Financial reform will pass.
Is this the most successful legislative session for a President in decades?
*** Update ***
Not everyone is impressed:
Peter up to his usual schtick. I like how he ignores the stimulus package, the extraordinary efforts of the EPA the last year and a half, the advances in gay rights, and so on. I’ll give him civil liberties, one area where Obama has been pretty bad, although I am unsure how to change things with Congress voting the way it does on terrorism issues.
Also, I still have no pony.
Chyron HR
No, because Obama wouldn’t let Harry Reid’s freak flag fly.
General Stuck
I knew he would. And yes, it is the most successful legislative session for a President in decades. But, but, but he coulda done more if he’d strung Lieberman up by his testicles on the WH front lawn. Maybe next session he will show his manly manliness and stop being such a not George Bush puzzy.
Midnight Marauder
John Cole: idiot or biggest idiot ever?
/FDL
Dork
Any word on the reason Half Nelson give for the sudden change? Does Obama have to deal with this prima-donna flip-flop bullshit act by Presidents Snowe, Nelson, Lieberman, and Feingold for the rest of his 2.5 years in office?
4tehlulz
His failure to dissolve the Senate will come back to haunt him.
cleek
Congress should get a little credit too, yes?
( as much as it pains me to give Harry Reid any )
also, what Comrade Javamanphil says, below.
Comrade Javamanphil
Yes, but it won’t matter one iota if unemployment remains close to 10%. Bring on the GOP and subpoena power.
Ash Can
Maybe he showered with Rahm.
Sentient Puddle
As Rachel Maddow put it, the last time Washington got this much done in a single congressional term, booze was illegal.
Violet
I’ve been so busy with the move I haven’t been following the news much at all. I’m glad to see this pass, but is it a good bill? I don’t know much about it.
And yeah, none of this will matter without jobs, jobs, JOBS. I hope they can find a way to help in this area.
Tom Hilton
@Comrade Javamanphil: it won’t matter one iota to the 2010 elections. It will matter–a whole lot–to all the people down the line whose lives are better because of what Obama, Reid, and Pelosi accomplished.
Edit: and yeah, the 2010 elections are important…but they aren’t the last election that will ever be held.
cat48
I’ve read that fact several places, it always goes something like, “Not since FDR” or as Rachel puts it; “The last time any president got this much done, booze was illegal!”
He just announced a replacement for Orzag who worked for Tip O’Neill in his early twenties, volunteered for liberal campaigns at 12, did the same job awhile for Clinton and thinks that “the only reason to have power is to get things done.” Looking forward to that!
He has one problem though. He’ll be called a selfhating Jew because he’s working w/Hussein.
Richard Bottoms
What…? I thought Obama was a complete failure because he’s not all mad and stuff.
Chris
No, it’s all Obama when something good gets done, and all Congress when it doesn’t.
Separation of power and all that.
JBerardi
I feel like I should engage in some sort of “Obama’s worse than Bush he sold us out” type snark here, but I just don’t have it in me. The answer is yes. Yes, yes, a thousand times yes.
taylormattd
No John, you’re forgetting. This is EVEN MORE evidence has betrayed liberals.
John Bird
If you treat politics like professional sports for some reason, where you’re mainly concerned with how many “points” your “team” gets, I guess so?
Personally, I find that POV pernicious and bizarre.
Hugin & Munin
John Cole@top: Too soon to tell. One hopes, though.
General Stuck
@John Bird:
I call it progressive.
John Bird
@General Stuck:
Well, you’re allowed to call whatever you want anything you want since Reagan, I guess.
Bulworth
I don’t know how good this Bill really is, but I can’t imagine it’s worse than the status quo that helped create the financial mess we had to spend billions to clean up. And while this may not do much to help in November, Democratic losses would happen then anyway. So it’s better to actually get something done than not.
Comrade Javamanphil
@Tom Hilton: Quite true and I don’t discount that at all. But giving this group of loons subpoena power promises a grim next few years. I hope I am wrong and we get to have Speaker Pelosi for quite a few more years.
Randy P
Where are the Armageddon speeches? Are the screamers going to let this one go by without a whimper?
amorphous
@cleek: The House should, the Senate… “conflicted” is a wonderful term here.
dmsilev
I do have to wonder what Nelson’s price was. Yesterday, he was muttering about “rogue agencies” and the like; I wonder whether he was given a veto over who is appointed to head the oversight agencies.
dms
Prof. K&G
It’s a little depressing that after one of the most engaged and productive congressional sessions in years that’s accomplished more than we could have reasonably hoped for … things are still bad, and the short-term outlook is not good. The gap between what NEEDS to be done and what CAN actually be done is as big as it’s ever been, I think.
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
Yes, it is. No, it won’t matter in November. But he’s starting to change the course of the ship.
Comrade Dread
I kind of doubt that it will do any good, but I wish it well.
General Stuck
@John Bird: I call it that because it is progress, not the ideal as the only acceptable outcome. I don’t know what you mean with “since Reagan” other than fraidy cat liberals still cowering from Reagan demonizing that term, and calling themselves progressives when they are not.
cat48
@Dork:
Maybe he can put them all on his “terrorist list”, per Gates; “no assasination list, a terrorist list.” I wonder if the people at Reason made the Mag.
OT Did anyone notice that al Alwaki put a Seattle cartoonist who drew a cartoon for “Draw Mohammed Day” on his “Execution List”? FBI is providing protection in case he sends thugs. Hmm
In fact, he took all the cartoon images off Facebook that were drawn that day and made a magazine with them for propoganda. Someone said it was like Tiger Beat for Al Qaeda.
stevie314159
Not bad for a Kenyan corporatist socialist.
Shalimar
If you look at it in terms of quality of the legislation passed then I think it would have to be the most successful legislative session since Lyndon Johnson. If you look at in terms of quantity of items that have been checked off of Rahm Emanuel’s to-do list, then it is probably the most successful legislative session in the history of the universe.
Tom Hilton
@John Bird: I don’t think anybody (Cole or Maddow or anyone else) is talking about winning for the sake of winning. What we’re all talking about is how much has been accomplished–how much has been done that will actually make this a better country. And that, IMO, is well worth celebrating.
Tom Hilton
@Comrade Javamanphil: Agreed, and agreed.
Brian J
Probably. But since he didn’t have massive, budget-busting tax cuts for the rich and start a new war with Iran, he didn’t accomplish anything legitimate.
Seriously now, the trade offs involved in making a better financial legislation reform bill are a little clearer than they were in making a better health care bill, but in both cases, what we have now doesn’t represent the end game. Maybe Kevin Drum was right when he said that if the finance industry shrinks, the bill will mostly have done its job, but even then, I don’t think we will ever be out of the woods. That shouldn’t surprise anyone, so there will hopefully be legislators always working to mold what we already have into something better.
Marc
What? You mean Russ Feingold’s principled stand accomplished nothing?
So unlike other principled liberal/progressive/firebagger stands.
(ETA: I’m not the Marc from the Feingold thread, btw. In case you couldn’t tell.)
madmatt
lots of big bills that don’t actually regulate anything and leave the citizens to the whims of corporate scum….gosh who could of asked for more!
jibeaux
I’m going into the “yes, but the economy has to improve for the bleeding to be contained in November(s)” camp. Ezra had an item along those lines yesterday called “It’s always the economy, stupid.”
Matt Mangels
This may be the most “successful” legislative session in a while, but the act of fucking up the stimulus by putting in too many tax cuts and not making it big enough is going to come back to haunt this administration. Let’s not forget that the unemployment rate is higher right now than was projected WITHOUT the stimulus. To paraphrase Paul Krugman, if you’re not going to make the stimulus big enough it’s not going to work and it’s going to actually discredit the idea of government stimulating the economy.
Rommie
The narrative will pivot to “Obama is doing too much too fast” and the parrots will squawk it 24/7. Gotta slam the brakes on him and put experienced people in power, before it’s TOO LATE OMGONOES!
There’s always an angle of attack, if you are willing to say and do anything to win.
PeakVT
It’s been a productive session but I think the two most important bills – health care reform and financial industry reform – probably haven’t fixed the problems in the two areas, just mitigated them. Mitigation is good; complete fixes would be better. But we’re going to get limited legislation as long as the filibuster is in force.
Irony Abounds
Successful in getting important legislation passed. A complete failure in winning the propaganda war concerning that legislation. When your party is about to get creamed in the mid-terms, it hardly can be called a success. Keep in mind, Democrats in 1934 gained seats after FDR’s first two years. That ain’t happening this year.
nepat
@Matt Mangels:
Except that the stimulus did work.
Third Eye Open
@Brian J: Americans don’t fix problems, we manage symptoms. Period. Stop.
There are institutional problems, but those problems mostly reflect the ignorance of the voting public when it comes to policy outcomes. Perhaps it is time to try Direct Democracy and expand the SCOTUS.
Woodrow L. Goode, IV
John, it isn’t even close. It doesn’t touch either session in the first term of Emperor W. the First. It isn’t near a couple of the achievements of his predecessor, Jeeter Lester.
How can you possibly compare the modest repairs of this band-aid to the impact of Gramm-Leach-Billey? Especially before we see how much of this is even in place after (a) next year’s Republican congress takes an axe to it and (b) Long Dong Silver and Samuel Scalito rule the useful parts of it unconstitutional?
I’m not drinking the Kool-Aid because I’m familiar with the Law of Unintended Consequences and I know how the legislative process works. Until you see the stuff go into effect and you see it working, don’t get too excited.
I remember my joy when Jimmy Carter deregulated some industries– removing the price controls that made it tough to do business and adding excess profits taxes to protect the consumers. If you can guess which part of his proposals actually went into effect, you can understand my skepticism.
Matt
How stern will he look when he signs this legislation, though? If it’s too much stern, or too little, then he has failed.
joe from Lowell
cleek
Congress should get a little credit too, yes?
Indeed, cleek. It’s debatable whether Obama has had the most successful legislative session of every president in decades.
It is irrefutable that Nancy Pelosi has had the most successful legislation session of any Speaker in decades, possible any Speaker ever.
Davis X. Machina
That would be ‘White House Communications Director Peter Daou’…..
Ooops. Wrong guy got the nomination.
Gus
and Afghanistan and secrecy.
Malron
As Obama continues to get shit done, voter’s faith in Obama’s ability to get shit done reaches new low.
It must have something to do with a) the way right wing talking points about Obama keep getting repeated by an obliging media and b) an electorate who is too intellectually lazy to see for themselves.
Still, I seriously wonder who the hell these pollsters actually talk to.
Sentient Puddle
@Irony Abounds:
So…perception is more important than reality?
Personally, I’ll take the actual concrete facts that shit got passed over the propaganda. Call me whatever (“pragmatist” would be my first pick).
Mike from Philly
So watered down legislation pertaining to financial regulation and HCR somehow overshadow the continuement and enhancement of Bush era civil liberties abuses. And if you don’t cheer loud enough you’re just a DFH who wants a pony.
Got it.
And hey, President Palin is going to be so much worse – so Obama has that going for him too.
SIA
But-but-but! I was promised a magic unicorn! Obama worse than Bush! I WANT MY UNICORN.
homerhk
Gus, I’ll give you civil liberties but Afghanistan and secrecy? what’s that about? He promised to concentrate on Afghanistan during the campaign, spent ages trying to devise with his commanders the best possible plan and has given serious indications that he won’t wait it out forever. On secrecy, I’m not sure of the complaint. The fact is that this has been probably THE most transparent administration ever.
joe from Lowell
@Comrade Javamanphil:
Comrade Javamanphil
Yes, but it won’t matter one iota if unemployment remains close to 10%. Bring on the GOP and subpoena power.
I don’t think you get it. The Democrats didn’t pass all of this legislation in order to win some elections. They won a bunch of elections so that they could pass all of this legislation.
homerhk
Mike from Philly,
“continuement and enhancement of Bush era civil liberties abuses”
First, what is continuement? do you mean continuance or continuation? Second, can you point to an “enhancement” of Bush civil liberties abuses?
Matt Mangels
@nepat: , I’m not saying it was a complete failure. Rather, people are still going to see the still-way-too-fucking-high unemployment rate as evidence that the stimulus didn’t work, and vote for the “other guys” since the Dem policies don’t seem to be making things better.
General Stuck
Christ, everyone is aware of “the law of unintended consequences”, but it would be nice to just focus for a fucking day on the obvious success of getting flawed but useful legislation passed in the current completely polarized politics of this country. Just for a little while, I wish the pearl clutchers would take a break.
And Obama is light years better than Bush on civil liberties, the claims otherwise have been debunked time and again here, but it doesn’t matter because Greenwald says so. So it must be true. Spare me.
General Stuck
Jeebus fucking Christ. He is doing what he said with Afghanistan, and secrecy? really?, This the president who puts about everything he does, or his administration does on the fucking internet. Boilerplate left wing wanking notwithstanding.
