PNTR because he was from a red state.
I guess he decided to work for a Hedge Fund (Fortress Investment Group) who made money foreclosing on homes after Katrina because he was from a red state.
I guess he built that 28,000 sq feet mansion/estate while railing against egregious wealth because he was from a red state.
etc., etc.
Nick
@Calvin Jones and the 13th Apostle:
http://www.quinnipiac.edu/x1295.xml?ReleaseID=1448
Sounds like AIPAC’s pocket to me. What say you now?
EDIT: BTW, the poll also shows this;
Also not a center-left position if I believe progressives right.
Mike Kay
@Nick: touché
Nick
@Mike Kay: I suspect we won’t be seeing Calvin anymore tonight.
But this is what frustrates me. How tone deaf are progressives in this country? How anyone can possibly deny the people of this country are ridiculously pro-Israel is beyond me.
glasnost
I really hate this thought, but if someone like Sarah Palin had been in office, she’d have done some primitive, vengeful, pointless gimmicks and America would have eaten it up. For example, just haul in the U.S. Marshals to perp walk the CEOs of major banks, mount some televised law-enforcement bust-ins to some Wall Street back rooms. Blow open some wall safes (this all staged, of course), and BOOM! The people’s money has been found!
Third day after inauguration, she’d have announced some totally cynical bullshit “plan” to “get your money back from the Wall Street bailouts”. She’d have done some dishonest gimmick like the above and taken it away with one hand and given it back with the other somewhere further down the supply chain, while holding 75 consecutive live-action “People’s Money Busts!”. Her approval rating would probably be in the 70’s.
Please don’t confuse this with anything except loathing for Palin. The point is that in a landscape like this, what works is sensationlized, super-simplistic, feel-good, black-and-white WWF smackdowns. Fix the problem well, or try, and no one gives a shit – who will even know for 20 years?
But put on a show and dish out some extrajudicial punishment – throw some bankers in Guantanamo without trial, for example – and you could be a goddamn American hero.
Barack Obama doesn’t know aaaaanything about how to be a demagogue. So he’s paying for it. Put someone like Vladmir Putin in his spot, and you’d see a leader widely praised for decisive confrontation with the bad guys, and Republican senators genuinely ducking for cover.
Of course the legislation would be of the dumb as shit, make-the problem worse variety, but it sure wouldn’t be filibustered.
Calvin Jones and the 13th Apostle
@Mike Kay: Dumb ass. You do know that the vote to repeal Glass-Steagall was 90-8, right?
scarshapedstar
Well, they could have prefaced their ass-kissing with
“The American people are sick of Republicans who negotiate in bad faith and shed crocodile tears when they predictably back out of a deal at the last minute. We trust that Senator Graham has enough respect for the public not to fill them with false hope for compromise as a cynical ploy to run out the clock, and that’s why we’ve chosen to give him some input on this bill.”
Calvin Jones and the 13th Apostle
@Nick: Right here asswipe. Can you two cite anything else besides Quinnipiac? Because I know Greenwald has talked about polls that would disprove yours. But then Greenwald doesn’t count for anything in your eyes.
General Egali Tarian Stuck
better make those Polonium shakes.
Nick
@Calvin Jones and the 13th Apostle: So what is the cutoff points as far as number of votes a terribly flawed bill gets in the Senate where we can forgive Senators for voting for it?
Mike Kay
@Calvin Jones and the 13th Apostle: yup, you said it, he was a fake – a phoney who only talked about populism and principle, but lined his pockets with hedge fund/katrina cash.
Huey Long was corrupt, but atleast he bought some textbooks for the poor. saint edwards didn’t do shit.
Nick
@Calvin Jones and the 13th Apostle:
Gallup from February
http://www.gallup.com/poll/126155/support-israel-near-record-high.aspx
Zogby
http://washingtonindependent.com/80014/new-poll-shows-mideast-is-increasingly-a-partisan-issue
I think maybe if you opened your mind beyond the Glenn Greenwald spin machine, you’d see the truth is, Greenwald is a fringe.
Anya
@Calvin Jones and the 13th Apostle: Oh spare me! His phoniness just learned how to carve a niche for himself. He was nothing more than a stylish poverty pimp. Mike Kay is spot on on his critique and the sooner his supporters get over this childish vision of a hero who would realize all of their progressive dreams by plowing through Senate rules the better for all of us.
Mike Kay
@Anya: This comment is a keeper.
Anya
@Mike Kay: I don’t know why, but the mention of GG and any hint of Edwards apologists makes me really mad.
Little Dreamer
@Anya:
No, I’m not saying that – I was only talking about the timing of the revealing of the affair, but no matter since that’s not what happened. I am not convinced that Edwards could have been the nominee anyway, there wasn’t anywhere near as much support even if he ran a perfectly flawless campaign and had no affair. I believe the fight was always going to be between Obama and Hillary (and I’m happy with the result, personally).
TenguPhule
I understand the cold metal of a muzzle pressed to the forehead works wonders according to the Teabonkers.
