This made me laugh out loud:
Apparently, the only person who was wrong about Obama was me, judging from this Balloon Juice thread. I knew that his policy positions were like Hillary Clinton’s (or any mainstream Dem, as Kos puts it). But I thought, despite my disagreements with his political style, that the historic opportunity he was presented coupled with his immense political talent would lead him to become our FDR…
I wonder if FDR was being declared a failure by his alleged supporters in December 1933?
There is a reason these guys serve four year terms.
dr. bloor
Only BTD could use his own naivete in service of a futile effort to make Balloon Juicers look like a Borg-like army of revisionist jerks.
jeffreyw
Whoa, I had to delete TalkLeft from my bookmarks early in the primaries last time. Talk about you readin them so I don’t have to.
Bobby thomson
This would have more sting coming from someone who hadn’t just posted that he doesn’t know what’s in the bill that Obama made his top domestic priority.
4jkb4ia
No, because he used the first 100 days to try everything he could think of, he could pass it, and he was all the country had.
AngusTheGodOfMeat
Well, Obama ran in the center of the political spectrum. I never thought that would make him into an FDR. Sort of a Reagan with an education and a human wife.
Anyway, this goofball sounds like a mellow version of myIQ2xu.
Jim Crozier
Christ…look at the comments in reply to the linked article. Talk about a bunch of people divorced from reality.
tde
Every single day that he is president means that it is another day that Palin is not VP.
So that means that he is a great president every single day.
BTD
That made you laugh John? Glad to be of service.
I thought the thread I linked to was pretty damn funny myself.
BTW, FDR in December 1993 vs. Obama 2009? Really John. Hell even Jacob Weisberg limits it to saying that Obama is the best SINCE FDR. You seem to be saying Obama is FDR’s equal.
Shawn in ShowMe
Actually, yeah. Father Coughlin and Huey Long turned against FDR pretty quickly. Poutrage is a time-honored tradition.
John Cole
Huey Long was involved with the veteran’s revolt, correct?
General Winfield Stuck
Armando is an enigma to me. Kind of like a liberal Pat Buchanan. He can make sense one minute and the next go off into the nethers I don’t understand.
It has been like that since the primaries of Yes, I support Obama, but I must bash him, just because. In the middle of a fucking general election. very odd to me. don’t get it at all.
jl
People believed that Obama was “to the left” of Clinton? Really? His relative centrism on specific policy issues was discussed during the campaign.
Too bad that some apparently inattentive people hoped for more, and lost their personal dream.
However, to repeat for the umpteenth time, Obama is not doing what he needs to keep the Democratic electoral house in order. That is one of his prime job responsibilities, regardless of what he promised during the campaign.
So, far he seems to be doing the same poor job that Clinton did (and for that matter, to take a purely nonpartisan perspective) or Bush II did during his second term.
Does John Cole think Obama is doing an adequate job there?
PS: I see that GOP.am took down the Tunch link. They are monsters, pure and simple monsters and evildoers.
Cat Lady
Remember the “Obama is like …” post? It’s pretty clear that he’s a national Rohrshach test. It’s not even been a year. Let’s see where we are in another couple of years, mmmkay?
The public for the most part didn’t know then that FDR was a cripple. If the media we have now was around then, that would be all we would know about him, that he was “weak”, and how could a man that couldn’t stand up, stand up for ‘Murka, and Real Americans(TM)?
Crusty Dem
Shorter BTD (2007-present):
“Hillary is awesome, Obama is teh suck.”
The oddest part of all this is that he has always claimed to support Obama, even as he shived him… Of course, Obama’s greatest detractors are the political narcissists who saw in him their own greatness reflected. Their disappointment is neverending, as Obama could never be as great as they think they are (and he was).
Paula
Oh my gawd. The left blogosphere seems to be suffering from thin-skinned asshattery all at once.
Blue Raven
@BTD:
Drawing parallels between what FDR could achieve in the first ten months of office versus what Obama could vis-a-vis saving the country from the rapine of Republican predecessors makes the analogy Obama versus FDR as equals? Thanks for the laugh, BTD. I needed one today.
Jason Bylinowski
TalkLeft is alright by me when they actually do what’s on the label, which is to say: talk about the “politics of crime”. But, really, they barely stick to those parameters, and even when they do, it is one of the few liberal blogs out there whose commentariat actually brings down the experience of going there. I also strongly disagree with the authoritarian comment mediation tactics (and I’m sure BTD disagrees with them as well, FWIW). But yeah, mainly I stay away from it. TL and Democratic Reacharound are two perfect examples of liberal-minded sites gone wrong, what do you guys think? SUerly there are other liberal embarassments. Somebody mentioned Americablog as being fairly shitty, but that’s one I really haven’t touched since 2006; back then I thought it was fairly cool.
Tom Hilton
I’m pretty sure FDR was long dead by December 1993. Obama isn’t even close to dead. Therefore…wait, what were we talking about?
hal
Nice thread over on tl:
Endless posts from a parallel universe where Hillary is President, and the most awesomest President who ever existed, apparently.
lol
Is this where it gets pointed out, once again, that FDR had a significantly larger majority in the House and a significantly more cooperative opposition party in the Senate? And that he picked up seats in the mid-terms for even rediculously larger majorities?
John Cole
“You seem to be saying” is like
a red flaga giant blinking siren that rampant wankery is right around the corner.No, BTD, I’m not comparing Obama to FDR. I’m saying that if you were around then, you would have been screaming that FDR was a failure in December 1933 and everything would have been better if Al Smith has won.
Just Some Head
Glad someone is enjoying themself on Ezra Klein Death Watch, Day 2.
freelancer
@Tom Hilton:
circular firing squad, with BTD bringing up FDR in the first place, and then claiming that it is Cole’s claim that they are/were equals. aka monkey throwing shit and drinking own pee, needs some education as to the different types of logical fallacies that occur in his argument.
http://www.theskepticsguide.org/resources/logicalfallacies.aspx
John Cole
Fool. Don’t you understand this is all Rahm’s fault?
jl
I do not see the point in making parallels to FDR.
For one thing, the insanity and pure Fail of the new and even more nutty GOP was not seared into the public consciousness. I do not think the US is ‘center-right’ nation, but many public attitudes are still deeply affected by the new insane GOP narrative. We had a very scary financial panic that probably gave Obama a comfortable margin, and knife edge ruling majority in the Senate.
In 1933 the country had several years of ever deepening depression and death spiral of the economy.
Just think if McCain had been elected, and we endured another four years of evern worse economic policy, extreme corporate smash and grab, combined with fantasy based militaristic policies. Then we might have a parallel in Congressional majorities and deeply felt public sentiment.
But I do not want to think about that scenario too much, it still scares me, even though it did not happen.
wasabi gasp
BTD thought the MUP, my BFF, would be FDR. WTF? PUMA fap fap fap!
Jason Bylinowski
@jl:
Here’s the deal. People are disappointed with Obama because, they thought that it was all just liberal codetalk: namely, that during the primaries and the GE, he was playing a time-honored game of swing to the right, and then after the election, he’d bust out the turban and the hammer and sickle. W did the same, with his compassionate conservativism and then immediately veering far-right almost the second he got behind a desk. Obama, though, being a democrat, swung right and then got pigeonholed there. Don’t ask me why, but this is the way it seems to be for every democrat.
Obama: the first WYSIWYG (and black) president.
p.s. I wish he was more liberal. But I also wish there was a liberal out there worth running in 2016, and I don’t see one. Feingold, maybe? (I’m talking pie in the sky, here, not based on feasibility.)
gizmo
I’m not ready to dismiss the concerns being expressed by those who are profoundly disappointed with Obama. It’s not the speed with which he is proceeding that is the problem– it’s the direction. Since the day he was elected, he has veered to the right or in the direction of the status quo on every single issue. I cannot think of one instance where I’ve been pleasantly surprised by Obama– detainee policy, bank regulation, the quality of his appointments, his lackluster participartion in the healthcare issue, expansion of the war in Afghanistan….
It looks to me as though Obama thinks that being somewhat better than Bush-Cheney represents “change.” I’m aware that this is a big complicated country, and he has to deal with a Congress full of dimwits and obstructionists— but I don’t see Obama pushing hard to fulfill the mandate that he was given. The tragedy is that the political circumstances of the moment are a rare and precious opportunity– this is not the time for piss-ant incrementalism. My sense is that we’re going to need to suffer a serious economic meltdown (much worse than what has already happened) before Obama and the Democrats wake up and smell the coffee.
Crusty Dem
@John Cole:
So BTD thought Obama would be FDR and he’s accusing others of being naive? Awesome.