Michael D.
I was listening to CNN at the gym earlier and I admittedly didn’t hear everything because of the equipment noise. However, the editor of Fortune said that the biggest winner in this is Wall street.
– They can still do all the derivative stuff.
– They can still bet their (your!) money on the same stuff they were betting on before.
I’m not confident.
Mike from Philly
“can you point to an “enhancement” of Bush civil liberties abuses? ”
We’re now targeting US citizens for assasination based on presidential decree. No due process.
Marc
@Third Eye Open:
Please tell me you see the irony there.
ed drone
Well, hell, why not? We’ve all been getting horse-sheiss for the whole of his term, and bipartisan HS to boot!
Ed
SIA
We seem to be getting some refugees from GOS.
General Stuck
Go away firebag trolls@SIA: No shit. Pestilence.
Sentient Puddle
@Michael D.: While the bill doesn’t outright ban trading of the derivatives that blew up the economy, most of the derivatives will have to be traded through a clearinghouse, which forces a much higher level of transparency. The idea here being that if the entire financial community is looking at a given CDO that’s total shit, people will speak up to call it total shit, and it will be priced/rated accordingly.
So inasmuch as financial institutions can still trade on derivatives and with your money, I’m not too terribly worried because it will be a lot harder to sell shit sandwiches that are rated AAA.
homerhk
Mike from Philly,
No less a liberal lion than Harold Koh – who is an extremely distinguished liberal lawyer – has asserted his opinion that in certain circumstances targeted assassination can be legal. I don’t like it, but I think that’s the correct view of the law. If you know the law, you’ll know the circumstances in which this might happen are very very rare and to imply as you and others do that this is a law that impacts generally on the citizens of the US is complete horse manure. My personal view is that I’m not in favour of it. Doesn’t make it illegal, though and doesn’t make it an abuse.
On the other hand Bush engaged in numerous clear violations of the law, starting with the illegal war against Iraq and continuing thereafter.
Zifnab
@General Stuck:
That’s kinda the rub though. Health Care Reform lacked a public option, which means private companies can continue to throw folks over a barrel by charging ridiculous rates for substandard care. Financial Reform was originally intended to reign in reckless risk taking and self-fund any future bailouts. What does it currently lack? Thanks to Scott Browns hedge fund amendment, banks can channel their high risk bets through unregulated brokers. And thanks to the Conserva-Dem alliance, the bill’s tax on banks and stock transactions have all been gutted.
Yes, we’ve seen a few incremental improvements. But no, I still remain unimpressed. If the laws are riddled with loop holes, the Dems have spent the last two years driving in circles.
Honestly, I think the biggest achievement to date has been the Recovery Act. Unlike health care reform and financial reform, the Recovery Act has had an immediate positive effect on the general economy and on unemployment figures. We’ve received valuable public works projects for our tax dollars. States have been bulwarked against budget shortfalls. And there’s no way for the Republicans to roll these developments back.
Zifnab
@SIA: Kos visits and links regularly. That’s not too much of a surprise.
eemom
with its usual impeccable timing, the Daily Kraplan has “6 out of 10 Americans Disappointed With Obama” as its front page headline today.
What will it TAKE to get me to cancel my subscription, and end this miserable charade for good and all?
Yes, it’s been 23 years, but I need to face facts…..this is NOT the paper I married. : (
Bubblegum Tate
And I have yet to receive a Soros check! Fuck this, I’m voting for Michelle Bachmann in 2012!
John Cole
Omigod, I am so sick and tired of this nonstop bullshit. Just make it fucking stop. The entire fringe of the progressive movement, and I say fringe, since 90+% of liberals are consistently still with Obama, reminds me of the SNL Debbie Downer skit.
The Senate finally is on the verge of passing financial regulatory reform that no, is not perfect, but does do a lot of good, and the response from the progressives is a fucking sad trombone. Not only is Daou not content to just stick to areas where there is genuine agreement Obama is lacking- civil liberties- but he has to throw in other bullshit like the stimulus, which was a success and passed. Environmental regulation has been moving along quite well, with Browner and Jackson reasserting the authority of the EPA and also acting where Congress will not to regulate. Sorry you haven’t paid attention, but Daou is probably still kvetching about the oil spill. He spent weeks moaning that Obama was not holding a speech from the Oval office. Because that would fix the spill! And on an on.
But it is the fucking gut reaction to any good news- yeah, but what about… Just go the full emo and cut yourself, for chrissakes.
And Daou, who lectures about false dichotomies in his spare time, has the nerve to pretend the legacy of Obama is between the successes and secrecy/Afghanistan/civil liberties and HCR and fin/reg. It’s like he has paid no attention to the state of politics in the United States the past two decades.
No one gives a fuck about civil liberties or secrecy except for a few people on the progressive left. I’m in agreement with them, but the Democrats as a whole don’t care. They voted 99-0 to not close Gitmo. They cockblocked the max prison in Illinois. Key Democrats were in on discussions during the Bush era. By and large, the general public does not give a shit about this stuff and is all right with bombing and detaining brown people. Every poll in every state shows the majority like the new Arizona papers please bill. Personally, I think that this state of affairs is a god damned tragedy, but that is just me. It ain’t the majority viewpoint.
The idea that this will be his legacy in the public at large just shows how fucking blinkered the progressive movement is. This is why we get idiotic statements like “why do liberals always have to sacrifice their positions to moderates.” Because despite Democrats having the majority (for now at least), these viewpoints are decidedly in the minority. For fuck’s sake- bazillions of gallons of oil are turning the Gulf into a wasteland and Mary Landrieu is dancing on a stage with pom poms screaming drill, baby drill.
So yeah, Obama’s a failure if you are a myopic twit. I recommend you visit this site about 100 times a day.
Third Eye Open
@Marc: I can see the irony, but I was being serious. I mean, the other option is a strengthened executive, with all the attendant ‘man-sized’ safes.
The point of Representative Democracy, and bi-cameral legislatures was to “smooth” out the fluctuations of government which result from the emotions of the electorate. I would say that we have already let that idea run its course. Time to try something new…
General Stuck
@Zifnab: There are those who disagree on the HCR bill not reigning in costs through regulation. I am skeptical without a gov run nonprofit, but people smarter than me say it will. The other reforms make it a good bill however, even if it only did away with denial for pre existing conditions. I don’t know much about the new finreg bill, but it sounds as though it does have too many loopholes, but it is on the books meaning those loopholes can be closed. This has been this country’s MO on reform since the founding. Incremental steps and amendments to improve over time. The founders wanted things to move slow for a good reason, I suspect.
And I agree fully with the recovery act. An historic achievement, that gets little credit imo.
homerhk
John Cole, if I could kiss you through the magic of the internet, I would.
eemom
Peter Daou looks like the kind of guy who’s madly in love with himself. He oughtta get together with Lady Jane — they could breed a Master Race of vacuous narcissists.
Alan in SF
A stimulus bill that leaves unemployment unchanged 18 months later? A health care “reform” bill that leaves us with an unsustainable health care system, twice as expensive per capita as any other in the world, and guarantees/subsidizes the huge profits of drug companies, hospital corporations, and insurance companies? Starting with a war budget equal to the rest of the world’s combined, and then increasing it? Committing hundreds of billions of dollars more to Afghanistan for….well, I’m not sure for what; maybe John can fill us in. And tremendous progress in gay rights — we may, possibly, get around to not discriminating, sometime in the unspecified future. Or not. Hell of a record! While I’d really love a pony, I’d be even happier if my bought-on-the-reformed-market health insurance was not going to go up 17% again next year.
Comrade Javamanphil
@joe from Lowell: I’m so old I remember when we elected the current Democratic congress so they could have subpoena power to investigate Bush’s crimes and over-reaches. Good times.
General Stuck
And if Cole’s musical selection doesn’t paint your wagon, maybe this will.
Waynski
Why is everyone so convinced that the GOP will take back the Congress? The unemployment problem is a huge one for the country and politically, but Obama is only just getting warmed up on the campaign trail, and he’s kind of, you know, good at that. And as he demonstrated in one of his most recent speeches, he’s going to use all the material the wingnuts have handed him and for lack of a better term, ram it down their throats. I expect we’ll lose seats, but betting against Obama hasn’t proved that successful a strategy IMHO. I’m not reaching for my pearls just yet and will do all I can to help win in the fall and holding both chambers would be a very big win.
homerhk
Alan from SF:
“I’d be even happier if my bought-on-the-reformed-market health insurance was not going to go up 17% again next year.”
How can that be? I didn’t think the health insurance market reforms came in till 2014?
John Cole
@Alan in SF: It didn’t leave unemployment unchanged. Unemployment would be decidedly worse if the stimulus bill had not passed, which is why Governors are now screaming for Congress to pass a bill giving them more money to keep their teachers and cops and other civil servants on the payroll and to help with their bond problems. It is why Eric Cantor is showing up at a jobfair that was funded with stimulus money.
For fuck’s sake, is it too much to ask for you all to stop being emo long enough to know the basics of the situation?
Roger Moore
@joe from Lowell:
This. A thousand times this. The point of winning elections is that it lets you govern the way you’d like, not that it sets you up for future election victories. The Democrats won a whole bunch of policy victories in the 111th Congress, and those policy victories are what are really important. We’re going to have something much closer to universal health care and a system that can shut down ailing banks before the economy blows up, and those are both very important things.
And even if the Democrats lose in the short term because of the economy, that kind of policy success is going to be a big long term political win. For the foreseeable future, the Democrats are going to be the party that’s defending your health care and the Republicans are going to be the party that’s trying to take it away. That may not be enough to keep the Republicans from winning a bunch of seats in 2010, but it’s going to be important in winning those seats back in 2012 and beyond.
Redshirt
@Michael D.: Well if CNN said it – “the most trusted name in news” – it must be true. Wolf Blitzer told me so.
John Cole
Oh, hey- Rockefeller is introducing a bill to delay EPA climate regulation for two years. OBAMA SUCKS ON THE ENVIRONMENT!
Assholes.
Omnes Omnibus
@John Cole:
Yes. Of course it is, but then you knew that when you asked the question, didn’t you?
John Cole
I give up. I’m going to cut my grass before I have a rage based heart attack in this thread.
Mike in NC
GOP shill Dan Balz never disappoints. The WaPo, like the rest of the Village, is hard wired for Republican rule.
eemom
@Waynski:
YES. Thank you. I am so sick of the ridiculous “we’re fucked in November” attitude that pervades the entire left.
These people are running fucking mouth-foaming lunatics, fer Chrissakes.
Look at FLORIDA, where Charlie Crist will probably pull it off. Look at Harry Reid, no longer Dead Leader Walking. Look at Rand “Crash and Burn 24 Hours After Winning the Nomination” Paul.
And fuck Robert Gibbs, also too. I liked him, before yesterday.
eemom
@John Cole:
Don’t worry, we got yer back.
Michael D.
@Sentient Puddle: Thanks. Like I said, I couldn’t hear the entire conversation.
mnpundit
For God’s sake, Cole–the vast majority of the gay stuff will get reversed by the next GOP POTUS. Maybe they really will repeal DADT but until it happens it can’t be counted.
Yes the stimulus was a failure. 9.5% unemployment as a success? Certainly it could have been worse but anyone with half a brain knew the answer. That the GOP doesn’t even have that does not make Obama’s pathetic attempt to appease Republicans on the matter any better or more successful. The patient is on fucking lifesupport. Putting the patient on lifesupport is not cause for a fucking civic crown.
Same with EPA. It doesn’t fucking matter. Right now life on this planet is going to be exterminated by humans. Anything that doesn’t meaningfully prevent that is worthless.
SIA
I don’t think the GOP will win enough seats to take over Congress, probably enough to create insane gridlock (that is, more than we already have) for the next two years. I think the whole meme is GOP/Lazy-bored media induced.
It’s over 3 months till the election, which gives the Repubs plenty of time to show their colors, and a sufficient number of independents to get grossed out and either vote Dem or stay home. Also the inevitable pendulum has time to peak and shift the other way.
Plus the crazier they are, the more likely democrats are going to vote in self-protection, as in Palin, Sarah.
We all need to vote though, and get others too. Also.
Dr. Morpheus
@Zifnab:
NO THEY CANNOT!
They have to, by law, spend 85% of any premium increases on health care. If they do not they send a check back to the consumer for the difference.
Stop fucking lying.
ChrisS
I’m just trying to sort out which legislative acts are Obama’s victories and which aren’t his failures. It seems he can’t do anything except when he does do something.
Meanwhile, we still have two wars going on without much of a reason that are soaking the US dry. And last I checked, the DoD is directly under the President’s control.
Yay … congress with a 59-41 majority got some not-great bills passed with zero republican votes by getting through a constant filibuster. Pardon me for not baking a fucking cake.
