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Obama is at it again, complaining about “griping and groaning Democrats” and frankly just not looking very presidential. Per Jake Tapper:
Last night at the Pyramid Club in Philadelphia, President Obama said “when I hear Democrats griping and groaning and saying, ‘Well, you know, the health care plan didn’t have a public option;’ and I don’t know, ‘The financial reform — there was a provision here that I think we should have gotten better’; or, ‘You know what, yes, you ended the war in Iraq, the combat mission there, but you haven’t completely finished the Afghan war yet’; or this or that or the other — I say, folks, wake up.”
This is the man who ran for 2 years on “bipartisanship” and against the politics of divisiveness, who wanted to reach his hand across the aisle in the spirit of “hope” while we sat there slack jawed at the idea that he could get Republican buy-in on…well, anything.
Obama has now done an about-face and is running against his own 2008 messaging campaign. He has seen the enemy, and it is the GOP: “This is not some academic exercise,” he told the audience. “As Joe Biden put it, don’t compare us to the Almighty; compare us to the alternative.”
I heard Biden on the Rachel Maddow show, and I’m not sure I understand the theory here. You’re not supposed to criticize the health care bill, or the President himself, because if you do, it means that it could depress turnout in the November election and the Republicans would take the House, and that would be the worst thing that could possibly happen.
“Because the consequences are serious for the outcome of the things we care most about,” said Biden (right before he said “we have enough votes to sustain support for repealing Don’t Ask Don’t Vote [sic].”)
Okay, fair enough. We’ll let slide for the moment the questionable assumption that it depresses voter turnout if the base criticizes the President, but it doesn’t depress voter turnout if the President criticizes the base — considering 86% of Democrats supported the public option, and 6 in 10 Americans now oppose the war in Afghanistan.
The argument spins out of the logic turn completely right when Tim Kaine flips his shit because Democrats in conservative districts are running against Obama to save themselves.
From Chet Edwards’ new ad:
“When President Obama and Nancy Pelosi pressured Chet Edwards, Chet stood up to them and voted against their trillion dollar health care bill and no to cap and trade,” says the ad’s narrator.
Glenn Nye, Stephanie Herseth-Sandlin, Joe Donnelly — they’re all running ads critical of Obama and the health care bill in their strongly conservative districts. Evidently nobody wants to hear it from them either, and they’re not liberals by any stretch of the imagination.
But if, as Biden says, “the consequences are serious for the things we care the most about,” that should be okay, right? I mean, the goal is to keep Democrats from losing their majority in the House, yes?
Following the Obama/Biden logic, one would think. But DNC chair Tim Kaine went on Fox news and blasted these Democrats, saying “I think they’re crazy.”
Now I’m confused. Because we women (and LGBTs and Hispanics and anti-war activists etc etc) have been told over and over again that the Democratic party has to have a “big tent” and allow conservative Democrats to “represent their districts,” since the most important thing is having a Democratic majority in the House (because as we all know, the alternative is unthinkable). So shouldn’t these members of congress also be allowed to do what they need to do to keep their seats? I mean, if the goal is keeping Darryl Issa from having subpoena power.
At least Steve Hildebrand, who was Obama’s finance director, admits what he wants when he demands that Democrats like Stephanie Herseth-Sandlin stop running against the President, calling them “cowards”:
JONATHAN KARL: And is that what you see people doing though because they’re afraid this vote is going to be used against them. In fact it’s already being used against them by Republicans they’re running away from it, running away from the President.
STEVE HILDEBRAND: Yeah, and the fact that they’re cowards in such a serious way. I mean, is this about their reelection or is this about helping people? What are they in politics for? What are they in government for, if they’re not in government to help people? They should simply get out. They shouldn’t run for reelection. And we should put people in there who are strong leaders, who want to do something to help people. That health care bill is going to help young people, old people, poor people, middle-income people. It’s vitally important to this country and any one of them that walks away from it, isn’t proud of that vote, is a coward.
Obama isn’t actually on the ballot this time, so it isn’t his neck that’s on the line. Nonetheless, Hildebrand thinks that Democrats should be willing to lose their seats in key swing districts that could cost them their majority in the House rather than criticize the health care bill, or the President, because it isn’t all about their “reelection.”
Bottom line: you can’t have it both ways. If Obama and Biden truly do believe what they’re saying, that keeping Darryl Issa from having subpoena power is the most important thing this November, then Democratic members in conservative districts who have been running reactionary campaigns for years to hold down those seats should also be able to criticize the President and the health care bill if that’s what it takes.
And if that’s not okay with them, then “holding the House” and keeping Darryl Issa from having subpeona power is not what they really care about. It’s just being used as an excuse to silence criticism they don’t want to hear.
Progressives got what they got with this administration because they didn’t sit quietly in the veal pen and clap on command. They fought for the things they care about, like Audit the Fed, Elizabeth Warren, student loan reform and derivatives regulation. And the best time to be pressuring politicians is right before an election. That’s when they have to listen to you.
November 3, not so much.
So to all the electoral politics rocket scientists who have come to the conclusion that the best strategy for winning in November is to hector the base about advocating for the issues they care about — you might want to have a group meeting and rethink things. Poll after poll continues to show that the health care bill is an albatross wrapped around the party’s neck this November, and this brilliant plan to lay responsibility off on “liberal critics” for coming up short at the polls makes everyone involved look thin skinned, desperate and weak.
It may give you something to say in the spin room on election night, but it won’t save one seat. And nobody but the crazies swimming around in the party bilge water will really believe it.
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Here’s what I always wonder: If progressives disappointed/angry with Obama are so critical to the Democratic Party’s chances than the way they have been handled by the White House represents nothing less than gross political incompetence. You have to cater to critical voters. If, on the other hand, these voters are not critical to winning an election and are just a small part of some “big tent,” then attacking them for having no enthusiasm or being angry is simply scape-goating and fear-mongering.
how is blaming the base for the HCR albatross any different than blaming ’94 on HCR when in fact it was NAFTA ?
do they really think none of us are paying attention ?
good to see Finger Wagger Extraordinaire Hildebrand hasn’t lost a step X~0
Jane I feel your confusion. What do you think Obama’s strategy is? Does he have an end game, or is he just mad at the professional left?
“Praise the President, or Save the House”
Neither, vote GREEN!
I meant to say they’ll be blaming us when it is lack of enthusiasm for HCR and all other so called “major pieces of progressive legist to be passed in a century” – sigh
Rahm was running around 3 days before the Massachusetts election saying that Martha Coakley was a shitty candidate in the press, trying to make sure that Obama was distanced from responsibility for any defeat. He probably cost her a couple of points in a race everyone knew (or at least was hoping) would be close.
They didn’t care if they threw the seat in order to deflect blame. They did the same thing to Specter and Blanche Lincoln. It’s sort of a pattern, and if you can scapegoat someone you’re sore at anyway, well all the better.
You have to put yourself in a 7th grade mindset for it to make any sense.
No single payer? No votes from me for Dems. Why would I?
