I doubt it, but hopefully this will stop the insanity:
“That sentiment does not reflect White House thinking at all, we’ve held easily a dozen calls with the progressive online community because we believe the online communities can often keep the focus on how policy will affect the American people rather than just the political back-and-forth.”
You’re good enough, you’re smart enough, and doggone it, people like you. Now that we have our daily affirmations out of the way, can we stop lobbing grenades at each other? Hug it out, bitches.
Davis X. Machina
Good luck. You’re up against an overarching Theory of Everything, Political Division.
The Theory always wins.
Ash
A lot of people have been trying to pinpoint when exactly journalism began to go down the shitter. My own theory is that the moment everyone realized they could be the next Deepthroat, and say whatever the hell they wanted to anonymously, everything started to implode. Albeit very sloooooowlyyyyyyyyyy.
The Dangerman
OK, it’s probably because I’m just getting up (Lefty Left Coaster here) and have had limited coffee intake so far (if I find out it’s fucking decaf, someone’s losing their job), but perhaps we should add HRC to the Lexicon since, to me, HRC means Hillary Rodham Clinton. This means the last two posts by Tunch’s Man Servant aren’t making much sense to me.
anonevent
Nope, because words don’t mean anything, only action. Obama neither deserves the NPP, nor the good will of the GLBT community because all he did was get elected.
/sarcasm
People will still bitch.
DougL (frmrly: Conservatively Liberal)
No, it’s fun to kneecap your supporters and yell at everyone who disagrees even the slightest with you. It’s how you win friends and influence people!
theturtlemoves
It reminds me of the bit in the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy series wherein Ford Prefect, I believe, puzzles about the Judeo-Christian vision of God in the Garden of Eden. When you are dealing with the type of personality that likes to hide behind trees and jump out and yell gotcha, it doesn’t matter what you do, they’ll find some way to get you in the end.
General Winfield Stuck
Everybody knows the internet represents mainstream murrika.
Extremism in the pursuit of gliberty is no vice.
Michael
GLBT WATBs better be thankful that Obama doesn’t seem to be the retributional sort, because that would result in some massive butthurt if he decides to say “fuck it, y’all ain’t worth the heat for me to bother with trying for anything”.
Rahm, on the other hand….
Zifnab
@General Winfield Stuck: Compared to what?
I mean, “the internet” is a networking medium that unites several hundred million Americans and is dedicated to relaying information between remote locations.
If you can’t get a representation of mainstream America from the internet, where – pray tell – do you intend to get it?
anonevent
@anonevent:
Update: I made that statement before I read the comments in the link.
Quaker in a Basement
Some guy, somewhere, said something. Wailing and rending of garments ensues.
Thanks for the brief respite from teh crazy, Mr. Cole.
Leelee for Obama
Reading DougL makes me think about the Happy Warriors on the Right. Since we on the Left bitch as much about what ain’t happenin’ fast enough as the Right does about ANY change at all, it can’t just be the bitching, can it? I guess authoritarian thinkers have either been beaten often enough for morale to improve-or they have seen others beaten long enough and have decided to just smile on.
As aggravating as it it to me to hear people I think of as MY people bitching about Obama, et al not moving fast enough-I’ll defend their right to do so, forever. I don’t belong to any organized political party, I’m a Democrat. God Bless Will Rogers, all these years later, and still making me chuckle.
AhabTRuler
So…all 300 million and change Americans are online?
General Winfield Stuck
The Ballot Box
Zifnab
And all that said, while there’s been a lot of action regarding GLBT issues, we haven’t seen a lot of points scored. DADT is still on the books. DOMA is going largely unchallenged. With health care center stage, it’s not surprising that the gay community feels neglected. And in states like Maine and Iowa, where the gay rights debate is really heating up again, there’s not a lot of overt support from the White House or Congress.
The only big victories have come from the courts, and none of those victories involve Obama appointees (who are, admittedly, currently few and far between). If I was gay, I’d feel neglected too.
Of course, it’s been all of nine months since Obama took office. I’d also have the patience to wait till 2012 before I started really getting pissed.
bobbo
Oh come on. An anonymous comment followed by a denial, and we’re all just supposed to believe the denial? Why? Because it makes us feel better? It can’t possibly work that way.
Violet
Actions speak louder than words. Don’t forget to vote for Little Bitsy! She’ll eat your Cheetos and chew up your PJ cuffs if you don’t!
Martin
FAIL! All future legislation should be decided by a Yahoo poll. It’s the only responsible mechanism.
aimai
You know, I’m not gay and I’m not particularly hysterical about shit but the Obama campaign could absolutely put an end to all our wondering about what their “real” plan is by–executing the fucking plan or giving people the road map they are looking for. This situation with the HRC dinner is identical in every way to the way concerned activists have been treated on every other big policy issue by the Obama Administration–from health care to the war to civil liberties–. Every time we’ve asked Obama to be explicit about what he is shooting for–like the Public Option–he’s chosen to obfuscate and delay a real statement, he’s allowed others to speak for him, and then the White House has had to send out people to put out the flames of supporter discontent. The bloggers and the gays are just the latest iteration of this sense of confusion among *many* of Obama’s most passionate supporters.
