Dana Milbank has a reasonably interesting column about what would would have happened if Hillary had been elected president:
Clinton campaign advisers I spoke with say she almost certainly would have pulled the plug on comprehensive health-care reform rather than allow it to monopolize the agenda for 15 months. She would have settled for a few popular items such as children’s coverage and a ban on exclusions for pre-existing conditions. That would have left millions uninsured, but it also would have left Democrats in a stronger political position and given them more strength to focus on job creation and other matters, such as immigration and energy.
[….]The Clinton campaign advisers acknowledge that she probably would have done the auto bailout and other things that got Obama labeled as a socialist. The difference is that she would have coupled that help for big business with more popular benefits for ordinary Americans.
The one concrete thing MIlbank mentions that would have helped ordinary Americans is a 90-day foreclosure moratorium. There have been various arguments here and elsewhere about whether or not it would the federal government could have imposed a 90-day moratorium. Regardless, Obama could probably have grandstanded the issue better.
When Clinton was president, he was criticized for saying he felt voters’ pain without being able to do anything about it. Now, Obama is criticized for not feeling voters’ pain enough, even as he stuck his neck out to pass a transformative health care bill.
Real Murkins stoically tighten up their belts when things get tough. Real Murkins want a president who feels their pain. Real Murkins want a 90-day foreclosure moratorium (I probably agree with them). Real Murkins form tea parties when Rick Santelli complains their neighbors aren’t being foreclosed on fast enough.
How do you make any sense of any of this?
wonkie
I thiink that your typical Village pundit is as obsessed with appearences and unwilling or unable to recognize substannce as your average teabagger.
Peter
I don’t , honestly. The national cognitive dissonance is too much for me right now. On the plus side, though, I invented a new drink to help me cope: the Rand Paul. Bourbon and ranch dressing.
Davis X. Machina
Matt Yglesias said something like:
Ron
This means that obviously uh…um…this is excellent news for John McCain?
Tom Levenson
Dana Milbank says that Clinton would have provided more popular benefits to ordinary Americans?
Counterfactuals are the mostest fun to write; you can’t be wrong.
But this assumes that the GOP machine would have reacted to a Distaff-American with less urge to destroy than it did the actual African-American President it got.
Remember this is Milbank writing, IOW. Caveat lector.
suzanne
@Peter:
LMAO. It’ll fuck you up AND clog your arteries. BONUS!
Another Bob
Yes, and Al Gore said he invented the internet, haw-haw. I wonder if John McCain will be on Meet the Press tomorrow?
Bob
So no health care bill, that’s the main difference, eh Millbank? In order that the Democratic party would have been better positioned in the midterms, and would have lost fewer seats in Congress.
Idiot. We get another crack at Congress in two year. When would we have gotten another crack at health insurance reform? Oh, 40 years maybe? Or maybe never? Gotta love our pundits.
Davis X. Machina
@Tom Levenson:
It would appear that Millbank was dead set on playing Teddy White to Sean Wilentz’ Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., in the Clinton Restoration.
sfinny
Ok, I was all ready to post a comment when I read the whole Bourbon and ranch dressing mention. Ugh, now my whole brain is trying to process this monstrosity.
So my original comment was to say that we will obviously never know how a Clinton presidency would have fared. Maybe better, maybe worse, but at least unknowable. Given that a significant part of the problem is that a large amount of media is constantly blaring the whole anti-dem message, I don’t think things would have been much different. No matter what was accomplished policy wise, the whole soc*ialist, communist, tyranny, message would have been the same.
Anya
Oh God, not the hypothetical Hillary presidency, again. The lunatics would have found creative ways to undermine and attack her. Maybe not about birth certificates, in the account that she’s white and all, but they would have found something else to delegitimize her.
If Hillary was President, the Village would be lionizing Obama and his moderate approach. God, I loath these assholes.
Peter
@suzanne: Also, it’s self-certified, with a license to fuck you up and then prescribe you something expensive for that cholesterol, too.
J. Michael Neal
What would a 90-day foreclosure moratorium have actually accomplished? I’m not seeing it. A moratorium because they can’t get the paper work right makes sense. A moratorium just because, without the pressure to actually fix a specific problem doesn’t get you anything.
Polish the Guillotines
Two solid years of Teabaggers screaming how this was Bill’s stealth third-term and Hillary was a sekrit lesbian forcing gay UN health-care mandates down our throats.
Linda Featheringill
Myths and bedtime stories.
Clinton had her chance at health care reform. It didn’t work. Perhaps nobody could have done better at that time and place but there is no evidence that she could have handled it better than Obama/Pelosi/Reid did this time. No evidence at all.
Foreclosure moratorium. If your average banker has any doubt at all that he/she can get either money or property from a mortgage, he/she will not issue the mortgage. No money loaned. No house sold. No loans for building homes because the banker can’t get a secure mortgage on it. The entire housing industry and everything it touches would definitely slow down and it might grind to a halt.
Until we develop a way to provide housing without going through the bankers, we have to keep them from getting too anxious.
Big business did get help. They got bailouts and loans and hand holding and so on. What more do they want? The sacrifice of everyone’s first-born child? Would blood make the business community happy?
The recession is international. Nobody on the planet has fixed it yet. UK is in trouble. Ireland is in trouble. Europe is in trouble. Africa, of course, is always in trouble. Asia is teetering on a knife edge. Etc., Etc. If nobody on Earth can fix the economy, Hillary Clinton probably can’t fix it either. Although she would give it her best shot.
The whole idea that Hillary would have been a better and more popular president is fantasy. Didn’t you watch her campaign in 2008? She can’t do math. She isn’t adaptable and quick on her feet. When the shit is hitting the fan, she can’t make a decision. How would that be better?
Peter
And lots of thoughtful pieces by David Brooks theorizing that if only she had no gag reflex, all that impeachment unpleasantness wouldn’t have been necessary, and thus we’d be so much more bipartisan today.
James E. Powell
Real Murkins will never accept a Democratic president as legitimate. A black Democratic president makes them insane.
Rich people will always use Real Murkins because no one else is stupid or deluded enough to support the very people who have destroyed their way of life in so many ways: no family farms can compete with agri-corps, no family owned stores can make against Wal-Mart, no blue collar worker can get work when the factory moves to the third world, and on and on.
Yet the Real Murkins vote with ruling class based on the promise that they will not have to share their slice of the shrinking pie with any Ns, Ims, Ms, or Fs.
kommrade reproductive vigor
@Anya: Since Anya has said what I was going to say, I can skip to the part where I Milbank experiences a painful bout of piles.
Anya
Sorry for being OT, but Lawrence O is a douchebag and Greenwald has a face for radio
General Stuck
You don’t. And it is a continuing bewilderment to me that Obama is unflappable in the face of all this craziness. He only gets credit from a few of us Obots, and hammered from all sides for this or that shortcoming, often stunningly contradictory and petty, especially from liberal activists.
There is no doubt in my mind that Clinton would have pulled the plug on HCR for sake of political expediency for her own political fortunes. But Obama didn’t and is critiqued from the right wing as a soshulist, and from the left as a corporate sellout. The country doesn’t deserve this man as their president, and by and large do not have a clue what he is up against, beginning with presidenting while black .
And for all those projecting he will go Clinton winger light, and pull out the school uniforms, they will be proven to be wrong for the eleventy hundreth time. There will be no tax cuts made permanent for rich people, there will be no gutting SS or HCR, or any other liberal and dem core standard bearing fixtures . There will also likely be no more, or very little useful legislation passed that is progressive, because the voters have decided to let the wingnuts waste all our precious time turning over every fucking rock searching for an impeachable offense. Fuck it. This country is insane.
Brachiator
Hypotheticals about the Perfect Presidency of Hillary Clinton are absurd. A parlor game that ranks up there with speculation about whether the 1961 Yankees could defeat the LeBron James’ lead Miami Heat.
Milbank is crazier than a Tea Partier. So now we go from “Obama is a failure because he did too little and did not get single payer done” to “Obama is a failure because he did too much and spent too much time on health care reform.”
The candidate with terrible political instincts, who could not manage her own campaign to victory is now the model for presidential decision making? Give me a break.
Instead of couching this crap in terms of what Hillary would have done, it would save everyone a lot of time if he just flat out said that he was on the Draft Hillary for 2012 Team.
The last line of Milbank’s column is particularly odious:
How is this much different from the GOP demand that Obama stop pretending to be president and just do what they want him to do?
And I am not sure what a freeze on foreclosures would have accomplished. And it may be useful to note that no country resorted to it during the current financial meltdown.
Steeplejack
I loved this Hillary impersonator during the ’08 campaign. I think she actually had one that had something to do with 3:00 a.m., but this is my favorite.
Good times. You can’t buy memories like that.
ETA: Okay, here’s the sort of 3:00 a.m. one.
James E. Powell
@Linda Featheringill:
Big business did get help. They got bailouts and loans and hand holding and so on. What more do they want?
All the money that now goes to social security and public education.
An end to the corporate income tax, at both federal and state levels.
Repeal of all labor laws passed since 1933.
Repeal of all environmental laws ever passed.
That list would keep them happy for at least one presidential term. Then they would bitch about something else.
Gold Star for Robot Boy
Real ‘Murkans are petty, jealous, economically illiterate bitches.
(H/T: Joe Sheehan.)
Polish the Guillotines
@James E. Powell: This.
@General Stuck: And that.
slightly_peeved
Australia didn’t actually have a recession. Though part of the reason for that is that our banking system is a local 4-bank cartel that charges people fees for even looking at their account crossways. Annoying, but it kept all our banks running smoothly.
We also had a much bigger (relatively speaking) stimulus, but that’s because we don’t have filibusters. I think the more interesting hypothetical about the last two years is what would it be like if there was no filibuster in the US, not if Hillary was president.