Hydrino
The under appreciation of this president’s and congress’ legislative successes, particularly from the left, is truly baffling. To me, it is this lack of appreciation that’s disheartening, and not the compromises.
Zifnab
@Alan in SF:
Lulwhat?
http://www.google.com/publicdata?ds=usunemployment&met=unemployment_rate&tdim=true&dl=en&hl=en&q=unemployment
I would call the unemployment rate a lot of things, but over the last 18 months I would NOT describe it as “unchanged”. Hell, I’d fucking kill for the 5-6% unemployment figure we had 18 months ago.
Of course, you may be one of the cargo cultists that look at the last 18 months of skyrocketing unemployment and declare that it’s Obama’s fault for being elected President in the first place. At which point, you’ll want to head over to the Weekly Standard or the National Review, because that “logic” doesn’t really fly around here.
Zifnab
@Dr. Morpheus: Ah, I missed that regulation. I stand corrected.
Betty Cracker
@John Cole:
OMFG, I think I horked up a tonsil when I read that!
Bulworth
Why does Daou give him a negative for the stimulus? That it should have been bigger? That it hasn’t solved the unemployment problem?
Bruce (formerly Steve S.)
Uh, no. Bush got his huge tax cut for the wealthy, enhanced executive power after 9/11 and, most importantly, he got his AUMF just prior to the ’02 elections. Bush not only got his tippy-top priorities passed he got them the way he wanted them. I can’t believe you even asked this question.
Allison W.
The verdict on the bill has not really changed since Feingold flaked out. Its just that the 19 billion fund will have to come from somewhere else. I hardly think that compromise is reason to call the bill horrible – it wasn’t the main objective of the whole bill. There is consensus that there are a lot of consumer protections in there.
I think everyone ought to read a fair analysis of the bill and not just another person saying its shit shit shit. You learn nothing that way.
That Peter Daou and others like him are interesting. Factcheck.com can name over 100 promises he kept/compromised and these guys can only name like 5. Factcheck logged 19 promises broken, but these guys will say he broke every promise. ALL over the internet you can find a ridiculously long list of things Obama has accomplished. If Peter and others were interested they would cite them. I bet money they would use factcheck to slam him, but never look at it twice to check their accusations.
really, I’m getting so tired of these guys.
Allison W.
@Bulworth:
I guess there is no such thing as partial credit when it comes to certain political groups.
eemom
@Dr. Morpheus:
That 85% point, which was pushed by Jay Rockefeller, was an absolutely huge victory. Know what the current average rate of premium to benefits paid is? Somewhere around 60% at best.
How about a poll among the firebagger crowd to find out how many of them even KNOW about that 85% provision? And the fact that lifetime caps were OUT in the final legislation?
No public option! Sell out! No public option! Sell out!! Braaaaaawk!!
Being a mindless parrot is so much easier than knowing WTF you’re talking about.
Allison W.
@Bruce (formerly Steve S.):
Sorry your analysis is lacking. You seem to list things that bothered the Left the most. A better way is to list what they wanted to accomplish and what they got accomplished. And in all fairness, Obama is not done yet.
Senyordave
with its usual impeccable timing, the Daily Kraplan has “6 out of 10 Americans Disappointed With Obama” as its front page headline today.
What will it TAKE to get me to cancel my subscription, and end this miserable charade for good and all?
Yes, it’s been 23 years, but I need to face facts…..this is NOT the paper I married. : (
eemom,
At least call and threaten to cancel, they will give you an offer for a huge discount. I did this, and they gave me an offer at 75% discount and threw in a $10 gift card for automatic billing. Effective discount was 85%. Then I canceled in disgust (when they ran the dishonest Fox ads about no coverage of the Tea Party rally. Since then I haven’t paid a dime, but they continue to deliver it everyday.
I refuse to help pay the salaries of Thiessen, Krauthammer, Will, and Gerson (not to mention Hiatt!).
Tom Hilton
@John Cole: Every manic progressive should have this entire rant (including the video, although that may be a technical challenge) tattooed backwards on their foreheads so they have to read it every single time they look in the mirror.
burnspbesq
@Matt Mangels:
“Let’s not forget that the unemployment rate is higher right now than was projected WITHOUT the stimulus.”
You’re assuming the problem is that the stimulus sucked. Isn’t it equally likely (if not more likely) that the projections were crap?
Bulworth
It also seems as if the U.S. Auto companies, especially GM, are doing better, and given the U.S. and Obama’s role with GM, which got so much soshulist criticism early on, the fact that they’re hanging in there should be good news.
Also, too, didn’t the teabaggers want the U.S. companies to fail anyway? Imagine if Obama had let that happen.
Allison W.
I’m a bit confused about the stimulus complaints. Obama got more than $800 billion dollars and some are saying he should have went for 1 trillion. I can’t believe that just $200 billion dollars more would have done the trick. And by the way, there was no way in hell he would have gotten 1 trillion so the suggestion that he should have started from there is silly. He would have ended up right at the same amount he got.
Allison W.
@Senyordave:
did you see the breakdown of the poll? another manufactured headline for sure.
NonyNony
@John Cole:
Why is this buried in a comment thread? The comment thread that this could generate off the front page would probably be epic…
Mnemosyne
@Mike from Philly:
Uh, what do you mean “now”? You actually think that Bush wasn’t doing that without even the fig leaf of trying to get some legal coverage? Why, because Bush was such a nice guy and made sure to obey all of the laws?
burnspbesq
@Mike from Philly:
Re FinReg: yes, the bill is not a magic pony. I would have liked to see a return to Glass-Steagall, and I would have liked to see CDSs regulated like insurance, with reserve requirements. But what we got is useful, and it’s all we could had gotten under the existing circumstances in the Senate, so I will take it and be happy to have it.
Ranjit Suresh
Here’s the bottom line: a near Depression and an absolutely disastrous war under a discredited Republican regime led to a Democratic administration that… failed to topple the conservative consensus of the last 40 years.
Look, two years of legislative accomplishments is great, but we had the possibility of ending the neo-liberal era for a generation, but we failed. The failure is primarily with the absence of organized labor strength and the quiescence of blacks in the post-Civil Rights era, but it’s a failure all the same.
The first half of the first term of Obama’s presidency will be understood, correctly, as an aberration in a long era of economic conservative ascendancy. That’s a huge disappointment compared to the New Deal-seeming moment in early 2009.
We have every reason to foresee that the remainder of Obama’s tenure in office will be like Clinton’s and Carter’s, a moderate conservative presidency tarred as liberal (or in this case, socialist), and paving the way for future ultra-conservative victories.
grendelkhan
@John Cole: If nobody cares about the civil liberties and secrecy issues, why were they prominent in Obama’s campaign? If “the general public does not give a shit about this stuff”, why the runaround?
I don’t think I was expecting a pony; I was just expecting him to live halfway up to his campaign promises. The greatest rhetorical accomplishment of this executive branch has been to make torture a bipartisan consensus. Have a look over there–just after Obama was inaugurated, Democratic support for torture was below a third. By last November, it was pushing fifty percent. So, yeah, he’s worse on torture because it can’t be written off as the madness of one presidency. We’re a nation of torturers now.
But more importantly, your claim is abject bullshit. Last year (ah, memories), everyone was claiming that Obama would be different, that we just weren’t giving him enough time, and that he certainly isn’t a war criminal. Now that another year has passed, we’re still indiscriminately incinerating little brown kids, the disappeared at Gitmo remain disappeared and we’re disappearing more people to Bagram, the goalposts have apparently shifted. I had assumed, then, that the party line would become “Obama needs another year to stop torturing people!”, but instead, it’s apparently “Nobody cares if Obama tortures people!”. My mistake. Carry on; Oceania has always been at war with Eastasia.
cyd
But aside from that, what have the Romans ever done for us?
Sentient Puddle
@Ranjit Suresh:
You do realize that FDR had electoral setbacks in his presidency as well, right?
Mnemosyne
@Zifnab:
There’s not a “public option” run by HHS, which was how some people wanted it configured, but people who don’t like the individual rates on the open market can sign up with the OPM, get folded in with the federal employees as part of their pool, and pay the same rates that federal workers pay.
I still haven’t gotten anyone to explain to me the functional difference between having health insurance administered by HHS and having it administered by OPM, other than that they seem to think that having things administered by the OPM won’t stick it to The (Insurance) Man the way they want.
PeakVT
When did this thread become about Obama and not the legislative session, which is something that happens in the legislature?
El Cid
@Allison W.: Putting aside the question’s focus on Obama or political realities, those economists most advocating a larger stimulus (Krugman, Baker) weren’t just pulling numbers out of nowhere but calculating what they found as (a) the likely total amount to be lost by state and local revenues which are funds that go directly into the economy and perform necessary services, and (b) the amount lost in consumer and business demand which needed to be replaced by the one consumer left with the ability to do so: the federal government. Agree or disagree with the argument (as well as arguments about political realities), they had pretty clear justifications for proposing the numbers they did, not just abstract ‘bigger’ wishes.
Mnemosyne
@grendelkhan:
(A) Allahpundit? Really? You’re getting your information from Allahpundit?
(B) You did follow the link and notice that none of the tables in Allahpundit’s post actually appear at the link, right? Where exactly did those pretty tables come from since they’re not at the Pew site that Allahpundit claims he got them from?
burnspbesq
@Mnemosyne:
“people who don’t like the individual rates on the open market can sign up with the OPM, get folded in with the federal employees as part of their pool, and pay the same rates that federal workers pay.”
The day I can buy the same health insurance I had when I worked for the IRS is the day I check out of BigLaw and go solo. The burst of entrepreneurial energy that is going to happen when HCR is fully implemented is going to make the dot-com boom of the late 1990s pale by comparison.
grendelkhan
@General Stuck: “And Obama is light years better than Bush on civil liberties, the claims otherwise have been debunked time and again here, but it doesn’t matter because Greenwald says so. So it must be true. Spare me.”
This is the halo effect at work. Obama has, with help from Reid and especially Pelosi, gotten some good domestic policy passed. It’s more impressive in context because our discourse is so distorted; now, instead of having the most bass-ackwards healthcare system in the world, we’re halfway between that and what any reasonably civilized nation provides for its citizens. Given the memetic handicap anyone trying to enact meaningful reform in this country is working under, I’m amazed he got anything passed at all. (I’m less impressed at his secretly trading away the public option he campaigned on, but one takes what one can get.)
But his domestic achievements don’t change his hideous foreign policy. Actions that were war crimes when Bush and Cheney were sitting at the big desk do not cease to be war crimes when Obama’s name goes up on the door. Greenwald is harshing your mellow by pointing this out, and so you think that if you can just inveigh against him enough, Obama will be shown to be good.
People, especially presidents, are not uniformly good or bad; they’re a mix. Some of Obama’s policies are good. Some of them are war crimes–for instance, failing to prosecute known torturers, as our treaty obligations require. (Oh, darn it. I linked to Greenwald. Have I harshed your mellow?)
Tecumseh
I think the administration’s problem is that they have been operating under the belief that if they went about their jobs in a sober, serious manner and either did stuff or tried to do stuff, they’d have the public and pundits look favorably upon them for doing so. The problem with that belief, though, is that
-If a policy gets put in place and there’s nobody around to yell about it, does the policy really exist?
-If a policy gets put in place without any sort of emotional response or bells and whistles, does the policy really exist in and of itself or only for MoDo to make fun of?
-If a policy gets put in place and there’s no Republicans around to support it, can the policy be any good or is it just a socialist cram down?
-Many of Obama’s supporters thought bashing Republicans was part of the job he was supposed to do
-As was taking down the insurance, banking, financial, and health-care industry
-The Republicans understood that’s exactly what Obama was up to (they might be the only one’s) and decided to do everything as possible to keep him from doing anything
-It doesn’t take into count that most people don’t really pay attention to any sort of policy that gets put in place
-And, finally, 10% which would mean Obama could mandate that water be turned into wine and he’d still be around 45% approval rating
In other words, running the country in a sober and serious manner isn’t smart politics
Kerry Reid
Peter Daou’s legacy battle is …. Oh. That’s right. He has no legacy. Other than taking his baby daughter on Very Important Walks. And making sure that links to the racist nutballs at No Quarter, Home of the Whitey Tape, got play on HillaryHub.
And pardon me, but don’t we usually talk about legacies AFTER somebody leaves office, not when they are less than two years into their term?
joe from Lowell
@Comrade Javamanphil:
Who’s this “we” you’re talking about? I elected the current Democratic Congress to do things that I’d been dreaming about since before George W. Bush had beet set up in the oil business.
grendelkhan
@Mnemosyne: No, I’m getting my figures from the Pew Research Center. I link to Hot Air because I think it’s strikingly illustrative how Obama has done a better job selling torture than the right ever did.
