If you’re going to propose things that can pass Congress and they create jobs, then I don’t think it matters whether or not they’re popular. The job creation will be rewarded. But if you’re going to pass something that can’t pass Congress, then it doesn’t matter at all whether it would hypothetically work, all that matters is that it polls well. And as Chait says, the things that Keynesian analysis suggests would create jobs — much larger budget deficits, higher inflation — are not popular things to campaign on. The smart move, if you’re just going to give a speech for speech’s sake, is to make the speech be full of nonsense bromides that voters like to hear. Except one problem President Obama will face is that for a “nonsense bromides” strategy to be maximally effective, it would be really useful for the entire progressive echo chamber to get really excited about his bromide agenda and start loudly insisting that the bromides would be super-successful in reducing unemployment if implemented. But Paul Krugman, Rachel Maddow, etc. won’t do that. A speech full of bromides will be disparaged as bromidish. These are the wages of the “hack gap,” the fact that the progressive media ecology is less leadable than the Conintern.
This gets right to the heart of why the 11-dimensional bully pulpit doesn’t work for Democratic presidents very well. Pulpits are for spewing bullshit and the left is queasy about cheering bullshit too loudly.
The Republic of Stupidity
I, for one, kinda actually expect RESULTS…
gordon schumway
@The Republic of Stupidity:
Which is why you’re a stupid hippie, not a very serious person.
Marc
@The Republic of Stupidity:
In other words, you want Obama to be a King, not a president.
Sorry – wrong century.
dave
Oh, for fuck’s sake. The President gets a rash of shit because “he needs to use the bully-pulpit more” and “go after the GOP, talk to the people” etc…
Then when he does just that (this jobs speech) the same folks piss and moan, and complain “oh, not another speech! Gee, what a waste. More talk.” etc..
In the words of Will Rogers “I don’t belong to an ORGANIZED politcal party. I’m a Democrat.” The base needs to make up its fucking mind.
Tomjones
How delightfully cynical.
drkrick
@The Republic of Stupidity: Most of us prefer results. When people like McConnell and Cantor will have the leverage to block almost anything that might produce results for at least the next 18 months, most of the opportunities are going to be in the area of rhetoric. The point of the post is to assert that Dems are at a disadvantage in that situation.
TenguPhule
So why not stump on an Liberal Reign of Crushing Republican Skulls under his iron heel? Wildly popular with no chance of passing.
Shade Tail
Pulpits are for spewing, period. It doesn’t have to be bullshit. And considering how many liberals (at least here on the inter-tubes) have been shrieking about how Obama “hasn’t been using the bully pulpit”, I’m not entirely inclined to agree with your analysis, DougJ.
I prefer Steve Benen’s analysis, personally.
Tomjones
@gordon schumway:
QF(non-sarcastic)T
Unabogie
In other words, perhaps instead of attacking Obama, the “base” should actually try and help?
Hahaha. I love humor posts! You forgot the “+5”.
Brachiator
Had to read this twice to get pass the typographical error in the original. I think he meant,
Anyway, I largely agree, although the left can sometimes be just as noodly as the right in cheering deeply held bullshit myths.
But the other problem that Obama has, is that if he proposes something that cannot be passed, he will be held accountable for any subsequent economic problems anyway.
jibeaux
Maybe this is a dumb question, but I don’t even know what the “nonsense bromides that voters like to hear” would be. I know the nonsense bromides that Republicans like to hear are tax cuts and deregulation. What are the options on nonsense bromides for Obama, though?
Linda Featheringill
So . . . This speech hasn’t been given yet, right? And we are discussing whether we approve or disapprove what Obama said, right? Except that he hasn’t done it yet?
Is that what we’re doing?
lacp
Complementary (if not exactly complimentary) piece from Dean Baker:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2011/aug/29/president-obama-job-creation
japa21
I actually think the larger things would end up bein gpopular if it is presented in a way that shows:
1. How it would impact people directly. Talk about the infrastructure, but do it anecdotally, talking about a bridge in Cantor’s district, a run down school in Boehner’s, etc. Push the Republicans to go against their own constituents.
2. Talk about how much less expensive it is to do this now then later when the actual cost will be higher and also the cost of borrowing will be a lot more.
3. Talk about how doing all this actually increases revenue as people out of work don’t pay taxes, but people that go back to work will.
4. And yes, throw in a line about how it would be easier to do all this if taxes on the wealthy were raised.
dave
@The Republic of Stupidity:
Oh wait, I thought he was supposed to use the bully-pulpit. You know, what the so called “base” has had a 12″ hard on about for the last 2 years.
Bully-pulpit. Talk to the people. Win the argument.
Jesus Christ. It’s become pretty clear; Obama is not the problem. It’s his party which has had in head up its ass fot the better part of 50 years. Starting with the riots at the DNC in Chicago by “the hippies.” Yeah, thanks for giving us Nixon! (and you wonder why people punch hippies)
Lee Hartmann
By “bullshit”, perhaps you mean to say “this is what it would really take to make a difference”? And then say, okay, here’s what we’re stuck with, or I can’t get anything past the Rethuglicans?
Yeah, great analysis. It’s all about the lack of cheerleading.
Calouste
“the progressive media ecology is less leadable than the Conintern”
I guess Yglesias means the CoMintern there. Stalin did quite well keeping a hand on the Comintern, so really that line doesn’t mean anything at all, unless if course the goal is to subconciously equate progressive media with communism.
cleek
@Shade Tail:
does it matter that those liberals are either ignorant or lying?
Obama’s been advocating, pounding the stump for, trying to pass a jobs package based on infrastructure improvement (among other things) for years and years. and he’s still doing it today.
Republicans have an understandable reason to lie and distort what Obama says and advocates for: they want him to lose in 2012. i wonder what the self-proclaimed liberal base’s reasons are…
Stooleo
The last thing the Republicans want to see is a successful jobs package get through congress. They are doubling down on the shitty economy and praying that a 12% unemployment rate will put them back in the white house. No substantial jobs bill will get through until after the 2012 election. This is just the start of another round of kabuki theater. Hopefully Obama will get the base a little more excited this time.
Shade Tail
@Linda Featheringill:
I think the point of the article DougJ linked isn’t about what Obama has said (or is going to say). Rather, it is a cynical screed that Obama may as well not say anything, because either it will be empty rhetoric, or it will be grand promises that have no chance of actually passing Congress.
That seems to be the point here. And personally, I could not possibly agree less with that idea.
srv
I see. It’s the evil for Mittens/Ricky to spout nonsense that they’re just saying to win votes, but if the DFH’s would just man up for some nonsense it would be ok because the end result will be… more of the same.
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
@jibeaux: It’s not that hard to come up with. I’ll start:
“I propose cutting the military by 15%, and increasing education spending by 25%. Unemployment benefits will be extended until this economic crisis has ended. I also propose a tax on companies that have jobs overseas.”
Ben Cisco
@Brachiator:
I see what you did there.
jibeaux
@Linda Featheringill:
I don’t think so. I think it’s more of an observation that there isn’t an equivalent echo chamber on the left that there is on the right, which I think is true, and how that makes things a little harder for Obama. But I think he ought to swing for the fences. I don’t know that he has many alternatives, and every once in a while God almighty can that man hit the fence.
AlphaLiberal
Well…… let’s accept for a moment that Obama doesn’t back sensible job-creating policies in this speech – either.
When the bloody hell does he?
He’s embraced Tea Party economics and deficit fetishism while downplaying, overlooking and barely mentioning unemployment.
He has a lot of authority and power as President to take action in other ways, which he has not done.
If he took forceful action somewhere and then went all for the BS spewing, we’d get it. Absent that, we just see more of the same weak tea with real people in the real world suffering badly.
Shade Tail
@cleek:
No, it doesn’t really matter. The liars are a tiny minority who can be written off, and the ignorant would be happy with this apparent change in Obama’s tactics.
As for me, I know Obama has been active and out there. Unlike those whiners, I’ve been paying attention. Never fear on that score.
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
@srv: I think part of the point is that the right doesn’t have people going around saying “That won’t work, never-candidate Romney.”
AlphaLiberal
It’s sad to see libs/progs/whatevers being all jealous of the right wing authoritarian mindset. We’re better than that! We think!
Culture of Truth
Krugman has a piece today in which he says Obama lives in a fantasy world and doesn’t understand politics or how Republicans really are, which is interesting because PK is an academic with a column and Obama has never lost an election.
jibeaux
@Belafon (formerly anonevent):
Doesn’t sound like nonsense to me, tell you the truth. Sounds like not a half-bad start.
OzoneR
@The Republic of Stupidity:
yes, which is why anyone saying Obama should just use the bully pulpit needs a smack.
Emerita Cuesta
@Linda Featheringill: Yep. That’s where we’re going.
Linda Featheringill
@jibeaux:
Agreed.
OzoneR
@Culture of Truth:
But we shouldn’t criticize Krugman because he’s not a politician, he’s an economist
Emerita Cuesta
My one sentence, one word comment is awaiting moderation?
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
@jibeaux: Yes, and how many will dismiss it as something that will never pass, so why make the speech?
Lysana
@AlphaLiberal: I am imagining you speaking of pie and you suddenly make a lot more sense.
AlphaLiberal
@srv:
Obama has been spewing nonsense on the economy for a long time now! Stuff like:
* Cutting deficits will create jobs.
* A federal budget is just like a family budget.
* Deficits are the biggest economic problem we face (he says this not outright but in what he prioritizes and the time he spends on one versus the other).
* Big corporations will create jobs. (Appointed Immelt from GE to head his Jobs Council, which is apparently dead).
We’ve had plenty of bullshit spewing from the bully pulpit and the jobs crisis continues. Real lives are being destroyed and we need out government to give a shit, starting with the President.
wrb
The progressive commentariat needs to get behind those stimulus measures that could pass, but they are oh-too-pure (and privileged, and sheltered) for that. Let the lives of average Americans be burned down, it is more important that we not betray the arguments that started in our college dorm rooms.
OzoneR
What everyone is seemingly forgotten is it doesn’t matter if Obama just recites an FDR fireshat chat from 1935 verbatem, no one is going to remember it because the only thing people will be talking about is how we tried to upstage the 2390980238923589035890235th GOP debate.
dave
@Linda Featheringill:
Yes, that’s exactly what we’re doing. Why? Because we are real progressives. Not those Obamabot-droid-DINO-black people who like Obama. No, we are people who think Alan Grayson should run for President even though he couldn’t manage to get re-elected to a 2nd term in the House.
We are hippies. Even though we don’t have long hair, own thousands of dollars in Apple tech, and have a job, SOMEHOW we are still “hippies.” (don’t ask how) Oh, and we are tired of being “punched.” (punched = being criticised on the internet)
We believe in the “bully-pulpit” that Teddy Roosevelt talked about. Even though at the time there was no TV, Radio, Movies, Telephones, or Internet. We still believe there is a “bully-pulpit.” And we think Obama has failed to use it.
However, we still criticise Obama’s use of the bully-pulpit for his upcoming jobs speech. Why? Letdown-cave-Weiner-Public Option- hippie-punch. That’s why.
That is all for now. We are now off to listen to Dan Choi rightly hammer Obama for making gays wait until the 20th of next month for DADT to be repealed. That’s almost 3 weeks…terrible.
DGS
Most pundits say the President’s choice with this speech is between “going big” or being “tactical” (i.e. passable). He should do both and be very specific, proposing both a big jobs plans like an infrastructure bank and a smaller plan like F.A.S.T. (Fix America’s Schools Today). There’s a hunger out there for a specific path back to better future. When something like FAST is flatly rejected, it will be remembered in 2012.
MikeJ
Cheering for bullshit wouldn’t help the country, but it would help the Democratic party. More power for the Democratic party *will* help the country in the long run, but not in the next six months.
Marc
@OzoneR:
And we’re all a bunch of Obama cultists, naturally, if we defend anything that he does against criticism. Even if that criticism is logically flawed or factually wrong.
By contrast, we get a lot of folks who are furious when anything Greenwald and Krugman say is challenged. But these forum warriors are clear-eyed iconoclasts. No personality cults for them!
OzoneR
@cleek:
Bradley Manning?
Laertes
It’s kind of a dick move to step on the GOP clown show like that. I approve.
OzoneR
@MikeJ:
would it? or would it just lead to another round of “he’s just pandering, just words, we need actions”
lacp
Well, to get anything meaningful done, he’d have to persuade those who are just fine with the status quo.
And then, of course, he’d have to persuade the Republicans.
singfoom
Wait,
If we’re pre-bitching about this speech, I hope Obama comes out with the severed head of Jamie Dimon in his hand and announces a jobs plan based on the hunting down of criminal bankers. If you bag a banker, you get 50% of their net worth, the rest goes to the government.