Tom Hilton
@freelancer: I wasn’t even getting into the merits of BTD’s silliness; I was just snarking on his typo. Which, apparently, I’m still the only person who noticed.
khead
The earlier thread certainly reads that way – the level of Obama’s success appears to depend on whether or not one got their own personal pony.
For me, getting the folks who were – I believe the phrase used in the earlier thread was “bugshit crazy” – out from behind the wheel of the America Car was priority #1. So, I am pretty cool with things simply because the bugshit crazy people aren’t driving anymore.
Of course, I work for Uncle Sam and my health care is pretty good. So maybe my priorities aren’t the same as everyone else.
jl
@Jason Bylinowski: Guess I am just a cyncial middle-aged coot about politics, at least as far as specific policy proposals.
Max
That site was bad enough during the primaries. PUMA!
Not to mention the Free Roman shit they shovel over there that totally disqualifies them from being taken seriously.
Yuck.
cincy anon
It’s pretty historic that America elected its first black president…and he was a democrat (kinda thought the first president of color would have been that rare minority in the republican party – I think Michael Steele had the same thought) Considering we haven’t elected a radical president in ever, I’m astonished at people who thought they were electing a president who was black+democrat+”I don’t know nuthin’ ’bout birthin’ no legislation”.
I’m just glad I got, more or less, what I was voting for: a smart, idealistic yet realistic, patient man who does his homework, keeps his eye on the goals, knows how the process works here and seemingly overseas, and doesn’t have a vice president who shoots people in the face.
Notorious P.A.T.
“Every single day that he is president means that it is another day that Palin is not VP.”
Until McCain kicks off.
BTD
I get it now John. Anyone who is disappointed with Obama’s first year would have been disappointed with FDR’s first year.
BTW, FDR picked up seats in the mid-term for a reason. It just didn’t happen by magic.
It amazes me that any criticism of Obama , even disappointment because one thought he could be great, can only be mocked.
I admit it, I thought that with his mandate and the state of the country, and with his political skills, Obama could have been our FDR. I think he missed an opportunity.
Maybe the opportunity was not what I thought it was. Maybe Obama was not as skilled as I thought he was.
In any event, I was wrong. I guess no one in that thread or at this blog thought Obama would be more than the second coming of Bill Clinton (if you think he has achieved that). I thought he could be more.
Leelee for Obama
Just checked Smedley Butler’s Wiki page and he alleged to Congress, in 1934, that he had been approached by certain individuals who resemble today’s Wall Streeters et al to take part in a coup. So, yeah, I think Roosevelt was just as unpopular in certain circles, oddly, the same circles, as Obama is today. Also of note, Roosevelt never carried his home area in any of his elections. I think Obama kinda beat him out there.
Add to that the fact that Roosevelt had to threaten the rich with lists of their names in something called newspapers if they didn’t put their money into the reopened banks. Seems there used to be something called shame. I am not familiar with this concept among Republicans as a rule, and only rarely among people who aren’t being ruined by the current economic situation of the time.
Can anyone help me out with this term newspapers? It seems these entities used to print facts that regular folks could use to glean information that they could then use to form opinions?
I’m confuzzled.
Just Some Head
@AngusTheGodOfMeat:
I always saw him as more of a technocratic – and perhaps less petty – George Herbert Walker Bush. That he is to the right of the old man now is a testament to how far the Permanent Republican Majority moved our Overton Window.
Sad_Dem
Bush invited 550 people to his Hanukkah party, and the invitations had a Christmas tree on them. Obama invited 400 people to his Hanukkah party, and this is a scandal. A poll says 40% of Israelis think he’s a muslim. Looks like I picked the wrong season to stop sniffing glue. Will mother nature be sending another meteor soon, like she did with the dinosaurs? Joe Lieberman looks like a dinosaur, one with a very wide mouth adapted for decapitating smaller, weaker creatures, for example unisured children, with one snap of his powerful jaws.
valdivia
yeah and don’t forget FDR had a 24/7 network yelling at him all the time.
Comrade Jake
That one’s pretty rich coming from Armando, the ultimate concern troll during the primaries/GE.
Speaking for me only. /obligatory
FlipYrWhig
@Jason Bylinowski:
Hmm. IMHO, apart from this one and Sadly, No!, _every_ liberal blog has a commentariat that brings down the experience of going there.
Jay in Oregon
@Notorious P.A.T.:
If McCain passes away before 2012, I will thank God with many burnt offerings(*) that he didn’t win the election.
(*) I was thinking of copies of Going Rogue but I’m afraid of killing the local wildlife…
Leelee for Obama
@Tom Hilton: Yeah, right. Make fun of my dyslexia, why don’t you? It looked fine to me until you posted. Wanker.
cincy anon
BTD
FDR was white, blue blood, and from an affluent family. If Obama had all those attributes and the skills and mind he already has then I see your point.
FlipYrWhig
@BTD: Dude, it’s not even ONE freakin’ YEAR yet. Damn.
freelancer
@FlipYrWhig:
This, plus TNC & Tbogg (even though I hardly ever read comments at TNC.)
Jason Bylinowski
@Sad_Dem: This post was hilarious to me and yet I do not think I should laugh, for I keep imagining a single tear rolling down your cheek as you say these things.
BTD
For the record – I was concern trolling “Obama as FDR” as early as October 2008.
I did not make this up to take a shot at John or DougJ and John, who as I remember, were pretty sanguine about all the candidates.
I do think there is some revisionism in that thread however.
Notorious P.A.T.
For the record, here’s what Obama has done that has disappointed me, in no discernible order:
1) He has broken some of his campaign promises regarding things like extraordinary rendition and indefinite detention and executive privilege
2) He got rolled during the stimulus debate, bringing a knife to a gunfight and expecting the Republicans would play nice. “Hey, let’s start with a pre-watered down bill and hope the Reps don’t try to take any more out! After all, I had breakfast with McCain!”
3) He let the Republicans capture momentum during this awful health care summer. Way to be outflanked by Sarah Palin D:
4) His “I’m gonna go write another Sternly Worded Letter to Wall Street, and if they don’t listen. . . I’ll write another!” is pathetic. He looks like a weakling.
5) At first I thought he plucked Rahm out of congress to use his savvy while removing his conservative-favoring influence. It doesn’t look that way now. Rather, Mister Change picked him to batter the left.
6) He promised health care reform and transparency–then invited the health care industry to closed-door meetings where he promised them not to do too much.
With all of this, I have never regretted supporting him over Clinton or McCain. But I worry that he is squandering an opportunity and will hand the Reps conrol of congress in 2010. If I am wrong about this, I will scream it for all to hear.
FlipYrWhig
@freelancer:
Alas, the firewall separating TBogg from the FirePuppies has been repeatedly breached lately…
Jason Bylinowski
@FlipYrWhig: Try Ta-Nehisi Coates. That folks on that blog (several are also on here) will make you wish you had time to read all day long.
edit: I see I have been upstaged. Curses and foul luck upon freelancer, starting……now!
BTD
@FlipYrWhig:
Well, the reality is the year a President achieves the most is generally his first.
Tom Hilton
Ezra Klein had a good clear-headed post the other day on the question of how ‘liberal’ Obama is. Key excerpt:
This seems exactly right to me, and it’s one of the things I admire about the President: he’s starting with liberal values, and taking a pragmatic approach to advancing those values as far as the system will allow. Which, IMO, is exactly how to do it. That’s not to say he hasn’t made mistakes, but I think this approach is key to understanding what he has accomplished, and why it gets him no credit from progressives (who tend to be fixated on particular means).
Comrade Jake
@BTD:
What fucking planet have you been living on?
Crusty Dem
@BTD:
So we’re not naive fools, we’re cold-hardened realists, unable to hope for greatness? It’s our fault we didn’t all think he was the MUP? Of course, I’d be surprised if FDR himself could manage the creeping crud of blue dogs, ratfuckers, and idiots in the current senate.
The point is, most of us expected to be disappointed. And for what it’s worth, in spite of your amazing abilities to envision all that’s happening in a parallel universe operating under President HRC, we’d be disappointed with her, too…
BTD
@Notorious P.A.T.:
No reasons for regret. He clearly was the best alternative (including to Hillary) because he carried the least baggage.
My point is a different one – I thought he could have been great. I think not now.
Leelee for Obama
@Sad_Dem: I felt the same as Jason-kind of a Pagliacci thing goin’ on.
One thing that may help-how large a percentage of Israelis are Muslim? Maybe a Venn Diagram would ease your mind. And I read a post today at HuffPo that says he’s really not that unpopular in Israel among the citizens. It’s the government that’s pissed. That is kinda understandable. Wrong, but understandable.
Notorious P.A.T.
Oh, and
7) Escalating in Afghanistan. Because we need 100,000 troops to counter 100 al-Qaeda, you see.