J. Michael Neal
@Gold Star for Robot Boy: Yeah, and look at the shit that Sheehan has gotten over the years for stating the blindingly obvious.
fasteddie9318
__
Sorry DougJ, you lost me there. The last time Dana Milbank had a “reasonably interesting” anything was probably when he was in diapers.
SRW1
How do you make any sense of any of this?
a) Its two years since 2008 and two years until 2012.
b) Given the choice between whipping up some stuff about the 2012 election, which everybody will recognize as hot air, and concocting some counterfactuals about 2008, which at least have a chance of pushing some ‘told you so’ buttons, what’s a scribe gonna go with .
Dana Milbank has a reasonably interesting column about what would would have happened if Hillary had been elected president:
Looks like you fell for it. Mission accomplished.
And yea, what Anya said.
hildebrand
I imagine that when Barack and Michelle go out to dinner that they either spend the entire evening taking the piss out of, well, everybody, or having completely normal discussions about their kids and the latest wretched loss by the Bears. Methinks they are actually the only two normal people in DC.
I also think that this is why the Village hates them so much – they are essentially good, sane, even-keeled types who do their best and hope that what they do does a little bit of good. They screw up from time to time, but then again who doesn’t.
Obama admits his mistakes and says that he will try a bit harder. He also continues to tell people that it will take time to fix things. Patience is another virtue that the Village does not have.
Yep – I bet that they sit and make fun of everybody else during dinner. Bet when they are at the residence the kids join in.
General Stuck
A Hillary presidency.
Munster’s on Acid
fasteddie9318
@J. Michael Neal:
Well, silly, it obviously would have given the lucky ducky foreclosee a chance to really shop around for the best discarded temporary shelter or potential shelter for itself and its brood. So typical of the peasant not to grasp magnanimity when it (said peasant) is presented with it (our Galtian benevolent magnanimity).
General Stuck
A Hillary presidency.
Munster’s on Acid
Snarki, child of Loki
“There have been various arguments here and elsewhere about whether or not it would the federal government could have imposed a 90-day moratorium.”
Sure, no problem, it just requires invoking Sharia law.
(or declaring a Jubilee Year, where all debts are forgiven. Hey, no Federal debt anymore, whoo hoo!)
Barring stuff like that, the best bet is rapid and harsh prosecution of banksters and their minions who tricked people into bad mortgages, abuse the legal process, etc. A few exemplary
guillotiningsRICO prosecutions would do wonders. Doesn’t even require congressional cooperation.FlipYrWhig
Unbelievably idiotic. In a political system where Republicans are perfectly happy to filibuster a fund for illnesses resulting from 9/11, passing “popular benefits for ordinary Americans” is not a fucking simple thing.
This is like watching a football game… it’s the third quarter… the coach decides to go for the usual PAT… the kicker makes it… but the team loses by one in the 4th… and calling the sports talk station to say that you totally would have gone for two in that situation, which would have sent the game into overtime, where you would have won. Not factoring in everything else that would also change, not factoring in the likelihood of its being successful, nothing. Just saying it would have been different and better and people would be happier. Everyone’s a genius after the fact. Christ.
Angry Black Lady
@General Stuck: this. this this.
@Anya: ugh, greenwald. i am sick to fucking death of hearing about how obama alienated his base. what these bloggers are saying is that obama alienated ME. and who is “ME”? it’ not me or any asian, latino, black people i know.
greenwald takes a quote about people being pissed about the economy resulting in staying home on election night and then tacks on a gratuitous “oh and the voters weren’t inspired.”
did glenn and all the people who obama purportedly alienated sit this election out? if they didn’t and if they voted dem, then shut the hell up. if these fools did vote, then obviously obama didn’t alienate the base, did he?
it’s like a square is a rectangle but a rectangle is not a square argument. or maybe it’s a circular argument. it’s some kind of dumb fucking argument that involves geometry, assumptions, and whining.
lots of whining.
SRW1
@Linda Featheringill:
The recession is international. Nobody on the planet has fixed it yet.
Reports in the German press this week have it that the country will see € 60 billion higher tax revenues than anticipated until 2012 and unemployment is at its lowest for the last two decades. Sounds like a reasonable recovery.
Comrade Luke
Let me tell you what would have happened if Hillary had been elected president – and I’m 1000% sure of this.
I’m even willing to give Dana Milbank the benefit of the doubt, and say Yes, that’s exactly what Clinton would have done.
You know what? It wouldn’t have made a shit of difference, because there is something else she would have done for which the Republicans would have demonized her.
And Milbank would have written a column saying he’d talked to “Obama campaign advisors” and they’d say the thing she was being vilified for they would have done differently.
I guaran-fucking-goddman-tee you that between a combination of demonization of some policy and the fact that SHE’S A CLINTON (note that this just replaces HE’S A BLACK MAN and/or HE’S A MUSLIM), Democrats would have lost the House, though probably not the Senate.
In other words, we’d be in exactly the same place as we are today.
Dee Loralei
Ya know, the Clinton campaign advisers couldn’t count in a Dem Primary. I’m not too impressed with them at all. And another Clinton Campaign adviser thinks all Obama needs is another OKC., Alfred Murraugh building type event, to ensure re-election. I don’t give a flying fuck about the persons close ties to anyone, if they start relishing the idea about the death or destruction of ANY of our fellow Americans. I despise every Republican who states publicly, or secretly wishes for some terrorist attack in order to strengthen their political fortunes. And I’ll be damned if I let some measly pernicious fat little fuck of a Dem adviser wish the same thing to enhance the electability of the guy on my side. (I’m looking at you Mark Penn. You and the other Clinton advisers and the fucking BlueDogs are the seeping pistulant boils on the ass of democracy and Democrats.) Just shut the fuck up, neither Hillary nor Bill deserve you.
Seriously, anytime any American says they wish for a terrorist attack, from which ever quarter, for whichever aim, needs to be shunned from all polite society. And their business’s need to be boycotted and protested by everyone. Fuck. If we aren’t all in this together, then we are all in this alone. And if we are all alone, then we are all fucking teabaggers for the oligarchy!
Phoenix
Americans, and really all people, in times of crisis want a fighter. A very strong, even belligerent at times, leader who they feel is fighting for them.
“But golly,” you say, “That sounds like G.W. Bush!” Yeah. The right has this down. Except instead of marrying that fighting kick-ass-take-names attitude with actual helpful policy, they use it to rob the country blind and blame liberals for the fallout.
And then liberals… Issue a policy statement, write a nifty little book, post to a blog, or otherwise do anything but raise their voices. Perish the thought.
Obama muddled through to do some good things. Unfortunately a chunk of his base, rightly I think, believes he ceded most of the field to the opposition just to look like a good, fair, guy. A fighter doesn’t cede ground to anyone. Sure you may lose some fights, but you knock out a few teeth on your way down and at least score rhetorical/ideological wins off the issue. The policy gains that were made ended up buried in dense, policy documents, cloaked in jargon, or allowed to go unpublicized until right before an election. Hell, how many voters know what’s really in the HCR bill? Or what decade those benefits might theoretically arrive to them?
He also tries to assign blame neatly down the middle of whatever issue he thinks he’s playing to. So he’ll blame wall street yeah, but then blame Americans for taking out nasty mortgages. And your average family thinks that’s a bunch of chickenshit. And you know, it is. Sure both sides are to blame, but one side has a hell of a lot more blame sitting on it. He looks, artificial, bloodless and removed from the reality of the entire situation to assign blame like that.
The main reason the younger generation turned out to vote for him, was his fire and intensity. He seemed to get what this country has turned into and understand that we needed some serious action. And then…. He morphed into John Kerryzzzzzzzzzz huh? wuzza? oh. right. Fell asleep there.
The point isn’t that he’s supposed to “win” everything. The point is that he’s expected to raise unholy hell and give ground only when it’s wrenched from under the dem’s feet. Inch by inch. You know? Fight. It’s called a bully pulpit for a reason. G.W. got what he wanted, largely because he wasn’t afraid to fight good and dirty to get it. It can be done. History has enough examples of president’s making life hell for their opposition and getting good chunks of agenda passed, to know it’s doable. No, it ain’t easy. But that isn’t the job description.
The problem is that voters, largely youth voters, are not going to vote in record numbers for a guy who only trots out the good rhetoric during the campaign and then plays Milquetoast McLiberal for the rest of the term. They want someone who gets how close to oblivion the average person is and feels the urgency to fight like hell.
Joe Buck
Sorry, but this is nonsense, and also it’s not consistent with Hillary Clinton’s past positions. A ban on discrimination based on pre-existing conditions can’t work by itself; it has to be accompanied by the provision that teabaggers hate most of all, a requirement to buy insurance. Otherwise, healthy people won’t buy health insurance, and when they get sick, then they will buy insurance, which the insurance companies will have to provide despite the pre-existing condition. Either insurance becomes wildly expensive or the companies go broke. During the campaign, Clinton pushed the mandate (you have to buy insurance) while Obama opposed it!
Had Hillary decided to spend less time on health care than Obama did, she simply would not have gotten any results at all. Obama bought off the insurance companies (which is why we didn’t get the public option). If Hillary did not do this, it would be “Harry and Louise” all over again.
The Grand Panjandrum
I see that rather than making those ridiculous videos he used to make with his little buddy, Milbank is doing a fucking Kreskin impression. Jesus, what an insufferable prick.
burnspbesq
90-day foreclosure moratorium? Seems pointless. If you’re going to attack the problem, don’t put a band-aid on it, SOLVE IT. Cramdown was the answer two years ago, and it’s still the answer today. Whether the necessary legislation could have gotten through Congress, we’ll never know, because it wasn’t attempted.
Mike Kay
it’s as if the HillaryCare debacle of 1994 never happened.
Polish the Guillotines
The more I think about it, the more this entire premise reminds me why I voted for Obama. Milbank (and frankly, the entire country) has come to assume the office of the Presidency is a fucking throne.