See, deficit taken care of AND more jobs.
There, since we’re just blowing smoke about something that hasn’t happened yet, there’s my fantasy jobs program.
shep
Except nobody (outside the left) care what Rachel Maddow and Paul Krugman think, or isn’t that obvious by now? I wonder when Krugman and all of the “smart analysts” are going to figure out that all of Obama’s pulpit kabuki is for the benefit of pathologically non-partisan centrists both inside and outside the Village. There are a lot more of them than leftists and they actually decide elections.
cleek
(fourth attempt at posting this…)
@AlphaLiberal:
no, let’s not, because it’s 1000% false.
he has been out there saying all the things the self-described liberal base says he hasn’t been. and he’s been saying it for years.
i just don’t understand ostensible liberals who lie about or distort what Obama says or does. what’s the goal?
FlipYrWhig
IMHO Obama needs to give a “meta” speech about how the country _needs_ X, Y, and Z, and the reason we’re not getting what we need is that the Republicans are obstructing it; and if he wanted to be more truthful than that he would say that too many _Democrats_ are _helping_ Republicans obstruct it. Of course if he says “Congress” or “Washington” is causing the problem, the blogosphere will squawk — even though conservative Democrats are the most irksome part of the problem (from a liberal standpoint) with contemporary politics and macroeconomics.
maye
@AlphaLiberal: I’m not as harsh as this person, but I will say I have yet to hear any explanation as to why the Obama White House has abandoned Keynesian economics. It really is time to come up with private sector solutions because the Congress is a brick wall. President O. needs to dig deep down for his inner autocrat and start shaking some trees.
jibeaux
@Belafon (formerly anonevent):
Well, he can only propose things that won’t pass. We can’t even pass another extension of the payroll tax break because of the party whose motto is tax breaks. I thought the discussion was whether he should propose good policy that won’t pass, or mediocre policy that sounds better that won’t pass.
TheWorstPersonInTheWorld
How about using the bully pulpit to actually, you know, BULLY the republicans, and EDUCATE the public as to exactly WHY deficits are not a concern right now, why we need MORE stimulus and at the very least a repeal of the bush tax cuts, and why Obama needs the public to harass their elected representatives into doing the right thing?
Oh, sorry, but that would be forthright and direct and assertive, and Obama doesn’t do any of those, because already he’s “got this,” and things are going really well as a result.
cleek
so, why would a comment with a link to “obama dash speech dot org” refuse to appear ?
Big Baby DougJ
@wrb:
I don’t think there are any that could pass. If there are, I agree we should get behind them.
AlphaLiberal
@Marc:
The large difference is that Krugman deals in facts and reason. You guys way too often deal in name-calling, insults, strawman arguments, and misrepresenting what people, like Krugman say. Just like the right wingers, except you don’t have the foam dripping from your lips.
To, wit, Krugman today simply agreed with this obviously true statement:
By the way if winning an election is the ticket for expressing an opinion, perhaps some of you should STFU?
dave
@wrb:
Hey, watch it. You get outta line and Atrios may wake up, break out the laptop and post 20 words or so before going back to bed.
maye
@FlipYrWhig: He can’t just be seen as whining about Congress. He’s got to sound like he’s in charge. I dont’ want Rick Perry to be president.
shortstop
@Culture of Truth: Bobby Rush holding for you on line two. Otherwise, agreed.
@Big Baby DougJ: This.
Brachiator
@AlphaLiberal:
Giving a shit is easy. Bill Clinton oozed empathy (among other things). He could feel your pain like nobody else could.
The question is, what can Obama DO to help get the economy rolling again.
Jay B.
Oh for fuck’s sake. When your imagination — the limits of what can even be addressed in a Presidential speech — is defined by Yglesias and Chiat, well, you might as well sign up for the fucking Aspen Institute’s next seminar.
And yes, while results matter — it’s clear his options are limited in no small part because he tried to appeal to the GOP for the past three years — but so does ambition, so does audacity. Unlike Chiat or Matty Y. I don’t think that most people give a shit about the deficit, especially when presented a choice between it and jobs. A simple line: If the economy moves, the deficit disappears and we can present a better country to our children. What’s 11-dimensional about that? It has the benefit of being TRUE.
There’s a simple, compelling case Obama can make. He can demagogue bankers. He can call out Wall St. He can say the people have had enough fear and would rather have jobs than theory. There are simple ways to develop more jobs right now. The GOP has been adamantly against them — to the point of nearly destroying the gains we made. He can then lay out what a Democratic Administration and Congress would do, if the GOP won’t sign on.
If this is the gloried pivot, than he better make the fucking case. Everyone knows what the problem is. It takes a leader to show the best way to tackle it.
You complicate it by believing Beltway wisdom.
TheWorstPersonInTheWorld
@FlipYrWhig:
Oh come one, Flyp. That would just make too much darn sense and be too earnest. Better to obfuscate.
AlphaLiberal
@TheWorstPersonInTheWorld:
Good question, if long. Or to stop using the bully pulpit to spout Republican gibberish?
FlipYrWhig
@shep:
They haven’t figured it out yet, and I don’t expect them to. Like you, I don’t know why it’s so hard to fathom. And I would group “conservative Democrats” in there as well: he needs to placate politicians and voters with that profile, not just liberals — even if the liberals are smarter and have better ideas. And it’s because there aren’t enough liberals for keeping them happy to be a winning political strategy.
carolus
It’s actually a very shallow analysis.
Let’s suppose Obama proposes some jobs package that, by some miracle, gets passed by Congress. It’s pretty damn unlikely we’ll see the results, one way or another, before the elections.
Of course, the GOP is going to say “no” to anything Obama proposes because they want failure.
The really smart move by Obama is to shoot the moon; propose something so big and grandiose that it rivals the New Deal or Great Society. Of course, it’s going to get shot down by the GOP (they’ll shoot down anything) and Blue Dog Dems. The least it will accomplish is to set the debate on Obama’s terms instead of starting on GOP terms.
singfoom
@Jay B.:
Wait a minute. How’s he going to get re-elected if he beats up on Wall Street? Gotta get that campaign cash! Certainly DFHs don’t have the millions to pony up.
kay
Does anyone ever look at the unemployment rate for states?
It’s 12 in California, but 6 in Virginia, for example. I don’t know why Texas is considered such a job’s machine at 8.5, when Minnesota is at 7.2.
If I’m in New Hampshire, Oklahoma or Vermont there’s no job’s crisis at all, but if I’m in Florida it’s pretty bad. 7.8 is HIGH for Pennsylvania, but it’s not Nevada, at 12.9
If nothing else it might go a ways toward explaining any individual Senator’s action (or inaction).
Or do I just never see the state analysis?
Scamp Dog
@Calouste: I think it is intended to be the coNintern, the conservative version of the Comintern. They do actually steal a lot of techniques from Leninist theory, so I think it’s appropriate.
dave
@AlphaLiberal: You make the point perfectly: Obama can be hammered to no end, along with those who support him. But say anything about Saint Greenwald or Father Krugman and there will be a “STFU” coming your way.
I love it. You demonstrate that which you are trying to disprove.
japa21
@AlphaLiberal: The only problem with your statement is that Krugman’s statement is patently false.
FlipYrWhig
@AlphaLiberal:
For some reason Krugman doesn’t understand, or pretends not to understand, that bipartisan malarkey is the kind of thing voters like to hear, and thus Obama might speak a lot of bipartisan malarkey without actually believing in it. Yet Krugman habitually acts as though every politician is always utterly in earnest. I find that odd.
AlphaLiberal
@Jay B.:
Good stuff. Or…
“The surest way to bring down the deficit is to put create jobs.”
And, yes, he should demagogue Wall Street. Announce executive badly needed SEC reforms. Announce enforcement action to be taken. Fire some crooks.
Perhaps it would help the President if he imagines the Republicans are actually liberals. Then, we know, he and his Administration can get critical.
Dennis SGMM
Obama chose not to make unemployment a legislative priority when he had Democratic congressional majorities. He kept on pursuing his agenda even though unemployment was skyrocketing, with it going over 10% in October of ’09 and staying at 10% through November and December. To me, his failure to address unemployment in the early days was a catastrophic mistake that led directly to the Republican takeover of the House in ’10.
Anything that he speechifies about job creation now will ring hollow, especially in light of the way that he embraced the rhetoric of cutting the deficit. Any government action that would stimulate the job market would necessitate significant spending and that door is closed. Applause for Obama from every DFH in America won’t open it.
Nom de Plume
The potential problem here isn’t whatever Obama proposes. It isn’t even that the GOP will reflexively block whatever he proposes. No, the problem will be that Obama, as usual, will refuse to identify the people responsible for blocking his proposals.
He will refer generically to “Congress” or “some in Congress”. He will not say the word “Republican” even if he is waterboarded. The result, naturally, is that the wider public, who don’t pay much attention to these things, will simply assume that Obama has once again failed to get something done.
Culture of Truth
beltway analysis like seems too impressed with its own contrary cleverness
cleek
@FlipYrWhig:
he does that. all the time, actually. go read some of his town-hall speeches. he says all that and more, every single time he talks to people.
obama dash speech dot org has all of his statements and speeches archived. 5000+ of them.
and just a general comment: all of you saying he needs to start saying the magic words about jobs and the GOP and Wall St and billionaires’ taxes, etc. should go read his speeches. he says all the things you say he should. cause, if you don’t, some people will keep assume you don’t actually know what he says.
singfoom
@FlipYrWhig: I don’t disagree with you outright, but I find Krugman likes figures and facts and goes from there. He’s so into that mindset that I suppose it’s hard for him to understand irrational actors.
Which puzzles me too….I don’t give a shit if somethings bipartisan if it works towards rational policy implementations that benefit the whole country.
Elie
@Linda Featheringill:
Yep. You got it. sigh
AlphaLiberal
@FlipYrWhig:
Well, instead of calling the President a liar, I take him at his word. He is very heavily invested in bipartisanship. It’s a BFD for him.
And the public really does not get jazzed up bipartisanship. They like results. They like the odd pol who is not an obvious weasel – saying thing they don’t believe.
Voters like it when pols stand up for what they believe, even if the voter disagrees with them.
Brachiator
@Big Baby DougJ: RE: The progressive commentariat needs to get behind those stimulus measures that could pass,
I don’t know what Obama may have up his sleeve, but one tack would be to say, “here is what I think needs to be done. Congress needs to back me. If they won’t, and you the voter think that what I am proposing is what needs to be done, then I am asking you to send me a better Congress come November 2012.”
Today I overheard a couple of fellow commuters praising California Governor Jerry Brown. Even though talk radio goons keep trying to beat him up for not cutting taxes, and even though we have long had a gridlocked state legislature, real people are looking at what Brown is doing. They are looking at his budget proposals, including a return of a crappy compromise budget back to Sacramento lawmakers. They are looking at how he has cut inefficient programs, even if they are pet projects of popular legislators. They are looking at his own compromise proposals and are viewing them as reasonable starting points.
It’s not just Blind Jerry Brown love. They are seeing him as the competent chief executive rising above a roomful of partisan hacks. They are seeing him as living up to his promise to do more than just business as usual, even when he fails to get his proposals adopted.
So again, I don’t know what Obama will propose, but I think he has a lot more room to move than people give him credit for, even given the inevitable pushback by the GOP Noise machine.
singfoom
@Nom de Plume: It’s almost as if this entire thing is a charade, a diversion for us “voters”, I mean “suckers” while the real deals go down in corporate boardrooms physically far from the corridors of power in our government, but close enough to lobby for constant support.
AlphaLiberal
@japa21:
You do understand that a simple denial, without even the slimmest fact or argument behind it, is not at all convincing?
FlipYrWhig
@Jay B.:
That’s not the choice, of course. In surveys, people will surely say they care more about “jobs” than about “the deficit.” What they might not understand, though, is that for the government to Do Something about “jobs,” it will be necessary to _increase_ “the deficit.” A lot of the people being surveyed who say they want The Government to Do Something About Jobs do not, not, not mean that the government should hire people, or that the government should give money to businesses to hire people. I’m not sure what they think should happen, but the connection between “the deficit” and “jobs” is much more circuitous in the public mind than a committed Keynesian would presume.
SiubhanDuinne
@Culture of Truth:
Except when he primaried Congressman Bobby Rush in 2000 and lost by a 2-1 margin.