“Now I’m confused. Because we women (and LGBTs and Hispanics and anti-war activists etc etc) have been told over and over again that the Democratic party has to have a “big tent” and allow conservative Democrats to “represent their districts,” since the most important thing is having a Democratic majority in the House (because as we all know, the alternative is unthinkable). So shouldn’t these members of congress also be allowed to do what they need to do to keep their seats?”
A “Big Tent” party is a party that stands for nothing, keeping it pro-corporate. We are consistently lied to that Conservadems have to vote against popular base issues because they come from conservative districts. Really? Are there actually voters out there who say, “Gee, I’m a centrist. I’m going to vote for a Democrat, but he better not support the party platform or I’m going to vote for a Republican.” That doesn’t make any sense. I grew up in a conservative congressional district. The voters there were socially conservative. That meant that our Democratic Rep voted conservative on issues like abortion, guns and gays, but he always supported unions and traditional worker positions. The idea that swing districts are across the board conservative is ludicrous. Again, they are social conservatives, not the plutocrats they’re depicted as being in the MSM. The whole thing is a farce. It’s time we stop buying into the lie that conservadems can’t support health care reform. The majority of voters support it. What they don’t support is the insurance industry bailout that was passed and watered down as a result of so called swing district dems needing to cover their collective arses. They needed cover from their corporate owners, not from conservative voters in their districts.
Obama’s “strategy” reminds me of the punch line to the old joke: “I don’t have to be faster than the bear — I just have to be faster than you.”
@Jane, School lunchroom politics is what I’ve called it. Now it seems as predictable as a metronome. The consequences of the Health Insurance and Pharma Corporate Welfare Act of 2010 were all predictable, there remains no constituency for the individual mandate. These people are not stupid, they are ringers. Roger Hodge lays it out quite well in the current Harpers.
-marc
‘Well, you know, the health care plan didn’t have a public option;’ and I don’t know, ‘The financial reform — there was a provision here that I think we should have gotten better’; or, ‘You know what, yes,”
I would say obama is starting to sound like Rumsfield with this kind of meandering drivel. definately not the silver tongued oratory he is credited for. Hes a hot air machine. I sure Michelle has never needed a space heater.
Right on cue, Ed Schultz said Beck and he said O’Donnell and he said how terrible things will be if the Republicans are back in charge. Then he and his guest listed off a whole slate of things that we will “go back to” if the Republicans are back in charge. Funny how those policies have never stopped in the 22 months of Democrats in charge of both houses and the executive branch. All of this complete with the old “driver’s seat” slogan they’ve been using. I’m watching baseball now.
It’s pretty easy to determine their motivation when you examine the entire history of O’s admin from day one:
“It’s All About Punching Hippies”.
Libs and Progs are being set up as sacrificial lambs to explain the soon-to be massacre of Congressional Dems.
This makes sense, in a “post-partisanship” way because having fewer Dems in Congress makes it easier to sell out Soc. Sec., and makes Obama look more “statesman” than “partisan”. Plus, it gives the DLC more reason to keep running to the right as the country clearly is moving in that direction. At least that’s the way TPTB and Corporate Media will spin it.
Wait, what?
You mean it’s not all the perks and cocktail weenie circuit? Lobbyists, hookers, and blow? The post electoral career lobbying/board of directors gig? ‘Cause that’s a lot of selling out for just helping people…
“Compare us to the alternative”. Would that be plain shit or shit wih catsup?
They can blame me for their upcoming bloodbath. I accept it proudly.
When I heard about the woman who asked hard questions of Obama yesterday at the public forum, I thought “wow, that’s really cool. Good for him. George Bush would’ve had a canned audience. He wasn’t afraid to talk to real people and answer their questions.”
I started to write about it, but watching the tape a couple times through — he just wasn’t good. She threw him. He can be really, really good in those situations, like he was in the Pauline Beck video that makes you want to cry. But he just wasn’t.
Still respect him for having the guts to take questions from a non-canned audience when others would’ve stacked it with fawning sycophants. But the only thing he seems to truly have a passion for these days is swiping back at liberal critics. And that, right now, is a pretty scary thing. There’s a whole lot of stuff that needs doing, and it feels like he’s just not engaged.
Obama just gives me a headache any more with his constant whining, complaining, bitching and moaning. What. a. loser.
Geez. Commented before that my mostly conservative bro-in-law is more “rational” than the rest of the family. He stated (graciously) to me what seems to be very obvious: Obama is inept, incompetent, lacking in any discernable leadership skills, and contrary to the fancy oratorical skills that he displayed during the election, he seems these days to be a joke of a speaker. He trots out the same old tropes, lies, scapegoating and b.s.
Which is it, ORahma? If the “professional left needs drug testing” and are f*cking r*tarded, then why should you CARE what we think? What does it matter? You keep telling us how we’re worthless and don’t matter.
Yet when push comes to shove, suddenly the things that we’re saying (which YOU directed us to do more than once) are a huge deal and will cost “you” the next general election.
Sheesh. Beyond the headache, I find it ludicrous, sickening, stupid, tawdry and d*** pathetic.
Whatever happens in Nov, happens. There is no real leadership anymore, unless you count the Koch’s, Rupert Murdoch, the Scaife’s, the hedgefunders (poor things, they feel like pinatas), Wall Streeters & banksters…. as for ALL pols: ptoui! Ridiculous.
Hes mad that the “Proffesional Left” have been right, and shoving it in his face since summer 2009. For example, The campaign for the public option was not actually a campaign to get the PO. It was but most realized fairly quickly that wasnt going to happen. So it was really about exposing the lies and duplicity of a WH which “negotiated” with Phara and the insurance industry, to give them everything they wanted, then blame it on the repubs, or joe lieberman, or the stars, whatever. Obama has never, WILL never forgive the left for that. For not falling in line to make him look good,instead of doing what we’vew always done.
LOL was christine van den heuval on?
1 – Disingenuous how Obama says “Hold me accountable” then gripes when he’s held accountable.
2 – the Obama machine is only about Obama. It’s abundantly clear at this point. The actual rank and file democrats in the Democratic party have nothing but a shell of an organization at this point, so discouraging after all of Dean’s successes, and will take years and years and years to repair.
Precisely. Then Rahm can say, “See? I told you to f*ck the Progressives, now they’ve f*cked you”.
Not by the time I turned it off.
I thought the whole event was planned. To let him “feel our pain”, maybe hes just coming apart. i dont think he is at all comfortable with being the king.
Agree. Seems like Obama’s sole focus is on himself, not on what this country needs. Feels like he’s in over his head – plus over the head of his administration – and they’re all just flapping and twirling. Not good.
Agree about the talk yesterday with an audience that was clearly not hand-picked sycophants and “allowed” to speak their minds. But while that’s laudable, I agree that Obama did a crummy job (other than being polite) in “responding” to what the people said. Obama just tossed off a lot of talking points, including how “things are better,” which, emphatically, they are not. It’s really BAD for Main St, but it’s like Obama just wants to live in his fantasy world that everything’s hunky-dory just because his bankster buddies are raking in the bucks.
what stuns me is that Obama listed Reagan as the politician he admires most. If he understands anything about Reagan, and I assume he does because Obama isn’t stupid like Bush Jr., is that St. Ronnie was a smooth talking con artist. That’s what he’s modeled his Presidency on. What Obama doesn’t get is that people are hurting so bad and have for years that the smile and the pitch no longer work -because people have seen this con before.