Elie
@Sad_Dem:
Great comment. Mean in all the best ways
Larv
BTD,
You don’t seem to get it. JC is not mocking you for being disappointed with Obama, he’s mocking you for declaring Obama a failure a single year into his presidency.
See – you’re speaking in the past tense, as if it’s all over and done with. He’s actually still president for several years. True fact!
It’s okay to be disappointed with Obama (lots of us are, in one way or another). It’s silly and petulant to preemptively declare him a failure because you don’t have a pony yet.
Tom Hilton
@Leelee for Obama: what? Huh? What?
Unless you’re actually BTD, I wasn’t making fun of you at all.
BTD
@Crusty Dem:
Interestingly enough, I never write “what Hillary would have done” posts.
But if I did, I would write that things would be much worse.
My point is entirely different – that Obama should not be measruing himself against “what Hillary would have done” or “What Bill Did” but against the greatest President of the 20th Century, FDR.
I thought the circumstances and the politician had that much potential.
I was wrong I think.
valdivia
@Tom Hilton:
This.
BTD
@Larv:
Then John does not read very well.
NOT being FDR can hardly be considered being a failure. He is with Lincoln the greatest President of all time.
It is a disappointment that he is not approaching that greatness. I keep hearing the “it’s only one year” thing.
My answer to that is the first year is when most of the good stuff gets done. Not much BIG good stuff is getting done imo. YMMV, but I do not think much of the health bill.
I give him a C for his first year. How about you?
freelancer
@BTD:
At what point are you not succumbing to infantile wish-fulfillment fantasies? Define “great” as you used it, and contrast its use and definition of the word “victory” when tossed around by right-wingers with respect to Iraq.
Denialism and projection are rampant out there.
Comrade Jake
Shorter Armando: But I wanted a PONY!
WereBear
Regarding the unfiltered thoughts that now impinge on our consciousness, I wonder if T S Eliot was right.
Human voices wake us, and we drown.
General Winfield Stuck
@BTD:
BTD. Let me address this. There is a difference in thinking Obama can be an FDR, and thinking magically that FDR floated on silver clouds to get his agenda through. He did not. The POTUS in those days were pure gilded wingnut, and nixed many of his proposals. Until he threatened to expand their numbers, that dems shot down, but at least sent a message to the robed ones, and they backed off.
Second, the country then was in far worse shape than it is now, and what was shaping up to maybe get that bad, hasn’t.
I don’t know if Obama’s policies stopped the country from going over the Great Depression like cliff, or it was something else. The point is, though things are tough still, FDR had a country on it’s back. And when that is the case, a president is usually given more rope to do stuff, than not.
And much of what some folks consider as Obama worship, or thinking he could be great, is on the personal level, not the ideological level. This blog has never claimed Obama was a “progressive” as that word is used to describe the left activist people, and really never liberal, though his policies generally fit that label. imo
I supported him, and most here did the same, because he was pragmatic and center left. That is about it. Ok, now we have a messy legislative process, to make a sweeping changes in health care that has gone even past the stage of an FDR, or Truman. And it isn’t finished yet, though it may not be ideal, it is unprecedented to reach this stage, And if passed, will be an accomplishment no other dem presnit has accomplished, even with all the warts it promises to have. And in the first year of office, after getting passed the largest by a lot discretionary spending bill full of progressive programs dwarfing what FDR or anyone else has ever accomplished in one bill. Just sayin’ when you make judgments, look at the forest, past the trees.
Ann B. Nonymous
Do you know who FDR brought in to run his brand-new Securities and Exchange Commission?
Joseph P. Kennedy. Senior.
Obviously, FDR was a corporate sellout who wanted nothing more than to turn the United States over to the banksters.
Honestly, some of you are almost as lacking in knowledge of history as Treviño or Erickson. And they’re morons.
sparky
@Leelee for Obama: what are you talking about with FDR not carrying NYS?
if you mean the Hudson Valley, what exactly is your point? that would tend to prove exactly the opposite–that FDR was a real agent of change that entrenched squires didn’t like.
or am i having a reading comprehension fail?
@gizmo: thanks. just because some people expected more doesn’t mean they expected ponies, though i will grant it is a good strawman argument. meanwhile the Obama excuse bus jus’ keeps rollin’ along….
Leelee for Obama
@Tom Hilton: Tom, I’m sorry. It’s hard to type so tongue-in-cheek is obvious. I do juxtapose letter and numbers quite often, and I didn’t catch the 1993 instead of 1933. It really looked fine, cause I read it as 1933.
Shawn in ShowMe
The force is strong with Sad_Dem. More please.
BTD
@Comrade Jake:
Apparently, you find my my belief that Obama could have been that unreasonable.
Certainly, he has not been, so the evidence is in your favor.
I think the explanation for that is different than you – you attribute it to circumstances I take it. I attribute it to timidity.
Neither view is verifiable. Just opinions in the end.
Notorious P.A.T.
“I thought he could have been great. I think not now.”
I agree. All he had to do was what he pledged to do during the campaign, and he would have been great.
There’s still time, but I’m not sure he has learned anything. He undercut himself with a weak stimulus proposal. . . then undercut himself with a weak health care proposal.
“It’s only been a year”
In other words, 25% of his term is gone–and 50% of his term with a guaranteed Congressional majority. I don’t think he will lose that majority, but I am getting more nervous each month.
Jody
I’m not writing off Obama, but I must agree that I’d have liked to have been pleasantly surprised by him at least once. So far he’s disappointed at every turn.
Maybe he’s got something up his sleeve. But if things keep going in this direction, Dems are going to stay home next November and a GOP congress voted in by teabaggers will have subpoena power over a black president. That’ll make the Clinton years seem like bipartisan nirvana.
Yes, he’s a far cry better than the other guy. But let’s face it, “Not quite as shitty as McCain” isn’t particularly inspiring for the base.
BTD
@General Winfield Stuck:
Your history is faulty in its timeline. FDR’s showdown with the Supreme Court came later in his term.
The Hundred Days happened in the well, first hundred days.
The battles with the Court came from 1935 on and went ballistic of course in 1937, with the Court Packing proposal.
geg6
Well, I don’t blame Obama for the HCR mess. I am disappointed in several areas with Obama though. But not about things that I know are legislative responsibilities. I was a volunteer early on in 2007, so I heard a lot of promises from the candidate Obama’s mouth and that of his staff that have been drawn back now, things about rule of law that I feel rather stringly about. In that, I feel betrayed and it wasn’t out of naïve hero worship. That said, I’m still happy to have him there in the White House, especially compared to what might have been. However, I am furious with our legislative branch and would be perfectly happy to have an asteroid make a direct hit on the Capitol Building, leaving only a handful of survivors, like only Alan Grayson, Al Franken, and possibly one or two others. But only one or two.
sparky
@Ann B. Nonymous: actually, specious comparisons like this often say more about the poster than anything else.
Tom Hilton
@Leelee for Obama: ah, okay–no worries then. It is hard to gauge tone sometimes…and I live in constant fear of offending someone other than the people I mean to offend…
Notorious P.A.T.
By the way BTD, I commend you for coming here to join in the discussion.
BTD
@Comrade Jake:
I wanted FDR. I thought we could have had him. So shoot me for that.
valdivia
@General Winfield Stuck:
General you make the points I wanted to make with great eloquence. How many presidents have tried to get this done and failed? When this gets to his desk, it will be huge, warts and all.
freelancer
@Tom Hilton:
Fuck you tom. Oops, sorry. No offense. ;)
Annie
@valdivia:
LOL. Great comment…
Comrade Jake
@BTD:
Arguably the most profound thing you’ve written in years. We are all just opinions now.
FlipYrWhig
@Notorious P.A.T.: I think you’re choosing to believe the worst by way of innuendo-laden retellings of events whose truth we’ll never really know. I myself imagine Obama being incredibly pissed off about being hindered by the efforts of several different packs of dolts, but knowing that he can’t let that annoyance show. I think he has to act like everything is going according to plan, and he has to act like he wants to “play nice,” because admitting that there’s chaos and idiocy deeply ingrained at every level of the government and media actually does him no good.
BTD
@Notorious P.A.T.:
John and I called a truce long ago.
He’ll poke me gently, as he does here. And I will return the favor. But I think and hope the earlier blog slapping is largely over.
Neither of us can control our commenters of course.