Elie
@cleek:
I admire your persistence in giving people facts, to the extent that they matter. Trust me however, two minutes from now one of ’em will be asserting the same damned thing as though you posted nothing. If you remind them they will become angry and acuse you of just wanting all “happy talk” about Obama and that they have a right, a duty to criticize him. Its the same minuet.
dave
@AlphaLiberal:
“Last but perhaps not least among causes of the consumer funk is the administration’s own determined pessimism. Mr. Bush has a bully pulpit, and he is using it to preach economic alarm. This adds powerfully to the chorus of doomsaying. And when it comes to short-term economics, believing can sometimes make it so.”
–Paul Krugman, 2/21/01
Hmmm…that’s funny. Faither/Saint/Future-Greatest-Preznit-Ever Paul Krugman once thought that the BULLY-PULPIT was so powerful not only could it be used to infuence the debate, but affect short term perceptions.
Oh wait, maybe 9/11 DID change everything, even Krugman.
catclub
@Nom de Plume: “He will refer generically to “Congress” or “some in Congress”. He will not say the word “Republican” even if he is waterboarded.”
proof that waterboarding is not torture.
srv
@AlphaLiberal: See, the DFH’s are this tiny, tiny, whiny minority with no power, except it’s just incredibly, unquestionably important that they STFU and man up or it’s their fault Obama fails.
It’s all Tinkerbell Strategery. The true believers, seeing their hero fail just clap harder. When that doesn’t work, well, let’s go punch some hippies.
Obama isn’t failing because a handful of hippies aren’t doing something, he’s failing because 90% of mainstream ‘liberals’ are shut-ins spending their days on Baboon-Juice and rolling over with every opportunity that presents itself.
It’s funny how K-Thug is effectively the only pro-progressive (not because he’s progressive, but because ‘liberals’ have adopted much of freshwater/Friedman philosophies) voice in the MSM. Go out on the street, and nobody knows who the fuck Greenwald or Hamser are, but even K-Thug is too much for their delicate ‘pragmatism.’
RP
So Krugman’s mind-reading is “obviously true”? If he can actually read minds, why is wasting his time writing a column for the NY Times?
shortstop
@Nom de Plume:
This is key. When you’re dealing with low-info voters without strong partisan leanings, you have to walk a fine line between calling out the bad actors (risking the “I don’t care who started it; you kids stop fighting right NOW” voter response) and letting the politically unengaged have no idea who’s actually doing the obstructing (and thus blaming Obama). In my opinion, the president has leaned too much toward the latter strategy — allowing too much of the general dissatisfaction to fall on himself — and is way past due on naming names. We are at a point at which he can and needs to be doing that.
dead existentialist
@jibeaux:
The preferred result is to hit the ball over the fence. The man hitting the fence would be the outfielder chasing a ball that he can’t catch.
With the Big O, we should stick to basketball metaphors. Let’s hope Barry drains the game-winner.
Tonal Crow
What? You campaign on the jobs, not on the side-effects of the mechanisms used to create them.
Obama ought to be calling for WPA times 10, then answer the inevitable deficit concern-trolling with “People who have jobs buy stuff and pay taxes — which cuts the deficit. And, just as the original WPA built the Hoover Dam, hundreds of water-treatment plants, and thousands of bridges and roads that we’re still using, WPA-10 will build power lines, wind farms, solar plants, and thousands of other projects that will benefit every one of us for the next 70 years.”
Dennis SGMM
@Brachiator:
Indeed. Brown is doing a stellar job and he’s facing, on a smaller scale, the same sort of obstacles that confront Obama. The difference is that Brown isn’t under the delusion that there’s a bi-partisan pony out there just waiting for the right lasso.
evinfuilt
This “smart analysis” sounds a lot like hippie punching. Where do I line up to smack myself in the head for wanting actual jobs and growth instead of a suicide pact.
shep
@FlipYrWhig:
Two choices, I think: 1) they are so invested in good policy (like all good liberals) they just can’t grok the politics or 2) they really have a clue what’s going on but choose to engage in some anti-bi-partisan kabuki themselves try to move the President in a more partisan direction.
FlipYrWhig
@AlphaLiberal:
IMHO he’s heavily invested in THE RHETORIC OF bipartisanship.
IMHO the public uses the idea of bipartisanship — which they consistently approve of in polling — as a proxy for “results.” Democrats and Republicans put their differences aside and achieved… results. It’s two sides of the same coin, described with slightly different lingo.
RP
This is such nonsense. The first thing he did was the stimulus, and that’s estimated to have created 2-4 million jobs. It probably saved us from an actual depression.
singfoom
@Tonal Crow: Wait, you want the government to hire on a ton of people to create/upgrade public infastructure?
Sounds a lot like the dreaded S word to me. If multiple people can benefit from it, then no one is making a profit. And if no one is making a profit, then it’s not American, goddammit.
/snark, obviously.
This 1000 times. We need a 21rst century WPA to upgrade our roads, our electrical grid, all of our infrastructure.
The Congress, it lurks, waiting to stop any progress like this.
rikryah
go for it, Mr. President.
go for it.
jibeaux
@cleek: You’re right. But the discussion is what he should say at a big jobs speech, televised, prime time, network TV, pre-empting the clown car side show, in front of a joint session of Congress. When he can actually get some press without folks having to go to an archive of speeches to read it, how should he make the most of that? I don’t think Flyp is arguing that he isn’t otherwise making the case for jobs legislation.
kay
@Dennis SGMM:
I agree with what you wrote, but I think it was a decision, and it was discussed. I remember hearing it. Should he drop the legislative agenda and focus on jobs? That was considered the “safe” political move.
I personally, for example, thought it was too risky to adopt such an ambitious agenda w/the economy tanking so badly, but I knew they were choosing: I saw the risk.
I don’t know about your final political analysis though: I’m afraid we’d be listening to “he didn’t get anything done”, “broken promises!” along with a (relatively) high unemployment rate.
People just don’t get credit for what didn’t happen. He wouldn’t get credit for “unemployment is under 12%!”, would he? They’d be saying 8 sucked, or 7 sucked, because they wouldn’t have seen 12.
What if he had a lackluster economy and no legislative achievements? Would that be any better, from a political view? I don’t know.
catclub
@AlphaLiberal: “Voters like it when pols stand up for what they believe, even if the voter disagrees with them.”
So THAT, was how Grayson was re-elected in a landslide.
Also Why Mondale’s truth telling in 1984 on taxes pushed him over the top.
MattR
@Elie:
Why would somebody let an unsourced claim by a random blog commenter alter their thinking? If I respond to cleek and tell him that he is wrong and that Obama has not done those things, will you start believeing me now instead? Or maybe does it have something to do with the fact that cleek’s unsourced assertions line up with your previously held opinion? (To be fair, it appears that cleek has made some effort to provide links but WordPress is being WordPress)
FlipYrWhig
@Tonal Crow:
The problem arises when the inevitable deficit concern-trolls also occupy key territory in the _Democratic_ party. The call is coming from inside the house!
Dennis SGMM
@RP:
Nonsense? Why did he not, when the stimulus failed to reduce joblessness to less than eight percent as he suggested it would, stay on the issue. The effect of those 2-4 million jobs you tout are eaten up by a few weeks’ of new UI filings.
WeeBey
Per Krugman:
Quite. And yes, this was what worried me about Obama from the beginning, way back in 2007-2008, when I got huge grief from progressives for criticizing him.
Someone, remind me, how did Obama do in that primary? In the subsequent election?
Facts and data, how do they fucking work?
cleek
@Elie:
i just assume everybody has pie filtered me. either that or they don’t want to let reality get in the way of their satisfying fantasy worlds.
Culture of Truth
Thanks for the reminder about Bobby Rush.
To me this statement is not obviously true, it is patently silly. It’s the worst, laziest kind of punditry.
No, you don’t have to win elections to opine on politics, nor do you have to have a Nobel prize to speak about economics. But if someone wrote a column saying Paul Krugman knows nothing about the subject and lives in an economic fantasy world, I’d like to know what their credentials were.
shortstop
@FlipYrWhig: Correct and hilarious.
Tomjones
@AlphaLiberal: Why are progressives so thin-skinned?
It’s like all the times the president has directly called out Republicans – like when he tore down Ryan’s plan to the man’s face – never happened because Rahm once hurt my feelings.
Tonal Crow
So what? The purpose is to hearten the country and to create public demand for WPA-10, and thus to begin to move the politicians in the right direction. While it would be nice to get WPA-10 enacted in one fell swoop, that’s impossible.
You keep misunderstanding the purpose of rhetoric. It is not restricted to advocating the immediate accomplishment of some goal. It is also (actually, primarily) a long-term project to set the playing field that you want, so that you can play the game that you want, so that you can eventually accomplish the goals that you want.
Marc
@AlphaLiberal:
There is nothing factual or reasonable in that Krugman quote. He’s a gifted economist and I learn a lot from reading him on economics. Just like you, he has an irrational hatred of Obama that causes him to interpret everything that Obama does in the worst possible light.
Thankfully, he recognizes that his platform imposes some responsibility on him – the responsibility not to aid the reactionaries. So he only lets his actual opinion of the President leak out on occasion, and is careful to put most of his energy against the most reactionary forces (the Republicans.)
But, no, I don’t think his incredibly negative psychoanalysis of Obama is remotely true, and find little useful in his political opinions (as opposed to his economic ones.)
cleek
@MattR:
unsourced? WTF? i keep sceraming that people should go read his actual fucking words. the things he really, ferreals, says in front of real people!
see obama dash speech dot org. (for some reason i can’t include that link in comments here). read some of his speeches. read his townhall speeches. read the 2011 SOTU.
John Puma
@Culture of Truth:
Krugman has a piece today in which he says Obama lives in a fantasy world and doesn’t understand politics or how Republicans really are, which is interesting because PK is an academic with a column and Obama has never lost an election.
singfoom
Well done is better than well said. I look forward to the speech. I look forward even more to the actions inspired and suggested by the speech.
jibeaux
@FlipYrWhig:
Funny, funny.
I wonder if that story will be updated so the babysitter finds out the murderer is in the house by tracking his smartphone through the GPS on her smartphone or something.
trollhattan
@Tomjones:
Or smacked down the Supremes re. Citizens United, in front of the Supremes? That there took a set o’ brass ones.
Also, too, loves me some Jerry: Resistance to taxes is like fear of STDs.
http://blogs.sacbee.com/capitolalertlatest/2011/08/jerry-brown-resistance-taxes-fear-stds.html
That’ll make some Republicans feel “all creepy.”
MattR
@Marc:
I have to say the same about your analysis of Krugman.
FlipYrWhig
@cleek:
Agreed. But it never hurts to do it again when it’s going to be covered as A Big Speech. And yet probably the same thing will happen that always happens, where he says something that trips the wrong wire with the blogosphere — like making an analogy between the US economy and a household — and that totally swamps everything else said in the speech, leading to the hue and cry and the gnashing of teeth and the whole thing.
Brachiator
@Dennis SGMM:
Just as Obama ain’t ultra progressive, no matter how much some whine about it, Obama also seems to be determined to operate as a consensus manager. He keeps asking the Democrats and Republicans to bring their best ideas, but then he will settle and try to work with whatever BS is brought to the table. And instead of proposing a set of policies that he expects Congress to act on, he instead insists on deferring to Congress, expecting them to take the lead with respect to legislation.
For good or ill, this seems to be who he is, and how he chooses to govern. Here, I am simply being descriptive, and leave it to others to judge the accuracy of my observation, and whether or not they think it works for Obama.
AlphaLiberal
@Culture of Truth:
You didn’t actually say anything of substance to counter the statement Krugman agreed with. Calling a statement “silly” is grade school.
Now, Krugman takes a different tack. To this question, he highlights the President’s refusal last December to include a raised debt ceiling in the passage of the Bush-Obama tax cuts.
See? He actually addressed the question of whether Obama “wishes to be president of a country that does not exist” in a substantive way! Try it!
Marc
@MattR:
I actually listen to Obama speeches, and the way they’re reported by the Obama-hating left bears no resemblance to what I actually hear. It’s infuriating – there is a contingent of so-called progressives who are basically just looking for things to distort.
If it’s about messaging, you’d think the relevant folks would be encouraged, or that they’d try to counteract Republican distortions about Obama. Instead they echo them.
cleek
@FlipYrWhig:
no doubt.
that will further confirm that the self-proclaimed liberal base is, for some reason, more interested in his failure than in his success.
too bad for all of us.
Marc
@MattR:
I’m rubber, you’re glue. You hate Obama, we get it.
Amir Khalid
@TheWorstPersonInTheWorld:
That’s not what “bully” in “bully pulpit” means. In President Theodore Roosevelt’s day it was a slang term expressing enthusiastic approval. You know, like “swell” or “jolly good”.
In my recollection, Obama has been saying some of the things you berate him for not saying. He did push through that first stimulus, as much of it as would get through the Democratic Congress. He did urge the public to call their Representatives and Senators during the debt ceiling crisis.