I’ve been saying it forever: The future that Obama is concerned with is his own.
Did they get one of the “fu**ing retards” t-shirts?
Heh, ding ding ding, you win!
That’s exactly it. And that’s a post.
4:20
Some might say: Mission Accomplished!
Sure feels like that was the goal, doesn’t it?
“….the consequences are serious for the outcome of the things we care most about,” said Biden “
What do you mean “we” Kimosabe.
With every passing day, it is increasingly clear that the Obama administration and I simply don’t care about the same things.
I never gave a shit about compromising my principles in a fruitless pursuit of bi-partisanship.
I never was in favor of a health insurance company bailout bill.
And so it goes.
Steve Hildebrand had a chance to challenge Stephanie Herseth-Sandlin over her health care vote, but he took a pass. I wonder why? If he’s so upset about her vote and her distancing herself from her president, why not challenge her in a primary, Steve? You’re from there, they know you, why not?
It seems that’s at least part of it. Unlike the conservatives, the leftwing has never been known to just shut up and get in line. Yet it seems like this is what Obama “expected” us to do… even after directing us to hold his feet to the fire. Like: does he not even listen to what he’s saying? Has he not been paying any attention to how the Democratic base has traditionally behaved? That’s what I don’t get.
Dylan Ratigan and then the tube goes off for 23 hours.
4:20
Teddy! We’ll always have the NORML convention.
after the slaughter in Nov. it will be very interesting to see what happens. Progressives need to be geared up for a fight to see if we can wrest control from the Centrists/Conservatives and get this party to reflect the values we believe in. If we can’t, then we need to seriously look at other options, including third parties.
Exactly. This Admin has run itself as Bush III and adhered to what’s traditionally been rightwing corporate agendas. And then Biden trots out “we”?? I don’t think so. Not the agenda that I voted for.
I think third party will then be the only option. The Democrats won’t take the right lesson from their thrashing. They never have and I have no reason to believe anything has changed.
Yup.
I never felt more straight-edge in my entire life.
During the last, oh, three years of Bush’s presidency, I concluded that he was really bored with being president, and would just as soon be out of there, back in Crawford cutting brush, drinking, telling raunchy jokes and scratching himself. He’d had enough of the Me President, everyone-salutes-&-I-get-to-order-folks-around stuff, and he was just bored.
Obama’s starting to approach that state. The only thing that piques his interest is making smart ass remarks about how fucked DFHs are.
Right. They have nothing but contempt for people who dont worship money and power the way they do. We arent “team players”.
spot on Kelly…I wish we only knew better in Feb 2008
Perhaps Obama sees the mother of the black swan in our near economic future, and it comes with
BlackwaterXe entourage.Rayne’s got some excellent diaries on organizing. We all need to read, learn and execute those ideas, and soon.
I’m not confused by the mixed messaging. Democrats are not good at coordination and uniform messaging.
Where the Blue Dogs and some New Dems went astray is in avoiding the President’s policies legitimizing the conventional wisdom that he was too far to the left. That choice is going to come back and bite them as surely as it bit Creigh Deeds. Had they instead claimed that Obama’s policies on healthcare and other things were conservative but not extreme, they could have created and then used Obama’s legitimacy and popularity.
What has to be done is winning enough new faces picking up open and Republican seats to offset the catastrophe the Blue Dogs and New Dems have brought on themselves.
@29 I can think of a good fundraising idea. Honest-to-goodness fu**ing retards tee shirts that folks can give to their favorite incumbents, complete with a pic of the Rahmster himself. I can think of four in NC who royally deserve one (and that includes Mel Watt).
We’ve ruled out the importance or accuracy of anything Biden has to say at this point, right? Good grief, Miss Cleo would be a better VP.
We’re not particularly good foils at the best of times, and particularly not on this issue. With the health care bill massively unpopular with most of the country, the first response people have is “wait, I agree, Blue Cross just raised my rates 20%, fuck that bill. Nobody likes it.”
He should’ve picked something where we’re in the minority. Like…well, I can’t think of anything right now, what with most of the country opposing the wars and thinking the government should create more jobs, rein in the banks, repeal DADT and pass the DREAM act. But I’m sure they could think of something if they tried.
Hey Steve [Hildebrand]: frame it, sign it, and hang it on Obama’s wall.
The combat mission in Iraq being over is something to celebrate, when? That’s like he changed a label on something and called it a day. There’s still 50,000 plus troops in there and now they’re constructing permanent bases. Iraq isn’t over by any stretch of the imagination.
That’s all they care about.
So the Dems are for once being truthful!
But as we used to say in the music business, “you can’t polish a turd.”
That fight will have to occur on Republican turf because a lot of the centrists and conservative Democrats will be gone. And unfortunately a few freshman progressives from strange places.
And when do we get our money back on that lunatic “embassy” we built over there — largest in the world, as I recall — and a refund on all those damn military bases?
I was sort of surprised at how much that pissed people off. It seemed pro-forma on their part. But it really, really got under people’s skin. I think it was the MSNBC sales job that tore it.
IMHO, I think this all about laying the groundwork for an argument blaming the professional left if and when the House is lost — not about winning anything.
the Park 51 community center. and thats only partly a sad joke.
The difference between Dems and Repubs is the reaction of their demographics. Repubs are older whiter and male. When they hear groans and gripes they still go vote. When Dems hear groans and gripes, they stay home. Particularly the youth, and the youth demographic vote is what will lose the Congress for the Dems.
And how many of us, who were saying “kill the bill” and being roundly criticized for that, were offering just that reasoning?
I know I was, and I know TONS of my “friends” called me nuts.
I’d like to be in the room when their next Blue Cross premium notice arrives.
P.S. Jane, please give the pups a biscuit for me. ;-)
I think Jane’s point vis. Rahm stepping in to deflect blame should be revisited and highlighted. This administration has some mad bunker mentality and their first, middle, and last priorities are to burnish Obama’s image and keep it free from stain. We can argue about the realpolitikal wisdom of that, but this admin. suffers no losses, to hell with governance, party stability, or clarity of message. Beyond that, looking to uncover motivation or consistency is pretty pointless.
I think that, personal grudge aside, Obama is following the plan which Rahm and other Clintonites invented which says, go left on social issues and go right on economic issues (shows how shallow they think) and just go a bit further right on gays and guns and we rule. they obviously dont get that things have changed.
The scolding will continue until morale improves …
what is the name of the last soldier who died in combat in Iraq?
“The last American soldier killed in the Vietnam War was Kelton Rena Turner, an 18-year old Marine.”
I want to hear Obama tell us the name.
Fuck it, I can’t wait for the crazies to impeach his ass, and I’m not kidding.
Even with all the Obama discontent (and/or disgust) from liberals, I still feel a sense from many that he’s somehow still a democrat in his heart and merely inept, misguided, too arrogant, etc.