Leelee for Obama
@sparky: It was just another interesting fact about FDR that always surprised me. People with whom he grew up and socialized disliked him intensely. I guess my feeling is, lots of Democrats are doing that with Obama just now. Bad comparison.
danimal
Obama has a better sense of timing than most of the freaked out liberal commenters we’ve been reading this week. He showed his sense of timing repetitively during the 2008 presidential campaign. Everyone concerned with the 2010 election needs to remember one thing: now is the time to make deals and do the dirty work of getting stuff done. Obama is not in permanent campaign mode, nor should he. Look at the disaster that W’s permanent campaign style wrought. Nobody votes in the off year, and I believe the tea partiers will be deeply burnt out and discouraged by next year.
Come summer/fall 2010, the economy will be growing, the wars winding down, the unemployment rate improving and health care signed. Conditions are nowhere near as dire as they may seem. The legislative process has always been ugly, but most folks only remember the barest outlines of the sausage-grinding. This past week’s freak-out has reminded me why liberals infuriate most of the country. Chill out, people.
Elie
@Tom Hilton:
You too?
And around here, that can get you into serious trouble pretty quick
sparky
@General Winfield Stuck: just to pile on, your argument also overlooks LBJ, who was responsible for Medicare and Medicaid.
as to your other points, namely Obama’s accomplishments, i quite frankly have no idea what you are referring to.
Bostondreams
@Jody:
Look, I hear this a great deal, and if this happens, then Democratic voters are just stupid. Who would this punish but the country? Would having a GOP Congress improve ANYTHING? Would ANYTHING they want get done? Of course not.
If these Dem voters stay home, they have no right to complain about the direction of the country, because they have abandoned their responsibility to the country and have acted like spoiled children who did not get what they want.
Brien Jackson
Obama could definitely learn from FDR. Throw some non-white people under the bus to placate some racist-populists, and maybe they’ll go along with helping working class white people. Hey, it’ll be even better this time because he’s…you know.
BTD
@Comrade Jake:
You like that one? It’s not new. I’ve been writing that since 2003. Before then, my opinions were Gospel.
I learned differently at the now much maligned Daily Kos. I’ll malign it some more – in MY day (before I was a FPer), the discussion were fierce but largely fact based.
I was a Clark supporter in 2003 and DKos was a Dean site. On too many occasions to count, I got my ass handed to me in comment exchanges. I learned to try and know at least a little about whatever I was talking about.
rob!
Wow, did you see those comments? I loved this one:
Can we vote for him in 2012 if we can’t draft Hillary?
Just take comments from 2008 blog posts, change the dates, and voila! PUMAs back in town, baby!!
BTD
@Brien Jackson:
They All Disappoint.
Hey John, here’s the guy who would have declared FDR a failure in December 1933.
Ann B. Nonymous
@sparky: It’s an accurate comparison. If you don’t accept it, well, you’ll just go on being a little more ignorant than people who know their policy history.
And I know the politics of resentment of policy knowledge have a strong attraction for much the American public, both right and left. So maybe you’ll be that way forever, like Orwell’s boot on a human face.
Since I don’t know you, it really doesn’t affect me much one way or the other. Maybe you’re good with animals.
cincy anon
Obama would have been great (and, by definition, is now a non-great) if only he could have convinced the 60th vote in the Senate, Lieberman, to not be a bitter, self centered man.
Raise high the roof beam….and all that.
Comrade Jake
It is not even a g-d year yet. Yes, OK, people are disappointed. Me too. Glad to be part of the club. But I’m not ready to declare this guy as clearly President “less shitty than McCain”.
The guy has got one hard ass job, one fine mess to clean up, and a Senate that’s full of gigantic assclowns. All things considered I think he’s doing fine.
It was quite the hole W dug for us. Obama’s apparently being criticized for not filling it immediately with a twitch of his nose and a click of his heels.
Shawn in ShowMe
@Crusty Dem
I think Obama actually is the Magical Unity Pony (well, as close as we’re gonna get) but neither side actually wants unity. They’d prefer the other side’s unconditional surrender. How doe anyone expect the U.S. to help advance the Israeli-Palestinian peace process when we can’t even have peace at home?
BTD
@cincy anon:
If that is your theory, stick with it. some of us believed in the Schumer Plan for a split bill, first proposed in September.
I noticed that Tim F. endorsed that approach this morning at this very blog.
But only us crazy people would think that was a good idea.
TR
@BTD:
Uh, no.
What did FDR achieve in his first year? Not much, and certainly not much that a liberal would see as wonderful today.
The National Recovery Act was both a sop to corporate interests, where industries got to write their own codes, and was declared unconstitutional in two years by a unanimous Supreme Court. The Agricultural Adjustment Act was considered a failure early because its efforts to limit production meant destroying crops in the middle of the Depression and it destroyed the lives of sharecroppers who were overwhelmingly poor and black. So, what? The TVA? OK, I’ll give you that.
No, the really big achievements of the New Deal that liberals love came *after* the first year. The FHA was created in 1934, the Social Security Act in 1935, the National Labor Relations Act in 1935, the Securities Exchange Act in 1935, the Works Progress Administration in 1935, the Rural Electrification Program in 1935, the Public Utilities Act of 1935, etc. etc.
No wonder you’re so upset that Obama didn’t turn into another FDR. You know absolutely nothing about him.
Bostondreams
@Brien Jackson:
Oh, good one. I love FDR, but he had no problem abandoning part of his base in order to ram legislation through Congress…
General Winfield Stuck
@BTD:
What does it matter when it came. You are judging Obama a relative failure, compared to what, because he had more difficulties in the first year that FDR. What relevance does that have for someone with a four or eight year term. Maybe Obama will have less difficulty than FDR in another year or two or six.
Maybe the stimulus will kick in with all the r and d projects for alternative energy and will bear unexpected fruit and start a new era of economic expansion, that we can’t envision in Obama’s first dern year. Jeebus.
You are judging one for his first year, and the second (FDR) by his full presidential run (whether you admit it or not), with the luxury of 70 years of times to parse the history of his presidency. Not everything FDR did turned up roses. That is just absurd.
Comrade Jake
@BTD:
Keep trying. You’ll get there someday.
sparky
@Leelee for Obama: thanks for explaining.
when Obama stops taking money from Goldman, then we can revisit that analogy. deal?
Olly McPherson
@Notorious P.A.T.:
I agree with both of you re: the seeming squandering of potential greatness. Sure, there are three years left in this term, but I don’t see things going uphill from here.
BTD
@Comrade Jake:
I think the critiques have been pretty specific if you were looking for reasonable ones.
Of course there are ridiculous people of all stripes.
I like to think I explain why I support or disagree with the President on the policies and strategies he favors and adopts.
For example, I have been supporting the President on his Afghanistan policy. I supported his TARP policy. I argued with Glenn Greenwald in support of the President preventive detention regime.
I disagreed with his unwillingness to put Citi into receivership. I think I was right.
I thought he misplayed the stimulus bill.
I think he misplayed the health bill.
His state secrets position is indefensible.
He has been slow to recognize the policy and political problem regarding jobs.
All in all, a mediocre year imo. He could have done better. he should have done better.
IMO of course.
BTD
@Comrade Jake:
I’ll try as hard as Obama will try to emulate FDR.
General Winfield Stuck
@sparky:
And both of those dealt with exclusive parts of the population, the elderly and the poor, and were quite meager and frought with problems that needed fixing over many years to where they are today. And neither can be compared to overhauling the health care insurance system for the entire fucking country, Not in scope, not in cost.
And look at the giant stimulus bill for your example, that really wasn’t a stimulus bill, but a giant r and d program to fund progressive goals in energy and health care systems for the country.
DougL (frmrly: Conservatively Liberal)
@BTD: “I do think there is some revisionism in that thread however.”
That’s your problem, what you call thinking is nothing more than wanking out loud. Rather than coming up with solid examples of what you want to talk about, you constantly ‘think’ out loud. The crap you write is full of endless meandering thoughts that all aim in one direction: Obama Fails/Hillary Rulz.
When you write about something and include some substance with it then I have no problem reading it, whether or not I agree with it. But your witless wanking about Obama is so lacking in substance that it is easy to see it for what it really is.
Your gal lost, get over it already.
donovong
@BTD: Thank you for reminding me (not that I needed to be reminded) that there are good reasons I never read your blog. One of them is the fact that you post there.
BTD
@General Winfield Stuck:
I think it is extremely relevant because most great achievement come in the first year of a President’s elected term.
It is of course true that FDR littered his 8 years with achievements but all of that was built on a base of huge achievements in his first year which led to a huge Dem win in 1934 and a smashing reelection victory in 1936.
It does not look like we will be getting those types of results in the 2010 and 2012 election (I expect Obama will definitely win reelection, but probably in a tighter race than 2008).
