A brand new shiny thread for you.
And the red skies did not lie last night. Beautiful here today.
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Come for the politics, stay for the snark.
Republicans don’t want a speaker to lead them; they want a hostage.
Speaking of republicans, is there a way for a political party to declare intellectual bankruptcy?
Nothing worth doing is easy.
Within six months Twitter will be fully self-driving.
Republicans are the party of chaos and catastrophe.
American History and Black History Cannot Be Separated
Just because you believe it, that doesn’t make it true.
… pundit janitors mopping up after the GOP
The next time the wall street journal editorial board speaks the truth will be the first.
New McCarthy, same old McCarthyism.
Their freedom requires your slavery.
People are complicated. Love is not.
We are builders in a constant struggle with destroyers. let’s win this.
So it was an October Surprise A Day, like an Advent calendar but for crime.
Damn right I heard that as a threat.
My years-long effort to drive family and friends away has really paid off this year.
Sitting here in limbo waiting for the dice to roll
Never entrust democracy to any process that requires republicans to act in good faith.
Insiders who complain to politico: please report to the white house office of shut the fuck up.
Whoever he was, that guy was nuts.
I’d like to think you all would remain faithful to me if i ever tried to have some of you killed.
JFC, are there no editors left at that goddamn rag?
Only Democrats have agency, apparently.
If senate republicans had any shame, they’d die of it.
JimPortlandOR
Frank Rich is spot on today in the NY Times: “Is Obama Punking Us”.
But this mood isn’t just about the banks, Public Enemy No. 1. What the Great Recession has crystallized is a larger syndrome that Obama tapped into during the campaign. It’s the sinking sensation that the American game is rigged — that, as the president typically put it a month after his inauguration, the system is in hock to “the interests of powerful lobbyists or the wealthiest few” who have “run Washington far too long.” He promised to smite them.
No president can do that alone, let alone in six months. To make Obama’s goal more quixotic, the ailment that he diagnosed is far bigger than Washington and often beyond politics’ domain. What disturbs Americans of all ideological persuasions is the fear that almost everything, not just government, is fixed or manipulated by some powerful hidden hand, from commercial transactions as trivial as the sales of prime concert tickets to cultural forces as pervasive as the news media.
asiangrrlMN
New open thread! New open thread! I have been waiting three hours for one!
Er. Um. Now I got nothing to say.
Comrade Jake
I read the Rich piece. I don’t know. I think people who now find themselves terribly disillusioned by Obama were pretty g-d naive in the first place. There was always going to be a disconnect between what Obama could potentially do and what he was actually going to be able to do. That, and, Jesus it really has been only 6 months.
geg6
I must, must, must, must go see “Julie and Julia.”. I adore Julia Child and I am hearing wonderful and magical things about Streep’s portrayal. It doesn’t hurt that Stanley Tucci, who I have adored for years since he was on (I think it was called) “Murder One” on ABC, is playing Paul, who seems to have been the bestest husband in the world according to the many accounts I’ve read of Julia’s life. Gotta see it and it sounds like a good girl’s night out movie.
SiubhanDuinne
I am going to see Julie and Julia this afternoon — for the second time in three days! Saw it, loved it at the first showing on Friday, and then yesterday a friend asked if I wanted to join her today to see it. Well worth seeing twice, I think, and I didn’t tell my friend that I had gone already :-)
CBS Sunday Morning just did a review of J and J, and reiterated what people were saying on a couple of earlier threads, and with which I fully concur — that Streep can do pretty much anything (even with less-than-great material, even when she goes over the top), and that the Streep-Tucci chemistry is a lovely thing.
wilfred
Now that’s conspiracy theory!
Robertdsc-iphone
I read about the red sky thing in The Hunt For Red October:
“Red sky in morning, sailor take warning. Red sky at night, sailor’s delight.”
Heh.
Elizabelle
Good morning to you, John Cole and friends.
I like a blog that uses terms like “a plethora of cats.” And expects its readers will know the term. OK, cat was the easy word.
Haven’t read the latest threads. Have you been discussing Steve Benen’s excellent Washington Monthly discussion, on what’s at the core of healthcare reform opponents’ anger?
http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2009_08/019412.php
A few of the commenters propose “racism”, but I would bet it’s much more complex than that. And that there are some objections (the haves may have to give up a little to benefit the have nots as well) that must be at least acknowledged to overcome.