No. This guy is Dick Fucking Cheney.
Can we let that sink in?
Cheney, people, with extra liarness.
Oh, except even Cheney’s not a bigot on queers anymore. That’s a free Obama bonus.
Done. They say muchas gracias!
Hah, that made me laugh out loud.
Yeah ! remember who they brought in to sell you that shit sandwich…..someone with the initials RM at MSNBC….who some see as a “librul”……
Shorter obamadmin: even though we suck, the alternative is worse so you’d better get off your arse vote for us or else.
“Obama just gives me a headache any more with his constant whining, complaining, bitching and moaning. What. a. loser.”
Amazing! I just read through nothing but “whining, complaining, bitching and moaning.” What losers!
“Fuck it, I can’t wait for the crazies to impeach his ass, and I’m not kidding”
Im kind of with you there, at least i want to know the details of what went on during HCR, and the legal twisting and bending over torture, blacksites and wiretapping.
No one here is bitching but you. we’re dicussing politics
I agree, I can see it now “The Professional left” is going to be the new Nader?
At this point?
Fuck you, Mr. President, and the centrist pony you rode in on.
See you at the mid-terms…but not, I think, in 2012. You’re talking your way out of THAT one, and I become happier about that every time you open your mouth.
the only “librul” on MSM is Ratigan, and he’s not even a freekin’ Democrat…
The argument contains an inherent contradiction. That is, we can’t do it because we don’t have the votes and they are not voting for us because we didn’t do it.
He really should shut his mouth about the public option thing.
we should welcome their challenge! – ‘s what FDR did.
I don’t think there is any….but maybe Ratigan has a conscience.
but its the spite talking. he CANT shut up about that because he needs to rub it in! thats his flaw, thats why things are they way they are now. it also PROVES he knows the HCR bill was a giant political fuck up
“Can we let that sink in?”
Oh, I think it’s sinking in very well. And here’s the bottom line: if liberals are pissed at him, what do you think the rest of the voters are thinking?
This mid-term election is shaping up to be the fastest and most decisive political turnaround in our history.
Listening to the Obama-enablers explain what happened is going to be…interesting.
It would make sense, that seems to be the narrative they’re laying down. Of course, the world is a much different place now than in 2000 so we’ll be able to much more effectively counter that this time around, if it does turn out to be the case.
Politically a fuck up, personally a victory for his
classteam.“I’m watching baseball now.”
Go Phillies!
Except they haven’t gone left at all on social issues as witness the Stupak Presidential Directive on Abortion as well as the faux support of repealing DOMA and DADT and passing ENDA and EFCA
I think that Obama is the con man who started to believe his own hype. He may have thought that all those cheering adoring fans would love him forever just because he’s lovable. They have pretty much abandoned him expect for the OFA shills and all he knows to do about it is whine.
I don’t want to see his face or hear his voice anymore. I hope there will be a primary challenger if he doesn’t call it quits.
With the average Congressional District race costing north of $500,000, and the DCCC and state parties always preferring self-financed candidates (aka Millionaires) we will still have opportunities to duke it out as the Party attempts to retake those seats. We’ll certainly be motivated if Obama guts SS like we suspect he will after the mid-terms – that motivation approximating “hell hath no fury” levels of indignation. Something tells me the tipping point is coming closer and closer.
yeah, thats what underlies ALL OF IT. he did what was best for the 2% ers and he cant belive we have the nerve, the bad taste bring it up.
He should be concerned.
thats what they percieve as clintons failing so they are trying to avoid it.
Yes. Obama had a Rahmian Big Tent paradise of shitty right-wing Blue Dogs–the streets were paved with gold. They got the very bills they wanted passed passed. And guess what? Everybody hates them. Must be quite a crisis of faith for them.
But maybe the hope for them is that legislation will get better when even MORE Republicans get their hands on it. Hope springs eternal for this big tent imbeciles.
I’m going nuclear on the Dems. I’m voting Fiorina!
For those of you not on his mailing list, Rep. Antony Weiner has launched a new web site and is asking for comments while it’s in the beta stage.
Personally, for me, the final straw was when they let the torturers walk out of the room laughing that left me a little cold.
They could still put a public option back in and save that loss but siding with and enabling torturers just isn’t popular anywhere.
Obama has earned a primary challenger in 2012.
On October 2 several unions, the NAACP among others are sponsoring a march in D.C.. Ed Schultz has been promoting this for the last several weeks. Hopefully the turnout will far surpass the baggers bund rally. I encourage anyone attending to carry a “Primary Obama” sign.
The only way Obama could screw up the mid-terms campaign any more than he has would be to do a live surprise walk-on on WWE Raw and challenge some Tea-Bagger to wrestle live in the Dallas Cowboys new football Stadium.
The last line of Kevin Baker’s incisive and prescient July 09 article keeps coming back to me
Talk about bringing it up look at the BP we rape you for a dollar episode. Because there is no free press in the US, we still do not know what the full magnitude of that horrible nightmare.
That oil in the gulf is(was) a public resource. Our government sold(gave) that resource to its corporate partners. It is no longer ours. Also, how long until those steel cased well heads rust through. The structural life of concrete in those conditions is what 45 years? Who gets to deal with the next blowout?
For anyone to be happy likes Obama pretends to expect, they would have to be stupid enough to vote for him twice. Talk to a couple of the Bush two timers and see how they feel.
OK, but what are YOU doing here? Surely there are websites more to your taste? Trust me, no one here will begrudge you.
Yeah, worth repeating. I have no doubt that had Obama tacked true left, gotten done what was capable of getting done (public option, true financial reform, a real stimulus) to really help Americans, he’d not only have gotten the left base cheering him on, he’d have gotten, imo, some reluctant but inexorable respect from the center and the center-right for his balls. He’d be looking, somewhat paradoxically, at very solid approval numbers now and lower unemployment. In other words, a much better climate for the midterms.
The health care chickens are coming home to roost. Any health care bill passed by Democrats was going to be deemed “Socialism” by Republicans. And a health care bill which resembled his opponent’s more than the one he ran on and was essentially written by industry wasn’t going to please the base. So, just where did Obama’s team of brilliant strategists figure the support would come from?
He did the same with financial reform. He’s doing the same with Social Security. He’s rehabilitated the Wall Street leeches that are bleeding us white. He hasn’t even put up a half-hearted fight for the repeal of DADT, for the passage of EFCA, for the repeal of DOMA. He has granted immunity to war criminals, and is continuing the war crimes himself. And he thinks he’s going to win us over by going around telling us we’re ungrateful bastards. I thought this guy was supposed to be smart.
Obama: If both sides hate it, I must be doing something right! Well, good luck with that. It’s stupid, it’s arrogant, and it won’t fly.
Go Twins!
I just saw a comment somebody left on Krugman which says Obama is running the country like he ran Harvard Law Review – by kissing ass to conservatives and beating up on progressives. He really should have shown his true colors and run on the GOP ticket instead of lying about being a Democrat.
Oh, jeez, don’t do THAT to us!!
“The only way Obama could screw up the mid-terms campaign any more …”
They do keep trying.