My number one reason in voting for Obama is because he was the only candidate from either party who explicitly spoke of returning balance to the separation of powers. The only way that was going to happen after eight years of Republican control of the White House — with six solid years of a Republican Congress doing precisely what the WH wanted — was for the Executive to voluntarily stand down. I didn’t believe for a second that Hillary was capable of doing that. It’s an invitation to criticism for being “weak.”
The HCR battle is all the proof you need. Obama left the legislating to Congress, but it’s been so long since the country has ever seen the legislative process in action that it looked as ugly as it is.
wasabi gasp
America just wasn’t ready for Hitler with tits.
fasteddie9318
So I think we can sum things up here pretty well: according to Clinton campaign staffers, even if they would have campaigned for the nomination instead of awaiting the coronation, Dana Milbank would still be a Class 1 Douchebag today.
slightly_peeved
The funny thing about this is that we know what would happen in the midterms if the president was Clinton and let the healthcare bill die. Because that’s what you had in 1994, and it led to the same outcome.
Never mind picking up a history book; does any US pundit have a memory better than that of a goddamned goldfish? When such a similar thing happens to so many different presidents, maybe it’s about something more than the personality characteristics of an individual president.
Mike Kay
All this tripe assumes the thugs wouldn’t have filibustered every bill, which of course is impossible, as that was their strategy, obstruction and impeding job recovery.
What milbanks forgets is the Dems didn’t have 60 votes for most of the year because the thugs kept Al Franken tied up in court until June, and once he got seated, Ted Kennedy was on his death bed. Plus, there’s no guarantee the Specter would have switched if Hillary was president.
Mnemosyne
@Angry Black Lady:
Actually, there were some really inspired voters this time: white voters who did not vote in 2008 but turned out in droves to vote against the
nig…Kenya sociaIist mooslim who was going to institute sharia law.Midterm turnout was pretty normal — slightly above average, actually –except for them.
Comrade Luke
@Mike Kay:
Yea, that’s pretty much game, set and match right there. Right down to the SatanCare slogan. ObamaCare, HillaryCare…DemoCare.
Polish the Guillotines
@wasabi gasp:
Titler?
Mnemosyne
@Phoenix:
Uh, that’s not why it’s called a “bully pulpit.” In Teddy Roosevelt’s time, “bully” didn’t mean strong-arming people. It meant “really awesome.”
I’m really getting sick of people who completely misunderstand what TR meant and claim that the phrase means exactly the opposite of what he did mean. I guess it’s the price of having a constantly changing language but, Jesus, it’s just embarrassing at this point.
Sentient Puddle
At the moment, I can’t get over the fact that nobody thus far has given you shit for using Matchbox 20 lyrics for this title. I thought that would have happened well before 50 posts.
Resident Firebagger
I seriously doubt there would be a nickel’s worth of difference between an Obama and Hillary presidency. Obama’s administration is filled with Rubin acolytes and others who actually worked for Bill, and this would obviously be the case with Hillary as well. That’s what made all the PUMA angst so damn hysterical — and pathetic.
Also hysterical and pathetic: Calling the health care bill transformative when it doesn’t take effect till ’14. Actually, with the Republicans vulturing over it, it’s not really going to happen at all now, is it?
Mike Kay
@Joe Buck:
there is no evidence for this. this assertion is the stuff of firebag conspiracy theories.
the facts of the matter is simple, the senate wasn’t going to go against their long standing financial benefactor. That’s why Kent Conrad kept constantly – constantly – whined about how the public option would kill his beloved Wellpoint. It’s why Evan Bayh wouldn’t vote against his wife’s employer, Wellpoint, who was salaried at $700,000 per year plus stock options. Don’t tell me, Evan was gonna vote remove the ATM machine from his bedroom simply because any president told him to. Hell, even the sainted Russ Feingold refused – refused – to sign the public option petition. The famed public option petition by the PCCC could never get more than 40 votes.
Phoenix
@Mnemosyne:
Duly noted.
Strike & amend: The presidency, while technically incapable of passing legislation itself, does posses several levers of power that can be used to coerce, entice or otherwise persuade a reluctant congress to enact a particular agenda. It would be really awesome, indeed most bully, if those levers were pulled in forthright manner on behalf of the ordinary citizen.
Anya
@Angry Black Lady: I always argue the same point, when they talk about the base, they forget the base is larger than the largely white affluent liberal bloggers and the base still supports the President. They also conveniently forget about midterm election trends and how this midterm election is not much different.
DanceGate: Michelle Obama dancing with Indians in a Diwali celebration – she did the heathens’ dance.
Mike Kay
@Resident Firebagger:
Since fbaggers opposed the bill, doesn’t that make you guys happy?
tomvox1
And then it wouldn’t have gotten
donesubstantially entrenched as an American right for another 16-20 years. Game, set & match.Mike Kay
@Polish the Guillotines: actually, for 15 years they’ve been calling her “Hitlery”
General Stuck
@Phoenix:
You simply have no idea what you are talking about
Phoenix
@Resident Firebagger:
I think it can be called transformative. Although it does seem like ground was needlessly ceded on it for too little gain. And the politics of the entire process was a massive train wreck. Even by the standards of lawmaking. In the end, Pelosi took the remaining political capital left lying around and crash landed it into law.
I do think it’s fair to say that Obama and the dems entered the debate in a position of strength, gave that position away for little gain, and squandered a boatload of chances to get a much much better bill.
Polish the Guillotines
@Mike Kay: Oh, yeah. I’d cleansed my memory of that, but spot on.
Mike Kay
ya know wealthly fucks like Milbank couldn’t give a shit about HCR because they’ve never had to face rescission or coverage caps or denials for pre-existing conditions.
to them, HCR is quaint.
jl
The column has a constructive conclusion for policy, with which I agree. So on that basis I think it is better than most of these kinds of things.
One thing Milbank forgot to mention is that if Hillary were president we would have a massive eruption of dog whistle, but still vicious, misogyny from certain quarters of the country rather than racism; and a tragicomic rehash of the Clinton mafia’s crimes; and the scandal of the Big Dawg shadow president pulling the strings, rendering the Democratic administration illegitimate (surprise surprise!).
General Stuck
@Phoenix:
Dude, Lieberman was the 60th vote, so please describe to me what magical levers of power Obama could have used on him to vote for the PO. This garbage will never die, it seems, in the netroots fever swamp, but if you bring it here, you will asked to back up what you say.
slightly_peeved
I’m still waiting for a good example of how such levers could have been used on Joe Lieberman, a man who has left the Democratic party and as such is well aware that this will be his last term in office.
Well, apart from trying to convince a Republican to change sides, thereby removing Joe Lieberman’s power. Which, in fact, was what Obama was actually trying to do with Olympia Snowe when confronted with Lieberman’s intransigence. Or giving up the stated goal to get other concessions which may turn out to be more useful in the long run. Which is what Obama did when he gave away the (at that stage, anemic) public option in favour of getting Joe’s agreement to having the state exchanges federally administered by the DHHS.
I’m a sports coach in my time off; I don’t tell just tell players to ‘fight more’. I tell them how to do it. Because just telling people to fight more isn’t particularly helpful without specifics.
Mike Kay
@Phoenix: if this is true, then why did every other president beginning with FDR fail to pass HCR? If it’s so easy, FDR would have passed it in 30s.
Phoenix
@General Stuck:
Anything in particular? Because, yeah, I do. Quite aside from a good chunk of that being technically what we call: “opinion.” And a good chunk, based on the feedback I got trying to drum-up voters in the midterms.
Reaction of youth voters I visited: “Meh. Obama sold us out. Screw the dems. They’re all the same as the GOP.” They want fighters not hand-wringers. And no, I don’t think both parties are the same. But on the fighters/hand-wringers? Oh hell yeah.
But I’ll raise you a cheery: “Bullshit, you’re outta touch” in return to show there’s no hard feelings.
Angry Black Lady
@Anya: @Mnemosyne: exactly. i don’t think a lot of non-political junkies give a crap about the midterms, yet everyone is drawing sweeping conclusions about what the voter turnout (or lack thereof) did or didn’t mean.
asiangrrlMN
@Angry Black Lady: You said pretty much what I said in the Nancy SMASH! thread below. I’m tired of all this base talk as if SOME of us were not the base. Well, I know I’m not the base, but at least I goddamn voted without whining about how I didn’t get my shiny pony.
@Anya: Triple down on this.
@FlipYrWhig: I hate that shit the most. “If they had went for the two point conversion in the third quarter and then the game had progressed exactly the same, then it would have been tied.” Yes, but if they had gone for the two point conversion and missed and then lost by one at the end of the game, it would be, “They should have went for the PAT. It was too early for the two-point conversion.” There is no way to win that game–just as there is no way to win the ‘what Hillary would have done as president’ game.
marcopolo
@Resident Firebagger: This.
The primary reason for the shitty midterm election results was the economy, stupid Milbank. And since Obama basically hired Bill Clinton’s economic team, which I think was a big mistake but sure seems like what Hillary would have done, Hillary also would have–ala Larry Summers–been given choices for the size of the stimulus package that weren’t large enough. The country would be exactly where it is now in regards to the unemployment rate. The other thing the Obama administration could have done would have been pursuing more criminal cases against financial industry types for wrecking the economy and really on a daily basis reminding the US that it was Bush and the Republics that created this mess in the first place since that is the only way to keep the average citizen on task. I dunno about anyone else reading this blog but I don’t see Hillary pursuing the first, populist backlash against the financial folks because, once again she would have Summers and Geitner as her economic folks. Perhaps she would have done the latter but with unemployment above 9.5% I don’t think trying to keep the ‘murkin people blaming the Bush admin 20 months in would have helped much or even have worked.
What would have worked to ease the midterm massacre would have been a bottom up economic policy wherein the government directly hired 5 or so million folks to rebuild our national infrastructure for 3 to 4 years (ala the CCC or WPA) as part of the stimulus instead of giving tax breaks and seriously reined in the banking industry. That might have happened if we had elected Kucinich.
Anyway, I have now wasted entirely too many words refuting a piece o’ crap column.