As for finding the specific figures, perhaps you should try a little harder before you claim that some figures are made up. The link from Hot Air goes to the overview page of the poll. Note that plenty of questions aren’t summarized there. If you look to the right, you’ll see links to more in-depth pages with more data in them. Section 7, at the bottom, contains the relevant table.
Bruce (formerly Steve S.)
@Allison W.:
Were the things I listed the most important things to Bush and Republicans in general, yes or no?
He’s not going to get legislation as consequential as what W got by the midterms, not even close. A massive tax cut, biggest executive power grab in decades, a full-blown war authorization? How can a series of bills taylored for Scott Brown and Ben Nelson possibly compete with that?
@John Cole:
No, he’s in the 70s now with liberals.
joe from Lowell
@eemom:
No no no no – Robert Gibbs is awesome. Robert Gibbs just made everybody think about the prospect of Republican rule. “Hey, everybody, remember Tom Delay? Dick Cheney? Trent Lott? Social Security privatization?”
All the Republicans need to do to take back Congress is to look like a credible governing alternative to the Democrats. So, Sharon Angle, how’s that going?
kay
@SIA:
I don’t think so either. Right now, anyway.
I do think the race-based stuff is probably going to be effective, though, re: Obama. It’s a full-on war there. I watched about ten minutes of FOX yesterday and that’s the plan.
That kind of blind-stupid anger really bubbles up during bad economic times, and there is a whole slew of freshly-minted “populist” pundits following a fad and making big bucks and whole careers on resentment politics. Any minority group is going to end up targeted in that atmosphere. It’s what sucks about “populism”. There’s always collateral damage.
BTD
@John Cole:
Your problem is you want everyone to agree with you that Obama is great.
Well, not everyone agrees.
Not sure why that gets you so hepped up.
Mnemosyne
@Bruce (formerly Steve S.):
There was something that happened, though, prior to Bush’s midterms. Something big and important that turned his numbers around and gave him massive public and Congressional support. Can you maybe remember what that thing was and why Bush suddenly got everything he wanted?
James in WA
@Alan in SF:
ORLY? So you’re saying that you’re going to be paying more for health insurance in 2011 as a direct result of the HCR bill? Whose main provisions don’t even kick in until 2012? And will take until 2018 to be fully implemented? It sounds like you’re getting suckered by your health insurance company. Sure would be nice to have some kind of law against those guys ripping you off, eh? Like, maybe a health care reform law?
AxelFoley
@Dork:
Fix’d.
BTD
@Mnemosyne:
Obama got the Great Recession.
It’s not a great argument to make that Obama did not have a mandate. He did.
I still am puzzled why folks get apoplectic because they do not agree that Obama has been great.
Mnemosyne
@grendelkhan:
Yes, I’m sure it had absolutely nothing to do with Dick and Liz Cheney’s massive media blitz. It had nothing to do with the media presenting Obama’s and Cheney’s views as equally valid.
Nope, it was all Obama’s personal failure and nothing to do with the media’s desperate attempt to protect war criminals, as documented by Greenwald for your convenience. Glad to have you clear that up for us.
ts
BTD, I’m pretty sure John’s “problem” is that Peter is an idiot who, just guessing here, is bitter that his job consists of writing a column for HuffPo for no $ instead of WH Press Secretary.
kay
@PeakVT:
Because it’s always about Obama with his opponents. Always.
Obama’s a really shrewd politician. Ironically, the Obama-centric nature of the opposition may save the Democratic majority in Congress, in the next election. I’m sure he knows that. He can and will take all the fire, probably gladly. The Democrats are already going into “save my ass” mode, and running very local races. It’s not a bad strategy.
Mnemosyne
@BTD:
Yes, a financial collapse that begins under the previous president is exactly like a terrorist attack from outside forces and the opposition party will rally around the exact same way.
Except for the part where the Republicans, you know, didn’t, you’re exactly right!
It’s because you’re playing the “yeah, but …” game. Sure, he got healthcare reform passed, but it could have been better. Sure, he started withdrawing from Iraq like he said, it could be going faster. Sure, he got a stimulus bill passed, but it should have been bigger.
It’s not like people were all excited about stimulus bill and then gradually became upset with it. People were running it down and saying it was useless before it even passed.
So tell us, Armando, is there a single thing that Obama has done that you don’t have a “yeah, but” response to? Has he done a single thing that you liked, or is it all OBAMA FAIL all the time?
joe from Lowell
I wish Holder was being more aggressive about the previous administration’s torture policies.
But if the worst thing George Bush had done was not prosecute his predecessors, he wouldn’t be the worst president of the past century.
People who claim that Obama is just like Bush, or even remotely comparable to him, on civil liberties prove too much. They aren’t content to make their argument that this or that is bad, or even that Obama is wrong to do it. They insist on their partisan message, even to the detriment of their argument about civil liberties, because their partisan message is more important to them.
Kerry Reid
@Bruce (formerly Steve S.):
Yes. Because tax cuts are always so difficult to pass, being such a huge political liability with the electorate and all. And getting Congress to support a war initiative after the biggest terrorist attack on American soil in history took gigantic huevos and lots of arm-twisting. I mean geez — whoever could have thought that there would be a groundswell of support for the “bomb the towelheads, any towelheads” from the reasonable and totally-not-xenophobic American electorate after that event?
Yet even still, Bush failed, even with his 2004 victory, to get any traction whatsoever for his key policy initiative for his second term: privatizing Social Security. Not even his own party got on that one. Why? Because major legislation impacting policy on a widespread and national level, outside the national security realm, are ridiculously hard to push through. Especially when it comes to things that really affect Americans on a daily basis — healthcare and pensions. Most of us don’t serve in the military or live in the Gulf, so it’s easy to ignore the costs of that, but all of us worry about paying for healthcare and whether we’ll be living in cardboard boxes (“in the middle of the motorway!”) in our dotage.
In other words: Bush got stuff passed that was easy to pass, particularly in the pants-wetting post-9/11 environment. Wow. He was such a wizard.
Obama and the Dems in Congress manage to pass stuff that NO ONE has been able to touch (i.e., HCR) for decades. And of course this means they suck.
Anyone who thinks that was easy and he should have just said more magic words to do a Vulcan mind-meld with Nelson and Lincoln and Snowe and Collins and Lieberman — well, you’ve clearly never spent time sitting at a local zoning board hearing, where people will die on anthills for their “principles.”
Most Americans are insane, overentitled, and undereducated, and that includes Congress. That ANY of this has happened is a fucking miracle.
But for those on the “we’re DOOMED, Gulliver” bandwagon, I’ll just remind you: Suicide Is Painless.
BTD
@Mnemosyne:
I am a full throated supporter of his Afghanistan policy. In fact, I think he has been a GREAT foreign policy President.
I think he has been too timid on domestic policy.
I do not think his domestic “legislative accomplishments” (which is ironic coming from John who has long argued the President has no power over the Congress) have been great – some are good some are not so good.
I give him a C+ so far on domestic policy. I’ll make it a B+ is he lets the Bush tax cuts expire.
My feeling is that Peter Daou (who I disclose is a friend of mine) is probably about where I am.
I do not understand why John pulled out his old “Leave Obama Alone” schtick for that statement from Daou.
AxelFoley
@John Cole @ post #72:
You are my hero, Cole. You just became my hero, and when I grow up, I wanna be you, sir. Seriously.
/Cole-bot
ruemara
@Matt Mangels:
Yes, because Obama just wanted to cut taxes and deliberately set out to sabotage the stimulus. It had nothing to do with ensuring that at least some stimulus passed both houses. Damn that Obama, with his tax cuts.
@Irony Abounds:
One could say, in fact, one should say, that seems to expose the deficiencies in the quality of the Democrats that hold those projected lost seats, no? The outspoken Alan Grayson sure doesn’t seem to have a problem hitting his opponents in the gut with what worked and what’s bullshit. So how is that Obama’s fault?
Mnemosyne
@joe from Lowell:
There are way, way, way too many powerful Democrats who are knee-deep in the torture scandal for prosecutions within the US to go forward. I wish it wasn’t that way and we could toss Dianne Feinstein and Jane Harman in jail where they belong, but we’re stuck with this shitty system.
The one thread of hope that I cling to is that, under US law, there is no statute of limitations on war crimes, so we could still get to see Feinstein and Harman and all the rest in the dock someday.
taylormattd
@BTD: Your problem is you want everyone to agree with you that Obama is terrible.
Well, not everyone agrees.
Not sure why that gets you so hepped up.
Nick
@Mike from Philly:
No, actually we’re not…we’re targeting an admitted terrorist who renounced his American citizenship for assassination overseas in the event that we can’t capture him alive. We’re not putting snipers on the roof of Downtown Los Angeles office buildings. This is not a new thing, we’ve been doing it for decades.
FlipYrWhig
@Ranjit Suresh:
You cannot be serious. No, really, you canNOT be serious. Please. Tell me. Really. This is not a serious claim. Is it? You’re grumpy and angry because 18 months have not reversed 40 years? It already failed? He already ran out of time?
You and anyone who thinks like you are a fucking joke.
rootless_e
@BTD: Because we are on the WH payroll. Jesus, it’s hard to get a job with what Obama did wrong on the economy – Hillary would have given us all jobs kissing Lynn Rothschilds ass and helping Marc Penn explain why Indians should be grateful for all the free chemicals Union Carbide left them, so we are forced to work as shills for the White House. It’s terribly degrading: I feel for the poor people who have to respond to Peter Dau’s columns: can you imagine their suffering?
In my case, the death panels have Grandma, so I can’t resign. And fucking Rahm is always calling – his screaming is so loud I have tinnitus. “Don’t let BTD get away with it!!!” he shouts. “But,BTD is right” I explain “Obama is failing to stop mosquitos from infesting America’s back yards because he’s caving into Republican demands that his administration finance electric car companies”. But will Rahm listen?No!
AxelFoley
@Waynski:
This.
Kevin K.
@John Cole: Take Daou off your follow list on Twitter and add CrankyKaplan. Seriously, your life will improve tenfold.
slag
I’m going with: Good, but not good enough. I expect more from Democrats when they’re in the majority of two branches of our government. Collegiality has taken us so far, but it hasn’t taken us nearly far enough.
I want to see more progressive things–like substantial jobs bills and civil liberties protections–rammed down our throats. And I want to see more Party unity strongly enforced by Party leadership. I want to see cooperation and cohesiveness between Democrats, and if I don’t see that cooperation and cohesiveness, I want to see an iron fist coming down on those who can’t force themselves to play well with their teammates. But that’s because I’m an asshole who also wants a pony (not rammed down my throat though because that sounds uncomfortable).
FlipYrWhig
@Bruce (formerly Steve S.):
Do you think that has more to do with frustration about the oil spill, or because of some thing about a terror suspect holed up in a remote location that has the civil libertarians all sad-facey?
Bruce (formerly Steve S.)
@Mnemosyne:
And prior to that event Bush got the #1 item on any Republican wish list, a massive transfer of wealth to his buddies. Dems barely put up a fight.
Can you remember what equivalent event in the financial sector happened in the fall of 2008?
Tom Hilton
@Tecumseh:
In the short term, probably not. In the long term…we’ll see. Seniors really, really like their Social Security and Medicare. Odds are pretty good most people will really like being able to get affordable health insurance on the individual market. And having the information necessary to make informed choices. And being able to keep their kids on their insurance (or being able to stay on their parents’). And having the choice of leaving their jobs without becoming uninsured. And so on.
And that’s just HCR, and just part of it at that. The CFPA is a huge deal. There are dozens of other provisions in various bills that will make a positive, concrete difference for millions of people.
Now, here’s the thing: polarization and acrimony and dishonesty and sleazy lizard-brain appeals are inherently pro-Republican. That’s what the President understands that the people who wish he would scream more don’t. If we adopt the tactics of the GOP, we might win in the short term but we would lose in the long term, because anything that discredits politics discredits government. The Republicans don’t need to win the argument in order to win; they just need to make the argument so nasty that voters lose all respect for politicians (the people who govern).
The only way Democrats can fight back is to govern, and govern well. That’s all we’ve got. It sucks that our job is so much harder than theirs, but those are the cards we were dealt. Maybe it won’t pay off in the long term, but it’s the only chance we’ve got.
Nick
@Ranjit Suresh:
no, we didn’t…we never had that possibility, ever.
taylormattd
@BTD: The problem with comments like this (pretending folks are irrationally demanding that OBAMA BE LEFT ALONE) is that it ignores any and all context, and pretends a bunch of cultists are responding poorly to mild, constructive criticisms from people who actually are generally-speaking supportive.
The reality, however, is utterly different.
People like you, Peter, Jane, Stoller, Armstrong, Atrios, Greenwald, Cenk, and the rest of the high profile left bloggers, spend an inordinate amount of time (if not a flat out majority of time) writing about how shitty Obama is on nearly every issue, how terrible his priorities are, or even how he did something right, but did it too late, or without enough gusto. It’s repetitive, non-stop, and it’s been happening for three fucking years.