Elizabelle
Look forward to Julie and Julia myself.
Did anyone else see Ms. Streep on Colbert earlier this week?
She can do just about anything onscreen.
With Colbert: she was very quiet and kind of laughed her way through the segment. Not particularly articulate. On this occasion.
Demo Woman
@geg6: Streep’s performance was amazing. You forget that she’s just acting and Tucci is adorable. I love Amy Adams and thought that she was wonderful in “Miss Pettigrew lives for a day” but she’s no match for Streep.
Have fun and make sure that you go see the movie on a full stomach.
Robertdsc-iphone
I don’t agree. If he had bothered to stick to his campaign pledges, we’d be in better shape. He promised transparency in negotiating the health care deals. That hasn’t happened. He wanted to let the government negotiate drug prices. Thanks to the Tauzin deal, that’s not going to happen. He proposed a public option as part of his health plan. Now he’s open to co-ops that won’t work.
And on and on. Failure we can believe in.
cmohrnc
The colorful landscape-painting quality of sunsets is nice, but it isn’t really what makes a “red skies” sunset such a profoundly satisfying experience. Rather, it’s because the scene of the sun disappearing and the oncoming of dusk is one of the two times of day (the other is dawn) which most obviously reveals the grand scale of nature and for us on earth, the vital clockwork forces we depend on and take for granted during the middle of the day or the night. We can literally see the earth turning at these moments with the horizon to provide measurable scale, which is lacking at other times unless you are looking at stars or planets through a telescope at e.g. a power high enough that you can see the object walking through the field of view. Unlike some ancient societies, we understand what’s going on, and can have complete trust that the sun disappearing this evening will rise tomorrow morning. And the view of the sunset reassures, rather than disturbs, once we have that insight.
It helps that we’ve passed the point where the oncoming of night also means that soon, dangerous predators will be about and we need to quickly get to a safe place for the night. Although there are places in many inner cities where unfortunately, there are predators abroad at night, just not the kind the ancients were concerned about.
cbear
I can’t even watch the Sunday morning shit anymore.
David Gregory is a useless total asshole.
Bob Schieffer is an old useless asshole.
George Stephanopoulis is a useless smarmy asshole.
90% of their guests are useless assholes.
I’m probably an asshole too, but I at least TRY to have some basic understanding of the issues before I open my piehole.
Those assholes, not so much.
———————————
Tell us more about your meal last, Cole—you arugula-eating librul bastard. I had a ham sandwich on old bread with some stale potato chips, thank you very much.
SiubhanDuinne
@ Elizabelle
Sadly, I missed Streep on Colbert. Hope it’s YouTubed somewhere. For some odd reason, I’ve been falling asleep at “normal” hours recently and even the Stewart-Colbert one-two doesn’t seem to be enough to keep me awake much past 11:00 most nights.
I always like seeing actors work together who have been in other films in completely different types of roles and relationships. For instance, Streep and Tucci in The Devil Wears Prada, or Streep and Adams in Doubt.
arguingwithsignposts
I find Rich saying something I mentioned in a thread the other day: the rage against health care is a similar populist anger that was earlier directed against bankers. It would be nice if progressives could somehow morph the anger against government and direct it toward the corporate interests instead.
Health ins. cos. = Wall Street banks. They’re not out to help you, they’re out to screw you.
Comrade Jake
@Robertdsc-iphone:
Wait a minute: you mean you thought Obama wouldn’t have to make any compromises? That people were just going to lie down and let him deliver on his campaign promises, because they were campaign promises? Are you twelve?
HRA
It was said in another subject and comments here wondering why the opponents/activists are composed of a lot of seniors. I remember during this election and those of the past a focus on the seniors benefits at gatherings by several candidates. There was always one or more senior from the audience posing the question of health care. It doesn’t take much of sound bite from the opponents of health care reform to strike at the heart of their fear. More rather than less live on a very tight budget.
The complexity of dozens of pages of health care reform are beyond the grasp of younger people let alone seniors. Seniors make a large number of our population by the fact of the baby boomers joining their ranks in recent years. They have the time and the interest to go to the town hall meetings.