From the HP article on the Summers resignation:
I’m sure there is a lot of whining about Obama on the other websites as well. You just have to catch it quick before the insolent poster gets tombstoned along with the blasphemous message.
Remember when Obama assumed office how he was proudly waving aloft his copy of Team of Rivals by Doris Kearns Goodwin? He should have been waving a copy of The Shock Doctrine by Naomi Klein! Instead of channeling FDR and Keynes he has been channeling Hoover and Milton Friedman. And now every chance he gets he disses, or picks a quarrel with his base rather than pick a fight with the GOP, who kick him in the nuts whenever he reaches out to them.
And the top corporate executive will vouch for him and give him a good reference for many corporate board directorships and speaking engagements for a very profitable retirement in 2012. Papa Bush will even let him ride in the golf cart.
Geez! No need to be helping the other idiots as well, they aren’t any better. Be consistent: If you can’t vote for Democrats because they’re awful, then don’t vote for Republicans either; they’re just as awful. Now’s your chance to vote Green, or Socialist, or whatever your heart desires.
More business friendly? What does that mean? They’re handing over SS to Wall St too?
You know what, it’s just time to take a stand:
Catfood Commission recommends SS cuts or raise retirement age?
Some other Wall St slime to replace Summers?
Done with Obama, and will support impeachment for a hang nail. Will work with WHOEVER to make it happen.
Just done.
Obama has made history twice, as the first Black man to be editor of Harvard Law Review and POTUS.
http://www.nytimes.com/1990/02/06/us/first-black-elected-to-head-harvard-s-law-review.html
Unfortunately for him, those will be his only accomplishments worthy of posterity.
Gotta secure that campaign cash for 2012.
actually….
That’s not true.
but even with all that democratic elbow grease, we all know what’s on the inside and the absolute lack of integrity and motivation to do what’s right with this administration.
it is hard for me to believe that you folks are serious.
do you believe that it is all that easy?
“save the house or praise the president’?
this sounds more like the tea party crazies than progressives.
New Rule: Don’t vote for cokehead war criminals.
So unbelievably sad….he must have a goal. If he does, he has not communicated it; his followers/supporters can’t get it. What a mess.
Thanks very much for your bday greeting. It meant a great deal. I somehow misplaced your email. I will try an fb message.
Bullseye Jane, as per usual.
And we have another winner!
And it isn’t even rocket science…in fact, it is a fairly easy conclusion to reach from the facts. The poll data, the known economic science, the known political science, social trends, all the facts pointed to a nice, easy conclusion – be unashamedly and boldly liberal.
If we assume that Obama is smart enough to see that same conclusion, we have to ask ourselves why he chose to act against that conclusion instead of acting with it. It seems as if he has taken calculated steps to undermine the evidence – the decisive presidential election, the majority in both chambers of Congress, a public primed-and-ready for a change in the liberal direction [if not the wholly progressive direction].
By looking at the facts of Obama’s actions since his election, what conclusion must we draw?
Not that it happened that often, but there was Harry Taylor
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SnOFri7fRDU
I am considering the same thing. My only rationale is that the republicans will completely screw up the Congress and we will have a chance to get some real progressives in elected office.
Bingo.
You beat me to the Mythbusters reference!
It is a lack of integrity, but it’s also the lack of a clue. I guess that’s the harsher way of saying the Dems are out of touch.
For years, we’ve heard (and even said) how those idiots in Congress are out of touch with the people. While GWBush was in office and the Republicans had control of Congress, for some reason it just didn’t click in my head that the cluelessness also applied to the Democrats. Once the Democrats got power, it became clear that they are just as out of touch as the Republicans.
So yes they do lack integrity, but they also lack a clue.
You know what’s absurd? It’s absurd that you have to beg these low-life corporatist pols for MILD reforms. The public option? C’mon, it’s ludicrous. Jeebus. We should have had universal health care 50 years ago…and yet…
It’s all so depressing.
A total lame duck session or, the denouement of the Dem Party as nothing but a dressed up Kleptocrat Corporatist front, if they, let’s say, in a gesture of bipartisanship agree to forgo the filibuster…
Jim Hightower for Prez, and he can thrill me with his very own pick for VP. in 2012 (if this ‘democracy’ manages to survive that far)
Gotta disagree. They’re not clueless. They know exactly what they’re doing, and they’re only out of touch with the little people. On purpose.
We’re just mules being coaxed with various carrots and sticks.
But the carrots are tasting a lot like sticks now, and the sticks are starting to get as poorly engineered as a 1970′s Japanese horror movie.
Eli is upstairs!
The An-Tea Party
The cost of a Congressional seat is high primarily because of the need to subsidize the Republican party by buying media ads on Republican-owned media outlets. Figure out how to turn out 150,000 without subsidizing the opposition and we can make a whole lot faster progress.
My own take is that the Dem leaders know what they’re doing, but the rest are barely capable of self-awareness.
It’s like a segment of Tosh.0…”Clueless Or Evil?? OR BOTH?”
For someone who is supposedly so bloody smart and well educated, he sure acts like a moron frequently. Instead of acknowledging that we don’t like the HC bill, and explaining what and how he plans on fixing it, he keeps trying to shove it down our throats and insisting that we do like it. Or…he speaks to a group of adoring folks, and berates the rest of us for our views. WTF????
We know he’s smart, so he must simply be in cahoots with all the backstabbing, and corporate leaning, insufficient legislation being pumped out of the ole sausage factory on the Hill.
Obama, David Axelrod, Robert Gibbs, fear the un-holy alliance that is developing below the surface.
No one likes the Obama?Bob Dole Health Care bill, Obama got the phony dems to pass.
1 Liberals and Progressives hate the Obama/Bob Dole Health Care bill
2 The tea Party hates all things Obama
3 The GOP underclass hates the Obama/Bob Dole Health Care Bill
Come January you could see republicans and democrats working to destroy the Obama/Bob Health Care Bill.
Obama is currently living in NO MAN LAND!
Obama is a president with few to any allies in DC. Rahm and Obama thought they were the only people that could play Chess.
The question of the day is how many real progressive democrats and blue dog democrats are going to fight for the Obama/Bob dole health care bill? None!
lucy2009 @130
you’d think that life experience would be sufficient to make that deduction…
Can I just say that I loathe Mr. Barack Obama… pretty much as I loathed Mr. George W. Bush.
If his voice crosses the radio…………….. I turn off………. as I did with the last loser to wander the Oval Office.
hadn’t thought of that part Tarheel…thanks for the idea. these damn things wouldn’t cost so much w/out all the TV and media leeches to pay off.
to paraphrase Slick Willie “it’s about GOTV, stupid.”
Jane you have done more for the Republican party than any GOP congressional leader, any tea bagger, Glenn Beck or Sarah Palin. I am certain that the GOP thanks you for your continued efforts. All so you can get some TeeVee time for yourself. Good job.
Just helping Obama’s vision of a United States of America become a reality. Stop faulting the Preznit!