Waynski
@AxelFoley: Thanks, both to you and eemom.
BTD
@taylormattd:
I’m pretty sure I wrote that he was a great foreign policy President and I gave him a C+ on domestic policy.
If ever I needed evidence to make my case that folks like you and John get angry because someone does not agree that Obama is great, your comment is Exhibit A.
As for getting hepped up, I do not anymore. In fact, I have not written much about politics in a while
I am very hepped up about the Tour de France though. Epic.
Matt Mangels
Look, for the record, I don’t hate Obama or think he’s a particularly evil or bad politician. I think the problem lies in the people whom he’s chosen to surround himself with. Yes, the stimulus saved a lot of jobs, and it’s being used to fix this country’s shitty infrastructure, but the point is that the general voting public is not going to look at almost 10% unemployment as a success. Probably one of his strategists told him that adding tax cuts to the stimulus would make it ok to say “yeah well we gave Repubs a little of what they wanted, still didn’t vote for it, blame them” when if those same strategists were worth anything they would’ve KNOWN Republicans are dead set on opposing everything he does, and that they should’ve “gone big or gone home”.
And I know, John, that you hate being told this, but you still seem to have a hippie-punching reflex. Just callin’ it like I see it.
Kevin K.
@ts:
Ding! Ding! Ding! We have a winner! Is it possible to pass a Kewpie doll through a blog comment box. That’s if there are any left after Cole’s comment.
Bruce (formerly Steve S.)
@FlipYrWhig:
I don’t know, I was simply correcting an erroneous assertion.
FlipYrWhig
@taylormattd:
And it happened for 8 years under Clinton, too, only back then we had to wait a week for morale-sucking purity-mongering to be mailed to us on dead trees.
Nick
@Bruce (formerly Steve S.):
entirely untrue…Dems put up such a fight, the GOP had to use reconciliation to pass the tax cuts.
joe from Lowell
@slag:
Really? Based on what? Clinton’s first two years, or Carter’s term?
I expect much, much less than what Obama, Pelosi, and Reid have been able to deliver. I’d like more, but I expect less.
I feel pleasantly surprised.
BTD
@taylormattd:
Got links on how I rip Obama on foreign policy? Cuz, you know, I am in his cult on foreign policy, especially Afghanistan.
I disagreed with the size of the stimulus in January 2009.
I do not like the market based approach of the health bill. I do like the expansion of Medicaid.
FinReg is a big meh to me. But I do not know what Obama could have done with this Congress. Given the constraints, I have no complaints.
And if Obama lets the Bush tax cuts expire,I wll definitely consider his first 2 years a success.
Of course, politically it won’t be because unemployment is just going to kill the Dems in November. I think Obama did some, but not enough, on that.
I can’t speak for the long list of “haters” you identify, but I do try and evaluate by issue.
I do not think you are being very fair to me. And yes, I think John was quite unfair to my friend Peter.
Tom Hilton
@taylormattd:
That’s unfair. They don’t write only about how shitty Obama is.
Every now and then they take some time out to write about how demoralized and unenthusiastic the Democrats are.
BTD
@joe from Lowell:
Just for the record, and I think it an important point, Clinton raised taxes on the rich and cut it for the poor in his first 2 years. It was a huge accomplishment.
If Obama can let the Bush tax cuts expire, it would be one of his biggest accomplishments imo.
AxelFoley
@BTD:
And it seems like the Obama detractors have the opposite problem that Cole has.
Can’t for the life of me figure out why they’re so pissed that Not Everybody Hates Obama.
Mnemosyne
@Bruce (formerly Steve S.):
I’m assuming you missed the previous 40 years of “tax revolt” talk and legislation since you seem greatly surprised that Republicans would immediately push for a massive tax cut as soon as they got into power and that Democrats (who were, you may recall, in the minority) would go along with it.
Sorry, but a banking meltdown and the deaths of 3,000 people are not the same thing emotionally. People will not respond the same way to a mortgage going bad and holding funerals for hundreds of dead firefighters.
They may be “equivalent” in their effect on the economy, but the emotional effect on the population of the country was in no way similar. Otherwise, we would have had the Senate gathered on the steps singing “God Bless America” right after Bear Sterns collapsed.
ts
@Kevin K.: well played.
FlipYrWhig
@Matt Mangels:
Or, hey, here’s another possibility: when you’re the President you have to run everything you want past a gauntlet of fucking morons who fear spending and love tax cuts. Or are you one of those people who thinks if the stimulus had been drawn up for $2, 5, or 23 trillion it would still have been hashed out roughly in the middle?
joe from Lowell
That’s nonsense. The Democrats put up a big fight, the Republicans had to use reconciliation to pass it, the tax cut bill was unpopular with the public – yes, that’s right, a TAX CUT BILL ended up having a negative approval rating – and Bush’s popularity was dropping steadily as a result.
Before mid-September.
BTD
@Kevin K.:
This is precisely the thinking. If John is thinking that, what is the point of the discussion? Such as it is.
Bobby Thomson
The stimulus was woefully inadequate.
It’s like providing five lifeboats when 30 are needed and then bragging about it. Am I happy he did it? Yes. Am I happy McCain wasn’t in a position to make things even worse? Yes.
It’s certainly true that its inadequacy was caused to a large degree by Republicans, even putting to one side Obama’s unforgivable political malpractice in pre-compromising the bill.
But it’s definitely not something that Democrats can run on. They will have to hope for more unforced errors by Republicans.
BTD
@AxelFoley:
I do not have that problem. Maybe someone else does.
Indeed, I have been strongly supporting the President on foreign policy, while John Cole has been criticizing him.
It’s just weird to me that people are attacked for not agreeing that Obama is great, especially when the person doing it has been pretty damn critical of Obama lately. And wrongly critical imo.
slag
@joe from Lowell:
Based on the fact that I expect major political parties to be able to learn from their past mistakes. I assume these people are professionals. They pretend to be at least. And we’re paying them to be. So, I expect them to act like it and not repeat the same damn mistakes over and over again. And to change with the times, if you will.
When you know party unity has been a problem over and over again, you should take serious steps to fix it. And if you can’t do that, you should find someone who can.
ETA: You should also not be an idiot and lose the state of Massachusetts. That would be nice. And professional!
Nick
@Matt Mangels:
There is no choice there, if you go big, you’re going home, end of story.
The Republicans had nothing, absolutely nothing, to lose from weakening or opposing a stimulus. Obama had everything to lose. In a society where people can’t see beyond the latest headline, witty phrase, or chryon on the TV screen, there’s no “go big or go home,” there’s just “go home”
Bruce (formerly Steve S.)
@kay:
Um, John made this about Obama in the second sentence of his post. Can you read?
grendelkhan
@Mnemosyne: Cheney and his ilk were backing torture all throughout the tenure of the Bush administration. What had previously been a grotesque war crime and betrayal of everything that American stands for became a nitpicky policy difference when the following administration entered office. It’s not like the media acted appreciably different, either: yes, they did their best to make torture acceptable, but that was what they’d been doing for years on end before Obama got into office.
The fact of the matter is that Obama made torture broadly acceptable.
BTD
@rootless_e:
Typical. When will you let go of the primaries?
BTW, did you hate me this much when I strongly supported Obama’s foreign policy, particularly on Afghanistan. And did you rip Cole for attacking it?
joe from Lowell
You are quite the optimist. I expect major political parties to make their same mistakes over and over again.
Perhaps that’s the difference. You just expect that the Democrats in 2009-2010 will actually get their stuff together and pass a health care bill, so you’re more critical of it. Ah, jeez, guys, anybody can pass health care reform; I want it to sparkle!
I don’t. I think it’s a freaking miracle than they actually passed HCR.
Well, unless you’re talking about how great it was that we found Obama, I’m left to ask: how’s that workin’ out for ya? Found any?
Kerry Reid
@Tom Hilton: You are my internet hero for the day.
rootless_e
I really respect all those people who take time from their highly successful political careers to explain Obama’s childish incompetence at legislative tactics and elementary negotiation to us over and over. By Golly! It’s a wonder that none of you have been snatched up to run Congress.
Nick
@Bobby Thomson:
when all you ever able to get is five lifeboats, and you were able to save some people, and your opponents wanted to let them drown, you brag about it.
Kevin K.
@BTD:
True, I generally think that whenever I see you show up in a thread.
joe from Lowell
…by denouncing and banning it. How devilishly clever of him.
I think I finally found that 11-dimensional chess.
Bruce (formerly Steve S.)
@Mnemosyne:
You just can’t stay on topic from one post to the next, can you?
Did Bush get his A#1 legislative priority within months of taking office, yes or no?
Goddamn, you’re a clown. At least you make me laugh.
rootless_e
@BTD: I’m against Obama’s afghanistan policy.
Yet somehow I can integrate that with the blind loyalism and cult membership that has been diagnosed in me since the primaries.
arguingwithsignposts
@slag:
Obama lost Massachusetts! (head/desk)
Seriously, what steps do you propose to take to fix party unity with the likes of Baucus, Lincoln, et. al. and a 40-seat “no” vote in the Senate? Big tent and all that.
Also, per BTD, Obama’s Af-Pak strategery is the best of a shitty situation. I wouldn’t grade him a good foreign policy president on his ability to keep eating the shit sandwich he was served when he came into office.
rootless_e
Anyways, BTD, I don’t hate you, I just think you have no idea what you are talking about.
Nick
@grendelkhan:
WTF kind of epic fail of logic is this? The Bush Administration tortured for years with the approval of the public and the media, and it was OBAMA who made it more broadly acceptable?
General Stuck
@grendelkhan:
I got your Halo effect right here. Tell me, do you Glenbots always regurgate complete horseshit then enjoy your own stank. Obama is the dem POTUS where support matters, and criticism as well, Glen Greenwald is a nobody blogger. Why do you worship him so?
Mnemosyne
@Mnemosyne:
D’oh! Correcting myself, because Bruce’s absolute certainty convinced me that Democrats must have gone along with the tax cuts because they suck so much.
However, Nick is correct: the Republicans had to pass the tax cuts through reconciliation because the Democrats kicked and refused to vote for cloture. If they hadn’t done it that way, the tax cuts wouldn’t be expiring this year.
BTD
@rootless_e:
Obviously I do not agree but I see no reason to get all nasty about it.
Cheers.
BTD
@rootless_e:
To be clear, it was you who brought up the primaries and those who attacked Peter.
I’m prepared to never mention them again. But it is hard to do when commenters assert that Daou wrote what he wrote because he is bitter about the primaries.
Mnemosyne
@Bruce (formerly Steve S.):
He did it by bypassing the Democratic minority and getting them passed through reconciliation. IOW, he got his legislative priority the same way Obama got his.
Sorry, but if you think that people react the same way to being physically attacked and to seeing their bank balance change, you really need to get out more. Particularly when that bank balance change is immediately credited to ACORN, Barney Frank and Fannie Mae by the Republicans.
BTD
@Kevin K.:
No doubt you do. Judging from your comments, I am not surprised.
Cheers.
slag
@joe from Lowell:
Actually, I’m confused by these questions (as I am by many things), but I will gladly pontificate on my issues with the President being considered the de facto head of the party. This organizational decision (even if it’s a superficial one), in my view, is a huge mistake. It confounds the notion of separate and independent branches of government and makes the President appear to be more partisan than he is. And, in this case, no, I don’t think Obama is a good leader of the party (from what I’ve seen). But I do think he’s a good President.
No, the President should not be considered the Party leader, and to keep that from happening, the Democratic Party should raise the profiles of other strong leaders within the party. They’ve done a pretty good job of it in the House. They’ve done a horrible job of it in the Senate.
rootless_e
@Nick:
No no no. You stand firm. Draw a line in the sand. No shit sandwiches. Then if those people can just keep swimming for a couple of months, another 20 lifeboats will appear somehow and we can rescue all of them. It’s immoral to only do what you can, when you have the choice of not doing anything at all.
See?
scarshapedstar
Well, uh, what about the wars, John? Shouldn’t we be getting the fuck out? Instead, Obama is getting the fuck in.
NOT WHAT I VOTED FOR.
Bruce (formerly Steve S.)
@Kerry Reid:
@Nick:
You two figure it out. The fact of Bush’s getting the legislation he wanted is still not in question.
Mnemosyne
@grendelkhan:
And who presented it that way?
I do love how you’re giving the media a free pass in the whole thing, though, and ignoring the full-court press as documented by your hero Glenn Greenwald. So you’re saying that, in this case, Greenwald is wrong and it was all Obama’s fault?
slag
@arguingwithsignposts:
I’m sorry. Did I say that Obama lost Massachusetts? I don’t think I did. But just in case, let me correct the record: Obama did not lose Massachusetts.