His consensus-seeking style might seem more appeasing toward Republican intransigence than you’d like. But are you so sure that confrontation, as satisfying as it might feel in the moment, would yield better results? Wouldn’t it just make it easier for Republicans to dismiss him as undignified and angry, and in return become all the more intransigent themselves?
AlphaLiberal
@trollhattan:
Agreed. I applauded that speech loudly.
And was saddened when he resumed his demands for action on the deficit while ignoring the jobs crisis that is crushing so many lives.
wrb
@Big Baby DougJ:
There are some stimulus measures that could gain Republican votes or would be very difficult for the Republicans to oppose, and damaging to them if they did so. However these same things are likely to result in such hysterical rending of garments cries of betrayal from the left, that I think they are pretty much foreclosed to Obama unless some voices on the left start supporting them and explaining why the constitute the least worst option.
Kenseyan theory is neutal as to the Rebublican/Democratic arguments about what types of stimulus are permissible. It holds that in a downturn you want to inject the money into the real economy. You can do it by hiring people, building stuff, cutting taxes, refinanceing citizens’ debt at lower rates or writing the people checks (drawn on money that you’ve borrowed at negative rates, at least now).
The first two are off the table, the last three would be very hard for the Republicans to oppose, especially if most Americans would be getting serious money. Tax cuts could be progressive, provided the middle class got enough to be unable to resist.
Whether a course so unconventional is worthwhile depends on how dire you think the situation is. I think it is very dire. I think chances are headed into a second dip. And not just a dip, when you enter a cascading failure you can’t know where the bottom is. The amount of foreclosed and about-to-be foreclosed real estate is a bomb of which Washington seems oblivious. Once people assume that property will be cheaper next month, once the deflationary exception is fixed, there is no bottom. And more and more properties go underwater. And more and more of the wealth of the middle class is extinguished.
Elie
@kay:
kay:
In the world of the permanent critics, there are no shades of gray decisions or decisions that may have uncertain results. Only WINS. I point out the Underpants gnome business model and tweak it to create – ta ta – the Leftie Smarty Pants Political Success and Perfection Model!
1. Propose x using the “bully pulpit”, call the Republicans BY NAME and call them names for blocking x
2. ??????????
3. The perfect progressive results with no down side, need for negotiation with the Republicans and a booming economy with 2% unemployment.
AlphaLiberal
@Marc:
I hate Obama? This is news to me!
Marc:
How old are you? I’m thinking 13 or 14 by the way you discuss things. You sling insults, misrepresent people and really don’t offer anything of substance.
Come back after puberty passes.
Marc
@AlphaLiberal:
Bullshit. What that Krugman quote is about is simple mindreading. Obama does things, and Krugman is projecting his incredibly negative mental image of what *motivates* Obama.
Obama could have been trying to lay a trap for Boehner, for instance. Whether it worked is another matter. But there are other approaches to politics than simply yelling that your opponents are evil and refusing to negotiate with them. The sniper brigade on the left just doesn’t appear to respect or understand them, that’s all.
Zifnab
@AlphaLiberal:
Might help if you add that he’s fat and ugly.
pamelabrown
@japa21: what an excellent comment. Please pass it on to anyone who might have the president’s ear.
P.S. The right, led by Limbaugh, is already freaking about the president stepping on their picayune debate.
FlipYrWhig
@Tonal Crow:
I don’t think it’s “primarily” that, but it certainly can be used for that. But what you’re describing is more like “framing” and “narrative,” IMHO, and the problem arises when your great presidential story comes into contact with petty, slippery, or just ideologically opposite politicians who don’t like your presidential story. And they don’t want it to happen, and act to stop it from happening. Then you run the risk of coming across as all talk, no action, and that’s damaging too, including to the prospects of eventually accomplishing your goals.
Marc
@AlphaLiberal:
Let’s see, from the thread above. You said
“Perhaps it would help the President if he imagines the Republicans are actually liberals. Then, we know, he and his Administration can get critical…
He’s embraced Tea Party economics and deficit fetishism while downplaying, overlooking and barely mentioning unemployment.
He has a lot of authority and power as President to take action in other ways, which he has not done.
If he took forceful action somewhere and then went all for the BS spewing, we’d get it. Absent that, we just see more of the same weak tea with real people in the real world suffering badly.
Obama has been spewing nonsense on the economy for a long time now!
We’ve had plenty of bullshit spewing from the bully pulpit and the jobs crisis continues. Real lives are being destroyed and we need out government to give a shit, starting with the President.
—————–
Are those the words you use to describe a politician that you like? Someone who doesn’t give a shit about people who are suffering?
if you don’t want people to think that you hate Obama, you might put a few seconds of thought into the words that you use to describe him.
wrb
@Jay B.:
Which is what, exactly?
Hold a candlelight vigel?
At which folk songs are perpetrated?
Or dress in pink and shriek?
AlphaLiberal
@Marc:
Who said he should do this? Not me!
That’s your strawman argument. When you use strawman arguments you are just debating yourself. It’s mental masturbation.
@Zifnab:
That would be talking his language, I guess.
MattR
@Marc:
Actually I don’t. If you dig through all of my comments that relate to Obama the most common theme is that I criticize those who make absurd blanket statements. The majority of them are probably directed at Obama supporters but that is simply because I find that most of the firebagger stuff is either already refuted by numerous others or it is so ridiculous or from a troll and merits no response.
But your comment is a perfect example of what I find quite common among the Obots. You are unable to differentiate between criticism (or disappointment) of the President’s actions and a personal dislike of the man and a desire for him to fail. In your world it is just not possible that I could like 80% of what Obama is doing and think he is a swell guy who I’d like to have dinner with and that he is faced with a daunting set of challenges and obstacles in his path and that he is a clear improvement over the alternative, but I could also be critical of decisions that I don’t like or complain that he could be more effective if he used a different tactic.
singfoom
Just for reference folks:
“I disagree with the actions this man has taken on xx, yy, zz” does not equal “I hate this man.”
Elie
@Marc:
To feel how bizarre it is, think of undertaking a high risk project at work where some of the team leads spend their time criticizing you rather than working to accomplish the goal and keeping everyone’s morale ready for hard work or high risk…
I am involved in a big campaign to stop a big, very lucrative coal project here in the Northwest. I cannot imagine one of the groups that I work with spending their time criticizing our various approaches and agreeing with our opposition that we donot know what we are doing and that the success of the project that our real opponents want, is no different than what we are working for..
Its crazy on its face and very very destructive and intended to undermine the morale and success of the progressive agenda. They seem to want President Perry or whatever jackass the Republicans end up nominating. Now that will make everything right..
FlipYrWhig
@Brachiator:
This feels true to me too, from a “process” standpoint: get everyone in a room, ask them to talk about what they want, then ask them to come up with ways they might get it, and shape that conversation without being dismissive of anyone who speaks up, even the obvious idiots and clowns.
Paul Krugman’s classroom probably sees a not dissimilar dynamic. I have a hard time imagining that he shoots down dumb questions as dumb and berates the questioner until he admits his own stupidity. He probably says things like, “Well, that’s one way to look at it, but what if we tried it like this?” And when he does that, another economics prof probably doesn’t leap out of his seat in the back and say, “Holy crap, Krugman, you just validated that kid’s idiotic worldview! What’s the matter with you?”
singfoom
@Elie: So, constructive criticism is a fantastical creature, like the unicorn?
Might one person on a project point out an approach that might be better? Does that mean that person is inherently hoping for the failure of the project?
How does that logic work, exactly?
MattR
@Elie:
There are a lot of people who feel the same way about Obama adopting right wing talking points about the deficit.
Tonal Crow
@FlipYrWhig: So strong Presidential advocacy has risks. What doesn’t? Muddling along with small-bore proposals (many of which also can’t immediately be enacted) has most of those risks, plus the risk (really, near-certainty) that Republicans will continue to set the playing field for whatever version of Calvinball they think will most hurt the country so as to make Americans maximally miserable when the elections roll around.
wrb
@Tonal Crow:
Great, but Roosevelt had huge congressional majorities. He could deliver. I’m convinced the election of 2012 will turn on the economy as it is then, not on what has been called for.
AlphaLiberal
@Marc:
Kane
Whether the proposal is BIG or small, it is predictable that the Republicans will oppose. Might as well go BIG and make the base happy, so long as President Obama can present it as a rational and bipartisan proposal. Then when the GOP opposes, they can be exposed for their obstruction.
dead existentialist
@Amir Khalid: That, my friend, was a bully comment!
Comrade Luke
Can’t believe no one’s mentioned the AT&T/T-Mobile merger being blocked.
A guy I went to college with said this on Facebook:
He works on Wall Street. Used to work for Goldman.
Culture of Truth
@AlphaLiberal:
Obama was won primaries and elections to the state senate, the U.S. Senate, won a grueling Presidential primary, and was elected the 44th President of the United States of America.
Obama may mistakes, he may be too quick to compromise, he may be too centrist, but the idea he is prone to fantasy and that the clear-eyed Martin Wolf of the Financial Times understands U.S. politics better than Barack Obama is demonstrably ridiculous.
Tomjones
@Brachiator: Yes, this analysis perfectly crystalizes how Obama managed to round up so many Republican votes for ACA, the stimulus, finacial reform, etc. Consensus.
Comrade Luke
@MattR:
When you take into consideration that many of the people here are “converted” Republicans, it all makes sense.
Elie
@Laertes:
gotta laugh at that comment… LOL!
wrb
@AlphaLiberal:
ok
No he hasn’t. Many seem to have huge difficulty in grasping the simple Keynesian concept that what is good policy in the long term is the OPPOSITE of what is good policy in the short term. Obama grasps this but it seems far too subtle for many.
He has made long term deficit reduction a priority, in an attempt to demonstrate that he should be given room for short term deficit spending, since he’s demonstrated that the potential resulting long-term problem is handled.
The Bobs
@gordon schumway: Lot’s of us so-called “hippies” are neither stupid nor unserious. Do you just throw that word at anyone you don’t like? Moron.
Tonal Crow
@wrb:
I largely disagree. Voters vote mostly upon what they feel, and only secondarily on objective reality. If it were otherwise, Republican officeholders would be an endangered species.
singfoom
@Comrade Luke: Well, if he worked for Goldman and he still works on the Street, that’s exactly what I would expect him to say.
The government stops business from doing something anti-competitive, that’s bad for crony business.
FlipYrWhig
@Tonal Crow:
Well, I like bold rhetoric as much as the next liberal, but I’m mostly interested in discussing what Team Obama might see as the merits of the not-so-bold approach — whether those are right or wrong. So I mean more to say “bold rhetoric might not create action” as opposed to “bold rhetoric is bad.” I like to talk about the parameters and restrictions that shape and/or distort what he decides to do, rather than what he “should” do, because most of us agree about that part, at least until the conversation turns to why he isn’t doing as much of what he should as would be ideal.
Tonal Crow
@Kane:
Strike “bipartisan” and you’ve got it right.
Elie
@Comrade Luke:
Ok — lets say that ALL your criticisms are heard and agreed to. Then what?
We show up at the White House with torches and pitch forks to get our Democratic President to do what we say or forcebly remove him, right? And then we pivot and vote for who? Then we send money to the republicans? We nominate Krugman by acclamation? We pull Franklin or Teddy Roosevelt from the grave and elect the one who is less decomposed?
El Tiburon
Yeah, for a fucking retard.
So, is the gist the Prez needs to say a lot of really cool shit, then we all go, “wow, cool shit, Obama is Da Man!”
All the while knowing he is just blowing smoke up our asses?
Is this right? Fuck Yglesias in the face.
wrb
@Tonal Crow:
people who have lost their jobs, homes, and/or wealth don’t feel good.
Most middle-class wealth was in homes.
Those who are 50 and face the prospect of never working again, yet have no savings, don’t feel good.
Those who graduated college four years ago and are living with their parents don’t feel good.
Those in their 40s who were skilled craftsmen and now support themselves cooking meth don’t feel good.
cat48
Maddow & Krugman could not get behind anything that “Obummer” touted b/c they both hate his guts….so doesn’t matter what he says…..can’t count on anyone w/TV Access besides sometimes ED & most of the time Tweety & Sharpton. Every other TV access person thinks they are morally & mentally superior to the prez. Oh, Martin Bashir has a tendency to give him a little respect too.
This is why liberals will never get anything they want from any president. They’re just sooooo perfect themselves & despise whomever the Dem prez happens to be at the time b/c they’re not perfect like them.