That’s not because bloggers and gays and the left are all passionate and irrational ‘n stuff. Its because we are among the people who really care about getting a good policy outcome. If Obama had just laid out a timeline and a strategy at his dinner with the HRC there would have been *zero* problem for him to walkback. Its the continued insistence that we can rely on “a great miracle happened there at some future time” that is rightfully ticking people off. And these are the same people that Obama and his team are going to be asking for money for the 2010 elections. You’d better believe people want to see more walking and less talking when they are paying the freight. Obama isn’t just in governing mode–he’s still in campaign mode. I totally approve of that vis a vis the Republicans but when he and his team are still offering supporters nice talk in exchange for hard cash its pretty grating.
aimai
Da Bomb
It doesn’t matter what the White House says, it doesn’t fit their general frustatrations about the President not working at lightning speed to repeal DADT and DOMA. If an “anonymous White House Adviser” was quoted as saying the president planned to repeal DOMA or DADT next month, everyone — including some bloggers, i.e. Jane Hamsher, John Aravosis, and Glenzilla would treat that claim with skepticism.
I agreed with your sentiments from your previous two blogs on this subject.
gwangung
Ugh. I’m not so sure about the last comment. There’s a lot to be said about applying a 50-states approach to gay rights as an independent strategy and not relying on top down politics from the White House or Congress.
KG
@DougL (frmrly: Conservatively Liberal): I believe “kneecaping your supporters and yelling at anyone who even slightly disagrees with you” is known as the Rove Strategy.
AB
I think Greenwald’s update on this makes a decent point. It’s not wrong to sort of look at the difference between the way the White House looks at strong criticism from blogs versus how blogs enhance their political campaign.
The Bearded Blogger
@Michael: GLBT, serious butthurt, Rahm… my mind is in the gutter
@aimai: I honestly think Obama is aiming for frog in boiling water type change… I care a lot about gay rights (as I do for a lot of things), and just feel with time things will get better…
The Bearded Blogger
@gwangung: Agree, it’s not only laws that need to change but attitudes and feelings. If change is felt to come from the outside, resistance to it will be stronger.
ricky
This whole dust up has me scratching my head. Fortunately
the open fly in my pajamas makes that task easier. The cheeto stains are a bother, though. When will Obama solve that problem. He promised. Or misled me to imagine he did.
lol
Why would they need to walk it back? The remarks (aimed at bloggers, not GLBT protesters if you read the transcript) are completely true.
The lefty bloggers are hysterical prima-donnas who never really supported Obama and aren’t about to start now. Why would he start listening to yet another screamfest now?
noncarborundum
@aimai: Word.
lol
And the whole freakout is completely proving their point.
Paula
Aimai —
You want to stop mainstream politics from derailing/neglecting your cause?
THEN STOP SUPPORTING A MAINSTREAM PARTY.
And yet the answer is always “better Democrats, please”. Stop threatening to leave and JUST LEAVE already.
Seriously, this country needs a third party. Between the populations of FDL and DailyKos I’m sure you’ll have the beginnings of something. If not, the Greens need all the help they can get.
noncarborundum
@lol:
I suppose that depends on how you define “support”. If by that you mean “swear unconditional fealty to the man, regardless of what he does or when and how he does it” (i.e., the way the GOP supported Bush throughout most of his tenure), then you’re absolutely right. Otherwise, not so much.
Zifnab
@General Winfield Stuck: Which, you know, works on alternating first Tuesdays in November.
But if I want to address what my constituency thinks of any given policy before they vote him out of office…
@AhabTRuler:
http://www.nielsen-online.com/pr/pr_040318.pdf
According to Nielsen, 225 million. :-p
eemom
“……hopefully this will stop the insanity”
My money’s on no it won’t.
alien radio
@The Bearded Blogger:
Re: Frog in boiling water change…
You mean emergent change, change where the average energy of the system sits just below the critical point and eventually local nucleation points form bubbles. If it were possible it would be the sneakiest way to enact change. how you’d build a strategy out of invisibly changing small rules and incentives, so that good governance was the optimal strategy for an actor in the system (and thus making republican crony capitalism uncompetitive) I don’t know.
aimai
The Bearded Blogger,
I don’t know what Obama is aiming at with respect to gay rights. I think that gay rights (and my state is a good example) proceed by fits and starts and that we all have to be pushing all the time to normalize the struggle and make it global as well as national. But Obama’s role in this is different because he has *more power*–more moral authority, more political authority, and more legal authority to push those fits and starts.
Take DADT–I totally yield to Cole qua military guy if he wants to correct me on this but my perspective is that DADT is actively harming gay service people who are being forced out and also those who are in the service secretely. Those people, and its not a small number, are suffering real harm on a daily basis. I think that harm largely goes away when everyone can come out of the closet and the average serviceman/woman grasps that they have been working side by side, or serving under, a gay person all this time. The good that is done by a stroke of the pen reppeal of DADT in time of war more than outweighs any petty concerns about “consensus” or “raising the temperature of the water” or any other weird metaphor you choose.
I see the fact that gay people are forced to serve secretly in our armed forces as a huge stain upon all of us. To me its as bad as the US army using Nisei whose families were locked up as potential traitors. We allowed Japanese citizens to fight and die for us while their families were imprisoned. Of course we did the same thing with our African American soldiers–allowing them to fight and die for freedoms their own families didn’t have at home. And the end result of the integration of the armed forces was, of course, a bigger push to expand civil liberties and civil rights for all outside the sphere of the army.