Mnemosyne
@Bruce (formerly Steve S.):
Yes, as long as you completely ignore why Bush got the legislation he wanted and pretend that the situation today is exactly analogous, then you can claim that the problem is Obama’s failure and not, you know, that a terrorist attack scared the shit out of the whole country so Congress handed everything over on a silver platter.
As long as you ignore all facts and all context then, sure, you can claim that Bush got everything he wanted and Obama didn’t so it’s OBAMA FAIL.
rootless_e
@BTD: I think Tomasky had Dau down
That reminds me of someone else too. Can’t think of who right now.
John Cole
I’m not angry because people don’t think Obama is great. I’m tired of a handful or loudmouths who go out of their way, ignoring actual accomplishments, to show how awful he is.
There is a difference.
Tom Hilton
@Kerry Reid: aw, shucks…thanks!
joe from Lowell
No. He got his initial budget/tax priority through. So did Obama. So did Clinton. Poppy Bush didn’t, but so did Reagan. So did Carter.
What’s to figure out? Bills that can puss under reconciliation are easy when your party controls the Senate.
I’m still waiting for those impressive Bush legislative achievements that surpass Obama’s. So far, I’ve got the typical first-year budget/tax bill, and AUMFs after 9/11. Not exactly Roosevelt’s first 100 days.
slag
@arguingwithsignposts:
The step I would propose is organizational: Invest your Party leadership with power. Chairmanships, media access, money. Those tools need to be leveraged, and party leadership needs the ability to leverage them. If the leadership currently has the ability and isn’t using it, the leadership needs to be replaced.
joe from Lowell
Obama is getting us the fuck out of Iraq, and getting us the fuck into Af-Pak.
No, that is exactly what you voted for.
John Cole
@BTD:
One more time. I have no problem with people being critical of Obama- and, as you have noted, I am quite often critical of him. Hell, I don’t think I would even give him a B+ on domestic policy. If we are grading on the curve and include the shit scores from the GOP, sure, he is a B+.
My problem is, as I have clearly stated, that there is a coterie of self-promoters and emo nay-sayers who no matter what happens, find something to bitch about. In Daou’s case, he even has to exaggerate the case in order to be upset, as he did in that tweet.
And the notion that the public will judge his legacy on civil liberties is laughable. The public, for the most part, has no problem with the torture conducted by the last administration (much to my dismay).
A fringe of the progressive movement is the teen who gets a Chevy Malbu for his 16th birthday and spends the whole day with a sad face because it wasn’t a BMW, and it could have been a Mercedes, and why is there no satellite radio, and on and on.
John Cole
And for the record, I have no idea how a progressive like you, BTD, can be supportive of the escalation of drone attacks. That policy is just a disaster.
Kerry Reid
@Bruce (formerly Steve S.): In other words, you have no response to the cogent arguments we’ve made explaining why Bush’s legislative agenda and Obama’s differ not only in form, but in how things got passed.
I’m guessing you’re a sound-bite, screw-the-details kind of person.
BTD
@John Cole:
I’m a Centrist. I appreciate the Progressives to my Left though.
Bruce (formerly Steve S.)
@Mnemosyne:
In other words, yes. See, admitting the truth wasn’t so hard.
No, Bush got his with quite a few Dem votes, one GOP defection out of both houses, and within months of his election. Obama got his with zero Republican votes, 36 Dem defections, and over a year later, and after a bewildering series of compromises that somehow managed to turn a plurality of the populous against health care reform.
You’re a clown. Keep it up.
Kerry Reid
@Bruce (formerly Steve S.): And you haven’t explained why Bush didn’t get his key second administration goal — privatizing Social Security — anywhere near passage. Maybe you can get back to us when you “figure it out.”
BTD
@John Cole:
Peter is saying what he thinks. He is a friend of mine, so I am not objective, but I do not see how it is acceptable of you to impugn him in this way.
Is he right? I do not think so. But I will vouch for his character.
Redshirt
For those of you being exposed to “liberals” for the first time, you see how there is an antipode to the Wingnut: The UltraLiberal who literally cannot live and operate in this world, who needs everything purified.
These folks seriously think Kucinich could win, and would be a great President. They’re suffering from their own, particular form of cognitive dissonance.
les
@Ranjit Suresh:
Citation needed. Christ on a crutch, failure because he didn’t meet an undefinable, vaporous, fucking impossible goal that the man never articulated, promised or implied. Fucking loon.
BTD
@rootless_e:
I never cared for Tomasky myself.
And Peter is a friend of mine so I disagree with your characterization.
Kerry Reid
@Bruce (formerly Steve S.): It’s “populace.” And you’re welcome.
BTD
@joe from Lowell:
Totally agree Joe.
That is why I give him an A on foreign policy.
grendelkhan
@joe from Lowell: Were you under a rock for the Bush years? Don’t you remember him saying “We do not torture” and similar such platitudes? Don’t you remember that torture was already illegal under Bush? Everyone in office says that we don’t torture. The words mean less than nothing; the actions mean everything.
@Nick: Should I use smaller words? Look at the Pew poll I linked to upthread. When Obama entered office, support for torture was a heavily Republican position. Nine months later, it was bipartisan consensus. You can enjoy all the wishful thinking you want, but the facts stand.
@General Stuck: Clearly, Greenwald is not a Very Serious Person, and should therefore be ignored.
@Mnemosyne: I’m not giving the media a “free pass”. As I’ve explained above, the media did their best to sell torture before Obama got into office, and they did their best to sell torture after he got into office. The difference, as people here seem utterly incapable of understanding, is that what had been grievous crimes against humanity during the election weren’t worth Looking Back at once he was in office. It’s not “all Obama’s fault”; he didn’t bring torture into the public discourse in the first place. But, as I keep pointing out, he made it a bipartisan consensus. We no longer have a party of torturers and a party of not-torturers; we have a party of torturers and another party of torturers.
Kerry Reid
@Bruce (formerly Steve S.): And so you’re complaining, from what I can figure out (coherency isn’t your strong suit, though I give you full points for consistency) that Obama managed to pass a tougher legislation agenda with zero opposition-party support, unlike Bush, who managed to pass easier things with some support from Dems.
And from this I am to deduce that Obama sucks?
Bruce (formerly Steve S.)
@Kerry Reid:
You’re making no cogent argument regarding the question at hand.
John: “Is this the most successful legislative session for a President in decades?”
Obviously not, since a mere 8-10 years ago the President got all his top priorities in mostly unadulterated fashion. John didn’t ask the question you’re answering.
General Stuck
@John Cole:
B+ is cool, I could even see just a B. Considering the certainty that a sitting governing presnit will not get the final product he preached on in the campaign. And in the present insane partisan atmosphere a solid B is nothing to sneeze at.
I hate the drone attacks into occupied buildings, I hate using mercs for much of our defense in war zones. But Obama is not torturing people lawlessly like Bush. He is not lawlessly eavesdropping like Bush. And so on. The fact that I don’t like the provisions in some of those laws he is following, is a separate issue and congress gets most of that ire. Therefore, any comparison to Bush, with results being he is bad as Bush, I reject completely, or near completely. Individual policies like the drone attacks are wide open to bash Obama on as independent issues outside of comparison to Bush, however.
grendelkhan
@Redshirt: “These folks seriously think Kucinich could win, and would be a great President.”
I, for one, heartily cheer you on in your ongoing battle against the forces of Straw. Be sure to mention that anyone who takes issue with Obama or his administration is most likely a disgruntled Clinton supporter, as well.
les
@rootless_e:
thanks, -e; I was considering undoing the “redacted” tag to see if things had improved, but now I can avoid the aggravation.
Nick
@Bruce (formerly Steve S.):
Actually, yes it is. You specifically brought up the tax cuts.
Fact is, Bush failed often on legislation. He couldn’t get amendments for flag burning and gay marriage passed, couldn’t get Social Security privatization, and couldn’t get immigration reform. He couldn’t even get his first SCOTUS nominee a confirmation hearing. And that’s when his party was in the majority.
He couldn’t et it because Bush was terrible at figuring out how to get legislation through Congress without scaring people with simple terms.
Obama is very good at this and it often means pissing off progressives. But he and Pelosi, less so Reid, get shit done.
Kerry Reid
@Bruce (formerly Steve S.): And the reason he didn’t get Social Security privatized was…? I’ve asked that about three times now — I’m sure you can come up with a reason.
And again, I still don’t understand why Obama passing more major legislative initiatives without any support from the GOP is supposed to be LESS impressive than Bush getting tax cuts in reconciliation and support for a war in the wake of a terror attack.
FlipYrWhig
@Bobby Thomson:
Yeah, partway measures that save some but not all disaster victims suck. Obama is as big a fuckup as that pilot who crashed in Iowa in 1989 and only saved _some_ of the passengers. Woefully inadequate.
les
@scarshapedstar:
too bad you don’t know enough to listen to platforms and campaigns; you could avoid being all butthurt when stuff that was never promised, doesn’t happen.
jebus, we deserve the gov’t we get. We’re a nation of fucking idiots.
Bobby Thomson
@Nick:
You might. I wouldn’t, because it doesn’t sit well with the families of the people who would have been saved by the additional lifeboats. A shitload of people are out of work. Bragging that unemployment is “only” 10% is hella stupid.
ETA: I would, though, point out that my opponents wanted to see people drown, but that doesn’t seem post-partisan enough for some.
Blame, but don’t brag.
El Cid
Via Digby: On the giant Obama plot to have had the Bush administration dismiss prosecuting the New Black Panther party for having killed an entire building full of voters, and the failure of the NAACP to distance themselves from these Afro-Selassie terrorists, Urk Urkson says:
I’m guessing that last bit has to do with continuing Bush Jr’s wars, or maybe abortion, or maybe Obama’s secret Kenyonesian Muslin rituals of slaughtering infants on a Pagan altar.
liberal
@John Cole:
AFAICT the financial reform legislation is extremely weak. If the point of the legislation is to lessen the chances of a disaster happening again, decrease moral hazard on the part of the banksters, etc, etc, it’s a complete failure.
Some pieces might be OK, like the consumer protection part.
Bruce (formerly Steve S.)
@Kerry Reid:
John: “Is this the most successful legislative session for a President in decades?” Note that “session” is singular.
@Kerry Reid:
Complaining?
Who Cares? What’s the answer to John’s question?
If you’re an idiot.
What’s the answer to John’s question?
@Kerry Reid:
Thanks for the cogent spelling flame.
General Stuck
@liberal: Geesh, liberal, I can remember squabbling with you when the financial meltdown was occurring and you were arguing for a complete nationalization of the banking industry. So it is not surprising to have you proclaim it a “complete failure” where banks are concerned.
joe from Lowell
No, he didn’t. Bush passed the standard first-year budget/tax bill (so did Obama), and then a prescription drug benefit he had to pass for political cover. Then, after 9/11, he gave up entirely on a domestic legislative agenda, agreeing to let the Congressional leadership do whatever they wanted in exchange for war powers.
joe from Lowell
Yes.
The answer to John’s question is yes.
les
@liberal:
I know it’s not cool, but while moaning about what you think finreg won’t do, you might look at what it may do.
Sentient Puddle
@liberal:
Which probably translates to “I probably should read more about the bill.”
“Complete failure.” QED.
Y’know, it’d really help if people took a few seconds to read a bit about what the bill does before making such grandiose statements. There’s been a lot of dumb shit said about financial reform. Some of it is certainly understandable because the field is rather complex, but I hear way too much commentary that screams “I don’t want to try to understand this, and instead just bitch.”
Kerry Reid
@Bruce (formerly Steve S.):
“Thanks for the cogent spelling flame.”
Just trying to help you not look like a clueless moron. I’m sorry — MORE of a clueless moron. If you don’t know how to spell the big words, avoid them. Or look them up. Using the wrong words doesn’t really bolster your credibility. You could have said “voters” just as easily.
As for a “plurality” of voters not liking the healthcare reform law — your proof? Here is one report from two weeks ago that shows that it’s gaining in popularity. But it’s from that well-known pinko-commie rag, the Wall Street Journal, so take that into account. Not backing up your claims also damages credibility.
“And prior to that event Bush got the #1 item on any Republican wish list, a massive transfer of wealth to his buddies. Dems barely put up a fight.”
Lying is something else that will damage your credibility. If “Dems barely put up a fight,” then why did the tax cuts have to go to reconciliation? Or did you not know that that was how the tax cuts passed until it was pointed out to you here?
So yes — Obama has had a more successful less-than-two-years in office than Bush, and has actually passed legislation that will help Americans who aren’t in the top 1 percent of the tax bracket. Does it go far enough? No. Nothing ever goes as far as it should. But it’s a better beginning against tougher odds than he’s being credited for by the professional pissy-pants Daou crowd.
There. I’ve answered your question. Now answer mine: why couldn’t Bush harness that awesome legislation-fu power of his to pass Social Security privatization? That’s the legislation that is far more analogous to an overhaul of healthcare insurance.