I hesitate to label all in opposition to the health care reform who attend these town halls as racists. [ie. unless they are showing signs of racism]
Cat Lady
Another BIG thumbs up for Julie & Julia here. You will never cut an onion again without chuckling, and is there another actress who can do what Meryl Streep does? Just when it seems like in the movie she’s taking Julia’s voice over the top, her face and expression pulls it back and she’s Julia Child the person, not the caricature, and Stanley Tucci is perfect. This movie is just so full of win in every respect, and kudos to all involved.
Beef bourgignon, also too.
Keith G
@Elizabelle: Benen’s model is pretty good. But I would add that common, old, willful American ignorance is the key. Particularly that subset of the stupid that believe the “government” is the problem. They “know” that everything they have accomplished is due solely to their own wit and desire – success in spite of government not with the support of government.
My bro is that way. Worked his way thru college, if very successful – “selfmade”; neglects to remember the SSI payments (dad died while we were quite young )that helped a little along the way.
SiubhanDuinne
@ DemoWoman
Nice to hear from someone else who saw and liked Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day. It was always a favourite, very re-readable book, and I thought it translated to film quite well. But it didn’t seem to get a lot of attention and disappeared from theatres pretty quickly.
I don’t think I’ve seen Amy Adams in more than a handful of movies: Enchanted (which was a hoot!), MPLfaD, Doubt, and Julie/Julia. I’m impressed with her versatility already and I think in another few years she’s going to be a formidable actor — maybe never in the Streeposphere, but then very few are.
jeffreyw
Good morning all!
Have a nice day!
zoe kentucky
They’re not racists but most of them are ignorant fools who voted for McCain/Palin last year. The fact that so many of them seem to be birthers, Rush and Glenn Beck fans definitely puts them squarely in the “paranoid, angry Obama-haters” camp. They are all republicans, plain and simple, and that has a lot to do with why they’re reacting with such anger and venom– they hate Obama and they hate that they lost.
As for the elderly on medicare who show up and protest against government controlled health care? What can we even do with that level of ignorance and stupidity? Same thing goes for congresscritters who have excellent GOVERNMENT HEALTH INSURANCE. The irony– it burns, stings and chafes.
DougL (frmrly: Conservatively Liberal)
On my recent return from Spokane, while traveling south from The Dalles on Hwy 197 through north central Oregon at sunset, it was about 80 degrees, calm and the sunset was a fiery red. I was on the motorcycle cruising along on my way to the hotel in Bend and just soaking up the beauty. T-shirt flapping, throttle lock on at 70, engine humming, smoking a cigarette and enjoying life.
Doing a 2,000 mile trip on a motorcycle in a week requires a bit of dedication (and a steel ass) but moments like above make it worth it. Still, riding in hot central Oregon is akin to firing up a boiler and taking a ride through hell.
Wouldn’t trade it for anything. :)
geg6
HRA: I agree that you can’t hang racism on all the seniors who are screaming at defcon 11 at the town meetings on health care. I place the blame squarely where it belongs: bullish, stubborn stupidity. There are some of the stupid who are racist (in fact, probably a large percentage), but not all racists are stuoid and vice versa. They are all, however, stupid. As a resident of an area which has one of the nation’s highest concentrations of elderly, I can attest that riling up elderly (and racist) stupids is not all that hard and that the vast majority of the local elderly population is both.
Montysano
Rich:
In one paragraph, Rich gets it right and then gets it wrong. My fear is that Obama is just another suit, although nicely packaged. The Tauzin/Pharma deal has my alarm bells going off.
As to the GOP “waking up”: that awakening would have to manifest itself with the GOP saying “Heck, he’s one of us”, which is not going to happen. No matter how far Obama shifts to the right, he is, and will always be GWB (Governing While Black).
Anon
Okay, I posted this in another thread but no one’s reading that thing anymore so I repost here. I found it hilarious and so will you:
Almost as funny was this bit from an interview with Alberto Gonzales:
Texas Tech is lucky they snatched this guy up!
Anon
Ah, way to ruin my comment, blogging software guy. Here’s that second bit again:
Deborah Solomon: Isn’t there still an ongoing investigation by a special prosecutor who was appointed last year to look into the removal of the attorneys?