FlipYrWhig
Or, to be simpler than some of my other comments, I’m really not sure how Obama should better approach the fact that 5-8 of the Senators from his party are very squishy on cornerstone Democratic principles. And he basically needs to run the table every time. And because everyone knows it, he’s always going to end up in a position of having to kiss some truly ugly butt, because that’s the price of keeping the coalition together. And “playing nice” with Republicans is that much more important when peeling off one can allow you to stand up to one recalcitrant Democrat, so that when 5-8 of them start caterwauling, you can pull some Prisoners Dilemma shit.
How did the Republicans manage with less than 60 Senators? Because they trust that the media will repeat that Democrats are either Giving Aid And Comfort To The Enemy or Stealing Your Tax Money, both of which frighten the squishiest Democrats. There are no lines that the media can amplify to frighten Republicans. I think they got somewhat spooked by the bank near-collapse, but that wasn’t a liberal agenda item anyway. I think the sad truth is that you can’t spook Republicans leftwards, but you can spook Democrats rightwards. How do we fix that? I’m not sure it can be fixed. I think it’s a feature of our nation.
sparky
@Ann B. Nonymous: interesting argument–make an assertion and then when someone calls you on it rather than explain, just deploy a couple of what someone apparently thinks are clever retorts. so, i suppose i should thank you for proving my point rather nicely.
thanks!
BTD
@DougL (frmrly: Conservatively Liberal):
Yes, all the wanking is from me of course.
You are right of course.
BTD
@donovong:
Your welcome. Was it my knowledge of the facts or sharp wit?
General Winfield Stuck
@BTD:
Which all goes back to my main point, that the shape of the country today and during the GD, are utterly incomparable. And that dictates as much as anything what a president can propose and have passed into law.
BTD
@FlipYrWhig:
Reconciliation is one answer.
kwAwk
I don’t think anybody is declaring him a failure.
I think we’re declaring him to be a putz.
Randy Paul
I used to be a big fan of TalkLeft and happen to be fond of Jeralyn, but Armando has really soured me on that site.
BTD
@General Winfield Stuck:
Utterly incompatible? Bit of a stretch don;t you think? this is certainly the worst economic crisis we have faced SINCE the Great Depression.
Hell, even Obama says that.
Comrade Jake
This pretty much happens everytime Cole or Doug mentions Armando in a post here at BJ. Armando shows up in the thread, and lots of wankery ensues.
At the end of the day, none of us are inspired to go read TalkLeft.
BTD
@Randy Paul:
It seems hard for me to believe that folksd can not just bookmark Jeralyn’s stories page if they do not want to read me.
I read this all the time and I must admit to skepticism.
Sly
He was. Quite a few leftists within the Democratic Party said the New Deal didn’t go far enough. Huey Long even pondered a primary challenge as early as the summer of 1933. He even wrote a book, published posthumously in 1935, laying out his ambitions for the 1936 election. But FDR had a big enough coalition of left-leaning and moderate Democrats in the House and Senate to stave off any serious challenge.
Keep in mind that, at the same time as a number of 1930s leftist were calling FDR a sellout, megalomaniacs on the right were calling him a Bolshevik.
The biggest difference between the two is in message, not so much policy. FDR laid into banking and financial interests with a vengeance from beginning to end in his public speeches. That’s what really won him the populist vote and brought the South into the New Deal coalition. Obama hasn’t really done that. He could very well do it with populist elements in the Midwest, and it might be accomplished by letting Midwestern Democrats dominate the congressional side of the legislative debates, but that can have the effect of pissing off the urban majority of the coalition that elected him.
BTD
@Comrade Jake:
That’s your opinion. I think I tried to explain my point of view.
Of course, you do not want to actually discuss what I wrote – that interrupts the mockery.
I get that.
arguingwithsignposts
Didn’t read *every* comment, but must insert here that *nobody* could be “our FDR.” FDR served four terms (including serving over WWII *and* the Great Depression) and died in the fourth. Since then, they’re all limited to two terms. Given that Obama has an opportunity to wind down two Vietnams and shepherd in HCR and some other things, he *could* be something, but not “our FDR.”
Thankyouverymuch.
FlipYrWhig
@General Winfield Stuck:
And both of those were achieved by doing things like bracketing agricultural and domestic workers, who were disproportionately black. Can you imagine how the blogosphere and the 24-hour news cycle would have handled that?
The Moar You Know
Christ almighty. It’s the Armando Butthurt Hour.
I might remind all and sundry that it is 2009, not 1933, and that things have changed a little since America’s Greatest Wheelchair-Bound President was in office.
FDR had Lyndon Johnson, perhaps the greatest goon (I mean this admiringly) that has every broken a man’s balls in the Senate ramming legislation through that august chamber of egotists, and Sam Rayburn performing the same function via orchiectomies in the House.
Obama, on the other hand, has Pelosi, who is great, and Reid, who is like the fundamentalist dry-drunk who shows up at Thankgiving and lectures all and sundry about the evils of alcohol on festive holidays, and how they should be more properly observed with much weeping and repentance. Boom Party over.
A craftsman is only as good as his tools, and Obama will never be capable of being as great as FDR. Not his fault; we, the people, just gave him a shitty set of tools to work with.
General Winfield Stuck
@BTD:
LOL. Nice try. Of course “since the great depression” says nothing of their difference in severity which TGD was far far worse than this “recession”. but this might
arguingwithsignposts
@BTD:
Which just proves my point.
Shawn in ShowMe
@Comrade Jake
Maybe a look at the Google Analytics for his site would reveal otherwise. I can’t imagine Armando drops by just for the company.
TR
What lovely framing. Saying he “littered” his eight years with achievements makes it sound like Social Security and the FHA and the Fair Labor Standards Act were candy bar wrappers he tossed out his window.
The achievements of the First Hundred Days were quite mixed in their importance and legacy. Many of them were conservative — the Economy Act, the Beer Bill, the Banking Act, the NRA, the AAA, etc. — and the ones that weren’t largely sank beneath the waves soon. Most didn’t last past the midpoint of the decade. The “second New Deal” was where all the lasting, significant changes took place.
You say you try to know a little about something before speaking out on it. Maybe you should try learning a bit more, because you clearly don’t have the slightest clue how the New Deal worked.
Elie
@General Winfield Stuck:
Ahhh, what’s the use?
It just seems more and more that the points of view about some in relation to not HCR per se, but HCR as promoted, organized, etc by Obama is just fail, as everything else he has had anything to do with after one year.
You can just see the arms folded across chests and tight lips mouthing “not good enough .. not now, not EVAH.”
This is about something else — given the scope of the problems inherited, the short time elapsed and the nature of our complex and broken system, who would have expected resolution and attainment of perfection? Don’t know and am beginning to care less and less ….
High maintenance…folks like some of the critics are not people who you want to work with to get things done. They are the “critics” — the snarky fellow employee who critiques and tells you what was wrong, but can never help you…
I am tired of reading their comments and the same old grinding noise coming out of their key boards…
BTD
@General Winfield Stuck:
Can we at least agree that in terms of economic conditions, Obama’s opportunity was as close to FDR’s as any President since FDR?
BTD
@Elie:
That comment lacks in specificity.
I’ll play Glenn Greenwald for a moment – could you address the actual criticisms of Obama made by people? Or is the one handed dismissal sufficient?
TR
True, but much of that rhetoric came later. The famous Madison Square Garden speech about “economic royalists” came in the 1936 campaign. In the early going, FDR tried to work with big business — through the NRA, etc. — and tried to rein in people like Ferdinand Pecora who were calling for pitchfork mobs to go into Wall Street.
Cain
@Bostondreams:
This. So you want to give up the country to the right wing to fuck it up and get us into more shit trouble? How would that solve your problem? Just because you couldn’t have a pony, you’re going to turn the country over to the big bad wolf. That’s beyond insane.
What you need to do is look at who was being an ass during legislation and primarying them. One by one, show them who is boss, that’s how you do change. Obama himself said that relying on him isn’t enough. YOU, and that means all of us, needs to stop whining and start slapping heads and get congress in line.
What’s broken isn’t Obama, it is Congress. They haven’t done shit since the 80s and it’s time we make them do what they are called upon to do. Represent us. We blame Obama because we want some kind of King to wave his hand and make it all go away. That’s not going to happen. We need to lobby our own people in the conservative states and make them accept change. (not easy)
cain
sparky
@General Winfield Stuck: FSM on a pogo stick, man–
WHAT health reform for the entire country? i mean, you aren’t really serious about this one, are you?
as for the stimulus, most of it is tax breaks and entitlements. and much of the rest is for things like road repaving. so, unless you have some hard, non-trivial evidence to the contrary, no sale.
HRA
It’s astonishing to assume the FDR years could be parallel to today in any way. I do not care what former president is brought forth as a comparison to the discussion. There are very vast differences between then and now.