Mnemosyne
@grendelkhan:
Actually, if you had bothered to look at the links I provided to you, the administration was pushing back hard against Cheney and the media when they kept trying to claim that torture works. Unfortunately, they lost the argument and Cheney and the media won.
You seem to be complaining that Obama didn’t start war crimes investigations, but that’s not what you started out talking about. Your claim was that Obama made torture acceptable. I’m pointing out that the administration did their best to push back against the (unfortunately successful) media campaign to make torture acceptable.
Sorry to break it to you, but we always had two parties of torturers. People like Dianne Feinstein and Jane Harman were complicit in torture and other war crimes. Pelosi’s hands don’t seem to be clean, either.
That’s why war crimes trials aren’t going to happen — because it’s not only Bush and Cheney who will be put on trial, but a whole lot of the most powerful Democrats. I have no problem with that — let the chips fall where they may — but Congress sure as hell isn’t going to countenance investigating and prosecuting themselves and you can’t arrest active members of Congress for their “legislative acts.”
JR
You’ve gotten not one, but TWO puppies, Mr. Cole. Don’t be greedy.
joe from Lowell
This is bull. Being informed of something doesn’t make you complicit in it, and the evidence that they were even informed is shaky. The CIA itself had to acknowledge that its memo about briefing Pelosi was wrong.
Alan in SF
RE: That whole Bush Social Security thing. Bush never introduced a proposal to privatize or modify Social Security. He tried to bait the Democrats into introducing a proposal, so he could get cover. When they didn’t, he gave up.
I repeat — there was never a legislative proposal. And, perhaps more importantly, if Obama had tried as hard to get single payer as Bush tried to get privatized Social Security, none of us would be blaming him for failing. If he had tried 1% as hard.
Mnemosyne
@joe from Lowell:
It’s the reason why we won’t see torture prosecutions of anyone but the lowest-level peons for years, if we see them at all: too many powerful Democrats knew too much.
Feinstein and Harman don’t carry as much of the moral blame as Bush and Cheney, but they would never get elected again. That’s the gun that the Republicans are holding to the Democrats’ head — try to prosecute our guys and we’re taking every Democrat who stood by and watched them do it.
Bruce (formerly Steve S.)
@joe from Lowell:
Not sure what you mean by this.
That wasn’t until 2003.
Bush concentrated on foreign/security affairs after 9/11 and got most everything he wanted, correct?
@joe from Lowell:
John’s first sentence: “Financial reform will pass.”
John’s second sentence: “Is this the most successful legislative session for a President in decades?”
Conclusion: a successful legislative session is one in which a President gets priority legislation passed.
Bush saw his high legislative priorities passed, passed relatively quickly, and with few compromises.
Obama?
FinReg is finally getting done though with compromises. In my opinion the bill is worth supporting, but only just.
Health care took about a year, had important provisions Obama claimed he was for compromised out of it, and took a big toll on the party’s popularity.
The Stimulus was necessary and passed right away, though even Obama’s team admits it wasn’t big enough.
Now, I guess I’ll have to make something clear here for the people who like to draw erroneous conclusions. Noting the above does not mean “Obama sucks.” What it means is that clearly Obama is not having as successful a legislative session as Bush did in ’01-’02. Obama has gotten some of his big ticket items, but always with compromises. Bush, like all Republicans, wanted nothing more than a tax cut for his buddies and unfettered ability to kill brown-skinned people, and he got all the legislation he needed to do both.
Kerry Reid
@Alan in SF: When did Obama come out in favor of single payer? He didn’t. None of the major Democratic candidates in 2008 did.
“I repeat—there was never a legislative proposal. ”
Well, there was H.R. 3304 and S. 1302. Both got sponsors in the GOP. So I’m not sure what your definition of a “legislative proposal” is, but there were definitely relevant pieces of legislation introduced in both chambers of Congress.
Alan in SF
@Sentient Puddle:
I’m pretty sure booze was legal during the Johnson and Nixon administrations, although I was too young to buy it. From Wikipedia, a small fraction of the Nixon Administration’s accomplishments. I hated him when he was President and have never voted for a Republican, but fair’s fair…
Under Nixon, direct payments from the federal government to individual American citizens in government benefits (including Social Security and Medicare) rose from 6.3% of the Gross National Product (GNP) to 8.9%. Food aid and public assistance also rose, beginning at $6.6 billion and escalating to $9.1 billion. Defense spending decreased from 9.1% to 5.8% of the GNP. The revenue sharing program pioneered by Nixon delivered $80 billion to individual states and municipalities.[84]
Nixon was worried about the effects of increasing inflation and accelerating unemployment,[89] so he indexed Social Security for inflation, and created Supplemental Security Income (SSI). In 1969, he had presented the only balanced budget between 1961 and 1998.[95] However, despite speeches declaring an opposition to the idea, he decided to offer Congress a budget with deficit spending to reduce unemployment and declared, “Now I am a Keynesian”.[89]
Nixon initiated the Environmental Decade by signing the National Environmental Policy Act, the Clean Air Act of 1970 and the Federal Water Pollution Control Act amendments of 1972, as well as establishing many government agencies. These included the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA),[89] and the Council on Environmental Quality.[103] The Clean Air Act was noted as one of the most significant pieces of environmental legislation ever signed.[104]
In 1971, Nixon proposed the creation of four new government departments superseding the current structure: departments organized for the goal of efficient and effective public service as opposed to the thematic bases of Commerce, Labor, Transportation, Agriculture, et al. Departments including the State, Treasury, Defense, and Justice would remain under this proposal.[105] He reorganized the Post Office Department from a cabinet department to a government-owned corporation: the U.S. Postal Service
Alan in SF
@Kerry Reid:
Bush never backed either proposal, to my knowledge. Did the Republican congressional leadership back them? Correct me if I’m wrong.
Kerry Reid
@Bruce (formerly Steve S.):
“Bush saw his high legislative priorities passed, passed relatively quickly, and with few compromises.”
What you keep ignoring is that Bush’s “legislative priorities” were of an entirely EASIER nature than Obama’s. So yes, Obama has had a more successful session than Bush’s — particularly in pushing for broad-based policy initiatives (healthcare reform) that no one else, of either party, had ever been able to sign into law.
And you still haven’t acknowledged that you were either flat-out wrong or lying when you claimed that Dems “barely put up a fight” when it came to the tax cuts.
By the way, the AUMF passed in early October of 2002. So really, that doesn’t count as an item for comparison for Obama, who hasn’t been in office as long as Bush was when AUMF got through. I mean, you want to keep making the claim that there is no substantive difference in historical framework or nature of the two administrations’ legislative agendas, so to be perfectly fair, you should calibrate the calendars accordingly.
Hunter Gathers
Dear Movement Progressives,
Fuck off. Seriously. I’m tired of hearing your emo bullshit. So Obama’s not perfect. And Hillary or Edwards would have been? Kucinich maybe? As a member of the lower class, that man has done more for me, my wife, and my child (that’s due in October) than any other POTUS in my 34 years of existence. I’m sorry that those that have the wherewithal to sit on the internet all day and gripe about this or that are disappointed. Wanna change places? I’ll do your desk or IT job while you go cover my factory shift. How about that? Would you like to worry about your hours getting cut, or being told not to come in again because you’re laid off? Would you? No you wouldn’t. You would rather do what most middle or upper class white people usually do: bitch. Constantly. You sound like the fucking teabaggers whining about ‘losing the country’ or whatever else they whine about. You want to complain and help the GOP drag him down? Fine. I’m not going to help you. You think Obama is shitty? Try a President Palin. Or Gingrich. Or whoever else they’ll put up in 2012. I use to take my shots at Obama. No longer. I’m not going to help bring him down because I’m disappointed in this policy or that. I’m done having circular arguments with you douchebags. Do the rest of us a favor and set yourselves on fire. Piss off.
handy
@Alan in SF:
What’s sad is the Nixon of 2010 (zombie jokes here) would never be the Nixon of 1971, which is really a reflection of both the media coverage of politics and the shifting dynamics within the two major parties since that time (e.g., they’ve both shifted to the right). As it was, I doubt Nixon then would have very much trouble adjusting to the times today, as it seems the best we can say about his path to quasi-Keynesianism was that it was most likely the one of least resistance.
General Stuck
@Hunter Gathers: Tell it Bro!!
rootless_e
@Mnemosyne: the most likely reason we won’t see torture prosecutions is that nobody wants to cross the spooks too much.
It really annoys me to see supposed “leftists” pretending that Bush presided over the first besmirching of America’s torture free record. I hope that the dreams of the sainted Jimmy Carter are haunted by screams from Savak’s jails.
Kerry Reid
@Alan in SF:
Not sure about that — I took your claim that there was never a legislative proposal to mean that it was just a trial balloon that never went as far as being introduced on the floors of the House and Senate. The legislation was there. Obviously, the passion on the part of the GOP to pass it in 2005 wasn’t, and by 2006, the House had gone back to the Dems.
But it’s not a stretch to say that privatizing Social Security, whether he backed a specific bill or not, was a major aim of Bush’s second term and certainly the most high-profile domestic agenda item. It was a centerpiece of his 2005 State of the Union, among other things.
Now, I wouldn’t be surprised to see the GOP make more of a push to privatize if they win back the House.
Kerry Reid
@rootless_e: And let us not forget that the Great Liberal God himself, FDR, signed an executive order that tossed thousands of innocent Americans into internment camps without due process solely on the basis of ethnic origin and race. And that Lincoln suspended habeas corpus during the Civil War.
Hell, let’s remember that we’re a country founded on broad-based support for genocide and slavery – counting African Americans as three-fifths of a human being was considered an eminently reasonable compromise back in the day. Taking that as the long view, we’ve made a lot of progress. Even if we don’t have the “public option.”
General Stuck
@grendelkhan:
Absolutely goddamn right.
And that goes for anyone who advocates that patients should be able to diagnose and treat themselves by filling out their own prescriptions. No brainer. Case closed. Literally.
Hunter Gathers
@General Stuck: I’m really fucking cheezed off at the moment. I was lucky and was only unemployed for about 4 weeks. After applying to every place in town, one of the temporary agencies placed me in one of the local factories, at only .20 cents an hour less than what I was making before. I’m on a 3 month contract, and as long as I don’t decide to not show up to work, I’ll probably get hired on full time. The factory needed the help because of the stim. Without Obama’s policies, my family and I would be fucked. I’m sick and tired of these upper and middle class white assholes who do nothing but complain all fucking day on the tubes. I’ve had it with them. Movement progressives are just as worthless as movement conservatives. They can all go fuck themselves with a rusty spoon.
Tom Hilton
@Alan in SF:
If Obama had proposed single-payer, that would have been the end of healthcare reform for his term.
Some people seem to think that the more you ask for at the beginning of a negotiation, the more you end up with when you compromise. What they don’t understand is that if your opening position is too far out, people conclude (reasonably) that you’re just not serious about negotiating–and that’s the end of it. That’s where a single-payer proposal would have been.
Alan in SF
@Tom Hilton:
I believe Obama admitted as much himself in his best-selling book, The Audacity of Why Bother Trying.
SIA
@General Stuck: @Hunter Gathers: Can I get an A-MEN? AMEN!
Mnemosyne
@rootless_e:
I think the difference is that this was the first time (in theory) we didn’t outsource torture. We taught it and we supervised it and we financed it, but we didn’t actually have US soldiers on regular duty (ie not covert ops) torturing people as part of their duties like we did at Abu Ghraib.
rootless_e
That’s the difference between movement progressives and us brainwashed obots. We only care about results, not “try”. Actually, I think that understates the case as movement progressives seem to prefer failed brave stands to success.
If the movement progressives had run the American Revolution, it would have ended after rebels charged the British Army at Lexington.
Tom Hilton
@Alan in SF: yeah, I know: you’d rather have The Audacity of Not Getting Anything Done.
Good lord, you people are fucking immature.
Edit: @rootless_e nails it:
rootless_e
@Mnemosyne: oh I don’t minimize the criminal activity of Bush, although US troops openly tortured people in Vietnam. I just note that nobody has ever been punished for that kind of stuff and so the idea that Obama’s failure to clean house (so far) legitimates anything is a stupid one.
Mnemosyne
@Alan in SF:
HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!
Yeah, right, if Obama had failed to get healthcare passed, you wouldn’t blame him for that failure at all as long as the failed legislation included your preferred provisions when it failed.
That’s why the Indianapolis Colts are considered the real winners of this year’s SuperBowl despite losing the game — because they tried real hard and failed.
Kerry Reid
@Tom Hilton:
Who was it here who was talking about how progressives love to lionize Atticus Finch from To Kill a Mockingbird — but tend to forget that whole “he didn’t win the case and Tom Robinson dies” aspect of the story?