So to me its a no brainer. All of us who care about this, gay and not gay, have to fight for full rights for all citizens in every venue we have using all the tools we have. And Obama, being in a special venue with special tools, has a special obligation. Which he could easily satisfy and with great effect by working publicly to reppeal/or signing an executive order on DADT. Its not just symbolic, it is also symbolic. And it would be a very powerful piece of the ongoing struggle. Maybe even the cornerstone of the arch.
aimai
sgwhiteinfla
@aimai
I guess I could understand your frustration about what President Obama said at the HRC dinner if he himself didn’t say this.
Now, I’ve said this before, I’ll repeat it again — it’s not for me to tell you to be patient, any more than it was for others to counsel patience to African Americans petitioning for equal rights half a century ago. (Applause.)
And also this.
That’s the story of America: of ordinary citizens organizing, agitating and advocating for change; of hope stronger than hate; of love more powerful than any insult or injury; of Americans fighting to build for themselves and their families a nation in which no one is a second-class citizen, in which no one is denied their basic rights, in which all of us are free to live and love as we see fit. (Applause.)
Now I have been as frustrated as anybody with President Obama and his weaksauce stand for the public option, but this just doesn’t seem to be an analagous situation. He said, and it wasn’t his first time saying it, that he isn’t going to tell the LGBT community to stand back and wait their turn. That is pretty much the opposite of what people like Rahm have done in reaction to liberals and progressives agitating for a public option.
Here is the funniest thing to me though. (not funny ha ha) Its people who throughout the Bush administration always cautioned not to put much stock into what “anonymous sources” said to the media are now taking statements from “anonymous sources” in this White House as if they are words straight out of President Obama’s mouth.
Its called divide and conquer and people ought to start at least tempering their fevered advocacy with some reasoning lest the left start imploding upon itself.
WereBear
This nails it for me; I see that as his style. Not just a political style, but something intrinsic.
Maybe, in his heart of hearts, he’d love to leap in and starting issuing proclamations like a new sheriff in a bad, bad, frontier town.But as a parent of present and future teens, he may have already learned this is a very tough way to get people to change.
Judging from the screaming from the right, any change is too much for them. But there’s a bunch who will be willing to go along, as long as they have a reasonable chance to get with the program.
Zifnab
@Paula:
The country needs better politicians. Voting Ralph Nader for President doesn’t necessarily get that. Voting Pat Buchanan for President absolutely doesn’t get that.
The third party is a means to an end. Reforming one of the existing two parties is another avenue. And, at a certain point, the DKos underdog candidate (your Ned Lamont, for instance) might as well be Third Party with the way the other two parties treat him.
aimai
lol’s point up above is prezackly backwards:
The lefty bloggers are hysterical prima-donnas who never really supported Obama and aren’t about to start now. Why would he start listening to yet another screamfest now?
Did you miss the fact that the people who are the most upset were holding a massive fundraiser for Obama, and had done so previously? Aravoisis says he raised 50,000 dollars for Obama. I supported and support Obama financially and with shoe leather. This is not a fringe concern and the White House clearly knows it isn’t.
aimai
Zifnab
@General Winfield Stuck: Which, you know, works on alternating first Tuesdays in November.
But if I want to address what my voters thinks of any given policy before they vote him out of office…
@AhabTRuler:
http://www.nielsen-online.com/pr/pr_040318.pdf
According to Nielsen, 225 million. :-p
Zifnab
GRR!! I DO NOT KNOW WHY I AM BEING MODERATED!
ricky
@lol:
“And if Obama appreciates bloggers, maybe he should spend an hour or two here on a weekend afternoon having a Q&A with us.”
From a comment at Firedog Lake posted by “LooHoo.”
DougL (frmrly: Conservatively Liberal)
Hell, a diarist at the GOS is calling for the president to fire the anonymous person who said the bad things about bloggers.
Talk about some chapped asses. ;)
Da Bomb
It doesn’t make any sense to say that he doesn’t appreciate bloggers. Considering at all of his press conferences and major speeches, he has given elevated status to reporters from HuffPo.
And I am sorry, I probably wouldn’t let FDL lob questions at me either.
ricky
@bobbo:
You are so right. I plan to hold my finger high over the “send” button and hold my breath until I turn bluestate
unless there is a timeline issued and the White House has somebody attack the corporate media on camera. Until then I am taking CNN’s word for it.
Redshirt
I am outraged that……. wait. What am I outraged about now?
Paula
Zinfab
“better politicians” don’t exist. You need pressure from other outlets to bring a politician’s interests in line with his constituents. I don’t understand why people are so goddamned attached to their putative Progressive heroes who will come along and Do the Right Thing. But if those people are already tied to a mainstream apparatus then chances are they’re going to do something that upholds rather than changes status quo. I’m going to have a laugh riot when, a few months or a year down the line, Grayson and/or Weiner do something that pisses of their fans.
They need to quit the Democratic Party, because the Democratic party has failed them.
Ralph Nader can kiss it. He hasn’t done anything to help himself, let alone other people and his presence in the media since 2000 has been nothing but the self-aggrandizing ravings of an ego-driven hack.
Also:
The prog blog people want POTUS to rule by fiat. They want him to strong-arm Congress for legislation. They want him to overturn existing law by executive order and by signing statements. They want him to rule the domestic issues the way Bush handled foreign policy. Except that it would be Right this time, because it would be in the name of Progressivism.