Elie
@MattR:
He’s the “project lead”, moron. YOU are not in charge. I didn’t vote you into office to carry out YOUR agenda. I don’t necessarily want to do it YOUR way. I want to support him doing it in REALITY — not MattR’s reality, but, you know, REAL reality.
lacp
@Elie: At this point it really doesn’t matter whether the president is a closet conservative or America’s Last Liberal. If he gives a speech asking that Congress pass legislation officially recognizing that the alphabet has 26 letters, the House would refuse and claim that it had 28. Anything big enough to really impact unemployment will require Congressional approval that he won’t get.
Tonal Crow
@wrb:
But people who have hope that their objectively-bad situations will improve feel a whole hell of a lot better than people who lack that hope. And a candidate who leads people to that hope will poll better than a candidate who does not, almost irrespective of her actual policy positions. This, again, is how Republicans get other-than-rich people to enthusiastically support them. They create the appealing fiction that any Joe Blow can become as rich as Bill Gates, if only they’ll vote for more tax cuts for billionaires.
Dennis SGMM
@Brachiator:
Good points. Despite being labeled a firebagger occasionally, I will go to my grave believing that Obama could have been a great president if the Republicans, and some Democrats, hadn’t turned the Congress into a machine for blocking his re-election at any cost. That Obama clings to the notion of bi-partisanship in this atmosphere suggests a stubborn will to hold on to a bad idea.
Elie
@cat48:
And so boys and girls, why would Obama lean more towards pleasing the independents and moderates rather than liberals? Why oh why? Hmmmmm. Is this really so hard? Hmm, I going to kick him in the knees over and over and he is going to:
a) listen to my point of view
b) be coerced into doing whatever I want even if it is illegal and not consistent with reality
c) ignore me or discount my opinions since I don’t support him anyway.
Derf
LOL….so Monday morning quarterbacking cup half empty opinions isn’t enough. Now you are trying to get ahead of the whine festival be pre-disappointed. Stay classy BJ fluffers.
Tomjones
@AlphaLiberal: You are aware that the deficit commission was charged with finding solutions for the long-term problem, aren’t you?
And not the immediate fiscal years 2012 and 2013 that the Tea Party is obsessed with?
And that most progressives do not object to addressing the long-term problem, ideally in conjunction with short-term stimulus?
singfoom
@Elie: Wouldn’t kicking Obama in the knees be assault?
I forget who on this board suggested we assault the President physically. It’s almost like this is a man made of straw.
kc
@Culture of Truth:
Yeah, that Krugman – he’s always wrong.
Elizabelle
@Tonal Crow:
Agree with Kane’s comment, and also agree that Obama should not look for “bipartisan” on this one.
Constituents all over the country are out of work.
If Obama and the Democrats come up with a good rational proposal, I think people will have their backs.
The message that Obama inherited this economy, that the Tea Party controls the Republicans, and that congressional Republicans want Obama to fail no matter how much collateral damage they do to Americans while making that happen —
that message keeps getting through, and you see it in polls, no matter how much the GOP and their media stenographers try to spin it.
Marc
@AlphaLiberal:
How do I falsify the claim that Obama doesn’t give a shit about the fate of the unemployed or the poor?
I could pull out quotes from Saint Krugman that the long-term debt is a problem too. I could pull out quotes from FDR or Reagan or Clinton that “supported” opposition ideologies. The online left critique is shallow because it insists that they and only they know the true intent of statements, and that literal and out-of-context readings of statements are the only approach.
Notice that I criticized your words, and indicated that they didn’t sound like the sort of language that an “Obama supporter and volunteer” would use. In fact, they sound like the sort of language that an *opponent* of Obama would use.
The projection about my age and maturity, by the way, isn’t scoring you any points.
Kane
@Tonal Crow:
Yesterday when President Obama was addressing the American Legion, one of the biggest applause lines was when he said, “Most of all, we have to break the gridlock in Washington that’s been preventing us from taking the action we need to get this economy moving.”
Although the far-left and the far-right have great disdain for such words as bipartisan and compromise, the bulk of the country continues to value such words.
wrb
@Tonal Crow:
I could see value in a portion of the speech that laid out
“This is what we would do if Republicans weren’t sure to block it:”
But I think the essential part would be the piviot to:
“However, we live in the real world, you live and suffer in the real world, and I’m going to get you the best deal I can, with the Republicans we’ve got.
This is what I demand: [list]
This is why they can’t oppose it without going against all in which they have ever said they believed:
[explanation]
If they stand in the way, if they stand in the way, it will demonstrate that they will even abandon their most dearly held principals rather than relieve your suffering, because they think that your suffering will bring them power. Are they that despicable, that un-American? I don’t know. I hope not. Watch them and see for yourself. Watch them”
Judas Escargot
@Laertes:
Same here. It’s a beautiful psyche-out.
I do agree that the content of the actual speech is all but irrelevant: MSM won’t report it honestly; even if they did, the turnips can’t understand any complex stimulus policy; and even if “the people” wanted change, the Congress wouldn’t pass anything useful anyway.
So this has to be all about the optics: “I gave a speech on jobs, and the GOP Congress wouldn’t even show up to listen. Fox news wouldn’t even air it.”
BTW Romney really needs to be seen out-debating Perry to get back those voters he’s been shedding– the fewer GOP debate viewers, the harder Romney’s job gets. I wonder if this is the proverbial anvil, thrown in Romney’s general direction.
Marc
@Dennis SGMM:
I think this is a bad, bad misreading of what he intends to do. He is going to use the Republican position on taxes against them over and over and over. This was made abundantly clear – they want tax breaks for billionaires, cuts for the rest of us, etc. etc.
Obama is very good at campaigning and we’re about to see the campaign kick off. I’d wait until after the 7th before pre-judging him.
kc
@Jay B.:
MattR
@Elie: Oh. He’s the project lead. That makes it worse, not better, that he is buying into and reinforcing our opponents message.
cat48
@Elie:
Yep, at least he has a chance with Independents & Moderates & old Liberals like me. I’ve watched this crap go on for years, Liberals beating up their own Team along with the GOP’s help.
wrb
@Tonal Crow:
But he’s not going to generate hope if he only proposes things that people know will only lead to his defeat and a President Perry.
“All talk and pretty words”
kay
@Elie:
I just think there would have been a huge uproar over abandoning the legislative agenda, and we don’t really know what would have happened there. I saw it as a trade-off. Am I shocked that the Obama Administration experts underestimated the extent of the (potential) unemployment? No, not really. There were economic predictions both ways, as I recall.
I’m temperamentally unsuited to hindsight analysis, so I should stay out of it. I’m alway impatient with it, because it’s delivered with such certainty. I just don’t buy these extended “if this, then THAT” type of hypotheticals in such a complex policy/political dynamic.
I think there’s more than a little chaos in the world :)
MattR
@Kane:
I agree with his assessment of the problem, but I don’t agree that more bipartisanship and compromise is the answer. Don’t assume everyone in the audience did as well.
Tonal Crow
@Kane:
There’s a “far-left” in America? Where? That aside, “break the deadlock” is, of course, going to get applause. But not necessarily because it appeals to some broad support for “bipartisanship” or “compromise”. Rather, it permits whoever hears it — liberal, moderate, conservative, or winger — to project her own wishes upon it. For the liberal, it means sweeping aside the endless Republican filibustering, etc. For the moderate, it may well mean the enactment of “bipartisan” polices. For the conservatives, it means bullying everyone from Steny Hoyer leftward into resigning. And for the wingers, it means that plus deporting them to Camp X-Ray.
Sly
We are all, to at least some extent, prisoners of experience. Krugman is an academic. Not a bad thing. But being an academic is not a political job. When he publishes a paper, he doesn’t have to first get the permission of scores of RBCers and Monetarists in the econ department who hate his guts and want to see him thrown out of Princeton, he doesn’t have to grease the palms of MMT folks for protection, and he doesn’t have to coordinate publishing strategy with other Keynesians.
The distance between a disaffected Progressive and Obama is the distance between an activist and a working politician: the two exist in different political spheres, speak different languages, see political strategy in different lights, etc. When the language barrier breaks down, people have a tendency to express the difference between victory or defeat in terms of willpower: “The only logical explanation for why you are not pursuing the exact strategy I am advocating is that you really don’t want to win and have been playing for the other team this whole time.” In American politics, this shit goes back to at least the first Adams administration.
Its like a political form of spite; as pathological and self-mutilating as the real thing, but twice as obnoxious.
Tonal Crow
@wrb:
And why, pray tell, will going big and proposing WPA-10 lead to that? Because the Republicans will dial up the hate-speech from 11 to 11.5?
Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony
@carolus:
And I say that if he does that, it will be shot down as ‘typical liberal’ solutions that are stale old ideas that argle bargle never worked argle bargle blah blah. Then the ‘liberal’ media will go right back to talking about deficit reduction and how cutting taxes creates jobs. You guys are totally delusional if you think the ‘overton window’ is going to get moved by one guy, instead of a large grassroots movement.
Thymezone
I don’t agree with your premise at all. So, seeing a proposed and rather modest adjustment to a Social Security COLA formula gets demagogued by everyone from Bernie Sanders to Rachel Maddow as “Slashing Social Security” even though such adjustments have been SOP for the program since its inception? Fuck, Doug, Democrats have been crying wolf over rhetorical and symbolic Scary Things for decades. It’s because doing that is easier than carefully and methodically making a case and backing it up with facts. Dems are just as lazy as their adversaries, which is why their adversaries can kick them around even though the Dems have the facts on their side.
Tomjones
@cat48: Al Gore’s 2000 election campaign heartily agrees with this.
Mnemosyne
@ 96:
Point of clarification – Brown is facing similar challenges to the ones Obama faced with the 2008 – 2010 Congress, not the current Congress. California’s legislature is overwhelmingly Democratic with a small rump of Republicans whose only source of leverage is that California’s constitution requires a 2/3rds majority for any vote that would raise taxes.
So Brown is basically in the position of trying to herd his majority to support things that can bypass the 2/3rds requirement. Sound familiar?
Tonal Crow
@Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony: One guy doesn’t move the Overton Window solely by himself, and certainly not with only one speech. But one guy, in a powerful position, and with sustained effort, can motivate enough others to significantly change the political playing field over time. Effective rhetoric is a long game.
wrb
@Tonal Crow:
No, because it won’t improve the economy by election day, and if all he fights for is the impossible, he will have demonstrated that he is ineffectual, and those who’ve suffered through the quixotic wanking would be well justified in throwing him out.
I think it would be good if he made such a proposal on the terms “this is what I think we should do, and this is what I would do, if it was possible to do it without Republican votes.”
However the important part is what he then pivots to: “this is what I can do, now.”
Making only the first proposal is like Churchill basing a war strategy on wishing away the panzers and the blitz, because only then do we get a truly glorious outcome.
Dennis SGMM
@Marc:
And then what? People who are long-term unemployed, people who have seen their home equity go negative, people who are 50 or over who have no hope whatsoever of finding a job are, in my opinion, less likely to respond to convoluted arguments about tax policy than they are to the prospect of gainful employment. The person, Perry, who promises jobs, jobs, jobs, is certainly full of shit. The fact that a drowning person will grab any piece of wreckage they can to stay afloat presages, to me, a defeat for Obama.
Comrade Luke
@Elie:
I’m not asking for all of my criticisms are heard or agreed with. I’m just saying that if you point out *something* about Obama you don’t like, the jackals come out in force.
Too many people operate with an On/Off switch, instead of a sliding scale. Even more importantly, they expect assume everyone else does too.
Tomjones
@Sly: POTD.
wrb
@Sly:
well said
Tonal Crow
@wrb: Again, I think you’re underestimating the persuasive power of hope, and overestimating the persuasive power of objective accomplishments. If objective accomplishments were as persuasive as you make out, Republicans would hardly ever be elected. Just look at what Dubya had accomplished by November, 2004.
Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony
@Tonal Crow:
The key word is ‘effective’. It can’t possibly be effective if it is continually undermined by BOTH SIDES. They have captured the media. Many of his speeches don’t even get coverage. When they do get coverage, there is a 24-7 assault against everything he says, either from the right (evil liberal Kenyan blah blah) or left (not pure enough!). NO ONE can be effective under those cicumstances. This is NOT going to change until you have a large grass roots movement in place that starts to dominate more and more of the conversation. People need to spend more time speaking and organizing and less time whining about the ‘overton window’.
Dennis SGMM
@Mnemosyne:
I stand corrected. Brown is also good at telling people where the cuts will occur and explaining how, and whom, they will hurt.
I’ll add as an aside that there’s no better sign that our two party monopoly has failed that California, despite the immense wealth that’s generated here, is under water.
