Ed Schultz has Katrina can den Heuvel on right now.
Drink every time you hear “the base.”
Drink every time you hear “public option.”
Drink every time you hear the phrase “sold out.”
Or just start chugging and shoot your tv.
When Ed Schultz is berating Tom Harkin for not being liberal enough, does anyone else think of the teabaggers attacking Cornyn for not being conservative enough?
bago
Tom Harkin?
JenJen
Perfect example for using the new tag Malron suggested: “manic-progressive.”
This “20 Questions for Bill Killers” list by Nate Silver is good, by the way. #20 FTW, unfortunately.
JenJen +3 before we even started
smiley
+3 on that and I wasn’t really paying attention.
Max
I hear there was quite a scuffle on Tweety’s show between Landreau and Dean. Per the Twitter, Tweety lost control of his show for a bit.
Anyone see that?
mr. whipple
Now that is an ideology I can get behind!
Amy
I can’t watch Ed. Where is the reality-based left?
Look, this isn’t the HCR bill I wanted. But it is more comprehensive than what Dean proposed when he ran for president. It would do good and, if it fails, no president is going to touch health care for 20 years. The consequences for people’s lives are very real.
Dannie22
I asked this on another thread. Why is Schultz calling out President Obama? Shouldn’t he be calling out Reid and Lieberman?
Zifnab
Done and done.
Da Bomb
I would get drunk before the show is up.
Hence, why I can’t watch Ed. He’s a dipshit and a complete blowhard.
John Cole
@Max: I did. Dean looked like an out of control hothead, and mind you, I have no love for Landrieu.
mr. whipple
I listened to Ed for weeks when this all began. He kept harping on “public option” and he had absoluely no idea what the hell it meant.
God bless him, but he’s not the brightest bulb.
schrodinger's cat
@Amy:
Me neither, wonder who watches him? I want a show with John and Tunch, that would be fun to watch, just like the TunchCams.
Tom Hilton
I can’t even watch Maddow these days, and she’s much more even-tempered than Ed or Keith.
Flitterbic
Don’t forget “thrown under the bus”.
schrodinger's cat
@John Cole:
Did he scream?
Bruce (formerly Steve S.)
John, you’re ranting about as pointlessly as it’s possible for a blogger to rant. Go post some animal pictures or something.
jeffreyw
I’m trying to put myself into the frame of mind of someone who doesn’t read blogs or watch the cable shows. What do I know is going on? What are the talking heads on ABC/NBC/CBS saying?
JenJen
@John Cole: Yeaaaaaaarrrrrgh!
No, really, it was a lot of talking over each other. Landrieu is expert at ignoring the earpiece, but Dean wasn’t doing himself any favors.
jeffreyw
I get by watching the food network, my netflix picks, and a few shows I set the dvr to catch. Recommended. Alas, I do read blogs, tho I did finally delist fdl from by bookmarks.
Shawn in ShowMe
From the people who brought you “there’s no difference between Gore and Bush” and “the votes are there for single payer” comes their newest hit “we can start all over and get a better bill”.
General Winfield Stuck
Actually, I am glad that Cole is ranting and getting involved with his own blog. My big fear lately, has been clicking on Balloon Juice and having an Orange screen with bold print saying “YOU HAVE BEEN ASSIMILATED’
Davis X. Machina
The new list of non-sellouts is down to the last two real Democratic senators: Dennis Kucinich, who isn’t a Senator, and Bernie Sanders, who isn’t a Democrat.
Bruce (formerly Steve S.)
He is, by orders of magnitude more than he’s calling out Obama. He just gave as much air time each to Ned Lamont and Tom Harkin. Lamont was directed by Schultz to do nothing other than rip on Lieberman, and Harkin is an accomodationist that John should approve of. Now he’s got on Sen. Dorgan. John’s just being hysterical.
Jim
@Flitterbic:
Curses! you beat me to it. I would’ve been first to mention “under the bus” if it weren’t for you meddling kids!
Demo Woman
@General Winfield Stuck: Please no…..
Davis X. Machina
My Hebrew is rusty, but isn’t ‘shibboleth’ the Hebrew for ‘public option’?
WereBear
I feel a lot of very smart people are trying very hard for the right goal. And I don’t mind seeing emotion on the teevee; if it’s genuine.
While the right wing weeps and wails and gnashes 24/7 on Fox, they tease and intimidate us when we are “shrill” and then caricature us as unfeeling robots from ivory towers.