If, say, ***insert cogent Right-Wing commenter here*** had gone to war with George W. Bush in 2003 on the grounds of gross violations of the Constitution, stunning political incompetence and being in the back pockets of some really bad people, you would accuse him of helping Democrats?
When you understand that “We the people” are Obama’s boss, and that “we the people” are also the boss of every Democrat and Republican in both houses of Congress -and that they’re not doing the job that “we the people” asked them to do, (because they believe that they are our boss) I think you’ll understand why us Liberals and Progressives are disappointed, angry, fed up, and done with this “Lesser of Two Evils” horseshit. I hope you get there.
Is this Larry Summers??? WOW
Good try, but you want us all to ignore the obvious!!!
Obama is intentionally trying to destroy the democratic party.
Larry V, go find a POLL taken the last 20 months that had health care as the number 1 issue in the USA. Please find one!
The only issue in the USA for the last 20 months has been the economy and jobs!!!
Between me and you, a below average real democrat could have kept the GOP on life support, see OBAMA should have focus all of his energy on the economy and Jobs. Period!
Jane did not hurt Obama! Obama, David Axelrod, RObert Gibbs, apparently can’t read POLLS!!! No one in the USA wanted the Bob Dole Health Care Bill.
Larry V. come on? Obama has more in common with Glenn Beck, Sarah Palin, Ronald Reagan, Bob Dole, than FDR!!!
I mean Armstrong Williams likes Obama,
Armstrong Williams is a right wing Con Man.
Look at it this way Armstrong Williams proves a valuable lesson all progressives need to know, it takes a Con Man to Love a Con Man. (Armstrong Williams knows that Obama and him have a lot in common)
See the USA needs a FDR type of Democrat! not a hoover wanna be.
One narrative that makes sense to me is this: Obama’s deal w/ Wall Street and K Street was, “If you folks finance my campaign and if it’s successful, I’ll betray my base to such an extent they’ll abandon the Democratic Party for at least a generation. You will truly be Masters of the Universe.”
Methinks that narrative is becoming less of a fairy tale every day, Frank.
Why, yes of course! Because the President of the United States of America and the majority party in Congress have so much of a harder time getting out their message than Jane Hamsher!
Obama won’t be in office in 2012.
He’ll be impeached in 2011 and we’ll be trying to get President Biden elected to his own term.
I knew about Hoover before I read Kevin Baker’s article, thanx for the link, he was a man of extraordinary accomplishment. Hoover was in every way a doer. You just can’t seriously compare Obama to Hoover. At best, the parallels are superficial, so slight as to not be worth mentioning. You might as well compare me to Hoover.
They just don’t get it. Betrayal begets a desire for revenge, not loyalty.
The thing about Republicans is, you know they’re out to hurt you, like a neighborhood dog that bites. It’s a known factor, so you keep your distance. I let the Democrats into my home, so to speak, by identifying with the issues Obama campaigned on. He lied.
I want them out on the street.
So Obama’s decided to start blaming his base for being unhappy with him for his unwillingness to deliver on his campaign promises? He’s clearly been hanging out with Rahm too long if he believes the shit he’s saying.
Biden 2012? Somehow, I don’t see him winning on the top of the ticket…
Obama won’t be impeached. Republicans won’t move to impeach him until after they’ve failed to beat him on election day. And, at the rate he’s screwing up, Obama seems perfectly willing to let them beat him in 2012. He’s not going to be able to show accomplishments or spout lofty bullshit next time around.
“And how many of us….”
a TON of us were saying “kill the bill”…a ton.
DanR,
Thanks for mentioning that Kevin Baker article from last summer, Barack Hoover Obama.
Damn, Baker really has his number doesn’t he? The single best piece of journalism about the President I’ve ever read.
Okay, and he very likely put several achievable goals down in writing, and under each one he listed those objectives or actions that would be necessary to carry out to achieve each goal. He doesn’t get a vote. Every other elected member of the federal government gets a vote, including the coat-tailing Vice President if needed. Even the non-elected justices of the Supreme Court get a vote. He’s not a bully, so he can’t use the bully pulpit. Jane Hamsher is a bully, and thank goodness for that much. I feel sorry for the guy: he would be a better president had he lost to Hillary and lived to fight another day. He has no sense of balance, having never lost, having risen like a Nike missile. Now, if Jane Hamsher wins the Nobel Prize for literature, she’ll have a lot to live up to, and we’ll expect a lot more of her than she’s likely to meet. It’s how we are, it’s how the world works.
Almost got it right, you get credit for a good try.
Jane youThe Democrats have done more for the Republican party than any GOP congressional leader, any tea bagger, Glenn Beck or Sarah Palin. I am certain that the GOP thanksyouthem foryourtheir continued efforts. All soyouthey can get someTeeVee time for yourselfcorporate cash for their coffers. Good job.You’re sooooo close to being in reality, you might as well go ahead and jump in with the rest of us. Yeah, the water’s cold, there’s little food and not much hope, but at least it’s reality and not fantasyland.
Enough of the crazy talk!
What would FDR, JFK, LBJ have done? real democrats!!!
FDR, JFK, LBJ, would have at least supported the base of the Democratic Party!
Obama and Clinton the democrooks attack the base of the democratic party on a regular basis.
FDR, JFK, LBJ, would have supported and fought for the public option
“Obama and Clinton democrooks fought to kill the public option”
FDR, JFK, LBJ, would have fought for unions and teachers
“Clinton, Obama democrooks hate unions” I hear Rahm? F! the UAW
FDR, JFK, LBJ, would have passed a health care bill Ted Kennedy would have love!
“Clinton, Obama, democrooks passes a Bill written by Bob Dole a republican”
FDR, JFK, LBJ, would have put people on their economic team that could get us out of this depression!This is not a recession. the USA is currently in a severe depression”
“Clinton, Obama democrooks put people on their economic team that cause the current depression”
FDR, JFK, LBJ, would never let the NSA spy on americans
“Clinton, Obama democrooks like Bush are all for letting the military of USA spy on americans”
FDR, JFk, LBJ, would have supported and appointed people like Elizabeth Warren in their Adminstration.
“Obama and Clinton democrooks support and listen to people like Alan Simpson, and well point executives”
FDR, JFK, LBJ, would have fought for the people of the Gulf of Mexico, they would have taken BP to the woodshed!
“Clinton, Obama democrooks help companies like BP cover up disasters”
Fact: the people of the Gulf now think Bush done a better job with Katrina, than Obama is doing with BP! who thought Bush would do something better than Obama? this says it all.
Like most americans when I hear the word Democrat, the first thing pops in my mind are people like FDR, JFK, LBJ, Ted Kennedy, not Reagan, Bush, etc.
Clinton likes the Bushes
Obama likes Reagan
enough said! can you say Trojan Horses
The next time democrats need to elect a democratic president that likes
people like FDR, JFK, LBJ, Ted Kennedy, etc.
should that scenario happen Teddy, i doubt we’ll exert much effort for Joe Biden… after all, he was the former senator of MNBC
A very prescient article of July 2009
Barack Hoover Obama:
The best and the brightest blow it again
By Kevin Baker
http://www.harpers.org/archive/2009/07/0082562
Thanks to the original poster, you know who you are. And I hope we will do what must be done.