Alberto Gonzales: I wish I could comment on that, but because it’s an ongoing investigation, I cannot.
Robertdsc-iphone
What he’s doing isn’t compromising. He’s undermining the entire project. The Tauzin deal should never have happened. The openness to co-ops is a straight sellout to the Baucus bunch. Never mind that all the other committees have public option plans that the populace favors and that he campaigned on a public option.
To top it off, his failure to stick to his pledges puts all the Dems who are out there in their town halls at a disadvantage. If the Baucus plan gets the nod, as I expect it to, then all the talk Dems are going through explaining the House bill will be for naught. The lefties in the house will be pressured to vote for the Baucus bill and it will pass. The insurance companies will profit like mad, nothing will change, and we’ll be even further in trouble.
Funny, the campaign was lauded for being tight on message at all times. Now? Not even close.
El Cid
@Robertdsc-iphone: If the Democrats are stupid enough to push through a sh*tty plan on the argument that it’s much better than nothing, then in a few years as the effects of a sh*tty plan kick in, they will have lost any electoral gain from having passed something at all.
No one will recall or care about the complexities of this particular summer or the intrigues of parliamentary Senate work. They only will know who passed a health care reform and whether they like it or not.
donovong
Dear god, please keep General Jim Jones off the fucking Sunday talk shows. I’m sure he’s a great military mind, but he is a talking clusterfuck on teevee.
Brick Oven Bill
The hidden hand does not touch it like Bob Miller was able to touch it.
The hidden hand grips it.
arguingwithsignposts
On another topic, Alberto Gonzales gets the interview treatment in the NYT Mag. today. My fav quote:
“recruiting” (rendition) and “retaining” (preventive detention) minorities. Go Red Raiders!
geg6
BOB, pahleeze give it a fucking break for just one day, pretty please? I simply cannot listen to another word of the stoopid today. Seriously, it’s a hot, lazy summer day. Birtherism isn’t making it better.
HRA
geg6: I totally agree about the stupidity. My comment on not labeling all opponents to health care reform as racist was meant for all of them regardless of age.
I know very well about the stubborness, bullishness and stupidity as well. I have a sister who is 21 years older than I am and a senior. Then, too, I had a great aunt who was nothing at all like my sister and others like her.
What I believe energized these people in the majority is the arrival of Caribou Barbie on the national scene and the MSM giving her the stage.
Brick Oven Bill
A pretty flower for geg6. Happy Sunday morning.
kay
@Robertdsc-iphone:
“To top it off, his failure to stick to his pledges puts all the Dems who are out there in their town halls at a disadvantage. If the Baucus plan gets the nod, as I expect it to, then all the talk Dems are going through explaining the House bill will be for naught. The lefties in the house will be pressured to vote for the Baucus bill and it will pass. The insurance companies will profit like mad, nothing will change, and we’ll be even further in trouble.”
Congressional Democrats aren’t selling the plan. Go look at the town hall schedule. It’s not arduous. They went on recess. Unsurprisingly, Rahm Emanuel did not.
The lefties in the House thought all activity would grind to a halt until they wandered back to their desks? Why did they think that? It’s their signature legislation. They wrote a proposal and then took off? Are you telling me they were shocked that the Blue Dogs waited until the last day of session to come back to the table, and got concessions? Why are they shocked? That’s negotiation 101.
They’re not being truthful when they say Obama didn’t give them anything to sell. They drafted a proposal. They have it, in hand. The Blue Dogs have one too. The Waxman compromise. They want Obama to take the political risk of selling the progressive plan.
If they’re shocked that pharma companies are going to spend 150 million in advertising in their absence, well, they’re lousy, lazy advocates.
WereBear
Having grown up in Florida, I formed the conclusion that most elderly are exactly the way they were in their younger years; only, more so.
As someone who had to invest in a dozen pairs of reading glasses to salt the house with, I am sympathetic to the sucky changes that come with age. But life is full of such changes, and people don’t seem to change in the way they deal with them.
A case in point: I got a ride from my husband’s grandmother, now enshrined in family lore as Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride. I stopped it five minutes in when it became crystal clear that she was relying on decades of memory of where the road might be, and she couldn’t see the cars upon it. We had a cousin steal her distributor cap, and we quietly removed her from driving.