The newspaper and the radio gave you the news and it was not readily available. I am sure there were some who had issues with FDR’s programs. The difference is they did not screech it out. They were patient, trusting and respectful.
When the day came for this nation to stand up and be counted, even they joined the lines to defend it. This I learned from being nosey as a little kid while I listened to my great and great-great relatives reminisce about those days and yet, there is so much more that could be told. Though I wonder if it would be worth it in this atmosphere we live in today.
FlipYrWhig
@Sly:
But after decades worth of economic transformation, “banking and financial interests” are clearly what makes The Economy tick. I have to think that it was easier to scourge banking and financial interests before that segment of the economy was so dominant. Everyone hates banks and bankers, but nobody wants to jeopardize their mortgage or their retirement funds by taking an axe to them. This is the upshot of that not-so-old riddle, “What’s still made in America?” “Deals.” The banks and bankers are deep into us, and I don’t think that can be rolled back without massive dislocation.
Randy Paul
@BTD
I read this all the time and I must admit to skepticism.
Allow me to disabuse you. I use my blogroll as my bookmarks for blogs. I still keep TalkLeft on there. Thanks for the tip, perhaps I’ll just change it to Jeralyn’s page.
It’s not your opinions, btw; it’s your tone. Jeralyn and I have disagreed before, most recently on Hiram Monserrate, but her tone has been respectful and courteous. I often see comments from you that would have gotten people warned if not banned in Jeralyn’s posts.
BTD
@TR:
Your attack on my phraseology is not to the point. Are you saying, REALLY saying that FDR achieved NOTHING in the First Hundred Days? That hewas NOt perceived as achieving in the 1934 election?
I understand that disagreeing with people leads to claims of “knowing nothing” in the bIogs, but have read more than a fiar amount about FDR and the New Deal. I recommend Jean Edward Smith’s biography to you. But perhaps you view that as hagiography.
TR
LBJ didn’t even get to the House until 1937, and wasn’t in the Senate until 1949 — and Majority Leader until 1953.
FDR’s point man in the Senate was Joe Robinson of Arkansas. Well, up until he died pushing through the court-packing bill in 1937, of course.
DougL (frmrly: Conservatively Liberal)
@BTD:
There you go with that thing you call ‘thinking’.
General Winfield Stuck
@BTD:
I would say that Johnson’s was greater, because the country was still united after WW2, social change from the Victorian era was bubbling up all around and about to become convulsive, and the country had just lost a beloved president that was a democrat. Johnson still accomplished a lot, until he screwed the pooch with Vietnam. Obama has two war going bad, that he inherited, and Joe Fucking Lieberman.
Get back to me in a couple of years, and I might agree with you, but not today, not yet.
horatius
I don’t remember FDR getting cock-slapped by a Trojan Horse senator inside his own caucus.
Wile E. Quixote
@Ann B. Nonymous
And that kind of cherry picking shows a certain facile stupidity on your part that doesn’t make me respect you any more than I respect Treviño or Ericksdottir.
donovong
@BTD: More like the complete absence of either.
Leelee for Obama
@sparky: I don’t like any candidate taking money from any corporate entity. I’d like to see it made illegal. What are my chances? Nil. I donated money for this campaign, but I don’t know whether I’ll be able to next time-money is tight now, and I don’t have a job yet. I’ll bet lots of us who donated in 2008 are in the same boat. Publicly funded elections are the only DEMOCRATIC way, and we will not see them anytime soon if everybody who’s disappointed they don’t get all they want from the people they elect stop donating, stop campaigning, stop voting. If Obama stops taking corporate money and we can’t make up for it, where does that leave us?
You’ll have to excuse me, but I think I’m better off being disappointed by Democrats than I am being destroyed, along with my country, by Republicans.
As to how long things take, I’m the Grandma who believes in planting a tree under whose shade my great-greats will sit. Important things take more time than they should, more time than we’d like. Doesn’t mean we give up and buy an awning.
BTD
@Randy Paul:
Not really. I really do not comment in that way at TalkLeft.
But let me ask you, which of my comments IN THIS THREAD are you objecting to in terms of tone?
And do you really think my comments are the harshest ones in this thread?
And do you really think Balloon Juice is a model of civility in its threads or posts?
This is where I get a little ticked – when people who enjoy commenting at blogs like Balloon Juice or Daily Kos complain about MY tone.
It simply makes no sense. Any just reading of that complaint must see how much of a double standard you are carrying on that score.
TR
No, I’m saying that your repeated claim that presidents like FDR got their most important legislation passed in their first year is patently and completely false.
He achieved some good things in the first hundred days, but the real accomplishments — I’m sorry, THE REAL ACCOMPLISHMENTS — came in 1934-1935.
If you’d actually read something good on the New Deal — and, sorry, a serial popular biographer like Jean Edward Smith doesn’t count — you’d understand this difference. Try some actual historians who are experts on the era instead. William Leuchtenberg, Anthony Badger, Robert McElvaine, David Kennedy, or Eric Rauchway, for starters.
General Winfield Stuck
@sparky:
I have had this dispute with you before sparky. Your mind is made up and no one can change it, and I won’t even try.
But your take on the stimulus is wrong, on what it primarily was and is, soaked thru with ideological indignation. And health reform isn’t done yet, just isn’t, despite left wing pitch fork brigades.
BTD
@donovong:
Heh. Well, same to you buddy!
cincy anon
Obama isn’t FDR – not that I know all that much of the success of FDR’s first eleven months. Still, one man is not near as I have imagined another to have been.
Elie
@BTD:
Seriously?
I am not going to re-type the hundreds of negative comments on just this blog dealing with his ability to lead, to how HCR was introduced and managed, the stimulus was too small and unsuccessful, —
What’s your point? That its my perception of criticism and that there hasnt been any?
No matter. NO. I am not listing it all again. Scroll up string and read. Take notes
BTD
@TR:
Good for you. Unfortunately, except for FDR, it happens to be true don’t you think?
BTW, Jean Edward Smith agrees that the years 1934-35 were the most important years of achievement as well. Maybe you will give him a little respect next time.
Thanks for tips on the other authors.
BTD
@Elie:
I apologize Elie. you’re right that coming into the middle of a conversation does not entitle me to a rehash of all that happened before. That request always annoys me too.
Point taken.
arguingwithsignposts
@BTD:
Well, I’d argue that 1941-1945 were pretty important years as well, considering we had that *world* war and all.
TR
No, next time I’ll go directly to the actual historians that someone like JES cribs his opinions from. He’s about as weighty a mind as Doris Kearns Goodwin or Michael Beschloss — all concerned with a Great Man’s life story, and totally ignorant of the larger picture, with all its complexities and shadings.
Elie
@BTD:
Thanks for your civility.
Much appreciated by me.
BTD
@TR:
Fair enough. I think it is a good book. And I think a comparison to Goodwin, who is a known plagiarist, pretty unfair. I’ve never read Beschloss.
As a rule do you reject popular history? And do you reject the idea of actors being important in the course of history?
It’s been a lot of years since I was in college, but that was all the rage when I was in school. Is it still?
sparky
@Leelee for Obama: actually i agree with pretty much everything you say, except that i think the Ds are also destroying the country. they are just doing it more slowly and with nicer words and pictures.
that said, sitting on one’s hands and saying a pox on both your houses is no good either.
BTD
@Elie:
My pleasure.
Shawn in ShowMe
@BTD
Maybe it’d be a good idea to read up on Teddy Roosevelt, Dwight Eisenhower and Richard Nixon as well.
Comrade Jake
Bad to worse to excruciating.
TR
No, I don’t.
Truman’s biggest accomplishments, the Marshall Plan and the civil rights program, were 1947-1948.
Eisenhower’s biggest success was the interstate highway act of 1956.
JFK’s biggest accomplishments were the early moves on the civil rights bill in 1963.
LBJ’s high point was 1965 — Voting Rights Act, Medicare/Medicaid, Higher Education Act, Immigration Reform.
Nixon’s big moves came in 1971-1972 in foreign policy with detente and normalization of relations with the PRC.
Ford … trying to think of an accomplishment.
Carter’s big coup was the Camp David Accords in 1978.
Reagan, I’ll give you him — the big tax cut and the budget slashing were August 1981.
GHWBush … I don’t know, from his perspective, I guess it’d be the Gulf War coalition? 1990.
Clinton … hard to pick something that stands out.
GWBush, again, got his big tax cut in the first year.
So, congratulations, Reagan and Dubya fit the pattern, and no one else does.
Randy Paul
It simply makes no sense. Any just reading of that complaint must see how much of a double standard you are carrying on that score.
Not really. I was comparing your comments at TalkLeft with what has been tolerated at TalkLeft. Each blog can set its own rules.
demimondian
Ironically, I will put Obama up there with FDR. FDR had a divided, demoralized opposition and an immense majority. Obama has neither, and yet he’s managed to get close to the goal.