“Every instinct the president has honed, every voice he hears in Washington, every inclination of our political culture urges incrementalism, urges deliberation, if any significant change is to be brought about. The trouble is that we are at one of those rare moments in history when the radical becomes pragmatic, when deliberation and compromise foster disaster. The question is not what can be done but what must be done.”
After reading that Kevin Baker piece, I was browsing the Harper’s archive, there’s a transcript of a 2008 political roundtable with Kevin Baker, Tom Schaller, Kevin Phillips and Scott McConnell (editor of American Conservative). Interesting read, especially this exchange:
MCCONNELL: The problem is that Democrats have become a party in which liberal social attitudes are required in leadership positions while support for liberal economic policies is entirely optional.
BAKER: In fact, Democrats seem to have come to the point where they run on economic issues and win on economic issues, and then after coming into office they tell the electorate, “Well, you were being awfully childish about this—of course you aren’t going to get those things.”
Yeah, that about sums up Obama’s first two years.
Sums up the whole rotten edifice.
What struck me when I read the President’s comments from last night was:
Well, I guess the lady from the town hall earlier in the afternoon sure has her answer now doesn’t she…
What an ass he is.
The Kevin Baker article is a must read.
thanks
I will still be voting for the Democratic Party candidate in November, not for a Tea Party Republican, not for a Green Party candidate.
By voting for the Democratic Party candidate, I’m reserving my right in advance to continue criticizing the Democratic Party leadership, especially any of the Koch Industries-financed Democratic Leadership Council (DLC) “Democrats,” who fill most, if not all, of the top Democratic Party leadership positions, both on Capitol Hill and in the Obama White House.
Once I learned over the past weekend that Koch Industries, and the John Bircher billionaire Koch brothers, helped fund the DLC, including having Koch Industries executives sitting on the DLC board, I realized immediately why the top Democratic Party leadership seems to be so out of step with rank-and-file liberal progressive Democrats, and liberal progressive Democratic Party ideals, while appearing to cater to the corporatist class, the millionaires and billionaires, an much as the culture of corruption Republicans do.
A conservative Trojan Horse was wheeled into the liberal progressive Democratic Party in the mid-1980s, when the John Bircher-affiliated, Koch Industries-backed DLC was formed, no doubt a conservative “Democrat” response to the Republican Party’s “southern strategy,” it’s racist “The South Shall Rise Again” agenda, it’s “slave-owners were just misunderstood small businessmen” mentality…instead of conservative “Democrats” (who stayed and formed the DLC) just jumping to the corrupt, racist Republican Party, like so many other Dixiecrats did.
Now, I’m not saying that President Obama is a secret Dixiecrat. But when he surrounds himself with people like former DLC head Rahm “Fcuk the UAW” Emanuel, a whole lot of Wall Street revolving-door economic advisers, while bending over backwards in a “bipartisanship” manner to appease obstructionist, racist Republicans, letting them and DLC Blue Dog Democrats water-down legislation, eradicating in many instances liberal progressive provisions that would help working American families instead of just padding corporate profits (like the profits of Koch Industries owned by the billionaire John Bircher Koch brothers), then I do believe that the white half of President Obama may be a secret Dixiecrat out to bury his black half, or lynch it, or both, with the burying following the lynching.
And yet, being a lifelong liberal progressive Democrat I WILL vote straight Democratic Party ticket in November. What happens in 2012 during the Democratic Party’s presidential primaries is another matter.
Yeah! Yeah! Yeah!
We heard you the first time, you are voting for the lesser of two evils.
You do know is evil is evil? just saying.
Some of us actually want to vote for real democrats, not trojan horses.
See Oracle at the end of the day, you could just vote straight republican ticket, and tell us what the current dems would have done differently.
Me thinks the current democrats = the current republicans
VATICAN FACES MONEY LAUNDERING PROBE. – quelle surprise?!
Bankers and The Church doing what they’ve always done through the ages, Savvy Businessmen and Pious Christians. Phew.
Dear Jane,
I think people who are reading between the lines are failing to notice the real intent: to purposely lose same-party majorities in Congress. Why? …Triangulation.
What oughta happen is this: Democrats landslide the hell out of the GOP and win 350 House seats and 70 Senate seats. Then we could find out what more is not possible — due, of course, to not having enough votes and that m.f.’ing filibuster.
It’s not just the construction. Anyone keeping up with the news these last few weeks knows that our “non-combat troops” in “advisory and training roles” have actually been in the field…in combat. The Iraqi troops have been failing miserably and our troops have had to go in and fight and clean up the mess.
Obama should stop making the claim that combat operations are over. It risks becoming his “Mission Accomplished” as news reports make it ever more clear that combat operations are in fact continuing.
Voting for a bad democrat, like my senator Patty Murray is like voting for the status quo. Her opponent is infinitely worse, but voting for the lessor evil is still evil. The democratic party will have to go down before it can rise with progressive values. Also sayonara Mr. President.
C’mon, now, play fair. ‘The lesser of two evils’ is a tropic figure of speech. When you say “evil is evil” you can’t mean ‘evil’ in its, um, literal sense, now, can you?
You know, he could talk about how he’s going to work on getting that Public Option back into our “starter house,” or Medicare for All or something like that.
I don’t care what he promised the corporations. If he wants votes, he better start caring about what he promised us.
- Tom
If “wake up” doesn’t bring the progressives to heel, the president intends to deploy even more powerful rhetorical weapons, including “deal with it”, “grow up”, “get a grip”, and that hardy perennial, “it is what it is.”
Got to see the vid. Everybody analyses and nobody likes over analysis.
Real fine work by Jane. It’s in the eyes. Matched, dialated, intent, sincere.
Bozo not so good–non-aligned, heavy right shifts, constricted.
I got two quotes and they reflect the interview and the big picture: 1. Cenk “so we’ve got Armstrong Williams defending a democratic president” and 2. Jane “he did try to satisfy the special interest and that’s why people are so upset”.
Yippee Kie Yay, Yippee Kie Yoh, it is entirely obvious that everybody knows Obummer is a corporate shill and they are hoping to milk his character for one more cycle. If the numbers are wrong, you won’t see his worn out act in the general in ’12. He’s cool with that cause he’s already made bank.
What act will work on the rubes next?
You left out: shut up and like it; you wanted it; you deserved it; and the all time number one: you ain’t never going to better than me so why bother tryin’.
President Obama tells us to wake up, as if we don’t understand. Leaving people to the tender mercies of the health insurance industry, with no option, under threat of penalty, seems like a bad thing. A government run insurance option, just as insurance against the insurance industry not playing fair, seems like a good thing.
And a land war in Afghanistan is never, ever a good thing.
We understand Mr. President, we just disagree. Your agenda is for sale in November. If there is a small market for it, don’t blame the cheerleaders who left the field early.
Ha! Funny.
So everyone is pissed. We feel lied to. Condescended to. And especially talked down to.
Now we know exactly how this guy felt.