Except they can’t say that because it would negate all of their complaints against Bush and their current arguments against Obama’s continuation of his civil liberties policies. Apparently they can pick and choose where POTUS can act like a dictator and when not to.
ricky
@Redshirt:
I’m so outraged I am boycotting Whole Anonymous Sources.
lol
@40: Obama extended a hand of friendship to the Netroots backed in 2005 and he received a boatload of personal attacks and vitriol for his time and effort. Since then he’s never looked back and the Netroots haven’t changed one bit.
As a result, he completely side-stepped them during his campaign – he didn’t give them access, he didn’t hire their people, built his own infrastructure that dwarfed any other on-line organization and he raised a shit-ton of money without their help.
Obama owes the Netroots *nothing*. He’s free to do things at his own pace. And that’s what’s driving them crazy.
@31: Bloggers didn’t like Obama as a Senator. They didn’t like him as a candidate. They barely tolerated him as a nominee. And now they hate him as President. Why? See above.
Markos talked about storming the gates; Barack Obama actually did it. It’s professional jealousy.
lol
@47: “Crashing the Gates”.
Shell
Hey, John. Did you get to the doctor? How are you feeling?
gbear
First hug goes to aimai. Thanks for those thoughts.
John Cole
@aimai: We raised over 50k here at this website. Does this mean I can tell Aravosis to STFU?
This isn’t just about gay rights. This is also a turf war with the HRC, and anyone who doesn’t see that is fooling themselves.
John Cole
Next meme: Arnold is better than Obama. Begins is 5… 4… 3…2… 1…
gbear
I am so outraged that I can barely type through my tears.
/fdl
matoko_chan
amai…usually i agree with you 100per, but n-dimensional chess is not a zero-sum game.
I think its fine for Sully and his tribe to hold O’s feet to the fire….it is actually life and death for them ……
But I think the rest of us should chillax and wait and see.
Obama is not, actually a liberal or a democrat…..
He is a machiavellian pragmatist.
Take it away Niccolo.
sgwhiteinfla
I think Adam Serwer knocks it out the park on this one.
http://www.prospect.org/csnc/blogs/tapped_archive?month=10&year=2009&base_name=an_anonymous_white_house_advis
But because the above quote fits with their general frustrations about the president’s foot-dragging on gay rights issues and confirms their suspicion that the president’s sloth is ultimately rooted in contempt for LGBT people, they’re taking it almost entirely at face value. As Hamsher put it, “After pandering to LGBT leaders last night the truth comes out. Dear gays: grow up and let us get about the serious business of governance.” How is it that Hamsher knows this is “the truth” and the speech the president gave on Saturday night was a “lie,” other than the fact that it confirms what she already suspected?
Of course, the reaction Hamsher gave is the one the reporter was trying to get — I was taught in journalism school never to grant someone anonymity just to talk smack, but doing so is now simply a part of political journalism, for the simple reason that it pisses people off and thus makes more news.
gbear
@John Cole:
Umm, aimai was talking succinctly about the issue at hand, not the damned turf wars or the blog wars. The turf war aspect of this is something that you’re seeing first.
PS: Feel free to tell Avarosis to STFU. I’ll back you up on it.
Corner Stone
@matoko_chan:
Can’t say I’ve ever played n-dimensional chess. In actual chess there is one winner, one loser, or a draw. That’s the definition of a zero-sum game. One can not benefit without another paying.
Zifnab
@Paula:
You’re going to have to vote for someone. Eric Massa up in New York and Alan Grayson in Florida have been very aggressive in pushing a progressive agenda, both over the airwaves and in the Capital. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has been slowly evolving a spine on the public option and has done an admirable job of whipping up votes in support. Rush Feingold of Wisconsin was one of the only sane votes in the Senate in 2002 and has been pushing hard on civil rights issues to this day. And don’t even get me started on the dearly departed Edward Kennedy.
These people voted for a progressive platform at every opportunity, worked with every ally they could find to move progressive legislation into law, and actively encouraged grass roots organizations to lobby on vital progressive issues – from Climate Change legislation to civil rights for ethnic minorities and gays to a progressive tax code to universal health care.
If this isn’t enough for you, I don’t know what you expect from your elected representatives. What does a third party get you that these pols don’t?
slag
@aimai:
I agree with this, and then I disagree with this. Having little patience for Obama’s general “trust me” approach to governing, I totally agree. On the other hand, Republicans love nothing better than to have something specific to take aim at. And laying out the strategy before you’re prepared to act on it gives Republicans and the Republic of Media plenty of time to roll out the fog machine and obscure the whole issue. And yet, on the other hand (too many hands!), supporters need something specific to support, so you endanger your cause by being too vague with your intentions and you dishearten your allies. It’s a very fine line. Especially with equality issues, which freak people out. So, I don’t know what the answer is. As we’ve seen over the last eight years and continue to see, the left is generally not good at getting its way. We don’t own enough fog machines.
gnomedad
OT, at Dimbart, Leigh Scott thinks Debating Leftists is Like Debating Charles Manson.
Hitler is just so last week.
Zifnab
@John Cole: You’ll notice California’s budget deficit is an order of magnitude smaller. And Arnold hasn’t raised taxes. Also, he’s much more bipartisan. And better dressed. And not a Muslim Communist. Also, not born in Kenya.
Remember when the GOP wanted to run Arnold for President? Haha, good times.