That said, this bill stinks.
BTD
@Shawn in ShowMe:
Tell me about them. Of course, with TR, we need to talk about 1905, the first year after his election victory.
Dwight Eisenhower you got me. I could name only two “achievement” of his – ending the Korean War and the Interstate Highway system. I suppose some would call the 1957 Civil Rights law a major achievement. So make that 3.
Other than that, you know more than I do.
Richard Nixon. EPA in 1971? Affirmative Action by Executive Order, which I think is a different kettle of fish.
I dunno, I am curious to hear your points though.
Crusty Dem
@BTD:
Oh please, stop trying to sound reasonable. You act like a mini-Mussolini of comments critical to your thinking at TL:
“And let me tell you something, at my site, in my threads, you treat me with respect or you do not comment.
you can rip me back at daily kos. ”
Geez, and here I thought it was Jeralyn’s site.
BTD
@Randy Paul:
Ok. but that stills begs the question why it would upset you at TalkLeft but not here.
Rick Taylor
This blog is called “Balloon Juice,” that is, hot air. If we can’t make pontificate outrageously here, where can we? We can always eat crow four years from now if it turns out Obama really is another FDR.
__
Apart from that, I think it is true that Obama has a gift for communication, and I do find his habit of staying above the fray while congress hammers things out frustrating at times. And I say that, while seeing he has used the bully pulpit more often than other Presidents of the last couple decades.
__
Also, and this may be more Reid’s fault than Obama’s, politically speaking, the handling of health care was extraordinarily clumsy. If they didn’t have the votes for a public option, they shouldn’t have put it in the base bill. Instead, they’ve made progressives eat a crap sandwich, getting them to argue and compromise in good faith again and again before sticking it to them, and it’s no wonder some are spitting mad and looking for someone to blame.
BTD
@Crusty Dem:
Or rip me at Balloon Juice.
FWIW, I think that approach helps keep the peace, otherwise, I would be firing back.
arguingwithsignposts
@BTD:
Nixon was a lefty by today’s standards.
Thoroughly Pizzled
@Jason Bylinowski:
Another great place, though not really a liberal blog per se, is Roger Ebert’s. The comments are actually all grammatically correct.
TR
No, I reject poorly executed history, which is what a lot of popular history is.
And yes, historical actors are important, but focusing on personalities and character studies to the complete exclusion of structural, organizational, political and social factors leads people to wait for another Great Man to come save them and not understand the ways in which massive social change is always the product of many people, working long and hard, often in incremental ways, and not getting impatient when the revolution doesn’t come right away.
BTD
@TR:
Hmm. Can;t really agree with that list.
Clinton for example was the 1993 Tax Act.
Bush 41 was the Budget Deficit bill of 1989.
Of course, foreign policy accomplishments can come at any time.
I misspoke – I really was thinking of domestic achievements.
But you have a point – the bag is certainly more mixed than I broad brushed.
BTD
@TR:
Unrelated question – what the hell happened to Eugene Genovese?
arguingwithsignposts
@TR: @BTD:
I’m surprised NAFTA didn’t get a giant foam finger.
Leelee for Obama
@sparky: The only way to improve Democrats is to primary the really bad ones when possible. We did that with Lieberman, and look what happened. I can’t think of another Democrat who would’ve gladly let Republicans support them to the detriment of their own candidate and then not change parties. Joementum had to be pretty singular. Most of the problem Dems are Southern or Western conservatives, who would be Republicans in a sane world and we would expect nothing of them. A coalition like the one that Dems have now is like Florida, where I live. There are Marco Rubio conservatives. Charlie Crist Republicans, Obama loving Democrats and Alan Grayson voters who love him one day, and lie about where they live the next. A melting pot of native born, moved from everywhere else-middle aged or young, and retired. We all live here, we all have opinions and wants and needs and demands-and the pretzel positions any reasonable politician must perform make them eligible to work at Cirque de Soleil. God thing, since they work local.
Brien Jackson
@BTD:
I’m not saying FDR was a failure at all, I’m simply pointing out that what he also was not was a mythical diety like President who discovered the secret to cowing the Senate and then took it to his grave so no one else would ever be as awesome as he was. He had the same issues with the Senate everyone else has had in the modern era. In a way, FDR even had it easier than Obama has it, because in his day the marginal Democratic votes in the chamber weren’t corporate stooges like Evan Bayh and Blanche Lincoln, but populist Southern Democrats who happened to be raging racists. So the Senators he needed to get were open to New Deal like ideas, regulating bankers (because everyone knows those guys are all evil Jews amirite?), etc., they were just worried that the programs would help non-white people and those uppity women folk who were getting crazy ideas in their head about voting and working and stuff. And FDR capitulated to them straight away, agreeing to structure New Deal programs in such a way as to disadvantage non-whites and the Women’s movement. And he agreed to put the kibosh on federal anti-lynching legislation.
Almost gives you a new appreciation for Blanche Lincoln; she might be shilling for Wal-Mart and Tyson, but at least she ain’t getting her panties in a bunch because the federal government wants to come down on states that kind of sort of approve of arbitrarily murdering non-white/non-Christian people.
TR
@BTD:
Fair enough points.
In all seriousness, you should read some of those historians I listed above. It’ll bring FDR down to earth, and make Obama’s incrementalism look like not such a bad thing.
BTD
@arguingwithsignposts:
Heh. I am a free trade so I give NAFTA a thumbs up.
TR
@BTD:
He seemed to imprint on his subjects, which meant one kind of politics when he was studying slaves in the ’70s and another radically different kind of politics when he was studying the Agrarians and other southern elites in the ’90s.
Also, he seemed to go a little insane.
General Winfield Stuck
@BTD:
I for one, appreciate your visits and the civil discourse, though I can never eliminate the F bomb completely. Wouldn’t seem right,:)
arguingwithsignposts
@BTD:
Well, if you’re talking significant accomplishments, then that should be the big one. Shipping jobs to Mexico and Canada at the expense of American workers (maquiladoras, anyone) should be hands-down the winner.
BTW, just so you know, there is *no such thing* as free trade. There’s “screw the workers” and there’s “fair trade.” No company engages in “free trade.”
ETA: Both Canada and Mexico have some sort of public health system, which eliminates costs for companies that operate there (ditto most any industrialized nation), meaning that the U.S. is at a distinct disadvantage in “free trade.” So if you want to be all “free trade,” then be my guest. But realize the cards are stacked against you. Fix the system, then talk about “free trade.” As we have it now, we got it reversed. Clinton should have said “no health reform = no free trade.” sadly, no.
Darkrose
I thought Obama would stand in line for me at Ikea.
BTD
@General Winfield Stuck:
I enjoy reading this site and its threads.
I can never be the atrocious commenter I was back in my DKos days to I still get a kick out of reading good sparring in comments.
Balloon Juice certainly has that.
Nellcote
Considering the polarized state of politics today, wouldn’t the comparison to Lincoln be more apt?
BTD
@TR:
He was required reading when I was in school. Roll Jordan Roll is stil la book I pick up every once in a while.
arguingwithsignposts
@Nellcote:
Well, let’s hope except the ending, but I do cede your point.
Keith G
@Jim Crozier: Yes indeed. Those PUMA 12 step dropouts are packing some major “fucked up”.
I didn’t realize that Obama was the worst thing to happen to America in over 70 years.
Texas Dem
Friend, please stop smoking your shower curtain. This country is far more polarized and evenly divided than it was in 1933. Quick history lesson: The economy collapsed in 1929, and FDR was elected after a catastrophic four years of ruinous depression that destroyed a large portion of the middle class. If Obama had come into office under similar circumstances, he’d have been in a much stronger position, but he didn’t. He’s getting the best deals he can under extremely difficult circumstances. You want a second FDR? Here’s how: Cede all political power to the GOP, allow the economy to totally collapse, and then (and this is the really important part) keep them in power for long enough after the collapse to make sure they get all of the blame for it, and that people associate the GOP with the disaster for decades thereafter. That’s what happened in 1930s.
Elie
@Darkrose:
LOL!!!
Leelee for Obama
This. Is. Perfect. Horribly frightening, because the American of today pisses in their pants and pitches a fit when they can’t have sprinkles on their ice cream, and we may not have enough Greatest Generation genes available to weather this scenario. That may be attributable to our shitty diets and our awful education system. Say what you will, people ate less but better food during the Depression because it was not processed and the schools did a better job of producing citizens.
Keith G
@BTD:
Oh fuck no. I am so sorry dude, but that is just pig ignorant. Semi ignorant about America in 2008-2009 and quite ignorant about America in the 1930s.