J. Michael Neal
@Phoenix:
In this sentence, “the dems” is far too vague. It implies a level of unity that simply didn’t exist. I will certainly agree that *certain* dems gave away too much for too little gain. Where I disagree with you is the idea that Obama or Pelosi or Reid had any leverage over those dems. Any. What could any of them have done to Ben Nelson? Joe Lieberman? Blanche Lincoln? Nothing that I can see. Because of the committee system in Congress, Max Baucus gets to hold negotiations for as long as he wants.
And before you start saying that they need to be denied their committee assignments, exactly how many of them are you planning on kicking out? My guess is that the number would have been high enough that the Senate majority disappears.
And none of that yet addresses the fact that, as pointed out above, the Democrats basically never had 60 sitting members. Go back and take a look at how often Ted Kennedy was absent due to his health. By the time he died and was replaced, Robert Byrd’s health had vanished, and you couldn’t count on him being there.
In the end, they found a time when they could get 60 there to vote on the bill and pass it, but they couldn’t count on it. More, they needed every single vote. Unless you can tell me how you think they should have gotten Lieberman *and* Nelson *and* Nelson *and* Baucus *and* Landrieu *and* every single one of the rest to go along, you couldn’t pass a bill.
They didn’t give shit away, because it was all stuff they never had.
Mnemosyne
@Phoenix:
Slightly fix’d. Most of the levers that the president used to have to be able to coerce Congress into doing what he wanted have been removed by Congress.
Not to mention that the kinds of compromises that, say, FDR made to get the New Deal passed would be absolutely unacceptable to Democrats today. If you ask yourself what FDR would have done to get a bigger stimulus, the answer is “agree to drop the DADT repeal in exchange for Republican votes.” And that actually would have been less odious than what FDR actually did to get the New Deal and other programs passed.
(Edited because I used the wrong word and reversed what I meant to say.)
Phoenix
@Mike Kay:
It’s an issue wider than HCR. & again, I’m not saying HCR isn’t good. But we squandered open opportunity to get better. It’s a broader issue of Dems not going out there and getting dirty/fighting hard. In a lot of cases, they’ve got the policy. That’s the hard bit usually. But they don’t have the fire to really sell that policy or to cut the opposition down when they have to.
And when you compromise, especially unnecessarily, in either rhetoric or action you give the impression that the situation isn’t very urgent. That you don’t really care all that much – you’re not bothering to get much in return because it’s not important. THAT’s what’s pissing people off.
So HCR? Yeah good. I’ve remarked above that it’s transformative.
Warren Terra
I can only hope (against hope; see Penn, Mark, employment of) that Clinton is smarter and has more vision than this self-serving ninny believes. Their preferred strategy would have been more posturing and less accomplishment? In the hope of looking better en route to midterms that would still have faced 10% unemployment – maybe more, given the lilliputian scope of the vision this alleged insider ascribes to the hypothetical Clinton Presidency? For this they would have reconciled themselves to a spew of forgettable and ultimately irrelevant micro-initiatives reminiscent of Bill Clinton in his second term?
There are a lot of things Obama should have done differently, or done more of, or done less of, for better policy or for short-term political gain or even for both. And there are criticisms to be made of both the politics and the policy of the ACA. But I reject the insinuation that Obama should apologize for making the first progress on health care in over 40 years, for passing a bill that will ensure 95% of Americans have coverage they can rely on.
Wealthy, secure nitwits like Milbank and his smug interlocutor may never had cause to worry about this issue on a personal level, for themselves or their friends; thanks to Obama and Pelosi and against their political preferences tens of millions of Americans will be able to join them in that security.
General Stuck
@Phoenix:
so you’re a smartass, okay. First off, young voters rarely vote in large numbers, and were not what caused dems to lose this election. Though they are always welcome to step away from the fun to act like an adult and go vote because it’s the right thing to do. It was republicans being fired up to go vote because Obama was actually passed liberal laws they didn’t like. voter numbers for dems was pretty normal for a midterm, or, some of them voted, but a lot of them are apathetic persons that barely pay any attention to politics, especially for mid terms. Republicans have historically been more responsible voters, at least for coming out to vote.
So like i said, you don’t have a clue, and are only repeating firebagger talking points.
J. Michael Neal
@Phoenix:
Nice sleight-of-hand. What you were discussing wasn’t feedback from voters. You were discussing what ability Obama had to get a better health care bill passed. So far, all you’ve offered up on that subject are vague platitudes that he has levers of power that he didn’t use.
Be specific. If you can’t tell us what these levers of power were that could have gotten the rather large number of conservative Democrats who had all stated publicly very early on that they would not support a public option to change their position, you don’t have an argument, just a bunch of hand waving.
Mnemosyne
@Phoenix:
Revamping the entire student loan system to benefit them and increasing their Pell Grants is “selling them out”?
Jesus, what whiny assholes.
J. Michael Neal
@asiangrrlMN: Hey, they want a fighter who will put in the effort so they don’t have to.
alwhite
Milbank is a useless ass – does that help you make sense of this?
On the other hand if I had been elected . . . blah, blah, blah.
asiangrrlMN
@Mnemosyne: You said it better than I could have.
@J. Michael Neal: Sadly, I actually think that’s true. And it’s very frustrating.
ETA: I deleted my previous comment because I thought better of it. I should limit myself to one rant a night, and I had that rant in the Nancy SMASH! thread.
Mike Kay
@Phoenix: Just what I thought, you not capable of answering my short, simple question.
Polish the Guillotines
@asiangrrlMN: I read it before you trashed it. It was righteous, so don’t apologize.
Mnemosyne
@Warren Terra:
Sadly, they’re probably right. In a strange way, the flood of good legislation that passed numbed people to it, to the point where Phoenix is telling us that young people were actually unaware of the huge changes made to the student loan system and the increase in Pell Grants.
Democrats probably could have done better electorally by making a few cosmetic changes to the health insurance system that did nothing to solve actual problems and then dancing around pointing at them.
Phoenix
@Mnemosyne:
Very true. And I’m not against compromise. It’s necessary to get things done. For a strong, secure, funded HCR I’d have given up DADT for a term. No contest. The lives saved in one outweighs the civil rights issue of the other. Just so long as the reform we’d get would justify the sacrifice and not to give it away as a gesture of reasonableness.
But what we get in return is an issue. As is what speech-weasels call “messaging.” Letting Republican’s campaign on your achievements, not aggressively and forcefully making moral cases as often as you have to, etc. seem to be unimportant to the White House and dems. And Republicans got away with campaigning on stimulus projects while also running against the stimulus vote. That kinda thing cannot be allowed to go unchallenged for even a day.
It all boils down to how much “fight” the dems have in them. And probably also, which advisers need to be fired.
General Stuck
@Phoenix:
you are welcome to visit Gallups monthly tracking polls that will tell you that self described liberals have consistently given not only Obama’s highest approval numbers, but the highest recorded for a dem president since they started polling.
It has ranged anywhere from 85 up to 90 plus percent approval for the job Obama is doing since he became president. So you’re meme of great numbers of disappointed liberals and dems in general is one more reason you do not know what you are talking about.
Polish the Guillotines
I think this should put to rest, once and for all, what a Hillary Clinton presidency would look like.
General Stuck
@Phoenix:
You still haven’t answered my question on how Obama could have made Lieberman vote for the PO> I don’t have all night, so cough it up or STFU
asiangrrlMN
@Phoenix: Wait a minute. You’d give up DADT for HCR? Really? ‘coz I most certainly would not. I would have had serious problems if DADT had come completely off the table in a trade to secure…I don’t even know what, given that the Republicans would have filibustered it, anyway.
@Polish the Guillotines: Thanks. I just know that I am at a fed-up place and can get a bit out-of-control when I get there. It is completely what I feel, however. Hm. I may revive it.
Mike Kay
@General Stuck: don’t bother. They never do.
Phoenix
@Mnemosyne: Not only unaware but didn’t really care. At the very bottom of the rung, close to the gutter, policy doesn’t matter as much as fight. It still matters. They thought those were good things.
But their overall emotion was saying, “we’re drowning in current debt right now. There are no jobs. We have no good or affordable health coverage. Our parents lost their house. If we don’t find work in 6months we’ll be really screwed. The leaders of the country have jobs, and really don’t seem too damned upset over anything.”
Compared to the cold sweat and sickening feeling of not knowing whether you’re going to be able to make rent next month, policy itself isn’t worth anything – until it’s effect is directly felt. In the meantime, you need emotion and the rest of it to fill the gap. I also think that the emotional fire/anger etc does help get better policy as well.
General Stuck
@asiangrrlMN:
me too. I am trying to remain even keel and not go wooly on the idiots that come here trotting out the same old bullshit we have had to suffer the past two years. It isn’t easy
fasteddie9318
Health care reform was cool, or whatever, but President Obama like, totally could have gotten a waaaaaay better bill if he would have just meditated on it, or something.
General Stuck
@Mike Kay:
yea, I know. Precious wizards, the lot of em.
asiangrrlMN
@General Stuck: I hear you. It’s why I left for two days, and I may have to take another break. It’s just wearing me down.
@fasteddie9318: OK, that made me laugh. Thanks.
Phoenix
@asiangrrlMN:
Painfully yeah. For a public option or medicare for all. A secure public option. People are dying from preventable diseases and going bankrupt over life or death care decisions. So yeah. A hard call, especially for me, but one that I’d have made.
Again, only for something that’d be worth it. Which would have to be damn good. And fairly confident that DADT would happen the following term/soon.
I very much doubt they’d offer anything nearly good enough to make that worth it though in reality. So it’s hypothetical.
Anya
@Mike Kay: Let’s not forget that the right wing lunatics, honed their malicious attack skills on the years of attacking and demonizing Hillary. They would have revisited all the craziness of the 90s and added more lunacy. If these assholes, can turn a scandal free grandmother into a scary sympol of debauchery, imagine what they can do with the Clintons.