Da Bomb
@John Cole: I would wholeheartedly back you up on telling John Aravosis to STFU too.
It would put a smile on my face.
Zifnab
@John Cole: Also,
WTF does that mean?
lol
Also, let’s not forget the utterly dishonest conflation by FDL and HuffPost of the “pajamas” stuff with the GLBT march pretty much proves the point the anonymous source was making.
Davis X. Machina
Bragging rights. A good feeling deep down inside. Friends. Who knows?
Maybe you’re making considered policy decisions when you vote, and I’m making considered policy decisions when I vote, but how many people are engaged in social-signaling behavior via choice of a consumer good when they vote?
Jack
Please, critics, get in the “veal pen.” Unity must prevail. The leadership knows best. It even takes phone calls.
matoko_chan
cornerstone, zactly.
i don’t think n/e of us unnerstand n-dimensional chess…my hope is Obama does.
;)
Can I hug amai? he sounds intellectually hawt.
John Cole
I’m sorry Aimai, I’m being a dick again. I need to turn off the computer until I stop feeling like shit and am off the cough syrup.
Irony Abounds
@John Cole: We have lift off:
aimai
JC,
By all means tell Aravoisis to shut the fuck up. I’ve got no quarrel with that. I was just querying the utility of poster lol arguing that the gay community, the left, and bloggers generally are “not people who ever supported Obama” so he *should* give them the back of his hand. Aravoisis and the gays raised a ton of money for Obama and they want something to show for it. He has to decide whether he is going to give them what they want, or try to give them just enough to shut them up. I’m not making that argument because I don’t get the nature of politics, or Obama’s beautiful mind, or whatever. But because I do.
There are several different arguments going on at once. One is the “stop throwing a hissy fit argument” because its not necessary, another is “stop throwing a hissy fit argument” because Obama and Rahm legitimately don’t need you people and your money. Another is “stop throwing a public hissy fit” because Obama is going to come through for you all, at some point. I think these arguments are mutually inconsistent and incoherent but I get them all the time from the same people on different subjects or even on the same subject.
I’m interested in seeing Obama keep his campaign promises to all of us, in a timely manner. Where he needs to negotiate to get more time, I’m all for that. But where he appears to be temporizing for a little advantage here or there while people are hurting, I don’t think I need to accept the notion that this is all part of a grand strategy that will redound to everyone’s benefit eventually. So far he hasn’t done the easy things and he tells us its because he’s doing the hard things. I don’t see those things as interfering with each other except in the mind of Obama and Rahm.
aimai
Irony Abounds
Argh, I can’t figure out the proper way to link, just check Sully, he’s got the Arnold better than Obama meme up already.
DougL (frmrly: Conservatively Liberal)
I am registered as a small-i independent and have been since ’92. Haven’t seen a reason to join back since. I still vote D but I am sure as hell not going to register as one ever again.
No party for me, no thank you. I would be happy if they eliminated all parties and just put the names on a list to pick from.
If people aren’t getting shitfaced, it ain’t a party.
lol
@68: Ah yes, I forgot Jane McCarthy at FDL has a “list” of traitors within the progressive blogosphere.
Chad N Freude
@aimai:
aimi, while most of your posts make me slap my forehead and say “Why didn’t I say that?”, I think the analogy with Japanese and African-American soldiers is wrong. They served openly in segregated units. Service personnel affected by DADT cannot serve openly and are not segregated (in units where their being gay is known). This really is different — they are forced to deny their own identities in order to serve.
One point that I don’t see discussed much is the expulsion/refusal to enlist people who meet higher standards of acceptability to the services than many of the people now being recruited, and the expulsion of service members with with needed special skills, like translating Arabic, which is kind of useful these days. If you take this into consideration, DADT actually undermines the military and the defensive capabilities of the US.
freelancer
Jesus Fuck.
Last week the left (and Sullivan) was all “Know Hope”.
Today Obama’s as feckless and pandering as the Right is to evangelicals with the “repeal Roe v. Wade” carrot. All talk.
Obama first and foremost, it should be remembered is a politician. but everybody wants their fucking pony, and the want it yesterday.
jibeaux
Would it be a little too inside baseball to tag this one Stuart-Smalley?
Da Bomb
@Irony Abounds: Let’s see if Sully says that after the Matthew Shephard and James Byrd Jr. Hates Crime bill is signed. Also there are some huge leaps with ENDA going on.
Oh I forgot, Sully thinks those bills are hooey.
aimai
John Cole,
Reccomended: Buy a whole roast chicken and throw it in a pot with a ton of (sauteed) garlic, onion, parsley, white wine, chili pepper and, if you swing that way, cilantro and fish sauce, cover with water. Cook it until a nice broth appears. Drink the broth and eat the chicken soup. You’ll be better in no time.
If not that dial the nearest Thai restaurant and order the sour/hot soup–not the coconut one–and drink that until the sweat pours off your face.
hugs
aimai
MNPundit
I really don’t care if they hate us.
BUT WE HAVE BEEN RIGHT ALL THE GOD DAMN TIME ABOUT EVERYTHING. If they want their agenda enacted, LISTEN TO US. The only reason in 2006 they won was because of US, we know what we are doing god dammit.
Jack
@DougL (frmrly: Conservatively Liberal):
We have that in my home city. It’s a great cover for getting assholes elected w/o knowing for what they stand.