One example: Party discipline. There is virtually no similarity between the power of party leaders to effect legislation today compared to the 1930s. One could go down the list, but that would be rather pedantic.
Mnemosyne
@Cain:
Pfft. That would actually require looking things up and realizing that Blanche Lincoln and Evan Bayh are both up for re-election in 2011 and that if we want to primary them, we’d better get our asses in gear right now to find someone to challenge them.
Nope, better to sit back, blame Obama for everything, and then complain when no one steps forward on their own to challenge Lincoln or Bayh from the left. Because if they won’t bring that pony to our front door, we don’t want it, damn it.
Mnemosyne
@Mnemosyne:
By the way, I just checked ActBlue. ActBlue donors have given Lincoln $7,800. Drew Pritt, who wants to challenge Lincoln next year has raised $1. One dollar. So much for changing things from the ground up.
Nick
maybe we should ask Huey Long.
Comrade Luke
So reading the comments, people felt:
and
Obama was seen as…a Republican.
Gotcha.
Nice definition of “Democrat” ya got there, folks. Can’t imagine why people are so upset.
mclaren
Why is any sane person paying any attention to Big Tent Democrat over at talkleft.com?
Big Tent Democrat is infamous as a well-known sociopath who has enthusiastically endorsed kidnapping and torture (now called Obama’s “extraordinary rendition”) and who also adores the futile pointless endless war in Afghanistan.
Big Tent Democrat is just another neocon psychopath who hates the constitution and loves torture and war. That guy is of no more concern to any sane person than Rush Limbaugh or Glenn Beck or Michelle Malkin…people who all hold exactly the same positions Big Tent Democrat does on the constitution, civil rights, torture, and illegal endless losing futile foreign wars.
Robert Waldmann
There was an article in even the liberal New Republic that said that FDR would end up a Fascist, because the only real options were Fascism and Socialism (by which the author (Lewis Mumford IIRC) meant Stalinism).
Believe me, the idiocy of lefty critics of Obama is nothing, nothing compared to the idiocy of lefty critics of FDR.
I mean there were real live communists in the USA when FDR was President
OK I admit it, there were also real live communists in the USA when Ronald Reagan was President. I swear to God I met not one but two members of the US communist party in the USA in the mid 80s. I think there still are a few.
mclaren
Why is any sane person paying any attention to the delusional gibberings of Big Tent Democrat over at talkleft.com?
Big Tent Democrat is infamous as a well-known sociopath who has enthusiastically endorsed kidnapping and torture (now called Obama’s “extraordinary rendition”) and who also adores the futile pointless endless war in Afghanistan.
That guy has no more contact with reality than a flat-earther or a scientologist. Jeralyn over at talkleft.com is sensible and rational, but not that clown.
Big Tent Democrat is just another neocon psychopath who hates the constitution and loves torture and war. That guy is of no more concern to any sane person than Rush Limbaugh or Glenn Beck or Michelle Malkin…people who all hold exactly the same positions Big Tent Democrat does on the constitution, civil rights, torture, and illegal endless losing futile foreign wars.
People like Big Tent Democrat represent the lunatic fringe of the early 2000s. They have no importance for political discourse in America. Big Tent Democrat is the political equivalent of a ufologist — a kook utterly irrelevant to political process in the real world where the rest of us live.
Why is anyone wasting even one word writing a blog post about anything that sociopath says?
Keith G
@Robert Waldmann: As a member of student government at OSU in 1980, my office was next door to the OSU communist student organization. Not a real busy place.
Brien Jackson
To be fair, FDR was perfectly happy to implicitly threaten to take “emergency powers” to deal with the Depression.
wasabi gasp
@Darkrose: I thought Obama would leggo my eggo.
DougL (frmrly: Conservatively Liberal)
Fix’t. There is no such thing as “free trade”, ask our unemployed if you think that there is.
Elie
@Mnemosyne:
You got it brother. Talk is CHEAP…
Corner Stone
@BTD:
Some revisionism?? *SOME* revisionism?
Fuck. That whole thread is a bunch of kool aid drinking ***and posting*** MF’ers who are all now trying to memory hole a bunch of their BS.
Chuck Butcher
Comparing Pres Obama to FDR, JFK, or LBJ bores me to tears. He is none of them by race, upbringing, or background. The times and circumstances are not in the least similar – it is just so much horse pucks.
Blaming the President for Congress ignores the roles and responsibilities of the offices. What I might have expected from a man of his rhetorical brilliance and public affection would have been much better use of the “bully pulpit” of the Presidency to ignite public activism and enthusiasm. Not in evidence.
There are things the President is directly responsible for and one might reasonably expect that a Constitutional scholar would enforce the rule of law within the Executive Branch. You can find plenty of evidence that this is not the case. I have no interest in being told there are things I don’t know and can’t know – Mary Cheney can like my butt (as long as I’m dead first – necrophilia seems appropriate).
I won’t throw him overboard because of Congress but his office is his responsibility
The Sheriff Is A Ni-
I’ve seen everything from FDR to Reagan tossed around, and everyone misses the easy comparison: A young charismatic Democrat who broke a culture barrier in his election, then went on to be a somewhat popular and pragmatic center-leftist.
Why nobody mentions John F. Kennedy these days, I don’t know.
Crusty Dem
@arguingwithsignposts:
Why would a Walmart shill oppose NAFTA?
The Sheriff Is A Ni-
@Chuck Butcher:
You want a preacher, not a President. Gotcha.
BTD
@Crusty Dem:
There you go.
Corner Stone
@Randy Paul:
Ha! Tone! Fuck you Broder. You weaksauce little bitch.
Cain
@Mnemosyne:
That should go on the front page for all the whiners. Maybe DailyKOS will get a clue and start moving their gigantic ass and start seeing who tehy should be primarying. KOS reads this site doesn’t he? Hey KOS.. a post on whose funding what challenger for bad democrats vs good in conservative states would be good, dude.
cain
Chuck Butcher
@The Sheriff Is A Ni-:
Bullshit, that is one of the tools a President has and it is the most powerful one where the Hill is concerned. It is also dead center in his skill set. If you have some affection for the Cheney model of the Imperial Presidency why don’t you just let us know?
Like it or not, the President runs the Executive Branch, not Congress or SCOTUS. What exactly is it you think the Presidency is?
Elie
@Randy Paul:
Just beware here. No matter what your view is, this commenter, Corner Stone is very abusive.
If you want to avoid that…you may wish to not respond and give him a pass
4jkb4ia
@mclaren:
Not true. Armando said that Gonzales should not be confirmed because he approved torture when there was little bandwagon for that.
Chuck Butcher
I’m willing to give BTD this, he is sometimes well reasoned and quite accurate. He also is sometimes IMHO a complete asshole and concern troll. I guess he has his “buttons” like many of us.
Yes I quit reading TL as a PUMA haven early in the Primary. It is true that writers don’t control their commentariate, but they also stick around for a reason.
mclaren
Not to excuse Obama, but people comparing Obama unfavorably with FDR need to remember that there’s been a huge institutional change in congress.
In 1932 the congress operated on a strict seniority system. That system gave majority leaders and committee chairmen the kind of near-dictatorial power we can’t even dream of today.
The seniority system got dismantled in part because it institutionalized opposition to civil rights legislation courtesy of Southern senators who kept getting re-elected for 40 years.
Dismantling the old congressional seniority system helped force some progressive legislation through, but it also wrecked party discipline. Today there isn’t nearly as much a majority leader can do to enforce party discipline as there was Sam Rayburn ruled as majority whip with an iron hand.
I still blame Obama for not forcing the Overton window wayyyyyyyyyyyyyyy over to the left — Obama should’ve started off with some insane far-left proposal like nationalizing all doctors and forcing every new graduate from medical school to serve as a government-paid civil servant for $100 a month for the first 5 years in a nationalized state-run medical system with zero profit in it. Then when the teabaggers and AMA and Malkin and the Republicans went berserk and became hysterical, Obama could’ve backed off and said, “Okay, okay…let’s go for the moderate alternative — single-payer.” Instead, Obama foolishly took single-payer off the table from the start, and now look where that got us: TARP for the health insurance industry.
bob h
At the one year point you will be looking at breaking the back of the Great Recession, setting a course for exit from Iraq, HCR, getting the Nobel for transforming our foreign affairs, among other things. Not bad.
memory
I wonder if FDR was being declared a failure by his alleged supporters in December 1933?
Yes. FDR’s supporters were VERY critical of him during his first years of office. His supporters expected him to immediately change America upon entering office. Also, his opponents called him a Communist, traitor and tyrant who was destroying the constitution.
FDR, though, was more than willing to rail against the bankers and finance men.