Yeah, like most things… this has it’s limits. In what ways are these districts conservative? I think they’re usually socially conservative. But if the Dem representing the district is BOTH a social and an economic conservative then what’s the point in even calling him a Democrat?
I’d understand a socially conservative Democrat representing a district in the South but only if they were at least an economic populist. If they are an economic populist then at least you have something that supports what needs to be the core of the Democrat party. Because without basic economic security we can’t even hope to address social issues.
Dems that give up on economic populism turn the party into a carbon copy of the Republican Party.
Jane, you got the exact right words. In my opinion Mandates for Government would have been fine since every person in the country would have had a say in how it is managed during polls. For a private entity whose only goal is to maximize profits for shareholders and enforced for free by IRS no American will ever accept. Sooner the leadership realizes this and removes mandates by themselves better it is for them. Better still Public Option needs a simple majority, it is filibuster proof since it is a medicare buy-in program. They can remove these mandates and add in public option only in few days through the congress and senate by a simple bill before the polls while they still have majority and then they will see how the base will be energized.
If GOP removes mandates before courts do it will always be remembered as savior by the people in-spite of its extremely significant failures and mistakes last 3 decades because insurance company bills and tricks hit every persons pocketbook in the America.
Chastisizing back 99% for requesting to do the right thing is a bad approach. Nobody wants a dole. Government policy makers needs to make sure even a person making $15080 per annum on minimum wage can afford it by themselves then they have done their job. Public Option will make that happen gradually in a decade since frivolous cost increases for the sake of more profits and lavish life-style for insurance company people will become a thing of past and realistic pricing takes hold. There is still time for Democrats to correct the mistake. Just simply bring back Public Option by simple majority and remove unnecessary mandates.
I want a regulator. Somebody that sends the message to Wall St that the frakin’ fraud and corruption party is over.
But I realize that should be somebody in Geithner’s job.
This catfood commission existence right now shows confidence one gets after getting bailouts, transferring couple of trillion of dollars debt to our children to repay, funding $30,000 a plate dinner during elections and now requesting the potency of social security in our lives to be reduced so that the wall street influence could be more. I am wondering they would have gotten bigger bailouts than we can imagine if they were truly able to crash the economy 1930s style.
I thank FDRs progressive social security concept first time in the human history concept, a noble progressive, collective savings oriented one for saving us big time right now by avoiding depression (it is totally depression proof right now irrespective of what wall street does 30 to 40% of the economy will always be humming due to social security unlike in 1930s) and making sure our children have to repay only few trillions and not tens of trillions of dollars.
And if those don’t work, there’s that old standby:
What is painful to most Democrats and Independents that know better, is the rude slap in the face that DEMOCRATS put this dumb bill together without a public option, and without doing anything about the anti-trust exempt monopolies called the health insurance industry that is laughing all the way to the bank. They certainly had support for a public option yet they let non-voting Republicans take away too much of the bill! They aren’t blamed for all their carving up of bills, and their solid “NO” block of votes.
While there is much in the bill which will be helpful to some at some point the real issue is JOBS. Obama still has not figured out that spending comes from MAIN STREET, not a few little crappy pellets that float down from David Stockman’s theory of “Voodoo economics” which even he disowns.
The truth is the president comes off as a wimp and a whiner. He had a lot of chances to do a lot of things, including vetoing some of the bills if Congress, or letting anyone really knew where in the hell he stood on anything. Bush was stupid, but he wasn’t a wimp or a member of Michele Bachmann’s Tea-Party wackos.!
Why should those running GUESS where Pres. Obama stands? He has been AWOL on the issues, has failed to stand up to a minority, and deserves all the criticism he gets. He did it “the old fashioned way, he earned it!”
As far as the troops being out of Iraq that the president is so wrong on, and I know I have said it before: Dear president Obama, there are 50,000 non-combat combat military in Iraq. That is equal to between 2 1/2 to 5 DIVISIONS. That sounds more like an occupation force to me!
Pretty hared to run against a president that signed your lousy bill that may have had some good points but in the end just were not good enough. Even sadder is the fact that the alternative REALLY IS worse! Though they will be damn entertaining of the whako’s retake any of the Congress.
Now you’re crossing the line bucko! What’s with you and some of the commenters here who do NOTHING but bash, bash, bash?
Has it occurred to any of you people that he doesn’t consider you his base?
“Jane is SHRILL”???
Jesus Christ, SOMEONE needs to be shrill! :o(
Well, Mike, as someones asked a while back, where do they think their votes will becoming from?
I mean, this whole shtick of crapping on your (esrtwhile) natural constituents is straight out of Hillary’s playbook, and we know how that worked out.
You forgot one: “If you kids don’t knock it off, I’m going to turn this car around right now!”
“Your agenda is for sale in early November. If there is a small market for it, don’t blame the cheerleaders who left the field early.”
Too true. Zinger of the week.
More to come. :o)
It is interesting, in a sad sort of way, that the first person of color to be elected President wishes to believe, and wants the rest of us to “believe”, that the nation is conservative and wants to “move” to the “right”.
DW
Outstanding post, Jane. Thank you.
Thanks for this link -this article is one of the best historical compare/contrast pieces I’ve read in a while.
It makes my blood boil to think I ever believed in hollow brand Obama. Looking back, I think the main appeal of the brand was to our collective narcissism. After Bush, we wanted to feel good about ourselves.
Now we’re in a hell of a state.
It is the Democrats who are killing themselves. No surprise here. Two elections, 2006 and 2008, did not convince them that the country wanted Democratic policies. What did they expect when Congress and the Obama Administration, almost totally, ignored their voters?
I do not remember GWB needing 60 votes in the Senate to get his ruinous tax cuts passed. But Democrats seemed to need 60 votes to pass legislation that only shored up the world’s worst health care “system”. And, too, while fiddling with “financial reform” the rest of the country had burned away its jobs, its middle class and the country has become more poor.
President Obama can blame the Bush Administration for the economic plight, but he proudly refuses to hold it responsible for war crimes, torture and the destruction of our civil rights, all of which he strongly supports.
I live in New York and am worried now that the anger fueled by the Obama Administration’s incompetence has caused so much anger among voters that it may help elevate a real wing-nut into the governorship.
President Obama isn’t finished. He is going to cut Social Security to insignificance. His secretive deficit commission was assembled for that task. And if President Obama cannot get its recommendations passed in this year’s lame-duck Congress, he will have a much better chance to begin the chipping away at Social Security when he gets a Republican Congress.
We ain’t seen nothing, yet.
Regarding Soc Sec: It should be obvious to everyone that Bush III will do everything he can to accomplish what Bush II failed to do.
The fact is that Obama is only concerned with Obama. Why did he tackle health care first? His legacy. He pushed an insurance company welfare bill through and called it health care reform. He then tried to take a victory lap and the “professional” and un-professional left didn’t and wouldn’t cheer. This made him and Rahm mad so they have lashed out against the hippies. Screw Obama the poser. He is a self aggrandizing punk.
Obama has the morality and character of a smooth-talking pimp.
It’s interesting how the photograph of Obama seems to reveal his dubious character and his conscious complicity.