And whilst I detest Republicans and barely trust the other corporate party, I can generally assume that the gal or the guy with a (D) after her/his name is slightly less of a complete dick than the nakedly piratical Republicans.
Mnemosyne
Wait, you mean that a minor issue was blown up into a huge ridiculous controversy on the basis of misinformation by John Aravosis just like he’s done, oh, about a hundred times before?
Gee, there’s a shock. Here’s a hint: if Aravosis tells you something, check the source, because 9 times out of 10 he’s left out a big chunk of information in his zeal to manufacture something damaging out of very little. See his whole “they called us pedophiles in the DOMA lawsuit!” claim, which turned out to be quite a bit less than advertised.
anonevent
@slag: The problem the left has – that the right does not – is we’re a large number of different parties that all think they are Democrats. We have the GLBT Democrats, the school Democrats, the healthcare Democrats, the socially liberal Democrats, the fiscal restraint Democrats. There is overlap in a lot of these groups – GLBT and socially liberal groups for instance – but because they are different parties, they will fight each other over the same goal. Were the political version of Protestant Christianity: We all think we’re Democrats, but the moment you start trying to figure out what we want, we each break into our own groups and try to take the other groups out.
Midnight Marauder
@Irony Abounds:
I just made the mistake of skimming through his posts from this past weekend. Jesus, there was no exaggeration here. The man is a WATB to the highest degree right now.
Different day, same poutrage.
Da Bomb
@Mnemosyne: Yep, that’s always the case with that guy.
And I am sorry, Jane Hamsher is another one.
Davis X. Machina
In Europe they fight the election, and then form the coalition. Here we do it the other way round.
Can’t say which way works better, but they sure work differently…
anonevent
@Jack: But I’m not seeing criticism. I’m seeing “Worst. President. Ever. He hasn’t written a bill for Congress to pass to repeal DOMA.” I’m seeing “He will never get my vote because he’s more concerned about healthcare than the GLBT community.” Those aren’t criticisms, they’re tantrums.
slag
@anonevent: I can see how traditionally disunity has been a big problem for Democrats, but it’s been my observation that the left has never been–in my (admittedly relatively short) lifetime–more unified than it is today (for whatever that’s worth).
AhabTRuler
DougL (frmrly: Conservatively Liberal): Well, Argentina banned politics for awhile, but that didn’t really work out very well.
matoko_chan
amai…..
/sigh
half of this country is on the leftside of the bellcurve.
those people are extremely permeable to deleterious memes.
cite, over 50% of the GOP is positive for birther meme plague.
You never lay out your strategy for the adversary to make counter-strategy on it.
Giving a time table and actual dates gives the adversary attackpoints for force-magnification tactics and counter-propaganda.
Da Bomb
@anonevent: Which is silly to hear people say that. My movement is more important that Healthcare. Healthcare is something that affects every single American, regardless of skin color, religion, sexual identity, gender, etc..
Paula
“What does a third party get you that these pols don’t?”
Maybe putting pressure on them in tight races in crucial parts of the country. Lowering majorities?
I just want the fucking blogosphere to put their time and money where their mouths are and actually do what they’ve been threatening to do. What, indeed, would have to happen for people to realize that making politics change requires more than just bitching about it on your keyboard?
And no, I don’t mean going out and raising money for whatever new politician you think is cooler. I mean trying to change the fundamental viewpoint of your neighbors and your community so that causes aren’t dependent on the way mainstream politics operates for support.
Mostly, right now, though, I just want the blogosphere to practice some self-awareness and try and understand why they keep losing — on single payer, on gay rights, on civil liberties, on the wars. There’s something wrong with their strategy, particularly if it depends on “politicians” being “good”. If they’re sickened by the Dems, then maybe they should focus their energies on finding another base of support.
inkadu
@Zifnab: Given the advantages of incumbency, running a better democrat in a primary is rarely going to work. But just by doing so, you’re forcing the candidate to make an appeal to his party, instead of drifting rightward, ever rightward.
The Republican Party reformed itself through various groups — NRA, evangelicals, Club for Growth.. the party chose its vision and enforced it. Republicans who did not get it were primaried out, but the majority of them learned to read from the party script.
And, yeah, too bad about Ned Lamont; the Party really shafted him. But it’s always an uphill climb against an incumbent, much less against an incumbent in your own party. I think the run did a lot of good, though, first for putting anti-war sentiment on the political radar and inspiring others to run and continue to push the party back to where, uh, the Republicans were in the 50’s.
Third-party runs, though, are effin’ stupid for so many reasons. Just hack into your local party politics. It’s ugly, but its reality. And you’ll learn how to talk to people who don’t think exactly like you, which will come in handy when you have to run in a general election.
gbear
@aimai:
Oh my god! Cilantro! I am so outraged that…I ..I have to take my hug back. I’m so sorry but I can hardly type this tru my tears.
FlipYrWhig
@lol:
lol, I think I love you.
Yes, this is exactly what’s going on: certain high-profile self-promoting bloggers amplifying their shit-throwing by acting like they’re outraged by homophobia, when really they’re outraged by being called out for their irksome perma-outrage. Which they then turn up another notch.
inkadu
@aimai:
This!
Just trying out the new lexicon.
I love chicken.
FlipYrWhig
@Mnemosyne: Right on, right on.
Cassidy
Seems to me that using the military as a proxy for social change, while it’s in the middle of fighting two wars is not the best idea.