Tonal Crow
@Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony: And Obama has an important role in cultivating those grass-roots.
wrb
@Tonal Crow: There is a great difference between accomplishments that are only recognized when you study long term trends, and pain in your life today. I don’t think, that without accomplishments, the calls you advocate will bring hope to any but the committed Keynesians. To the rest they will just be the pretty words of a guy who hasn’t delivered and who the the people on the tv say has the theory all.
So we should get behind those things he can deliver, and stop foreclosing from the left the possible.
But I also think that without action now, we face a not-insignificant chance of unemployment in the 12% to 20% range by election day. That colors my take.
Dennis SGMM
@Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony:
You’re seriously overestimating the power of Obama’s leftmost critics. One of his own spokesholes already discounted the opinions of the “professional left.” Obama is a centrist who doesn’t seem to be aware of the fact that the mythical center now resides in Reagan country. Every DFH in the country could clap louder for him and it won’t change the fact that he’s presiding over a failing economy beset by high unemployment. You can make all the excuses that you wish to for that, some of them are valid. The fact is that Obama’s presidency has accomplished little or nothing to reverse unemployment and the erosion of wealth for the middle and lower classes is telling and it will result in either voter apathy or wholesale rejection.
Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony
@Tonal Crow:
You have it exactly backwards. Obama has a minor role in organizing the grass roots. His job is to run the country. OUR job is to organize the grass roots and push the conversation. If people wait around for a leader to save them, they are going to die unsatisfied.
Brachiator
@Mnemosyne:
But the similarity is that by virtue of an old redistricting plan, the GOP accepted becoming a permanent minority in exchange for both sides getting safe seats. And for years, the budget has been balanced by gimmicks as both the California GOP and the Democrats were content to play politics than get stuff done. And the Governator was able to get a “balanced” budget by getting 3 Republicans to cross over. Since then, even though the budget was crap, the GOP have retreated into a hard opposition stance, similar to what is happening now in the federal Congress.
In this background, Jerry Brown decisively kicked Meg Whitman to the curb in part by promising not to become an automatic knee-jerk member of the Democratic side, and to try for hard bargains recognizing the severity of California’s budget problems.
And so, even though California has an unemployment rate hovering around 12 per cent, and the budget is falling apart, there is a perception among the people I overheard talking politics, that Jerry Brown, unlike the State legislature, is not just playing games or trying to conduct business as usual despite the tough economy.
This may not be exactly the same as Obama’s challenges, but it is in the same ballpark.
I also like the little Obama connection that I mentioned before about Brown nominating UC Berkeley law professor Goodwin Liu to the California Supreme Court, a man the GOP rejected when Obama tried to appoint him to the US Court of Appeals.
Marc
@Dennis SGMM:
It’s not convoluted at all. “These guys want to cut programs that help you, and they’re unwilling to do anything at all to the rich” is pretty damn powerful. And it speaks directly to what you were mentioning – that Obama is “too bipartisan” to confront the republicans on anything.
It’s not clear to me that we could have done anything to dent the unemployment rate in 2009 – we spent an enormous sum of money. Would a bit more really have changed the fundamentals?
Tonal Crow
@Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony: You’ve got it almost exactly backwards. While the grassroots *should* ideally organize themselves, most people most of the time “wait around for a leader to save them”. Obama must become that leader, unless he would prefer Rick Perry to do so.
buermann
Wouldn’t he actually need to propose something in a speech that would actually work, first, before we can denounce the mean things Krugman and Madow haven’t said?
For that matter, it wouldn’t need to be bromides. He could just take 25 minutes to explain why a weaker dollar would be a good thing for everybody that isn’t a bank, and 5 minutes announcing that he’s directed the Treasury to take the necessary measures. There’s a great opportunity for a long string of the on-the-one-hand-on-the-otherisms that his speech writers love so much. It’s also something he should have done back when trade deficits rose back to their pre-crash highs, except that it would hurt the only constituency he appears to care about.
Marc
@Dennis SGMM:
To the extent that critics of Obama have power, it appears to be being influenced in a destructive fashion. In other words, incessant criticism of Obama from all sides helps his opponents.
I’ve never understood the response of “we’re weak and useless, and thus not responsible for the consequences of our actions.”
Reflexive and continuous attacks on the president and his supporters by people who are supposed to be in his corner hurt him politically, and in the system that we have this helps his enemies on the right.
Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony
@Dennis SGMM:
I said that everything he says and does is being ripped apart by BOTH SIDES, not just the left. It is the collective assault on all sides that makes it impossible to craft and pass effective policy. Right now, all the media and the massive rightwing apparatus care about is deficit reduction. Every time he has tried to change the conversation, it has been ignored. Every time he has tried to participate in the conversation to steer it in a more rational direction, he has been assaulted by the right AND the left. You can’t get anything done, unless you get a consensus. Frankly, no one but Obama and some lone moderates are even interested in a consensus. The left and the right are only interested in ripping each other apart. That doesn’t move the ‘overton window’. It just poisons everything.
Maude
@Comrade Luke:
And the Republicans operate with a dimmer switch.
Elie
@kay:
I share your temperament and inability for such certainty.
My original profession was nursing. Certainty in outcomes is just not part of the psychological landscape assumptions. You work to help people have their bodies heal or stay well. There is always uncertainty and the need for ongoing support or trying new things if it looks like you fell short on a particular outcome. But its always iterative and always about learning.
It galls me that the left liberals with whose policies I would generally support seem cognitively unable to pragmatically work for what we want without so much negative second guessing and destructive one upmanship. Its apalling. I thought they were smarter than the right, but now I really do not see that at all.
Duckest Fuckingway: Ask not for whom the Duck Fucks. . .
Good God! David Broder has risen from the dead and now posts as a Juicebagger!
Head for the hills!
Elie
@Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony:
Yay! Best and truest comment I have read. But sad…true but very very sad.
Tonal Crow
@Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony: Sorry to go meta, but perpetuating the “both sides do it” meme just helps the Republicans.
Tonal Crow
@Duckest Fuckingway: Ask not for whom the Duck Fucks. . .: Or David Brooks has cloned himself.
Jay B.
@wrb:
Which is what, exactly?
Hold a candlelight vigel?
At which folk songs are perpetrated?
Or dress in pink and shriek?
So…Obama shouldn’t talk about what the Democrats would do and Republicans won’t?
See, there are these things called “communications” and if used effectively, like minded people might, say, “strategize” on how best to capitalize collectively because of them. One good way of doing this would be to set an agenda which people might rally to, if they were so inclined, to deliver on said agenda using said communication devices. Presumably a case where the President worked with other “leaders” in his party might be able to map out a path (using “communications”) to show persuadable people what they actually might do if others’ don’t. Some say these are the things politics, political parties and political movements are made of.
SO, if the Democrats are a party beyond nominal, they might have SOME (not all!) shared goals — maybe even lower unemployment. And might seek to separate their approach with their political opponents. I know, it’s FUCKING CRAZY AND TOTALLY UNREALISTIC.
Instead, I’m hoping that Obama can talk about family budgets, shared sacrifices and continued payroll tax holidays. That’ll get ’em goin!
If you guys and the President really think anyone cares about the deficit then we’ll get the government we richly deserve, but hard. Or Democrats can present a bold alternative. Either way.
Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony
@Tonal Crow:
While the grassroots should ideally organize themselves, most people most of the time “wait around for a leader to save them”
That isn’t what the right did after Barry Goldwater went down in flames. They built up the grassroots and developed hundreds of minor leaders and spokespeople: Schlafely, Buchanan, LaHaye, Buckley, Limbaugh, etc. Reagan didn’t come out of nowhere and lead them to Zion. Reagan was the product of 20 years of effort and building momentum by these conservatives. It took them decades, but they built up this massive publishing, media, etc machine. That is why they are winning, and why liberals are failing. While you are sitting on your thumbs waiting for salvation, they built the miserable world we live in today.
Brachiator
@Dennis SGMM:
I agree with you here that Obama’s message has to be simple and clear. But I don’t think it has to be full of promises in order to counter the GOP.
Here the question is how many people are desperate for anything, and how many people want to be told something like the truth, even if it is painful, but hopeful.
A L
And yet, there are large swaths of the left that still support Obama.
Elie
@MattR:
One of the most powerful techniques is coopting your opponents tricks, techniques and messages and using them successfully. Saint Bill Clinton did it regularly. Screwed progressive policy a bit as well…
Oh well, THAT was different!
Tonal Crow
@Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony: You’re arguing a strawman. Far from disputing the need for grassroots activism, I wholeheartedly endorse it…and even do it myself. But most people don’t — and most people won’t. Most people need a leader. And if Obama won’t be that leader, Rick Perry, Michelle Bachmann, or worse will be overjoyed to take the scepter and bang it for all it’s worth.
MattR
@Elie: Is it a powerful technique or does it screw over the desired policies? And if I saw that Clinton tried it and screwed progressive policy as a result, shouldn’t I be speaking up now to prevent a repeat performance? Or is the message that once a Democrat tries something that strategy must forever be embraced regardless of its effectiveness?
Sounds like you are saying that it can be powerful but it can also be dangerous and while Bill Clinton screwed it up, THIS is different!
TheWorstPersonInTheWorld
@Amir Khalid:
Thanks for that bit of history/information; and I stand corrected. I was not aware of that. I’m thinking most people currently make the same mistake I did though, don’t you. And actually, I’m ok with the idea of the Bully Pulpit as a place from which to cajole the unwilling into doing the right thing.
Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony
@Tonal Crow:
From liberals on this site and on many others, Obama is continually critized, with some folks actively stating they will never support him. It isn’t a meme or Broderism if it is simply true. DEMOCRATS overwhelmingly support Obama. Chunks of the far left not only don’t support him, they actively work to undermine him. This is something they share with their rightwing bretheren, and which their rightwing bretheren luv to point out to support their Obama hate.
Firebaggers and wingers sitting in a tree.
K I S S I N G
A L
@Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony: THe Most IMportant Thing in the World is that Democrats win.
Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony
@Tonal Crow:
What I dispute is the idea that people need A leader. They need LEADERS. They need them locally, regionally, and nationally. One leader is never going to be enough and isn’t going to be effective. That isn’t a strawman. That is a fact. We have a failure of leadership broadly. It doesn’t start at the top, and then trickle down. Leaders have to be built up, starting from the bottom. They have to be developed and seasoned, until they are in place at every level. That kind of structure is in place for Democrats, but most Democrats are not liberals. They are a broad based coalition. They are not that unified.
FlipYrWhig
@Jay B.: Democrats don’t agree on how to go about lowering unemployment. Some of them want to do Keynesian things, and some of them don’t. Some of them want to spend a lot of money on doing stuff, and some of them don’t want to do anything like that because it will add to the deficit. Some of them want to cut taxes and regulations and unleash private enterprise, like Republicans, because they’re basically Republicans in Democratic clothing. What all sides do agree on tends to be small-bore technowankery. When Obama talks about those, critics fume and stomp around because it isn’t enough. Well, true, but that’s what they actually agree on. If they all agreed on something big, bold and comprehensive, they’d try it. But they don’t. So here we are.
It seems to me that you’re confident that Obama’s talking about something big would, or at least could, galvanize support and shift the terrain. I think conservative Democrats aren’t as persuadable as that, and that they really don’t believe in big liberal solutions to The Jobs Issue, no matter how Obama makes the case in public or in private. So he could do it, for the sake of establishing the rhetorical climate, but doing so wouldn’t bring it–i.e., tangible economic recovery–any closer to happening. It might be gratifying in its own right. I just don’t think much of it as a prescription for (legislative) action.
Tonal Crow
@Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony: Does every conversation on this site have to degenerate into a fight about Jane Hamster?
singfoom
@Elie: @Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony:
Pointless criticism is a bad thing. However, one should not walk lockstep with someone if you disagree with some of their tactics and or policies. If one chooses to criticize someone who they agree with 80% of the time, this does not make them a “Firebagger”.
Perhaps you both would prefer not to hear criticism of President Obama and this administration. I can understand that, he’s bombarded from the right all the time with lies and bullshit.
Sorry if the criticism offends you, but please, realize that some of us are criticizing the administration because we know it could be better, and not because of some reflexive hate.
harlana
I don’t think Obama is necessarily suited to the bully pulpit, but what else does he have at this point? I mean, seriously.
Tonal Crow
@Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony: Once again, you’re ignoring that fact that the ideal that you want (and that I want) by and large does not exist. You’re also ignoring the fact that a national figure who embraces the role of “The” leader will attract many followers. Are you really saying that Obama *should* cede that role to Rick Perry? Because the role ain’t going to disappear just because its most-logical occupant refuses it.
NobodySpecial
@Culture of Truth: Um, yeah, Obama HAS lost an election. Got his clock cleaned, as a matter of fact. You might try some of that reality based factchecking.
harlana
@Jay B.:
stop criticizing the president!