I suspect that “Vincent” by Don McLean is on heavy rotation on their iPods.
sparky
well, the one thing this thread proves is that politics is not rational. ;)
not that anyone asked but my opinions are, so far:
1. Obama has been a so-so foreign policy president.
reasons: bad–Afghanistan, continuation of National Security State policies; good: reduction in nuclear missiles.
2. Obama has been a bad domestic policy president. (this is “better” than Bush, who was an atrocious president.)
reasons: in light of a near collapse of the status quo, the US gets warmed over conservativism (extend and pretend) and fake reform (financial & health). oh and of course civil liberties, even though nobody apparently cares about those now that Bush isn’t president.
3. Obama has been a good image president.
reasons: speaks well, sounds reasonable, makes nice with everyone.
a couple of minor observations: just because something is politically expedient doesn’t make it right. i agree that most people in the US seem to think it’s ok to torture people, but recognition of that “fact” doesn’t require me to say, gee, i guess it must be ok, then. i just don’t see how acceptance of the status quo is supposed to lead to change. or maybe we need to be clear about when we are talking about politics versus when we are talking policy.
one other thing: there’s nothing wrong with compromise as a notion, but to use it as the predominant governing tool (that is, as the default starting point is (a) foolish and (b) something much worse than foolish when the compromise is something like the Afghanistan “plan”.
Alan in SF
@Mnemosyne:
Yeah, those wacky, far-out Canadians and virtually every other country in the developed world that demonstrably saves 50% on it’s health care costs with this lunatic idea. But you’re right, perhaps we should recalibrate from “single payer” to “public option,” which Obama supposedly supported, had majority support among voters, and was endorsed by the Dem Congressional leadership. If Obama had devoted one-tenth as much effort to the public option as Bush devoted to trying to privatize Social Security, no one would be complaining now that he had failed, and HCR would still have passed.
Mnemosyne
@Alan in SF:
How many of them were able to transition from a for-profit system to a single payer system in a single step?
Bueller?
It took South Korea 15 years to make that transition, but I guess it’s American exceptionalism to the rescue and Obama should have totally been able to do what no other country has been able to do and completely revamp a for-profit system into a single payer system with one piece of legislation.
Mnemosyne
@Alan in SF:
So Bush’s failure proves that Obama would have succeeded anyway if he had done what Bush did and pushed for something that Congress wouldn’t vote for? Whaaa?
I’m still not getting your conclusion here that if Obama had stuck to his guns and failed he still would have succeeded and the legislation would have passed because shut up, that’s why.
Kerry Reid
@Mnemosyne:
I think it has something to do with underwear gnomes.
Mnemosyne
@Mnemosyne:
I’ll answer my own question here for you — it took the Canadians 37 years to get to a single payer system.
Any other claims you’d like to make about how every other country in the world went to a single payer system in a single step?
CalD
@John Cole
You can have Peter’s. Progressiver^ers won’t settle for anything less than a full-on team of horses. Infidels and apostates don’t just trample themselves, you know.
Kerry Reid
@Alan in SF:
“If Obama had devoted one-tenth as much effort to the public option as Bush devoted to trying to privatize Social Security…”
Okay, this is confusing, because here’s what you said earlier in this thread about Bush and privatizing SS: “RE: That whole Bush Social Security thing. Bush never introduced a proposal to privatize or modify Social Security. He tried to bait the Democrats into introducing a proposal, so he could get cover. When they didn’t, he gave up.” So in other words, not long ago — within this day — you were saying that Bush didn’t really “devote” ANY effort to passing Social Security privatization.
So using your version of Bush’s “devotion” to Social Security privatization, Obama should never have really gotten behind any legislative initiatives for healthcare reform in a serious way? Or he should have tried to bait the GOP into putting out their version? Or maybe he should have listened to Biden and not done anything on HCR at all this term? (I’m sure everyone would have been satisfied with that — “I can’t get a public option, much less single payer, through Congress right now, so we’re just going to back-burner the whole thing until conditions are more favorable.” Because as long as members of his own party in the Senate were threatening to filibuster a public option, it’s kinda naive to think that “public opinion” was going to be enough to get it through.)
I truly am mystified by what you’re arguing here — you seem to be saying that Bush never really tried to pass Social Security privatization, and therefore Obama should have done even LESS to push a public option than Bush did to push Social Security privatization in order to pass a public option, even though there was “never a legislative proposal” for the latter, per your earlier claims, and that his failure to do as little as Bush did for SS privatization (which, again, per your earlier claims, was nothing) is proof of him being a loser. And Bush failed to pass Social Security privatization, but Obama managed to pass healthcare reform after many decades of presidents trying and failing, so therefore he’s a bigger failure than Bush?
I mean, I guess there is the “you can’t be blamed for failure when you never even try” line of defense. So the message going forward for Obama is “don’t do anything, and that way no one will be mad at you for not delivering exactly what you promised?” Do I have that right? Because otherwise I’m truly flummoxed.
AxelFoley
@grendelkhan:
Please stop posting. Here and everywhere else on the internets.
Gwangung
@Alan in SF: You seem to conflate what is practically possible with what’s legislatively possible. That’s not a winning srgent with me.
Kerry Reid
@Kerry Reid: Responding to myself — having become thoroughly entangled in Alan’s pretzel logic, I inadvertently made a typo.
One of those long-ass sentences should read:
“I truly am mystified by what you’re arguing here—you seem to be saying that Bush never really tried to pass Social Security privatization, and therefore Obama should have done even LESS to push a public option than Bush did to push Social Security privatization in order to pass a public option, even though there was “never a legislative proposal” for the
latterformer, per your earlier claims, and that his failure to do as little as Bush did for SS privatization (which, again, per your earlier claims, was nothing) is proof of him being a loser.”Not that it really helps make the whole “Bush did nothing and Obama should have done at least one-tenth of nothing to get something done!” argument more coherent.
Nick
@Bobby Thomson:
so all those times when Obama blasted the Republicans for holding up economic stimulus in the last few months are totally lost on you, huh? Perhaps if your outrage meter toned down a few notches, you’d be able to pay attention
Nick
@Mnemosyne: and, please, you know these idiots would be screaming that he didn’t try hard enough if it did fail.
They wouldn’t give him credit for trying, it’s such bullshit. I mean look at the all the credit Bill Clinton got for fighting for, and failing, at HCR and allowing gays in the military in 1994!
Bobby Thomson
@Nick:
This is pretty blistering.
taylormattd
@BTD:
What the fuck does your comment have to do with anything at all that I wrote?
I have no recollection of writing “Please, Armando, provide examples of specific policies on which you agree and disagree with Obama.”
Rather, I described in very careful terms how people like you, Peter, Jane, Stoller, Armstrong, Atrios, Greenwald, Cenk, and the rest of the high profile left bloggers operate:
“[you all] spend an inordinate amount of time (if not a flat out majority of time) writing about how shitty Obama is on nearly every issue, how terrible his priorities are, or even how he did something right, but did it too late, or without enough gusto. It’s repetitive, non-stop, and it’s been happening for three fucking years.”
Instead of commenting on my observation, you chose to pretend that I was saying you dislike all of Obama’s policies, and from that faulty, fabricated premise, you replied with an irrelevant list of likes and dislikes.
Any reason in particular you chose to change the subject?
Mnemosyne
@Bobby Thomson:
Psst. That’s not the president. That’s David Axelrod.
I know, you must be really embarrassed right now. This guy is the actual president.
Dr. Morpheus
@Zifnab:
BTW, sorry to go ape shit on you. I know that you’re one of the rational, reasonable people here.
I’m just sick and tired of these Internet myths that float around with a seeming infinite half-life.
But then again, uniformed myths are 99% of the Internet anyway…
Kerry Reid
@Mnemosyne:
Well, they can’t tell the difference between him and Rahm, either. You know how all those Chicago Jewish Kenyan Operative Thugs look alike.
Bobby Thomson
@Mnemosyne: Oh, yeah, you’re right. Axelrod goes rogue all the time without discussing things with the president. Hell, he never talks to him at all. It’s not like the president hired Axelrod specifically as a sounding board for strategy or to frame the issues for political consumption or anything. Boy, is my face red.
Bobby Thomson
@Mnemosyne: Hoo boy, I just read the linked speech.
Man, seeing him take the wood to Republican frames like that just gives me goose bumps all over.
jeff
So…..
This is the greatest legislative session since FDR…hmmm.
1) LBJ
2) Two bills passed. They were substantial victories, no doubt. But…The healthcare bill will not significantly reduce individual costs or restructure the system. The financial reform bill will not prevent the event that caused it – the phenomenon of too big too fail and catastrophic leverage nor will it curtail the continued and counterproductive dominance of FIRE (finance, insurance, real estate).
More important, none of the great legislative fixes does more than tinker with America’s overarching problems: stagnant wages, inability to meet fixed costs, incredible inequality, two massive wars, continued militarism etc. etc. Many of us or completely inoculated to these pervasive phenomena but that does not make it any less real.
And, ultimately, too little has been done about jobs. And before all the howlers come out – ponder this: the Administration has refused and stopped the reathorization of the surface transportation bill (highway/transit), which would create nearly 4 million jobs and infuse $500 billion into the economy. It’s a no brainer, but they oppose an increase in the gas tax to pay for it, which has not met inflation in 13 years, because they fear the term tax increase and worry about political electioneering vulnerability.
At the end of the day, unemployment and underemployment has grown and little has been done to ameliorate this reality for untold millions – the stimulus has been effectively mitigated by state budget gaps. No one outside of washington, dc or the blogoshphere believes in your cheerleading. Why? Because they see very little tangible results in their day to day lives or communities.
Uncle Clarence Thomas
Yes, if you’re a balloonbagger.
AxelFoley
@Uncle Clarence Thomas:
LMAO @ Uncle Ruckus.
Uncle Clarence Thomas
@AxelFoley:
And I’m laughing my Axel off.
Now gimme that “O” face just like before…
Nick
@Bobby Thomson: Well then, seeing as I agree with him there, I must be a Republican then. Thanks for making me see the error of my ways
Admiral_Komack
@eemom:
He is still pissed that Hillary lost.
The Truffle
@John Cole: That was a very reality-based comment, John.
Socraticsilence
@Bruce (formerly Steve S.):
While I agree with you, I don’t think the post-9-11 stuff counts- I mean its like giving LBJ credit for the post-JFK through 1964 stuff- its pretty freaking easy to get stuff done in crisis mode.
Mnemosyne
@Bobby Thomson:
Changing the subject now that you got caught being an idiot, I see. I thought we were talking about Obama calling out Republican obstructionism, not some half-baked Overton notion of how Obama is supposed to be “shattering right-wing frames.”
Ron
@BTD: Sure, I would have liked a bigger stimulus package, and I would have liked a public option (or better yet, single-payer) for HCR. The fact is that for the stimulus, they needed 60 votes and the only way that they could do it is by weakening it. As for HCR, even the house barely had enough votes to pass it with a huge dem majority and no filibuster. Nevertheless, both those bills were wins because SOMETHING got done. Incremental change is better than nothing.
FlipYrWhig
I want to play the disappointed online progressive game. Let’s see… I think it would be a good idea if everyone could attend public universities for free. It would be excellent policy and really help people’s lives. So until that’s part of an education bill, I’m going to pout and moan and call people sell-outs and corporatists, because it’s a good policy, and everything else is just a band-aid, and nothing but my position will do. Now all I have to do is post on a few blogs and my work is done! I’m so disillusioned. And it feels sooo gooood.
AxelFoley
@Uncle Clarence Thomas:
Glad I could humor you, Ruckus. Let’s go praise the white man together.
grendelkhan
@General Stuck: He claimed that? Could you link me? I was getting a bit nervous not having anything immediately come to mind which I strongly disagreed with Greenwald about.
(The more important point remains that I can say that Greenwald is impressively right about a number of things without worshipping the guy. Similar to how, say, I can both laud and criticize the President for different actions. Funny how that works.)
@AxelFoley: What, I pointed to poll results which make you uncomfortable, and now you want me to leave the internet so you don’t have to sully your beautiful mind with sad, sad thoughts? Don’t blame me; I’m just the messenger. Reality is known to have an occasional depressing-as-hell bias.
Bobby Thomson
@Mnemosyne:
Project much?
Let me try to dumb this down for you. When you give a speech that could have been written for Ronald Reagan, you are not calling out Republican obstructionism.
Takes a high level of chutzpah to accuse someone else of being “caught being an idiot” after linking something that directly contradicts the thesis you were trying to advance.
Bruce (formerly Steve S.)
@Socraticsilence:
But the financial CRISIS of 2008, which delivered the largest mandate for a Democratic President since LBJ doesn’t count?
I’ve learned an important truth in this thread. “Crisis” makes everything a President does easy, except when it makes things impossibly hard.
Socraticsilence
You’re so right- I mean the JFK assassination, 9-11, and the current economic crisis are totally the same.