Mnemosyne
@FlipYrWhig:
Maybe we really are the same person. ;-)
Jack
@anonevent:
I personally think that symptom issues are of great detriment to liberals, which hasn’t always endeared me to my deep-green, anti-gun or GLBT friends.
But, that’s a fundamental difference of philosophy: I think the economics of poverty and alienation stand as cause to the symptoms of the same. Address baseline inequities, the evisceration of labor’s power – and people develop different fundamental worries and fears.
Which is not to state that it’s okay to discriminate, that it’s acceptable to pollute or that it’s morally praiseworthy to shoot someone in face, or traipse about town packing a Sig on the hip.
I just think you get people on board, first and foremost, by addressing food, shelter, education and health.
The GOP has even made this easy. Their de facto platform is “fuck all y’all, I got mine.”
They are, in agonistic terms, the adversary. Crushing them, savaging them politically and morally, ought to be a no-brainer.
Which is from where my criticism of Obama comes (separate from my personal opinions about the American war machine, and anyone who runs it).
Now is not the time to “reach out” to people who have very clearly set up shop in order to protect (1) very wealthy thieves (2) their own advantages (3) at the expense of everyone else.
There are legions of people, in my estimation, who can be counted on to make this point. In a very public fashion.
So long as they aren’t isolated from the process by a tribal, clannish, opaque leadership.
But the current Admin. isn’t spreading the power on the horizontal plane. It’s retreated under its own institutional aegis, and it’s isolating many of the people with the passion and commitment to do the hard work of advocacy and ethical street fighting.
Which means historic opportunities to use the GOP’s own weaknesses to pass real reform are being squandered, so that Baucus and Lincoln can protect their paymasters, so that Goldman Sachs shareholders get very, very paid.
And that, coupled with Afghan/Iraqi exigencies, with war escalation no less, with a seeming retreat on other liberal issues, with a failing economy (banks making money is not a “good economy” to a mother without a job) – that all makes the President and his Administration sure as hell look like a bunch of “more of the same.” Right down to being defended in the same terms as used by those who once defended Bushian insularity and clannishness.
So much so, I think, that the very people who might once have been counted on to make the liberal project a reality (myself included) are disappointed and even jaded by “one more Clinton.”
Bringing us, perhaps, full circle.
Motivated people want a real sign. Sure, it’s symbolic. But, they want it anyway. Some demonstration, some indication that all the of the faith in Obama’s rhetoric will bear some tangible fruit.
A public option. The repeal of DOMA. Letting a pirate outfit trussed up as a bank fail. Some damned opposition to “blue dog” obstructionism.
Something that justifies their passion and motivation.
Something which validates.
Before people scoff – that’s politics. That’s how loyalties are preserved. It’s ultimately very human.
gbear
@Cassidy: So what IS the best idea, Cassidy? I’m sure you’ve got it ready to cut and paste. I’ll come back in about an hour and read thru the second 100 comments to get your take on things.
geg6
@anonevent:
This.
Cassidy
I think the best idea is getting involved with your representatives and holding them accountable for what they do and do not vote for. I know everyone likes the idea of forced change and bully pulpits and whatnot, but the way the system is designed to work is not by Executive Order. And while the military has been the vehicle for social change in the past, it’d be really nice if the people back home got off their ass long enough to do it themselves.
Lisa
I stopped reading Firedoglake, Aravosis, and Kos a long time ago. They are terrible, terrible blogs where people come to shriek about how ideologically pure they are. Maybe more people should do the same. Seriously, their cup runneth over with Teh Outrage.
Paula
“Seems to me that using the military as a proxy for social change, while it’s in the middle of fighting two wars is not the best idea.”
Re the courts: Law lecturer Obama had some interesting things to say about the pros and cons of the Civil Rights Movement focusing on the Supreme Court as a vehicle for social change, and IMO his insistence on Congress as the best place to lobby for permanent change for gay rights, while debatable, is consistent to this argument from Jan. 2001:
http://apps.wbez.org/blog/?p=639
martha
@sgwhiteinfla: Yep. Sadly, I can’t bear to visit FDL much any more, and I was an early lurker. It’s just so high-school-whiner-I-want-mine-NOW petulant BS most of the time. Maybe I spend too much time working on hard projects with lots of people, but making big (legal, legislative) changes, even in the best of times, can rarely be done quickly. And almost never with “attitude,” even when you want to break someone’s knees.
And, they’re falling into the MSM’s favorite game of deflection. Deflect attention from the hard story with the bright shiny object-whining bloggers. Fun! Also really, really stupid. Just sayin’…
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
@Paula:
This.
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: in 20-30 years time when we look back at Obama’s legacy, one of the biggest items on the list will be the slow rehabilitation of Congress as an active branch of the US govt, which is reversal of one of our most toxic and damaging legacies of the Cold War.
Historically we’ve had two competing cultural/political factions in this country – a parliamentarian faction and a aristocratic/monarchist faction, originally based in the northeast and the southeast respectively. The Dems today are the inheritors of the lineage which has been the parliamentarian faction – a tradition that goes all the way back to the English Civil War of the 1640s. This is what a true large-D Democratic administration looks like – they work with and thru Congress. A large part of why the Carter and Clinton administrations went onto the rocks is that they did a poor job of managing relations with the Hill; Obama’s staff is doing everything they can not to repeat that.