I totally understand that in our present car culture it is rough to lose this segment of independence. But between selling the car and not paying insurance, she could have used that same money to take cabs every day of her remaining life, know what I mean?
But she pouted and refused to take cabs. I was told she was always this way when she couldn’t get her way. 18 or 80, didn’t matter.
It only comes into stark relief when the elderly have to negotiate change; and I’m guessing most of them were never very good at it in the first place.
So the elderly on Medicare protesting government health care does not surprise me. They have spent their entire life in a fog of low understanding and pointless rage.
Nothing has changed.
jcricket
We’re acting as if the only choices are: agree to support Obama no matter what; rail against him at high volume for being a failure.
Option #3 is a better choice.
Liberal/progressive groups should absolutely keep the pressure on. If the “blue dogs” have power, so to can the “progressive caucus” in the House (from what I’ve read there are more progressives than blue dogs).
We shouldn’t be phrasing our critiques as “waaah, you are failing to keep your campaign promises”, but instead as, “this is what America needs, this is what Americans want, and here’s why”. The Blue Dogs, although they’re full of crap, are doing the same thing, “Americans care about the deficit, so here’s out bill, which …”.
jcricket
@WereBear:
This sounds right (judging by my parents and how they are when they age). Although it boggles my mind how obstinate some people can be despite the negative impact on their life.
My wife’s grandma is nearly deaf now, and has been going that way for years. She’s got the kind of hearing loss that comes with age and responds very, very well to hearing aids. She refuses to admit she has lost most of her hearing.
As a result, she misses 2/3rds of conversations, and then interjects at odd points (with random comments). When everyone responds with silence or ignoring her or “humoring her”, she gets mad and won’t speak to people for a week (a trait she’s long had).
All this could be solved with a hearing aid. She would be more engaged with those around her and her quality of life would likely dramatically improve. But yes, she’d have to admit she was old and deaf.
With age does not always come wisdom.
Bill H
As I’m sure is common knowledge, the “red sky at night” is caused by dust in the atmosphere to the west, indicating that dry weather lies in the direction. Since weather moves from from west to east when you are north of the Tropic of Cancer, that makes the “sailor’s delight” perfectly accurate if you are not in the tropics. If you are in the tropics, though, that would be reversed, because weather moves from east to west.
The “red sky in the morning, sailors take warning” (and it’s obverse in the tropics) is somewhat less realistic, since it assumes the dry weather to leeward always implies storms to windward. That’s not really the case, since dry and calm weather can prsist for long periods of time.
Red skies both morning and night is a case not covered by the aphoriism.
kay
@Robertdsc-iphone:
I hate to harp on this (well, not really) but are we detecting a pattern here? The progressive caucus drafts legislation and then disappears. Then there is much weeping and gnashing of teeth when their legislation gets watered down. They did the same BS with the stimulus. They’re covering their asses. They want credit for fighting the good fight, without actually fighting. If the watered down legislation passes, they can then blame Obama for any repercussions, because, well, it isn’t liberal enough. It’s not liberalism, so they can’t be held responsible for any failure.
This is the flip side of the far right nonsense. “The tax cuts didn’t work because they weren’t big enough!”. Liberalism can’t fail, it can only be failed. WTF is it if it no one is really willing to put it in practice? A theory? Great. I’ll take that to the doctor.
Bill H
Can’t edit posts yet. Change “north of the Tropic of Cancer” to read “nonot in the tropic zone.”.
Bill H
Okay, “not in the tropic zone.” Fix the damn edit feature.
Demo Woman
Hank Johnson is having a town hall meeting tomorrow night at GA Perimeter College. I thought that it was at the college twenty minutes from me but no it’s down in Virginia Highlands. That is a trek for me. For those who live nearby they should plan on attending. Hopefully the folks let Johnson talk.
valdivia
@jcricket:
thanks for saying that. I get so tired from people going into Obama is Teh Fail mode. We got 4 bills out of 5 committees. No President has ever gotten that. Clinton did not even manage that, we have one to go and then the full vote and reconciliation. This is a big deal, no one seems to give him credit for it, just blame about all he is doing wrong.