Mike Kay
@Anya: i don’t know. Politically, I can understand how a married man can pick up some ditzy stranger/party girl and fuck her two hours after meeting her in a manhattan bar, especially as the mother of his children (the ones we know about) is recovering from breast cancer.. Free love – that’s just populism.
See obama isn’t as liberal as his supporters say he is, he doesn’t have any girls on the side.
fourlegsgood
@El Tiburon: Clearly you have not been to Eschaton lately.
Mnemosyne
@Citizen Alan:
I wouldn’t count those chickens before they hatch if I were you. It’s Reid’s Republican opponent who’s pushing the chickens for healthcare plan. There’s no possible way that she’s going to get to Election Day without at least two more major gaffes, and Nevada is reddish, but not crazy like Arizona.
Yutsano
@Mnemosyne: Plus why do people forget that Reid is a Mormon and if he has the backing of the Church he’s pretty much taken care of? Plus no one knows who Harry’s opponent is exactly, so it may or may not be Crazy Chicken Lady. I’m not ruling anything out yet, especially six months out.
NobodySpecial
@Nick:
So because you’ve given up means we have to?
Boy, if only you’d been around to set folks like MLK straight.
“Martin, it’s a center-right nation. No way in hell they’re gonna let you Negroes have equal rights. They follow right-wing framing all the way.”
Nick
@NobodySpecial: Who said give up?
If we weren’t a center-right nation dude, we wouldn’t have NEEDED a Civil Rights Act in the first place no would we? And it only took, what, 185 years to pass it?
No one said give up, but I think those of you losing your shit because things aren’t happening right away need a reality check.
taylormattd
@Calvin Jones and the 13th Apostle: Be sure to let me know when progressives are so in control of the media that they can, within hours of a Supreme Court nomination, force all television and print outlets to publish their point of view about the nominee. Because that’s what happened with Miers.
GWPDA
So -this- is where the disappointed little commenters went. My goodness.
Anon
This is a weird analysis. I recall Republicans threatening the “nuclear option” because Dems wouldn’t allow them to appoint really, really ludicrous judges to the bench.
The American people care a hell of a lot less about the freedom to appoint right-wing judges then they do about beating up on Wall Street. And if regular people care about Senate process (they don’t), it’s unarguably true that Democrats were working with R’s on legislation. Certainly not manipulating Senate rules to foster obstruction to anything near he extent that R’s are now.
Republicans had a tiny agenda of things they actually wanted to pass. Yet instead of saying “oh, well, guess we can’t get it done,” they were stymied on ONE of them, they were more than happy to go after the Senate’s procedures. AND IT WORKED. They got their judges.
Why aren’t Dems doing that or a thousand other things instead of sucking up to Lindsey Graham?
Republicans didn’t get everything they wanted under the rules, they tried to change the rules. Turnabout is, at the very least, fair play.
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
@glasnost:
Not only that, but the very person (TR) whose oratory caused the phrase “bully pulpit” to be coined was seen by his contemporaries as a pragmatic centrist who regularly threw his progressive allies to the wolves if he could get a compromise bill thru the Senate. And even TR’s speeches given while he was in office were watered down after Sen. Nelson Aldrich (R-RI) yanked on TR’s leash and told him to STFU about tariff reform. The red meat speeches which made TR famous as a progressive firebrand were almost all of them made after he came back from his trip to Africa following his retirement from office, and most especially the ones he gave during the 1912 election campaign.
QuentinCompson
What GWPDA said, but with strong instead of strike.
–
angler
@glasnost:
In Atrios’ response he advocates putting the GOP to tough votes and then campaigning on the votes, even if they fall rather than more aggressive speechifying. That won’t satisfy the hardcore debaters, but Mr. Mix’s point about the reality of the Senate and Atrios’ alternative points to the ongoing divide in campaign strategy that been an issue through the primaries: grab the middle ground or confront conservatism.
Obama has been a mix of these things. He’s made tough speeches, and defied the GOP on some recess appointments. Obama has also taken progressive proposals out of some bills and withdrawn some nominees that Republicans opposed.
Boil off the snark, and those arguing against Atrios concentrate on two “realities” of current politics: GOP obstructionism and unfavorable media. To fight these, the middle-ground strategy aims less at getting Lindsey Graham’s vote, although it would be nice, and more at presenting Democrats as the sane alternative to Republican crazy. That’s what Rahm Emanuel meant last year when he said that Dems needed to maintain the “appearance of bipartisanship” even if the reality was that Republicans were solidly opposed. Making FoxNews, Limbaugh, and the tea parties the face of the opposition reinforces that message.
This strategy won the NY 23rd special election , where the t-bagger purged the Republican mainstreamer and then lost the general, but it failed in the Mass. senate race and the NJ and VA gubernatorial contests.