If you want more and better out of the Obama administration, elect better Congresscritters. Another opportunity to do so is coming up in just another 12 months, conveniently enough.
Jack
@ThatLeftTurnInABQ:
The Democrats have ever been Hamiltonian. Or Jacksonian. Which is Hamiltonian, with a drawl.
Chad N Freude
@Cassidy: In the case of DADT, quoting myself from upthread:
Less an agent of change than a stronger military.
ricky
Why do I find it ironic that matrimony and military have become the institutional aspiration that have the gay community’s political knickers all twisted up about?
gbear
How many blogs are you seeing that on? Three? Thirty? Three hundred? Yes, some (very popular) blogs/bloggers are wigged out, but focusing on them and saying it’s how ‘teh gays’ feel is about as useful as focusing on RedState to see how ‘conservative america’ feels about stuff. Noise is noise.
ruemara
Bah, when the left give me poutrage fatigue, I know it’s time to go clean something. This was stupid yesterday and stupider today.
D-Chance.
What’s with all the left-wing hatred? C’mon, children, quit getting your panties all in a bunch over one tiny throwaway line.
Hell, Obamamerica has more important things to worry about than your little hissy fits.
Deborah
You’re good enough, you’re smart enough, and doggone it, people like you. Now that we have our daily affirmations out of the way, can we stop lobbing grenades at each other?
Goddammit John, anonymous people may have said stuff anonymously! And the online community is outraged!!! Sully especially.
Lisa
lol @ “poutrage”
lol
@117:
Google “White kids on Poutrage” for the source of the win.
FlipYrWhig
@Mnemosyne:
:D
Paula
Well, there are def times when I want POTUS to rule by fiat. DADT/DOMA are two of them. But I think it’s also a weird thing to shoot for when a conservative Administration can come along and flip it right over as soon as the country makes the next ideological swing. Which is … one of the problems of ruling by fiat. It doesn’t matter how “right” you think you are or how popular you/your policies are, you stand a chance of incurring backlash just because you pushed your hand because, you know, people still think this is a democracy. See: Bush, George W.
I was real pissed off when Joe Wilson set off another anti-immigrant wave of sentiment, and even more pissed off that the entire fucking blogosphere seemed to shrug it’s collective shoulders saying “it’s part of the process; they’re wrong, whatevs”. There are some people for whom that kind of slight put these mainstream blogs out of the “progressive movement” since they essentially validated a right-wing meme about a powerless and victimized group. But we all have blind spots and issues we care about more more than others. I appreciate where the outrage comes from, but methinks we can accept that of each other without kicking each other out of a general “leftward” movement.
Mnemosyne
(Yes, I’m reposting from above. So sue me.)
And after all of this, John Harwood now says that the paraphrase he used did not refer to GLBT activists at all:
Aravosis hysteria strikes again.
Da Bomb
@Mnemosyne: And even though he admits it wasn’t towards gays, how many of the blogs that displayed poutage are going to take back what they said?
Zilch.
Mnemosyne
@Da Bomb:
Pam might — she’s pretty honest. The others? Doubtful.
ribbit
Frog in boiling water, very apposite. Only the frog that’s getting poached is your civil liberties and your legal recourse to kleptocracy.
grumpy realist
BTW, I’m wondering whether one reason Obama has been going so slow on the DOMA/DADT issue (or any issue) has been hoping Congress would finally get some sort of a spine and propose a bill getting rid of it.
I think half of Obama’s job has been to try to convince Congress that they’re an equal player in the scheme of things, not a rubber-stamping body.
Historically, Congress seems to have a tendency to try to shove off the dirty work in legislating onto Anybody Else. Remember the whole mess about the line-item veto? (Which the Supreme Court threw out, essentially saying to Congress–no, you can’t get the POTUS to do the dirty work of cutting back the budget simply because you don’t have the stones to stand up to your constituents.)
Jack
@grumpy realist:
All that would demonstrate is a remarkable misunderstanding of the modern media environment. Telly doesn’t cover 500 plus persons. It covers the Pres, the Speaker, the latest general du jour, the SMiL and SMaL, and a handful of “insiders.”
If Obama is waiting for Congress to drive the narrative or the legislative envelope, the man who ran a masterful campaign a year and half back was replaced with a doppelganger who became suddenly ignorant of the social, political and media environment.
FlipYrWhig
@Mnemosyne:
Pam Spaulding didn’t change her mind. Sigh.
Mnemosyne
And Glenn Greenwald is doubling down. Apparently the fact that the White House denounced the anonymous paraphrase is proof positive that Obama hates gay people.
Well, at least no one can say that the left can’t manufacture a controversy as well as the right can. Aravosis is giving Malkin a run for her money at this point.
cassidy
@Chad N Freude: I wholeheartedly agree with your sentiment. My point is that, historically, social change has been preceeded by military inclusion. So the precedent has been set. And the gay rights movement knows this, which is why I think the tunnel vision on DADT. So while I agree with the reasoning and the tactic, we are a little busy at the moment. And, I do think that forced inclusiveness from the POTUS would hurt morale, not becuase of the gay, but we can only take so much upheaval at one time. We are human after all.
DaBomb
@Mnemosyne: I can’t wait when all of those people have a big serving of crow.
And I figured, Pam wouldn’t be honest. The times I have read her, she can be just as over the top as John Aravosis.