Whiskey Fire finds what may be the greatest Erick Erickson post ever. The title is “Is Glenn Beck TV’s Obi Wan Kenobi?”
DougJ has been a Balloon Juice writer since 2009.
More on Obama and LBJ
In response to my earlier post on Obama and LBJ, Laura Clawson at GOS writes:
But if Obama could look at the history and see that that kind of arm-twisting is what it took to get big, good domestic legislation passed, shouldn’t he at least try? Is his personal style of politics that much more important to him than the substance of getting people in this country the health care they need?
I think that the fact that Obama brought in Rahm Emauel and tried to bring in Tom Daschle is a sign that Obama knew he would have to twist a lot of Congressional arms. That’s why it was a good idea to try to bring those two aboard, even though they’re assholes and possibly crooks. If you were a president with limited Washington experience and you wanted to emulate LBJ’s success, Daschle and Emanuel are the two guys you’d want on your team. And it’s quite possible that things would be going better with Daschle at the helm, as others have suggested.
I also tend to think that Obama’s personal political style is a carefully managed stage piece, modeled after Reagan, the idea being that the president should appear to be a bit above it all. Clinton liked to scream at people on the phone. Obama has Rahm Emanuel do it for him. “I don’t get tough with people, Mr. Gittes, my lawyer does.”
Maybe I’m wrong, but I have a feeling the Obama White House plays tougher than people think. I also have a feeling they’re just plain nowhere near as good as it as LBJ was. But who is?
Boycotting those who boycott the boycotters
That’s where all this ends, isn’t it?
Who would have thought that a time would come when conservatives would be boycotting Walmart and Krispy Kreme while flocking to Whole Foods?
(I still say it was dumb of the Whole Foods CEO to trash health care reform, the same way it would be dumb of the commissioner of NASCAR to endorse Cindy Sheehan for Congress or co-write a book with Richard Dawkins.)
Update. I see others are thinking the same thing. Now, to be clear, people can boycott all they want to, but the conservative list of boycotted companies has gotten awfully long.
Boycotting those who boycott the boycottersPost + Comments (105)
Robert Novak RIP
Novak did a lot of sleazy stuff, but the Evans-Novak report was excellent and he could be thoughtful on some issues. I liked his columns better than the average WaPo column.
Reports of its death…
Ezra explains how the public option may end up in the final bill even if it isn’t in the Senate bill.
They got money for wars, but can’t feed the poor
One thing I’ve been hearing a lot is the idea that what Democrats really need right now is Repubilcan-style salesmanship and media relations. Here’s Jon Stewart, for example:
“Why is this so hard? Why can’t you guys just stay on message? Remember the Bush team? Little bit of discipline, little bit of repetition. They sold us a WAR nobody wanted and nobody needed.”
Stewart then played a series of clips featuring former President George W. Bush, Colin Powell, Condi Rice, Donald Rumsfeld and Dick Cheney speaking about weapons of mass destruction in the lead-up to the Iraq war.
“Salesmanship!,” Stewart said, after the clip. “Those guys could sell ice cubes to Eskimos. The Democrats, I don’t even think could sell Eskimos BEEP they need — insulation, heating apparatus.”
It’s a silly comparison, of course. Wars are easy to sell. As Goering put it “just tell them they are being attacked and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism.” It’s that simple.
Big domestic programs (other than tax increases cuts) are nearly impossible. The Bush people went 0-for-2 on big domestic proposals. It’s difficult to turn immigration reform or Social Security privatization into a war against the worst enemy ever.
For all the talk about how Congress did whatever Bush wanted — and they did — he didn’t pass much of import domestically, aside from the big tax cuts (something else that’s always easy to pass) and (EDIT) Medicare Part D, a big corporate give-away (these are also relatively easy to pass). The last president to have success with ambitious domestic policy initiatives was probably LBJ.
Castigating Obama for not being another LBJ seems a little unfair to me.
They got money for wars, but can’t feed the poorPost + Comments (99)
Another great Politico round-table
The Politico round table on the fate of the public option: three Republicans, three non-partisan observers. This, from one of the Republicans, was especially classy:
The public option was like a cheap tattoo on the bride in an arranged marriage, betraying a questionable past (Medicare cost history) and an ominous future (budget-driven service constraints) for what was supposed to be love at first sight.
When hippies talk this way, it’s called shrill.