This stupid column is the Village wanting to revisit the primary wars. I guess one of the “Clinton campaign advisers”, is non other than Mark Pen.
Mnemosyne
@Phoenix:
What do you mean “a term”? FDR opposed federal anti-lynching legislation literally until the day he died in office. None was passed until 1946. To be an honest comparison, we’re talking about giving up DADT repeal until at least 2016.
You’re still okay with trampling on the civil rights of others so you can get what will benefit you?
suzanne
Anya and Asiangrrrl and JMN and Flip and, like, everyone else already said what I wanted to say, which is that Dana Milbank is a fucking idiot.
I just wonder if Hillary or any Democratic woman would have faces an equivalent amount of sexism to the racism that’s been thrown at Obama. I have a feeling it wouldn’t have been pretty.
Mnemosyne
@Phoenix:
And so therefore they put the people in power who will actively work to make those things even worse for them. The ones who are already talking about getting rid of the student loan reforms, reducing Pell Grants, repealing HCR, not extending unemployment benefits, cutting budgets so that even more jobs are lost.
Perhaps you should have educated these young people on the concept of cutting off their nose to spite their face.
wasabi gasp
Dude should have made all the youngsters honorary glaucoma patients the day he got in office.
marcopolo
@Anya: Yep, actually there were indications that Obama winning the nomination actually threw the Republicans a little off their game vis a vis demonizing the Dem presidential nominee. Remember what the entire Citizen’s United case is about, a film produced by wingnuts demonizing Hillary that was to be aired on national TV.
Of course, it didn’t seem to take the R’s long to develop their lines of attack on Obama. But then they don’t have to spend their time actually thinking up serious policy positions. Every second is spent on oppo research and, let’s not forget, unhinged fantasies that they can broadcast on Fox.
Polish the Guillotines
@Anya:
It’s the exact, same group of folks who are now pushing the attacks on Obama. You’re right, they built the machine during the Clinton years, but It was only idling during the Bush years. Once they saw they’d have either Hillary or Obama as a target, the red lined the mutha.
Nick
@Anya:
Lawrence is right.
For the last two years, some of us have been arguing it’s all well and good to want the Blue Dogs gone, but it’s going to leave us in the minority.
Well the Blue Dogs are gone, and we’re in the minority. Now what?
MikeJ
@suzanne: They already said she decorated the White House Christmas tree with dildos.
The sexism on display would have been every bit as ugly as the racism has been.
Nick
@Phoenix:
Well, I’m sure there are others who would give up a strong, secure, funded HCR for DADT.
Let’s be a political party together
asiangrrlMN
@Mnemosyne: Girl, I don’t even have to comment because you are reading my mind. Now, what is my mind saying to you? And, yes, I am going to be a thorn in your ass for this month.
@Phoenix: You are constructing something that never would happen, anyway. Give it up for one term? If it’s off the table for this term, it would be off the table for the rest of Obama’s presidency. We could play this all day. Personally, I would have given up DOMA for eternity if we got single-payer. But you know what? That wasn’t gonna happen, either, so this is just a masturbatory exercise. While I am not against masturbation in general (I AM a witch, however), it’s not satisfactory if it’s solely illusory.
priscianus jr
@Anya:
they would have found something else to delegitimize her.
Like maybe the whole Clinton saga revisited?
Phoenix
@General Stuck: Oh I didn’t see your comment.
HCR? Right, well trading away the public option was very likely a certainty. No, I don’t see any way it’d have passed through that congress unless it was mashed up into the Senate’s applesauce at lunch or something. But in surrendering it so quickly, it lost the opportunity to see what leverage we could have gotten for it. Yeah that’s a matter of conjecture at this point because it didn’t happen. But reasonable. Additionally, just giving in on that issue, that quickly, surrendered a larger moral narrative and undermined a lot of energy at the grass roots. Yeah, we’d have to give it up, but I think we could have gotten more mileage out of that trade. It was a big card, had good moral heft to it and the base liked it.
Like I said, and I was pretty clear about above, I’m not talking about winning on everything. But there’s a way to lose that’s more productive. Sure, you have to give up the public option, but let go at the absolute last minute and for the highest price you can get.
I don’t think it’s good politically to compromise too quickly or for too little. And when you do that a lot, people are going to think you just don’t value what you’re giving away very much. That costs enthusiasm and lack of enthusiasm costs votes.
I get why people don’t like the guy so much. I get why people didn’t turn out for dems. I don’t agree with not voting for the dems over it – but there is a serious problem here.
Mnemosyne
@marcopolo:
Once they realized that the media wasn’t going to call them out for calling the president a
nig…sociaIist mooslim, the sky was the limit.This is how high the deck was stacked this year: a guy whose company paid the largest fine in history for Medicare fraud — who invoked the Fifth Amendment multiple times when he testified about it — won the governorship of Florida on a platform of repealing HRC.
Think about that. Florida voters looked at the fox standing inside the henhouse with actual chicken feathers hanging out of his mouth and said, “Yes, he’s right, healthcare reform is a total scam and we have to put all of the power back in the hands of private companies like his … so they can scam taxpayers out of millions of dollars again. Sounds good to me!”
Nick
@Phoenix:
Yes because nothing says fire and inspirational like a public option tied to Medicare rates.
Anya
Bomb bomb bomb iran, now – Are we going to deal with this crap, for the next two years?
Phoenix
@asiangrrlMN: I mentioned it in response to another comment. Basically to illustrate that I agree that FDR gave up a hell of a lot to get what he wanted and that DADT would be similar to that.
In our alternate reality, I don’t think I’d mention the “for one term” part. I think I’d probably try and be a little devious around that. But yeah, it’s totally to illustrate the stakes FDR was playing at.
Mnemosyne
@asiangrrlMN:
Okay, okay, I’m going. I haven’t had to use my non-sequitur stick yet because it turned out I wasn’t actually in a corner (just a cul-de-sac), but I may need it tonight.
Goodnight, all.
James E. Powell
@hildebrand:
Patience is another virtue that the Village does not have.
The Villagers have plenty of patience for some things. Consider the endless Friedman Units.
Nick
@Phoenix:
who gets to decide when the last minute is and what the highest price is?
HCR battle started in May, 2009, the only time someone actually paid attention to it was when they gave up on the public option.
And when a Republican Senator, facing the ire of right wing voters, offered a compromise that would write a public option into the law, albeit one that needed to be triggered, progressive balked, whined “the trigger would never be pulled.” called it a sellout.
And in the end, we got no public option at all. Was that price not high enough?
And the lack of the public option isn’t why young voters didn’t turn out. In fact, I’d place a bet that the thing you wanted to give up for a whole term has more to do with apathetic young voters than the public option.
Phoenix
@Mnemosyne:
Actually my words were: You’re cutting your nose off to spite other people’s faces.
And they did. We lost Russ, who was the best politician short of Wellstone or maybe Kennedy in recent memory.
Mnemosyne
@Phoenix:
You may have been happy with a compromise that gave up DADT, but how many other Democrats would have been? I have a feeling it would not have been the GOTV mobilizer that you seem to think, unless you’re talking about mobilizing activist groups to work for the Republicans instead of just staying home.
ETA: FDR succeeded by repeatedly selling out black people — the original Social Security legislation was also written to exclude them for the most part. You never go wrong in America by stomping on the “other’s” civil rights to get white people on your side. Good luck trying to play that game with a half-black president, though.
marcopolo
@Mnemosyne: I am right there with you. That was a pretty close race (FL-Gov) and you have to believe that the Meek/Crist competition for the vote on the left weakened overall Dem turnout (since Rubio has been seen as a lock for around the last 6-8 weeks of the campaign) as well as the cash advantage for the R’s in running ads stripped out some of Sink’s independent support. But yes the people who elected Scott are idiots unless they are all corporate executives.
But as for this whole back and forth over HCR: what would Hill have done? if only the bill had been stronger? blah blah blah, it is all a moot point. I am with Krugman on this. If the Obama admin and D’s in congress had been more creative, assertive, and funded the stimulus (which, yes, they were only going to get one bite at) at more like 1.2 trillion and gotten the unemployment rate down to 7 to 8 percent voters could have cared less what happened with HCR or how it got passed.
asiangrrlMN
@Phoenix: Well, I would not have been all right with going all-out against anti-lynching laws, either.
@Mnemosyne: There is no selling-out enough to appease the Republicans and the “real ‘Murikans”. It’s pretty much that simple. They will have to be dragged kicking and screaming out of their idealized past.
ETA: I didn’t realize it’s the end of Daylight Savings. One more hour to write.
Yutsano
@Mnemosyne: But was he a sociaIist Mooslim? Nope, just a nice safe pasty white guy. And considering the relative age of the Florida voter, that doesn’t shock me in the slightest. Rubio really only won because the Cuban community backed him to the hilt. If he were any other color of brown Crist would have coasted.
@asiangrrlMN: Hi hon. I see you’re enjoying yourself in Millbank’s mental masturbation. All I did was eat Thai food and watch trippy French animated science fiction. It seemed to fit my mood the best.
Mike Kay
@Phoenix:
Feingold was a fraud.
He refused to sign the public option petition. Case closed.
sherifffruitfly
If I was President I would WIN EVERYTHING AND COMPROMISE ON NOTHING AND EVERYBODY WOULD LOVELOVELOVE ME!!!!!!!
lols.
I heart making shit up about what people “would” do.
And extra lols at Clinton supporters. She’ll never, ever be President.
Nick
@marcopolo:
I’m not so sure about this. A bigger stimulus means a bigger deficit which means more people screaming over spending, and they’d still be pissed about 8% unemployment because that would still be high (it sounds nice to us NOW because we’re at 9.6%)
The media creative the narrative of “outrage, angry electorate” they would’ve ridden it no matter what happened.
Phoenix
@Mnemosyne:
I’m pretty sure you get I’m not advocating that, or endorsing, FDR’s specific actions. Also, DADT ain’t the same thing. Not by a long shot.