The middle-ground idea does best where the Republican intraparty fight leaves enough regulars alienated by the tea partiers to either stay home or vote Democratic. Florida’s senate race seems like the best example right now. But it flopped in MA, VA, and NJ because Republicans were able to keep the election focused as a referendum on Democratic governance rather than Republican obstructionism. Heading towards November the Dems have a some opportunities to play it as sane v. crazy but unless McConnel and Boehner truly lose it, perhaps over a Supreme Court nominee, those will be local as opposed to national opportunities.
They are a few examples “confront” strategy in action. Not enough attention went to Oregon’s ballot measure that RAISED taxes on the wealthy. It passed a week after Cokaley lost to Brown. Hard to know how well they will do, but Sestak and Halter have done better in polling and fundraising than expected in their primary challenges to Lincoln and Specter.
Still it looks like the sane v. crazy frame is the one preferred by the White House. They are getting plenty of help from the Republicans, but it may not work for a couple of reasons.
Midterms are typically base turnout elections rather than persuasion elections aimed at independent/undecided elections. Voters in the median quintile of ideological preference tend to stay home for the congressional election even if they think one side is nuttier than the other.
Second, too much corporate money is going to other side, fuelling not only ad wars but also the astroturf teabag ceremonies. The middle ground strategy needs lots of cash to reach the undecideds via mass media (undecideds aren’t responding to local Dem vols nudging them to vote). At a minimum Dems would like a neutral corporate response to the midterms that left the teabaggers forced to stage their own rallies and bring in their own media.
It’s not clear if a more confrontational strategy paired with more emphasis on turnout will win where grabbing the middle ground fails, but the choice raises another question about where the administration is heading. What happened to the return of David Plouffe? In late Jan. he came back with some fanfare to restart OFA and the voter mobilization tactics that many credit with deciding the 2008 elections.
Haven’t heard much from him or OFA since then. Even if confrontation strikes Democratic leaders as unrealistic, it still seems reasonable to expect that they would continue the base-building tactics used in 2008. Plouffe’s low profile may indicate that 2008 was more of an ideological confrontation election than, these days, the administration wants to acknowledge.
dollared
Jesus. Make them filibuster and demonize the hell out of them. Spend every ad dollar showing pictures of them getting in and out of private jets.
Do it. Atrios is right. Not on everything, but on bank reform, pitchforks and torches all the way.
Jim Bales
@rootless-e:
So, I searched Eschatonblog.com for “TARP”. I clicked the “repeat the search with the omitted results included” just to be safe, and got 3 and 1/2 pages of hits. I didn’t find any in which he was “sneering at the very notion that the WS banks would pay back TARP money”. Perhaps rootless-e can tell us where to find them?
Best,
Jim Bales
ErinPDX
Bwahahahahahahaha!
Oscar Leroy
Really? You can’t think of anything at all? Can’t even begin to imagine an alternative?
Oscar Leroy
Oh yeah, the all-important media. They have a lot of votes in Congress, don’t they.
And that’s the important thing: how things are spun.
Well. . . why shouldn’t it be the story? When you have the preisdency, the House, and 60 in the Senate, whose fault is it if you can’t get what you want? The town dog-catcher?
Man, the quality of comments here has really bottomed out lately. All good things must end, I suppose.
Oscar Leroy
Right, because people in every single state were being denied the right to vote based upon their color.
Oscar Leroy
Nick, you’re a friggin’ idiot.
Oscar Leroy
Which site are you talking about?
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
@Oscar Leroy:
As is turns out, with a mere 41 votes in the current Senate you can block just about anything you want, and while the exact number of Senators needed to bring the govt to a grinding halt has changed over time, the basic character of the Senate as the primary roadblock in the way of reformers has not (cf. the introductory chapters of Robert Caro’s Master of the Senate: The Years of Lyndon Johnson for a nice historical sketch on this subject). So the exact measure of just how progressive legislation can be and still get passed into law is pretty much known in advance: it is whatever you can pressure the 60th least progressive Senator into voting for, taking into account that depending on the electoral cycle for the individuals involved it may be as much as 4-6 years before they are up for re-election, and that the re-election rate of incumbent Senators is high.
Not that the GOP Senators from the neo-confederate south or Dems from states like AR, NE or MT would have any historical knowledge of these things to draw on, mind you.
Jay B.
I knew you losers wouldn’t dissapoint me. It’s not strategy, nor anything the white house has or hasn’t done — it is atrios and progressives who are at fault. Because we care too much. Cultists. The lot ofyou.
Mike Kay
@Jay B.:
Here honey, have a hanky and wipe your tears. you dainty flower.
And while you’re at it, get a haircut and get a job, hippie.
Alan in SF
Honestly, John, your “We’re powerless, we only have 59 votes in the Senate, a huge majority in the House, and the Presidency” thing is wearing thin.
chicago dyke
i can’t remember the last time there was a 160+ thread at Eschaton about how much commenters at another liberal blog sucked.
Duncan landed a Senator today. not bad for a “stupid, lazy ex gym teacher” who doesn’t have any alternative ideas to kissing republican ass. Oh, wait…
/waves to rootless and old timers/ this place is a hoot. i hope you’re having fun here.