Still, as you say, we have to keep the pressure up.
geg6
No town meetings around here unless you count a candidate forum at Netroots Nation next week with Joe Sestak and Arlen Specter (which I don’t). But I’ve been shooting off regular emails to Specter, Casey, and Altmire. Keep up the non-crazy person pressure, folks.
Gwangung
The right wing is fighting as hard as it can and with every trick in the book. Progressives should do the same. That does NOT mean whining about how they were sold out/betrayed. You win some, you lose some and you fight like hell to make the former WAY larger than the latter.
kay
@jcricket:
I just want to be honest about this. The progressive caucus are not “shocked, shocked!” that Blue Dogs receive more health industry money than they do. They’re not. If you were a health industry maven, who would you buy? The progressive caucus?
I hate when we set this up as those wily Blue Dog tricksters and their buddy, Obama, versus the naive and pure progressives. If that’s true (and it isn’t) that is a problem not for the Blue Dogs, who are doing well, thanks, in this negotiation, but for the progressives.
bellatrys
Dunno if anybody saw this yet, but via Atrios, “Newt Gingrich has jumped in with both feet to endorse the Logan’s Run” credulousness now.
Oh, and I missed this quite a while back, but (via LGM) apparently Camille Paglia is also a Birfer (quel surprise!) albeit a coy, implausibly-deniable one…
robertdsc
I hate to harp on this (well, not really) but are we detecting a pattern here? The progressive caucus drafts legislation and then disappears. Then there is much weeping and gnashing of teeth when their legislation gets watered down. They did the same BS with the stimulus. They’re covering their asses. They want credit for fighting the good fight, without actually fighting. If the watered down legislation passes, they can then blame Obama for any repercussions, because, well, it isn’t liberal enough. It’s not liberalism, so they can’t be held responsible for any failure.
This is the flip side of the far right nonsense. “The tax cuts didn’t work because they weren’t big enough!”. Liberalism can’t fail, it can only be failed. WTF is it if it no one is really willing to put it in practice? A theory? Great. I’ll take that to the doctor.
The progressives cried foul when the Blue Dogs made their fucked-up compromise. They took action and held a press conference vowing to not vote for any bill that doesn’t have a public option. 57 progressives made that pledge, including my own Congresswoman.
The response? Nancy Pelosi laughed at them and said they would fall in line for whatever comes down the pipe. Just with the war supplemental, the lefties are going to get squeezed for a shit bill that won’t be much good.
As for keeping the pressure on Blue Dogs and Senate obstructionists, that’s fine by me. Of course, when the President and Chief Of Staff both knock Teh Left for doing so, it’s a bit of a drag. Never mind that bottom-up organizing was a big key for the campaign, never mind that the targeted Dems are the ones who are holding up the agenda, but it’s a real pain to see tangible efforts at making true progress get stomped on from the Oval Office.
Meanwhile, the Blue Dog assholes BRAG about weakening the bills going through the system. Fucked up? No goddamn doubt. Yet they get White House protection and things just keep getting worse.
jcricket
@kay: Hey, I’m not saying the progressives are “more pure”. In fact, I think that attitude’s the problem. I’m just saying that as a bloc we can keep pressure up (and in some cases have been) by articulating what we want and withholding or promising votes, etc.
Let’s just not be WATB about it. Nor should we rollover.
kay
@valdivia:
There’s a lack of follow-up here that has to be deliberate. Here’s another example. There was full agreement that we had to close Gitmo. There was huge outcry when Holder appeared to be hedging. But, he’s moving forward. You know what the hold-up is? Congress. He cannot try the detainees if he has no where to put them if they’re convicted. Rather than Democrats lobbying Congress to stop being such idiots, we’re going to blame Holder. Eric Holder is supposed to….what? Ask for a signing statement to house them here, over the express opposition of the idiots in Congress? I thought we were opposed to Presidential power grabs?
jcricket
@robertdsc: Look – i don’t disagree that things are messed up and it’s disappointing when progressives in Congress are told to officially STFU.
You know what the right response is? NFW we will not STFU. Or better yet, respectfully, no, we are not going to stop fighting.