But yeah, if the right was going to accept anything in that deal, it’d be hitting pause on someone’s rights. It’s not a pretty bargain, but for full health care? The lives saved easily justifies it.
And yeah, it’d be my civil right I’d be giving up, which is why I’d never be elected Pres anyway.
Anya
@Nick: I do agree with Lawrence O’Donnell but he is such a douchebag about everything.
Mike Kay
@marcopolo:
too bad the dems didn’t have 60 votes in the senate at the time. too bad the dems aren’t monolithic like the repugs.
fasteddie9318
@Nick:
Of course, they’re not gone for the reason that Lawrence says they are, because the party suddenly lurched into Communist Manifesto-land (and his “I was just asking questions” deflection? Utter bullshit). They’re gone because the economy still blows, because the stimulus was watered down at least in terms of the spending-to-tax cut ratio (and, who knows, maybe in overall size) to appease the delicate sensibilities of those same Blue Dogs, and because the Republicans won the messaging battle (and I don’t know if the constant Blue Dog carping about Pelosi and Obama helped them do that, but it sure as fuck didn’t hurt). Most of those Blue Dogs are out of office because they put themselves there. And these are the same fuckwads who wanted to extend the Bush tax theft for the top 2% but fought against a better stimulus and even extending unemployment benefits, because HOLY FUCK WE HAVE TO REDUCE TEH DEFICIT AT ALL COSTS! Aside from the fact that it pisses me off that Republicans control the chamber again, the Blue Dogs who lost can, for the most part, kindly go fuck themselves.
Nick
@Anya:
Well yeah
Nick
@fasteddie9318:
I don’t think that’s what Lawrence said. He was implying that they lost because the country erroneously believes the party suddenly lurched into Communist Manifesto-land.
asiangrrlMN
@sherifffruitfly: Best response. I would vote for you!
@Phoenix: But again, it would never have happened. The right doesn’t WANT universal healthcare. Perhaps if President Obama volunteered to step down and let President Palin take over, then maybe, they might consider it. Even then, I’m not sure. That’s why I think all the lathering about HCR is ultimately fruitless because the right was united in blocking it completely.
@Yutsano: Ew. That’s just gross. Brain bleach, please. kthxbai.
morzer
It comes down to one simple thing:
Real Americans don’t like to think for themselves. They want someone else to tell them how to vote. They want someone else to provide jobs out of thin air. They want guarantees that only they are successful, happy, or likely to get laid with a teenage nymphette.
If any of the above are denied to them by reality, Real Americans feel righteous rage and decide to take back their country.
Rinse and repeat, until something truly appalling happens to the economy.
At which point Real Americans will simply go psychotic.
Basically, Real Americans are Gonzo Americans. Fear and Loathing, as many prescription drugs as they can manage, and the future owes them a life-style.
Phoenix
Gotta go.
But to make it real clear, because I think there’s some confusion in the give and take here, I think the dems have an issue with messaging and being seen to give away policy concessions too easily.
I’m a pragmatist, I vote Dem, but I get where people are coming from who feel that way. I get the same feeling, that they don’t really get how ugly it’s getting and aren’t reacting the way they should to keep majorities.
Yutsano
@asiangrrlMN: Hehehe. That’s not even the worst brain bleach needing comment I’ve ever said either. Course now I don’t remember the worst, but I think it involved Rush. And yes I’m too lazy to look it up.
@Anya: My intentions are both mysterious and wondrous. It’s also an accurate reflection of that column. Talk about a waste of the bodies of trees/electrons.
Anya
@Yutsano:
You shouldn’t say shit like that at 2am, unless your intention was to give us nightmares?
asiangrrlMN
@morzer: Damn it. You are suppose to bring the funny and the mordant humor–this just makes me weary because it’s right on the money. Let’s go back to talking about the gray badger. That at least is somewhat humorous. OK, no it’s not, but it’s still better than this.
@Yutsano: Ugh. If you find it, DO NOT POST!
@Phoenix: Well, I’m a pragmatist, too, and I say that stupid people will believe what they believe regardless of the facts. There isn’t anything anyone can do about that.
Nick
@Phoenix:
maybe because there isn’t a way to react to do that and you just have to do what you can and let the chips fall where they may.
freelancer
@Anya:
Funny that’s kind of how I feel about Bill Maher, Keith Olbermann, the Clintons, Jane Hamsher, John Aravosis, Anna Maria Cox, Ariana Huffington, Howard Fineman, Eric Alterman, etc.
morzer
Nick Kristof has a really amazing, and terrifying column about the state of the nation, entitled:
Our Banana Republic
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/07/opinion/07kristof.html?_r=2
morzer
@asiangrrlMN:
Well, I’d love to bring some mordant humor and wit to the proceedings, but Real Americans are such a depressing topic that it’s hard to find many redeeming features. I am more grateful by the day that I live in good old Massachusetts, although I am considering demanding a border fence so that Republicans don’t sneak up from the South and molest our wimmins and childers while stealing our jobses, precious, yes, precious, we hate them, we hates them, nassty dirty Republicanses…
I really shouldn’t watch LOTR late at night, should I?
On second thoughts – perhaps I should change my name to Beauregard Gollum Lee and run for office in South Carolina, on a platform of a free nymphette in every trailer, and two on Sundays because I love Jeebus.
asiangrrlMN
@morzer: OK, now that’s funny. But, you cannot be depressed. You are relentlessly upbeat. If you are in the dumps, then who will save me from myself?
Yutsano
@asiangrrlMN:
Teh kittehs, natch.
EDIT: Or Kylie. But that’s like bringing a gun to a knife fight.
asiangrrlMN
@Yutsano: True dat. I have one on my arm as I type. The kittehs, they surely do help.
ETA: You know what else would help? Cookies. I’m just sayin’….
ETA, part deux: Mmmmmm, Kylie….
@jl: It’s the virtual couch for you tonight!
jl
This should cheer everyone up.
NMA World News does the US financial mess:
http://www.youtube.com/user/NMAWorldEdition#p/u/6/RwetW1B3J8A
suzanne
@morzer:
Silly. Sundays are for sitting in church pretending to pay attention while you really play sudoku. DUH.
Sly
Real Murkins don’t pay attention to politics.
eemom
Good evening all. We are now in the extra “fall back” hour bestowed upon us each year by the beneficent goddess EST.
I shall not waste it on Milbank’s latest idiocy — except to wonder forlornly, for the umpety-umpth time, why anyone who sees fit to devote an entire column in a major newspaper to such an utterly useless topic of speculation, has a column in a major newspaper.
Yutsano
@suzanne: Ah. So you’re Presbyterian then.
@asiangrrlMN: Mine I think has levitated to her throne and is passed out. Honestly, if you could see how small she is compared to the height of the chair, you’d be amazed she can get up there too.
Another shot for her numerous fans. I actually got her almost asleep for this one.
BTW I proposed to suzanne. I figured the Denobulan family unit needed more female representation.
Quiddity
@General Stuck: Obama campaigned for Lieberman in the race against Lamont. Surely, there was some leverage available after doing that.
morzer
Given demands for something lighter, perhaps a touch of satire might help:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gL5EWFow6N4&feature=related
morzer
@suzanne:
Real Americans don’t play sudoku, damnit. We scorn such effete Chinese Muslim Communist affectations**. Anyway, numbers hurt our minds, and our calculators don’t include billions.
** Yes, I know, sudoku is Japanese.
burnspbesq
@Nick:
This is exactly what the Hamshers and Greenwalds of the world, and similar purity trolls, wanted. Responsibility and accountability scare the bejeebers out of them. Remember the famous Teddy Roosevelt quote?
suzanne
@Yutsano:
LMAO. Baptized, confirmed, and defected.
The dog just came inside from playing in the backyard. The sprinklers came on when she was out there, and I didn’t realize it. She’s sopping wet, so I put her in her crate with a towel until she dries off. The whining is epic.
Nick
@Quiddity:
Only in the primary, which Lieberman lost anyway. After the primary, Obama endorsed Lamont. No leverage in that
asiangrrlMN
@Yutsano: Awwwww! Lexie is sooooo cute! Yes, but did suzanne accept? That is the pertinent point. If so, welcome, suzanne. Let me see your long-form birth certificate.
Anya
@freelancer: I don’t understand why liberals trust Ariana Huffington? She has no ideology and her progressive persona is nothing but a racket. By being a first class Obama scold, she is invited to all the show to represent the liberal voice and to tell us how he “doesn’t get it”. She is so invested in painting Obama as an out of touch corporatist, and then her site focuses on Michelle Obama in the most trivial way. Michelle Obama could be saving a stadium full of people from a terrorist attack, and they will only focus on her shoes and what she’s wearing.
James E. Powell
@asiangrrlMN:
That’s why I think all the lathering about HCR is ultimately fruitless because the right was united in blocking it completely.
The lathering is fruitless. The ship has sailed. The issue now is to defend it in all its imperfection.
The constant bitching about it is a symptom of something else. HCR is just the hook on which that ‘something else’ is hung. I have no idea what it is.
The Republicans were united in opposition to HCR. The Democrats were not united in support of it. Same old story.
suzanne
@asiangrrlMN: Sure, I accept. I don’t have a long-form birth certificate, but I do have an anchor baby. Will that do?
Yutsano
@suzanne: I smell water dog tendencies, even worse if she has Lab genes. Though Jack the border collie will attack sprinkler sprays with wild abandon. It’s very cute to watch, but of course he gets left outside after to dry off.