Chuck Butcher
In regards to actual concrete policy enactment this speech is as relevant as a discussion of the weather, or less. This speech is about politics and propaganda (advertising if you will). There are lots of ways to put money into the economy, some suck, but will do it. If the Prez proposed a massive tax slash it couldn’t happen without a killing offset like ending Medicaide.
This is about audience approval and who that audience is. You could reasonably assume that the speech is aimed at “swing” voters, the moderates some around here claim to be. It certainly isn’t about legislation that will have any chance of passing.
What the targeted audience wants to hear is the question. Since the fight in this nation seems to be over a slow road to hell and a quick route I’ll leave the answers to those who figure that’s meaningful. Try to keep in mind that 2010 was a whole two years after 2008…
It certainly isn’t the Pres’ fault that the Democratic Party is what it is, he is however its leader – not Debbie.
Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony
@Tonal Crow:
No. It does exist. It just exists on the other side. It is valid to critize our side for not learning from and following that model. By this, I don’t mean reflexive authoritarianism. I mean effective grass roots organizing with a mass of leadership coming from media, think tanks, churches, and politics.
Why do you think we have failed to learn from this? I think the energy is out there. It is just being misspent.
Chuck Butcher
@Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony:
Holy shit, there are real good reasons it exists there and not here if you use that thing on your shoulders for a fucking second. You might start out with the concept that the grassroutes you’re on about were aimed at shoving and criticizing their own side. You could go ahead and take a look at institutionalized support – ummm, churches, etc. You could look at the idea that hate and contempt are a lot easier to mobilize than actual thinking.
Well, maybe you couldn’t…
Chuck Butcher
@Chuck Butcher:
Aghhh, I actually let myself bother with this shit…
MattR
@Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony:
IMO these two things are intricately related. You will not be able to build successful grass roots organizations like you want when those groups are telling liberals not to criticize national leaders that they disagree with. (Also related to this is that liberals are much more likely to demand proof than to accept things on faith)
Duckest Fuckingway: Ask not for whom the Duck Fucks. . .
Chuck, don’t waste your time with the ‘Once and Future Republicans’ that infest this place. As soon as the GOP gets a hair less batshit insane, they’ll scurry back under the fridge.
Elie
@MattR:
Like every technique or strategy, “triangulation” or adopting the memes of your opponent can be dangerous.
Look, I do not advocate triangulation or such strategies per se, but we are in a real world here. Would you rather a purist right winger be dictating (which is what they do), or would you dream of a consensus building leader — politician yes, but one who believes in the roles of each of the components – the executive, legislative and courts? We do not have a monarchy and yet comenters like Tonal crow use the imagery of a monarchy — banging the scepter, as it were.
Do you even midly acknowledge that constant criticism from the left is probably doing at least some damage to Obama’s ability to negotiate with the right? If he can’t count on his backside holding, he can’t take risks in that direction — don’t you see that?
There have been gazillion commenters who have made many very effective and wise comments about the impact of the constant criticism without any praise or acknowledgement of success. Most have said it better than I.
You undermine the very thing you say that you want — a leader who believes in representative government and achieving consensus from those who are governed. That is what we have. If you want folks at home to want more policy from the left, you had better stop beating up on the administration that is trying very hard to have government work. As long as everyone has the idea that its government that is broken and that all the controversy underscores its inability, then we will be stuck with right leaning policies that count on the private sector.
I have to add this: I think that there is an interest in having Obama unable to move to the left and by planting so called lefties to publicly criticize and castigate his every move. This does two things: 1) it frees the right to be butt fuck crazy and capture the racist vote while minimizing the power and influence of the new demographics and 2) it makes it virtually impossible for Obama to move to the left since it makes those relationships highly contentious and the sheer crazy need for perfection pretty much nails him to the middle.
Not saying all of you are ratfuckers, and I have no way of knowing who is or isn’t, but a fair number of you are. That is the only thing that explains it and how this shit helps keep the right wing dominant in this country.
Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony
@Chuck Butcher:
Chuck, if you think that is ALL they are about, then you haven’t spent any time learning from the other side and you will not be effective in changing peoples minds. There are good people working on the other side who are not motivated by hate. You have to be able to understand how that is possible to be able to change peoples minds.
We have had very effective organizing around single issues. The gay rights movement has slowly worked and built and developed leaders since the 1960’s. Despite being a tiny minority, we have radically changed the conversation. We are winning, and we did that without having some big single charismatic national leader.
But when it comes to economic issues and the proper role of government, liberals are losing and losing badly. That HAS to change. That is going to take a lot more than Obama.
Tonal Crow
If you think I’m advocating dictatorship, you need remedial reading lessons.
As for the rest, it’s all but to make a mountain of a Hamster-hill.
MattR
@Elie:
Is that potential damage more or less than the potential help that it provides by making him seem like a reasonable compromiser who is bucking his base?
Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony
@MattR:
I think that depends on HOW you criticize. The response to a weak bill should be, ‘This is a fine first step. It got us 10% toward the goal. Next, we need to get something in place that will move us another 20%. I will work toward that and I will continue to support politician X’s efforts toward that goal.’ I hate to point this out, but that is what most anti-abortion people do. Slowly, steadily, and patiently, they have been dismantling a woman’s right to chose.
The response of too many liberals is to simply rip into their leadership. Few carrots. Mostly sticks.
Elie
@Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony:
sing it again sister… as you have been saying — its not happening at the grassroots where the demand for this political awareness and activism must begin.
I have been trying to use the enviro issues and impact on jobs and our local economy here — to tie together that average folks are exploited, their jobs lost and property devalued by business interests and decisions that they can control to a greater extent than they realize, at the ballot box. Folks have to be educated to the connections and they just are not, looking at issues in stove pipes instead of how these issues feed off of each other.
Its like screaming into the wind and so many of our Democratic party folks are blind deaf and dumb, but the people are not.
I wish so much that some of the whiny lefties would join people like me in helping to wake people up to the facts and to their own power instead of sitting on their asses waiting for Big Bro to fix it for them and make it all right.
This all takes enormous work and awareness. We need your help lefties — in the right place — down here at home, in your home districts, working the landscape and getting people to awaken. Pushing Obama around is just a waste of time and it won’t work to do what you SAY you want (to the extent that I believe that)
FlipYrWhig
@Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony: Agreed. If more of the criticism of Obama took the form “A step in the right direction, but we still need more,” or even, “I’m disappointed, because we still need more,” rather than “He sure fucked that one up royal” and “He sure fucked that one up royal because he doesn’t even care enough to try harder,” it would be millions of times more productive.
MattR
@Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony: Part of how we criticize is dependent on how something is presented to us. When a bill gets us 10% of the way to a goal and is presented as an earth-shattering revolution that will change things forever (yes that is a bit of hyperbole), it is reasonable to point out that it is not as huge an accomplishment as it is made out to be and that there is plenty more work to be done. (PPACA and the stimulus are two examples that pop to mind)
Elie
@MattR:
I think that you and tonal just want your own boi…jumping through the hoops you dictate rather than what the populace wants. You don’t seem to “get” democracy in any real way. Its only about you to the extent that what you want is supported by the populace. You want more lefty policies? Get off your arses and go make it happen. You are just too lazy to do that and want to hire someone at the ballot box to make it easy for you. I bet neither of you would know how to organize a trip to the grocery store.
MattR
@Elie:
Says the person trying to silence dissent.
Nope. I want a leader who will, get this, lead the populace to the right answer not just succumb to the will of the majority.
@FlipYrWhig: Good point.
Not to go all Broder, but there are times when both sides do in fact do it.
FlipYrWhig
@MattR: But the much more likely praise is something on the order of “Pretty solid _under the circumstances_” rather than “Breathtakingly revolutionary, for which we should all be thankful.” And the much more likely criticism is “Total capitulation by a total wuss and corporatist hack” rather than “Not so fast, there’s plenty more work to be done.” YMMV.
Tonal Crow
@Elie: Have some pie. With cheese.
Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony
@MattR:
EVERY victory, no matter how small, should be celebrated. Who cares if tiny victories are inflated by the politicians? If that helps them at the ballot box, then how does that hurt us? We still won that battle. We want to win a whole lot more. If we smack them down for the exageration, does that help? No. It just pisses on the victory parade.
Elie
@MattR:
Why is it reasonable to point out before you sing the praises of the accomplishment? If I did that after ten years of salmon restoration effort and 20 fish, everyone in my group would quit in horrible depression and wonder why they spent so much time on the effort!
Or how about this example. I summitted Mt Baker at almost 11,000 ft. It would have been really great if our guide told me, “well, that wasnt anything”. You won’t really have done anything unless you can climb Rainier!”, as I look down at my blistered feet and sore legs.
Yeah, like I said, you couldnt organize a successful trip to the grocery store.
Elie
@Tonal Crow:
Same to you…
At least I know how to buy the ingredients and how to make pie.
MattR
@Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony:
That is exactly how you lose the war.
Look at the stimulus as a quick example. Obama and the administration completely oversold the results, especially since the Republicans watered it down. As a result there is a whole lot more doubt among the average American about whether the stimulus actually helped and whether similar policies can be helpful in the future.
@Elie: If after those 20 fish, you said “we have solved the salmon crisis” what effect would that have had on your group when they realized that there was actually more work to be done? Celebrating achievements and milestones is a good thing but only when done realistically.
FlipYrWhig
@Elie: It would’ve been _30_ fish if you had used the Bully Fish Ladder.
Elie
@MattR:
Such weak sauce — I am trying to “silence” your dissent. New flash — I don’t control you or your dissent. You are commenting voluntarily and I am responding to your comments.
I am trying to encourage you to be coherent and effective in your dissent! Why? Who are you trying to influence by blogging here? Presumably me or people like me, or why bother, right? Or are you just fluffing yourself? (bingo)
Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony
@MattR:
And if the gays had waited for a national leader to lead the public to the right answer, we’d still be jailed for the crime of going out to a gay or lesbian bar. Being outed would mean the total destruction of our work and family lives, if we managed to escape being beaten to death.
I think that approach will fail you.
Jay B.
There will be no substantive legislative action. If there is, we’ve seen time and time again with the idiotic psychodrama, it’ll be either slyly ineffectual (as is your take on what Obama has done to date with the GOP house majority) or it will be spectacularly dumb (which is the GOP way). We’ve been told over and over again that he’s pretty helpless with Congress. And that, really, the GOP holds all the cards because they run one half of the Legislative Branch — so what’s the point of proposing some half-measure that’s doomed to fail anyway?
If he is truly a centrist (which you don’t believe, but plenty of others here do), then we’re fucked because this IS his policy. If he’s a quiet progressive who uses GOP rhetoric in advance of progressive goals, then it’s past time to stop that and come out and articulate a better policy.
I know it’s terribly impolite to hold the GOP responsible and asking the voters to do the same. And I know it’s horrid to call out Democrats who are useless anyway (even behind doors, evidently), but it’s time to name names. He was on the right track with the Ryan Plan, which he then abandoned because he had to either lie about putting entitlements on the table or actually try and negotiate them away to break the debt deal impasse — but it was a big winner for Democrats.
The same thing can work now.
That is, if he believes in actually making the case. I’m unsure.
Elie
@FlipYrWhig:
LOL!!!!
Damn — so right!
Elie
@MattR:
but I didnt say that (talk about strawman). And Obama has not said that every thing is solved with the passage of any legislation or initiative started.
Your point is almost too lame to comment on..
MattR
@Elie: I am not the one telling others how democracy is suppose to work. And yes, it is a form of silencing dissent when you claim that it hurts the cause and that people who do it are either unhelpful idiots or ratfuckers.
@Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony: I am not saying that anyone should wait for a leader to lead. But I am saying that it would be nice if the person in the best position to do so, did so. Instead of listening to the populace as Elie suggested.
@Elie:
Obviously you did not say that. It was a bit of an exaggeration, but it was intended to make the point that overselling your accomplishments can have equally negative consequences as underselling them. No, Obama has not stated that things are solved with any piece of legislation, but he has greatly oversold what various pieces of legislation will/would do.
Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony
@MattR:
Did you not read the comment before that, when I stated how to effectively criticize? You celebrate, and after the party is over, you go, ‘OK. NEXT! Now we work on getting this far toward the goal.’ You don’t lose the war that way, silly. You get people excited about the next victory. I know this is why gay people have been so successful at fighting for our rights. The emo gays never survived their teens. The ones came through that Hell wanted to LIVE. We managed to make fighting for our rights FUN. Hello, pride parade? Back in the day, participation could get you killed. But people had a fantastic time flaunting death.
Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony
@FlipYrWhig:
Awesome!
wrb
@Chuck Butcher:
What convenient fatalism. And yet he can propose WPA x 10 without a killing offset like ending Medicaide?
Transparent.
Thymezone
@Elie:
Loved this comment. After twenty years or so of the intertube wars (usenet, and then its bastard children) … I am certain of only a couple of things. One of those is that whenever you see a commenter saying that some other commenter is trying to “silence” them …. you are looking at a loser, a person with no argument to make, and a fairly easy target to reduce to a flaming pile of rubble at every turn. Once they say that sort of thing, you own them.
Once you have somebody claiming that your opposition to their view is somehow an attack or an act of “silencing” or suppression or censorship, or any of that whole list of bullshit complaints … such as “sexist” labeling because a male is slamming a female, or “bigot” if a straight is slamming a gay, or “anti-semite” if a non Jew is slamming a Jew or a jewish organization or nation … or anything that places the respondent into a victim role … you have won the exchange, and you should act accordingly. Put your foot on their neck and tell them to say Uncle, because they are powerless before you at that point.
I normally charge for advice like this but I got such a chuckle out of this exchange, I am giving it to you for free, out of the goodness of my flinty heart.
Elie
@MattR:
Well what should I say if I believe and all evidence points to the fact that you ARE hurting!?
Listen, if you and I were on a team trying to do something and you communicated to me in a way that I thought hurt me or hurt what we were trying to do, I would tell you “stop it, you are hurting me or us or it and this is why”. If you kept doing it I would tell you again but after a while I would become angry and inpatient.
You guys keep dissing your team and we keep telling you “well, MattR, what you are doing I am not understanding and its keeping us from being/doing x the right way and building on our momentum. You keep telling me that what I think is not important, but you want me to listen and value what YOU say.
Nope. Not doing it. You indeed are trying to crush our energy to help this administration make our (read MY) life better. That pisses me off since you do not have a) an alternative that is real time gonna work and 2) are undermining us and making his/our REAL enemies (or at least my enemies), more empowered.
YOU are enabling and empowering the people who will FOR REAL and ON PURPOSE squelch your dissent.
Jay B.
@FlipYrWhig:
That would have gotten us our ponies for sure! Most of you can’t stand the force of a Krugman column, and he’s generally polite. Still people on this thread said Krugman is blinded by hate of Obama. It’s like the last days of a fucking cult.
People have, from the start, said exactly what you permit as criticism about Obama. All you’ve (or people like you) said in return is that it’s the best he could do and said we were naive idiots for wanting better.
And yes, sometimes people got pissed, because they cared about outcomes, not process. When you see a health care bill that doesn’t do a hell of a lot to address costs, it is begging for more. When you see a stimulus proposal that’s not nearly enough, you say you are disappointed and that it’s fucking crazy not to ask for more. When financial regulation doesn’t address the central problems that caused the economic meltdown to begin with — that’s not enough either! Civil liberties, the Bush tax cut expiration, job bills — either not nearly enough or nothing at all. I’m so gosh darn disappointed. We are still in Iraq and are dug in seemingly forever in Afghanistan. Darn!
If only we opposed those things with more regret in our voice.
FlipYrWhig
@Jay B.:
Well, that’s the whole issue. If Obama has been holding out hope that it’s possible to community-organize his way into Republicans agreeing that _something_ has to be done to jumpstart the economy, at the cost of signing off on Republican policies (e.g., by backdooring an inefficient stimulus via tax breaks and other incentives), then it wouldn’t be a good idea to get in Republicans’ faces, because then he won’t even get that weak sauce.
If he has given up on that, then the downside of confrontational rhetoric largely disappears, IMHO. Basically, a battle about talk and symbolism should be heated and combative, but an effort to patch together majorities is ill-served by heat and combat. And we keep getting confused about what he’s trying to _do_ with the rhetoric he uses. Sometimes it’s trying to coax stray cats into coming up to him, and sometimes it’s trying to scare away crows.
MattR
@Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony: And I pretty much said the same thing:”it is reasonable to point out that it is not as huge an accomplishment as it is made out to be and that there is plenty more work to be done.” In case it was not clear enough, you still point out that it was an accomplishment. But you celebrate it for the accomplishment that it is and not for the accomplishment you wish that it could be. Unfortunately, the Obama administration celebrates minor skirmishes like they were major battles.
@Elie:
Say whatever you want. Just don’t pretend that you are not trying to silence me.
I can make the same baseless assertion about you.
@Thymezone: Actually, I don’t give a crap about whether or not she is trying to silence me. I just found it ironic that she was lecturing me about democracy while telling me to stifle my dissent (do you prefer that word?)
Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony
@MattR:
The person in the best position to be a standard bearer for liberalism is not the president. He was elected by the majority of the country to serve the entire country. Plus, I think Obama is a moderate. I don’t think he is that liberal. Pelosi is a much better standard bearer for liberalism. And, she is just awesome in general.
FlipYrWhig
@Jay B.: One option might be to be consistently really obnoxious and hectoring until I, or people like me, stop feeling like having a substantive discussion, then complain about how I, or people like me, keep being obnoxious to you. But I see you’re already there.
Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony
@Elie:
This!
MattR
@Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony:
I am not even asking him to be a standard bearer for liberalism. I am asking him not to be the standard bearer for inaccurate, right wing BS.
IMO, the best way to serve the country is to try and lead them to correct decisions instead of blindly following what the majority want.
Agreed, agreed and agreed.
Elie
@Thymezone:
Thanks!
That “stiffling dissent” stuff always sends me around the bend.
There are real situation where that happens, but this aint one of them.
I also hate the lack of acknowledgement of any truth in someone’s comment…
I think they think that people like me just think Obama is right all the time. Not so… he is not…has made mistakes, I would like him to be x and y at some points. But fair is fair and we have a shot to get a bunch of good things done — in fact, have gotten some good, but not perfect things accomplished.
Its hard work to be a progressive in this country. We can’t have an ounce of energy, momentum or even a little joy to waste on this kind of demoralizing self knee capping…
FlipYrWhig
@Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony: Even Pelosi has to hammer out agreements with her caucus, which when it was a majority included a lot of conservatives who pulled a lot of nonsense (e.g. Mike Ross and Bart Stupak). But the blogosphere by and large doesn’t fault her for working with them. They don’t cut Obama the same slack.
Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony
@MattR:
Um no. She was appropriately criticizing your tactics. Just like I have.
As I said earlier, I think it is fine for politicians to exagerate their victories, as long as they don’t stop at one victory. So, we aren’t in agreement (except about Pelosi, and her transparent awesomeness).
harlana
delete–oops! carry on, sorreh, wrong thread
MattR
@Elie:
That is a two-way street
@Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony: Follow the comment chain all the way. She was telling me I don’t get democracy while at the same time telling what types of dissent are acceptable to her.
I would argue that she does not get democracy if she believes that.(EDIT: Let’s just say I find that to be humorous and ironic)Elie
@FlipYrWhig:
Uh-huhn…. you got that right…
Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony
@FlipYrWhig:
Absolutely. There is a definite double standard where Obama is concerned.
Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony
Gotta go. Its been fun.
MattR
@FlipYrWhig: Could that be related to the fact that Pelosi is known to be a bastion of liberalism while Obama is generally thought to be more of a moderate?
(EDIT: Generally I think people are more willing to accept hard compromises when they know the people who negotiated it hate the concessions as much as they do. Democrats don’t trust Obama in that way yet – I am sure that some/much of it is racially motivated, but not all of it)
Jay B.
@FlipYrWhig:
Snap! Better go back to the grad student lounge and lick my wounds. I don’t care that you are obnoxious to me, I just think you are being dishonest about what people (not me, but certainly others) have actually disagreed with and with what tone. Not that that should matter. But it’d be a start.
If only people wouldn’t care so darn much, you could have your substantive discussion with Obama about just how many crumbs we should expect and, precisely, how disappointed we can be allowed to be.
Elie
@MattR:
Matt, you just spin things around and around…
You need a civics lesson.
Representative democracy requires that leaders should mostly reflect the will of the people. You might not know this, but sometimes very effective leaders can shape that or ignore parts of that will, but not too far and retain his/her legitimacy. Ultimately, overall, a leader’s policies reflect the broader will of the population and in the case of progressives in this country today, the leader must move the broad majority of the country to the left pretty carefully as the country is not in a left leaning cycle right now.
You are advocating that Obama get out in front of the population when the people who want him to do that the most, seem to support him the least (YOU). Why should he do that then? If your views are not echoed and highly prevalent already in the population and you and your friend Tonal just like sitting and blogging your outrage, why should he listen to you? Why should the average Joe who would really benefit from left/progressive policies even know that they would since you aren’t helping them see or learn anything….
what a waste of time…gotta go…
Have a nice evening…
MattR
@Elie:
Because it is the right thing to do for the country and its citizens. If you need that basic a question answered, then this conversation is definitely over.
FlipYrWhig
@Jay B.: There is actual disagreement with policy and ideology, and actual disagreement with tactics, and while I don’t buy all of it, I don’t have any issue with it. (For instance, Greenwald has a legitimate criticism about al-Awlaki; I just don’t buy the conclusions he draws, and dislike his method of argument.)
Then there’s this an extra layer of utter weirdness that involves turning those disputes into some grand ideological shadow-play where only the critics get to be the Real Left and you can tell because they’re mad and want to overthrow the system and fight the man and won’t go to the back of the bus, where the conservatives-who-pretend-to-be-liberals want to keep them all penned. That part is old-timey Liberals vs. Leftists stuff. That part is unbelievably masturbatory and meta and, yes, grad school-ish. It’s like that old punchline about how it works in practice, but does it work in theory? I don’t know why you, or people like you, insist on going there.
FlipYrWhig
@MattR:
Maybe there’s a trust issue with Obama in particular, but IMHO people who see themselves on the left have a habit of presuming that the president (whoever he is) is intent on stabbing them in the back, and it’s a habit that goes back to the ’60s if not the ’30s. Obama gets to play the role of milquetoast capitulator who hates the left, and Pelosi gets to play the champion of the left who hates what she’s being compelled to do, even if the outcome is the same and both of them say they’re relatively happy.
Some Guy
@MattR: If the people want a Daddy-in-Chief, then Barack will be a Daddy-in-Chief. He will not bend his back around for what the little kiddies want. They are old enough now to handle the responsibility of having a separate opinion; however, if Mr. President is wrong, and they need him to form opinions for them, then they are not mature/old enough to hold a real opinion.
boss bitch
@MattR:
There is definitely some form of prejudice and hypocrisy there.
Marc
@Jay B.:
Calling people cultists doesn’t make them listen to you. It’s a convenient way of making sure that you don’t have to listen to anyone who disagrees with you, however.
And I use it as a marker of a person who isn’t worth engaging because they’re not acting in good faith. And that’s especially true with you – the poison that you spit out isn’t even disguised.
priscianusjr
@dave:
wrb
@FlipYrWhig:
Wagner’s music is better than it sounds
Bruce S
Maybe I’m crazy, but…Does anyone have an opinion on what jobs programs might actually be (a) politically viable in the present context and/or (b) what initiatives could have maximum optimal impact on the economy, if they could be implemented? Shouldn’t this be the focus of Democrats at the grassroots, rather than idle chatter about how we interpret what goes on in the Beltway.
Talk about a fruitless discussion – this recycling of bromides/resentments/armchair politics seems almost pathological among liberals. Perhaps the President’s supporters as well as his critics would serve him – and more importantly the country – better if we actually organized around some issues or a coherent agenda. (Waiting to see what comes out of the White House and applauding or booing isn’t a strategy.) There’s a reason the Tea Party had an impact in it’s toxic framing of the political debates over the past two years and, from what I see, most of “us” don’t have a counter-strategy, other than criticizing the President for failing us or clapping louder. I’ve been at fault here as much as anyone, but the circle-jerking about constricted, predictable second-guesser politics and drawing lines-in-the-sandbox rather than strategizing a broader outreach or even minimal commitment to movement-building is definitely part of the problem.
Thymezone
@MattR:
Heh, yeah, I rest my case. Thanks.
BlizzardOfOz
So, I was just reading an excerpt from Rosen– “the cult of savvy”. That describes the analysis here which Doug J quotes with the highest praise. I think this is characteristic of Obots- imagining they’re insiders, strategizing along with the Dem hacks on what will be popular with voters. You’re not insiders, you’re citizens. Act like it?
gerry
Honest to God (whatever) DougJ, I generally like your posts but “pulpit are spewing bullshit”????? Who sez? Can’t pulpits be used for genuine educational purposes? I understand that you want to excuse Obama’s “powerlessness”. But really, you should be ashamed.