Democrats always lose when we give in too easily to Republican pressure. And progressives will keep losing when they give in at the first sign of internal resistance.
Again, we don’t need to be WATB or rollover. We just find ways to keep the pressure up. Yes, it’s hard, esp. with the media reporting it as “Dems in disarray”, but them’s the breaks. No one said change would be easy.
WereBear
kay @41:
Yes, I think it is a pattern, and if anyone needs to read up on it, the third book in the LBJ trilogy, Master of the Senate, can’t be recced too highly.
Personally, it opened my eyes to the “crack in the dam” strategy that Johnson used to actually make civil rights happen.
For decades the fight was stuck against the immovable wall of Southern segregationists who had levered their seniority into great committee power. And it was the purists who cried that it had to be a powerful bill, or no bill at all, who were continually smashing themselves against that wall, and falling away without creating a crack in it.
Johnson persuaded the purists to compromise on a weak bill, and the segregationists to pass it on the grounds that it was a weak bill. And for the first time since Reconstruction, we had something: the Civil Rights Act of 1957. Yes, awfully little, and awfully, awfully late.
Without it, we wouldn’t have had the sweeping legislation of 1965.
It was the crack in the dam.
It also gives one perspective on the ways the Senate is in a time capsule. In the nineteen fifties, there were Senators holding great power who had first been elected at the turn of the century. They held the fate of the nation in minds shaped in the previous century.
And that’s the situation we are dealing with now. A whole generation has turned into an extraordinarily tolerant and humanistic one on the subjects of sex and race. (Dudes, I love ya, but don’t break your arms patting yourselves on the back. It was the upheavals of the sixties that made today possible.)
Yet, so many of the Senators holding make or break power over legislation have their minds stuck way way back, unable or unwilling to admit that society has repudiated their thinking. One idiot, sent from a backward district over decades, has more power than we can see on the surface.
They are the boulders blocking the paths, thwarting the wishes of millions, sent there by only a few hundred thousand.
The Senate was actually designed to slow the pace of progress. Back when everybody got there in horsedrawn carriages, it probably seemed like a good idea; when France was beheading nobles right and left, “the mob” and their mood swings were a frightening reality.
And before we get too het up over the system, we have to remember that a more responsive legislative body would have just rolled over for Bush/Cheney; even more than they did.
kay
@jcricket:
I know. You and I are generally in full agreement on all things healthcare. I feel as if Congress is broken, and has been broken for a long time. I don’t know that Obama can fix it. He just has to go forward. Alone, apparently, because, weirdly, we all now believe in a Unitary President.
I have problems with Obama on legal decisions, but that’s his AREA. I hold him responsible for actions or inaction within the proper role of the President. If Congress are going to be ABSENT I don’t have much sympathy for them. They’re staying safe, and the time for that has passed.
valdivia
@kay:
I agree Kay. I think it is easier to point fingers than do the hard work needs to be done.
Fulcanelli
@El Cid: This has been my fear from the beginning. A useless, watered down bill that will offer vague, marginal benefit with lots of low-hanging, expensive bureaucratic fruit that can be used for target practice by the opposition from now until 2012.
If Obama signs a bad bill it will be hung around his neck like a tank of toxic waste. He has generated so much momentum into this project, but so little clarity of message is realistically possible due to shifting and questionable loyalty of the actual sausage makers in Congress. Perhaps we were spoiled by the election campaign where his organization was in control of the message, which was delivered darn near perfectly.
The public at large hasn’t got the attention span for 1000+ page detailed policy initiatives, hell, Congress doesn’t. The public needs a clear, bullet pointed cost/benefit message and that’s almost impossible with an issue this huge with so many components. That’s why all the disinformation flying around is effectively working to derail the debate.
No one will care, much less remember who tossed what into the sausage either way. Obama’s gonna own the results, bad or good. If it sucks, he shouldn’t sign it.
valdivia
@WereBear:
this is exactly why getting the health care bill signed will be huge. once seniors see no one is killing them and their medicare still works a better sweeping legislation can be enacted later.
kay
@WereBear:
LBJ had something else. He had moderate Republicans with a conscience and a sense of civic duty. Republicans know we need health care reform. They don’t care. They want to do a 1994.
jcricket
@kay: Well then good, we agree. I am neither giving Obama a pass, nor calling him a failure. We just gotta keep up the pressure, and then keep it up some more, and some more. It’s never done.