I’m getting good at this. I amazed a co-worker the other day when he told me a story about how he got talked into going to a New Age church service while drunk (the details I could almost write a novel about, but this guy needs to write an autobiography. Seriously.) and he stumbled into the coffee shop they ran in an adjoining room. As soon as he told me about how Jesus threw the merchants out of the temple (he apparently ranted at the coffee shop folks about that) I looked right at him and said, “You went to Catholic school didn’t you?” The look of amazement stuck on his face for awhile after.
freelancer
@Nick:
You don’t need to be a Weatherman to know which way the wind blows.
asiangrrlMN
@suzanne: Yes. I will accept an anchor baby in lieu of the birth certificate as I will have to be replaced sooner or later (a true anchor baby am I). You do realize that I am the matriarch of the family, right? All
presentsmonies are paid to moi.@James E. Powell: Yeah, I should have specified. It’s over. Let’s move on and squabble about the issue du jour.
Nick
@freelancer:
LOL, people are funny. He endorses Lamont, but he really meant Lieberman, he just couldn’t publicly admit it, and because he privately supported Lieberman while publicly backing Lamont, he should have some leverage over the guy he wouldn’t publicly endorse.
morzer
@asiangrrlMN:
So, getting back to the salt and pepper raccoon.. have you reached the point of cheering for the opposition in the hope of seeing Childress dragged out screaming and kicking by dear old Uncle Zigzag?
Anya
It’s 3AM and I’m going to bed, ya’all. Good morning to you all.
suzanne
@Yutsano: According to the Humane Society, she’s a Pit/Lab mix. Judging by how she looks, it seems very accurate. She has the Pit head and ears, but the Lab build—long legs and slender body.
As for church… how many sermons did I spend staring at the ceiling? I remember counting the knots in the wooden planks. There’s a shitload, BTW.
@asiangrrlMN: Yes, I know where I fall in the hierarchy. What do the polygamists call it? The baby wife?
Yutsano
@suzanne: Pfft. It’s a Denobulan marriage. There really is no ranking as there are currently four husbands and three wives. Wifey just likes to be assertive because, well, she started this all. So I guess she has a point. Me shut up now before me gets put on the couch too.
morzer
@suzanne:
But did you think of England?
Yutsano
@morzer: Don’t you mean Scotland? I’m pretty sure that’s where the Presbyterians got their start.
asiangrrlMN
@Anya: Night/morning!
@suzanne: You got it, honeychild.
@morzer: Heh. At this point, I am too numb to care. Much like politics….
Yutsy, you proved my point for me. Thanks.
morzer
@Yutsano:
No, no. “Thinking of England” is traditionally one of the things done by women enduring the sexual act. Along with staring at the ceiling.
It is 2.25 in the morning, after all.
MikeJ
@morzer: Your first two am or second two am of the day?
asiangrrlMN
@morzer: Is not. DST just ended. So, it’s 2:27 a.m. for you.
Not fair! You changed it.
Yutsano
@asiangrrlMN: Whew. I shuddered thinking of the numerous baked goods it was gonna take me to get out of that one.
Oh yeah, I just clowned a troll on the Pelosi thread. It was kinda fun.
@morzer: LET’S DO THE TIMEWARP AGAIN!!
morzer
@MikeJ:
Both. I feel closer to immortality than ever before.
NobodySpecial
I love hindsight counterfactuals. Hillary would have obviously made all the correct choices because they would have been different from the ones Obama made on the ground at the time.
Why the fuck do you post self-serving Villager dreck like this without a warning label? This shit probably both causes cancer and psoriasis.
MikeJ
@morzer: Anything you do in the bonus hour can’t be held against you. I feel closer to immorality than ever.
asiangrrlMN
@Yutsano: Oh, snap. I’m gonna have to go look and be all pissed, aren’t I?
@MikeJ: Well, I haven’t written today, so I need to do that. Now. Wish it were something more exciting than that.
morzer
@MikeJ:
Asiangrrl has that effect on many people. And when Suzanne gets going.. well, let’s just say that my ears start to turn red as I read their posts.
Yutsano
@asiangrrlMN: Meh. Not so much. I did, however, provoke a rather visceral reaction. Which leads me to believe he’s making shit up.
freelancer
@Anya:
You’re in luck! ‘Cause it’s actually 2am!
morzer
@asiangrrlMN:
Whatchu gonna do about it? Put me on waivers?
I am going to Graceland, Memphis, Tennessee. I’m going to Graceland….
asiangrrlMN
@morzer: You are rather easy to titillate, aren’t you? I do not think anything suzanne nor I have said in this thread would constitute teh sexxy tawk.
ETA: Naw, I’m keeping ya. You’re good for the team.
@Yutsano: Oh, him. Yeah. He’s far down on my radar of trolls. And, that thirty percent number. I can play that game, too! Eleven-billionty percent of teh gays would not have sex with trolls!
freelancer
@morzer:
Kumbayaaa, my Lord. Kumbayaaa...
Yutsano
@asiangrrlMN: This is actually starting to get fun. All he has to do is put up one measly little article from the myriad he’s claiming to have. Instead all he’s done is insult me. Like I told him, he’s not even trying any more. But it is entertaining me.
morzer
@asiangrrlMN:
Absolutely. It’s one of my few claims to moral standing, dignity, and the American way of life.
asiangrrlMN
@Yutsano: YOU LIE! Heh. I have him pied, so I can only read the responses to him. He’s boring. For all of B.o.B.’s flaws, being boring was not one of them.
@morzer: Ha!
Yutsano
@asiangrrlMN: He’s gonna really love me now. I just pulled apart his so-called numbers to the point where he’s going to call me either a liar or delusional. But don’t even try to get into survey analysis with me, it used to be my profession.
morzer
@Yutsano:
Well, I’ve just called him a statistically illiterate arse-head.
asiangrrlMN
@Yutsano: You and morzer double-teaming the troll is hawt. It’s gotten me a bit moist in my hypothetical panties. Rrrowr!
@morzer: I know. Delicious! Almost as delicious as pie.
@morzer: Oh, hell, YEAH! Wicked intellect does it to me every time.
morzer
@asiangrrlMN:
You are rather easy to titillate, aren’t you?
freelancer
@asiangrrlMN:
Wait! Wait! Who’s the troll?! I have a confuse. I thought we were, all of us, Brothers in Arms.
asiangrrlMN
@freelancer: Heh. Check the Nancy SMASH! thread. Yutsy and morzer are OWNING the horn of the flugel–who is most definitely not a brother in arms.
morzer
@asiangrrlMN:
I kinda like the term “spit-roasting” for what old flugelly-wugelly is undergoing right now.
Yutsano
@asiangrrlMN:
Fixteth for accuracy and good geek levels.
gizmo
The Mother of All Issues is campaign finance reform. Until we fix that, nothing good will happen.
chaseyourtail
@Anya:
Because the liberal masses have turned out to be as gullible and clueless as the ditto-heads, sad to say.
Yutsano
@chaseyourtail: Sheeple is sheeple. Political affiliation has little to do with that unfortunately.
morzer
@chaseyourtail:
Because young liberal men are just as clueless about cougars with foreign accents and lots of money?
asiangrrlMN
@morzer: Ew. You had to go there, didn’t you? Sigh.
@morzer: I do admire a man who is handy with a spit-roaster.
@Yutsano: Truth. You tellz it.
And now, I must write. I will check in later, I’m sure. Carry on the merriment without me.
freelancer
Okay so there is info out there, and it is there to be grabbed.
Hollywood has tried to understand the grasp, aim, and consequence of the war on terror aka GSAVE, but the three greatest films about our current threat have been straight up indie movies. Two of the three have been gonzo indie comedies in the vein of Dr. Strangelove and the other has been a character study of life in wartime. It is a shame that the last is opening this month in the US, but I find myself watching it now.
The serious film is The Hurt Locker.
The two comedies are In the Loop and Four Lions, both British productions, btw.
suzanne
@morzer:
Moi? I know not of what you speak. ;)
Yutsano
@suzanne: Ahem. Game shows and masturbation. I’m pretty certain that overheated more than a couple of folks on this blog. Hell I’m still getting over that one.
NR
As for the health insurance bill, it was the 1993 Senate GOP’s alternative to Bill Clinton’s health care bill.
In other words, Bill Clinton could have signed that piece of shit back in 1993 or 1994. But he didn’t, because it was a piece of shit back then, and he knew it. And it remains a piece of shit today.
Obama, on the other hand, was happy to sign it. And then he lost the House anyway.
I don’t know if a hypothetical president Hillary would have been any better. But she sure as hell could not have been much worse.
freelancer
@suzanne:
Seconded, and this is from someone who’s infuriated and befriended the both of yous. I can differentiate between an enemy and an ally. Would that I could say the same of those who share my worldview…
Yutsano
@freelancer: You don’t have to like everyone, and if you do, there’s something not quite right about you. But if you have a common cause, get the fuck past it and work towards your common goal. And thus endeth my lecture. Now everybody get naked!
morzer
@NR:
No, Clinton couldn’t sign on because it was explicitly the Republican proposal, and would have given them a huge win after a major defeat for him. It might also be added that the bill we got was about as good as it could be, when you consider the reality of the situation. Nor should we hastily write-off what is a valuable bridgehead to something better.
morzer
@freelancer:
How on earth did you get all this stuff about enemies and allies out of a teasing remark I made about Suzanne?
suzanne
@Yutsano:
Well, what the hell ELSE am I supposed to do all day?
NobodySpecial
@suzanne: I think it’s more the game shows that throw everyone off.
suzanne
@NobodySpecial: What can I say? I have a thing for Regis.
Yutsano
@suzanne: Ew. Ew!. EEEWWW!!! Where’d my wifey go? I need that damn brain bleach back.
suzanne
@Yutsano: When he mocks the idiots who lose on the early questions to their faces, I get mildly aroused. Can’t help it.
asiangrrlMN
@Yutsano: Right here, honey. I just doused my own brain, so you can haz the rest. Ugh.
Night, all.
Yutsano
@asiangrrlMN: I’m not long for the world myself. The time change is gonna fuck me up hardcore I can tell already
Carol
@Nick: One of the biggest problems we have is that we ask legislators to be most message machine and legislature. The Republicans long ago created a message machine that develops independent of the legislators that does the message fighting for them.