That’s how the religious right, despite massive odds (popular opinion, demography) against them has made “progress” in getting politicians to do what they want over the last 30 years.
Too often on the left we just assume that our “good ideas” are “self evident” and if we get smacked down we take our ball and go home.
jcricket
I 95% agree. I do think it’s 5% important to have the “seeds” of good stuff in there. Like if there’s a public plan and subsidies it’s easier to expand both later than if there’s no public plan and/or no subsidies.
Like Medicare Part D. It was enacted poorly, but it should be easier to fix the donut hole and government’s negotiating ability issues now that we have it (than trying to do it all at once).
kay
@valdivia:
We know the Democrats in Congress are ineffective. We know it because of 2006 to 2008. LBJ must be rolling over in his grave watching the GOP grab the high road on Medicare. For God’s sake. Talk about nerve.
I’m supposed to set this up as the lying psychopaths versus the President? Where are the Democrats? There are hundreds of them, and getting them there was hard work. They can’t follow up for a month?
WereBear
I have felt from the beginning that Obama was going for the slow starvation of the insurance companies, not the bullet to the back of the head.
By pressing them with regulation on one side and a public option on the other, they will bail of their own accord once the obscene profits are no longer possible.
It’s the first step in addressing the legality of corporate murder, which is absolutely astonishing. If, during my first marriage, I had murdered the absolute psychobitch, his first wife, (as occasionally crossed my mind,) I would have gotten at least ten years in prison. (On the other hand, I’d be out now!)
Meanwhile, a corporation chases profits and hundreds of people die, and it’s just an “oopsie!” Sue them over it, and they dissolve and reform somewhere else, money off shore and no one in jail.
Puts a whole new spin on Murder, Inc.
valdivia
@jcricket:
yes I agree that the bill needs to have a public option.
@kay–well you know Obama is the Messiah so he should be able to do everything and congress just coasts under him. I am curious to see him handle the insanes at his townhall. maybe then congress will get a spine.
Steeplejack
@kay:
Congressional Democrats aren’t selling the plan.
Amen. And to your other points.
The Congressional Democrats have been acting like, “Hey, we elected this superhero president last November. Let him do all the heavy lifting.” Or more like “let him do everything.” And take all the risks.
But Obama can only do so much. He is not a superhero. He is basically a very articulate, charismatic black Eisenhower who looks like a superhero only because of the almost universal suckitude of the current generation of “statesmen.” In any case, no president can accomplish everything on his own. We have seen how that whole “unitary executive” thing has worked out so far.
To go all NASCAR (because it’s Sunday), even if we did luck out and elect Tony Stewart last fall, we have stuck him with Herbie the Love Bug to drive–the current (Democratic-controlled!) Congress. They need to get their shit together, and I don’t see where the carrot or the stick is going to come from. Job No. 1 for all of them is protecting their asses and getting reëlected, and the money to do that–the big money–comes from corporate interests, not the little people. So who are they going to represent?
Montysano
Sorry if this has already been done to death, but: what are BJ-ers thoughts on flea shampoo? Our dogs our having some flea problems. My wife, with all the best intentions, insists on using only natural flea shampoos. I’d like to believe that they work, but I’m skeptical. As an old farm boy, I still cling to the belief that sometimes you really need chemistry.
We just bathed both dogs with shampoo that contains Neem oil, which “fleas find offensive”. We’ll see how well it works.
bellatrys
@Montysano:
The thing about flea shampoos you gotta be careful of is, pyrethrin, the component in most commercial flea shampoos, is a really dangerous neurotoxin and can actually kill or give convulsions to young/smaller animals even if you’re careful and only leave it on for as long as they say. (They can also have nasty side-effects on humans.
So you want to make sure you’re using a minimum dose of anything that’s got a pyrethrin compound in it to avoid tragedy.
I don’t have any experience with neem oil personally, but there’s no intrinsic reason it shouldn’t work as a safer pesticide – pyrethrin comes from a kind of chrysanthymum, I believe, and marigolds are well-known as a natural live insect repellent for vegetable gardens.