Dems don’t have one as large or as well funded. For decades until the blogs were created, nobody on the left except for a few unions even bothered to counter the AM radio onslaught at all. Even today, we don’t have anything as big or as close.
Instead we ask overworked legislators to actually handle messaging as if they don’t also have constituents they have to talk to as well-what works in Florida does not work so well in Michigan. We ask them to craft a nationwide message without any of the tools that are in the toolbox. Bricks without straw, so to speak.
Instead we need to get off our duffs and create the message machine-larger than the blogs and larger than the old newspapers.
Kobie
I stopped trying a LONG time ago.
Maude
Something I’ve always been curious about. In the 3 a.m. Hillary ad, why didn’t anyone answer the phone?
It kept ringing.
Omnes Omnibus
I am late to the party here, but is it not possible that a President Hillary Clinton would have made different choices and that those choices would have resulted in an outcome that was worse? I am not saying that she would have, but, as long as one is arguing counterfactuals, one should also consider those that do not end well. In other words, Milbank is a douche-nozzle.
kay
@Phoenix:
This is nonsense, and repeating it over and over disturbs me, because if liberals are going to claim the mantle of “reality based” they’re going to have to stop adopting an alternate reality. That the alternate reality aligns with conservative myth is just the cherry on top, for me.
President Bush lost on two of his legislative priorities, and he lost big.
He lost big on Social Security privatization, and he suffered an absolutely humiliating defeat on immigration reform, a bill the White House wrote, where his entire Party in Congress bolted, panicked, because the lunatics on the Right started screaming at them. It was comical to watch McCain and Kyl head for the exits, like frightened six year olds. If you want to understand just how much of a hack John McCain is, read up on immigration, 2005-7. The bill was brought to the floor of the Senate twice, and the one and only reason it got that far was Ted Kennedy. It failed both times. Karl Rove was in charge of the White House effort to get it through. He failed, spectacularly and publicly.
Here’s what Bush The Fighter won. NCLB (he won there because Senator Kennedy, a Democrat, dragged him over the finish line), tax cuts, and the Medicare drug give-away.
The tax cuts and the Medicare drug give-away were easy. The Medicare drug give-away wasn’t paid for, and either were the tax cuts. Handing out free goods and services to senior citizens and wealthy people is generally not a difficult to do.
In addition, he could not muster a supermajority for the tax cuts even at the absolute height of his power, the 2001 tax cuts passed 58-33, and Cheney had to break a tie in the second round, in 2003, which passed 51-50, passed using reconciliation.
And Bush was a two-term President.
General Stuck
Kay
It always seems to me like the liberal left have discovered how to mimic the wingers with repetitive drone like message discipline with nonsense memes. The problem is they are using it on their own side, unless this Phoenix actually is a republican out for some ratfucking.
They repeat this crap like it was truth from on high, handed straight down from gawd his self. From another alternate reality similar as the wingnut one, but different only in political polarity. Obama sold out the PO from the beginning. Something no one informed Harry Reid of, and that wasn’t Obama’s to sell, since congress makes the laws. And the list goes on for left wing propaganda directed at it’s own side. They not only repeat it without the slightest hesitation, nor doubt in it’s veracity, because it was spawned by the netroots, therefore not to be questioned coming from the true keepers of the liberal flame. “Disturbing” is the correct term. Pathological could be another .
@Quiddity:
LOL, good one. And Lieberman paid Obama back by campaigning and voting for Mccain in 08. Not to mention speaking at the RNC national convention
Sometimes I wonder about some people who comment here.
Library Grape
Would we be better off under a President Genghis Khan? http://www.librarygrape.com/2010/11/would-we-be-better-off-under-president.html
kay
@General Stuck:
I know we do this all the time. We lose, and our opponent then becomes this magical force that can’t ever be beaten, because they’re manly and invincible, and Fox News, and stupid voters who were smart two years ago, and on and on and on. I know the drill.
But it’s never been true, we win just about as many as we lose, and I’m not sure why it’s helpful to promote this conservative-friendly “they’re winners!” myth. Forget “helpful”. Is it true? I don’t think so.
I think it might be productive to look at 1. when they lost and 2. how they lost, when they lost. Because they lose a lot, despite their crowing rhetoric, and that’s where we’d find out where they’re vulnerable.
Carol
@Carol: @Omnes Omnibus Would Hillary have gotten better cooperation with Congress than Obama got? In the counterfactual world that Millbank inhabits, that’s not a question they even attempt to answer.
I remember there was a great deal of haggling and stalling from the Blue Dogs because they feared the wrath of the teabaggers at home. I remember Obama walking into a Congressional meeting of Republicans and basically debating with them about the bill. I remember Stupak’s last minute abortion stall.
Hillary has never seemed to be a person with the audacity to actually stare down the enemy at times to get what she wants.
kay
@Carol:
I think it’s fair to say Clinton would have gotten more support from the institutional Democratic Party, state Parties, loud mouth and high profile Democrats (not bloggers or The Professional Left, I think their impact is over-stated) I’m talking about people like Carville, Rendell, et al. Hillary could have done just about anything and they would have covered for her.
The Clintons had thirty years of accrued loyalty to draw on, thousands of people they know with varying degrees of power, and they would have traded on that. I think this Millbank column is actually an example of that.
But I knew that at the time Obama was nominated, to a certain extent, the risk, although it’s been worse than I anticipated.
Felanius Kootea (formerly Salt and freshly ground black people)
@kay:
Oh I heart Kay!
clb72
both sides make promises they do not intend to keep because of corporate influence in the electoral and legislative process. is that too simplistic an explanation? i think it explains a lot.
matoko_chan
DougJ, its not that hard. The TP is just a rebranding to get away from the two major failed conservative core memes: the free market that Ate Americas Jobs and the socon values that mired us in unwinnable meaningless expensive bloody wars in A-stan and Iraq.
The third leg of the conservative stool is “commonsense”, which means both the leadership and are actually too stupid understand their own nonsense.
Commonsense is not intelligence.
trans: they are wrong but they are too stupid to know it, and too stupid to acknowledge it..
Allan
If Hillary were President, she and Mark Penn would have had thousands of Americans murdered in a CIA-led terror attack in order to look strong and Presidential when she mourned their loss and vowed revenge.
Nick
@kay: Hillary would not have been so ambitious. She would’ve taken baby steps and set off the ire of the “professional left.”
D'Angelo
I notice that the privileged white prick Greenwald has been packing on the pounds since Obama got elected, much in the style of various wingnuts (Sowell, Reynolds, hell even Jonah is looking even fatter these days).
Put down the fork and shut the fuck up, Glenn.
Sly
In the alternate universe, the only substantive difference I can see is that the usual suspects would have spent the last two years whining about Harold Ickes instead of Rahm Emanuel.
colby
@NR:
Sure he could’ve signed it, since the Republicans were in no way being disingenuous when they offered it. That’s why they supported it last year!
And sure, he knew it was a piece of shit. That’s why he vigorously opposed it last year, right?
Oh wait, none of those things happened, and the only actual evidence we have that it’s a “piece of shit” is your say so.
But given how off your read of the rest of the situation is, that’s pretty unpersuasive evidence.
colby
As for Milbank’s article, it seems there’s quite a logic problem at the center of it- he makes note of Hillary’s strong ties to banks and business leaders. Such strong ties are a HUGE problem for OBAMA (even putting aside that his ties aren’t that great). So how would STRONGER ties really help Hillary politically? For that matter, if she had such strong ties, could she really have pushed “benefits for consumers” through the Senate? Could she have done it without Franken and Hagen, and hell, probably Specter (by all accounts, Biden was instrumental in bringing Specter over).
Nick
@NR: Clinton should have signed it, because he couldn’t because that would be capitulation.
Mnemosyne
@NR:
The president can’t sign something that doesn’t make it through Congress, dummy.
Tlaloc
It certainly was transformative. It managed to convert 60% Dem majorities in to a serious minority in the house and a tiny majority in the senate. And at the same tiome completely fucked a few hundred thousand kids who lost coverage. And helped…uh… insurance industry executives and shareholders.
Thanks Obots! You only completely fucked up our best chance in decades to get some real progress.
Did you enjoy the elections? Cause you fucking earned them, assholes.
Mike Kay
@kay: Win.
I would also add that Bush attempted to appoint his soul mate Harriet Myers to SCOTUS and his own party revolted.
We could also talk about how CIA forced Bush to reveal the NIE on Iran killing his gambit to make the 2008 election on another
Red ScareCrescent Scare. How bush was forced to yield on holding the 9/11 commission, how bush was forced to swallow McCAin-Feingold even though he vowed to veto it during the 2000 primaries, and accept the Dept of Homeland Security which was actually a Dem idea the he vehemently opposed in 2002. Et cetera. Bush had this trick when he would oppose something strongly but to no avail, then he would flip-flop and jump out in front of the parade and make the stenographers in the MSM project as it was his idea all along.Mike Kay
@Mike Kay: I would add that Bush originally opposed the prescription drug benefit when it was first proposed by Bill Clinton in 2000 and supported by Gore. But it polled so well in Florida that bush flip flopped and was forced to go along.
There are scores of further similar incidents.
This zombie myth on the left that bush was never rolled is almost as bad as birtherism on the right. No data will persuade the zombies to reconcile to reality.
Nathanael
The way I make sense of it is this. If Dennis Kucinich had a hobby of target shooting, and if he had somehow made it through the Democratic primaries, he would be the most successful President in quite a long time right about now.
chaseyourtail
@Yutsano:
Precisely.
Andrew
Health care was central to Hillary’s political identity. I highly doubt she wouldn’t have at least attempted it, and if she had 60 Senate votes (which is debatable), I doubt she’d have dropped the effort, whatever her aides may say. (Plenty of Obama’s aides opposed HCR, yet he still pursued it.)
One other thing we were spared: if Hillary were president, any time there were hints of a public disagreement with Speaker Pelosi, there’d be a million annoying, sexist, columns screaming “CATFIGHT!!!”