Unlike many, I like seeing Keith Olbermann upset and Rachel Maddow being deadly serious. I don’t mind Howard Dean speaking his mind. I like Alan Grayson’s style, too.
There’s been enough tiptoeing and earnestness. If lives are at stake, go ahead and act like it.
bemused
I was too busy to turn off Ed Schulz & Hardball today so I heard parts of that. Even more incoherent than usual. I think everyone is losing it today.
I don’t remember who said you know less after watching cable news than if you hadn’t watched at all but sounds about right.
harlana pepper
Fuck, I am glad Ed Schultz gets pissed off so I don’t have to anymore. I am exhausted. Personally, he can have at it for all it’s worth.
schrodinger's cat
@Flitterbic:
How can you throw someone under the bus, shouldn’t it be
throwing someone in front of the bus or ahead of the bus?
Montysano (All Hail Marx & Lennon)
I’ve been out of the loop the last few days, working feverishly so that our family does not have to resort to shooting squirrels for food.
But if what I’ve read is true: no Medicare buy-in, no public option, no cost controls, and millions forced, FORCED, to buy into the same fucked-up corporate insurance nightmare, then fuck it. Let this miserable piece of shit die.
monty, planning on +5 shortly
Tom Hilton
@WereBear: when lives are at stake, I want my leaders calm, clear-headed, and thinking strategically. YMMV.
Rey
@dannie22
because Schultz is an idiot. I work in a retail store that just happens to keep MSNBC on during working hours- yeah lucky me! anyhoo- this customer comes in one time and says “oh my God I can’t stand that Rush Limbaugh, why do y’all have him on?” It took me 15 min to convince this lady it wasn’t Rush. The GOS has been completely unhinged today- I can’t even click on, same for Ed Schultz, just turn the TV off. Just wait for Rachel to come on, she calms my nerves just like John Cole here at Ballon Juice- oh and Merlot doesn;t hurt either….
mr. whipple
Today? For the last two weeks I’ve felt and we’re spiraling down the toilet bowl of crazy. For a while it was fun watching the teabag idiots acting insane, and now the Democrats seem to be outdoing them.
AnotherBruce
What the Democrats should do is what Harkin says they should do. Blow up the fucking filibuster. And then they should include a strong public option and a medicare buy in in a re-written bill and pass it with 50 votes if that’s what it takes. If they do that then will dominate Washington for the next two decades. This should be led by Obama using the bully pulpit to maximum effect.
But I only amuse myself, none of this will ever happen.
Until the Republicans get control of the senate.
tisalaska
After a day of watching this debate I could be convinced that term limits are the way to go. I think culling the herd any other way would be illegal..
schrodinger's cat
@Rey:
I have never heard Rush, but I quickly lose interest when people start yelling, even if i basically agree with what they have to say, which is what happens with Schultz.
harlana pepper
@Montysano (All Hail Marx & Lennon): Sounds like a steaming sack of shit to me, also. But I guess we are supposed to sit on our hands, smile, and be thankful for something, for some reason. I personally don’t get it.
Kryptik
I stopped watching Ed a long while ago, simply because he came off as too hysterical.
That said…I personally can’t even watch any of those shows anymore, even Rachel, who I absolutely adore. I’m just feeling so much outrage fatigue and betrayal and just all around helplessness that I just….can’t really do it without fearing for my blood pressure and sanity. Just being online hurts too much now.
Rey
@schrodinger’s cat
That’s the thing, I always get the impression that Ed wants to be the “left’s” answer to Rush Limpballs, but he completely turns people off with the ranting, raving, screaming schtick. And he is completely uninformed and dumb. Give me Rachel for 2 hours a night and I’m good..
Ailuridae
Above is Ezra on how the health care fight is similar to the stimulus and how, even with its flaws the likley Senate bill is worth passing. I will not use the phrase “Overton window”but, yeah
Jay
Mandatory health insurance payments to private companies or else the government will get you – even if those insurance companies keep jacking up the rates and denying you coverage when you get sick – better not become perceived as a liberal position or liberals are done for.
Just Some Fuckhead
Can’t watch vanden Heuvel.
Rick Taylor
I should probably stop trying to defend Dean, but I’ll still point out that if Reid had wanted to enrage progressives, he couldn’t have done much better. Assure them they can have what they want in the base bill, drag out debate for months, make them negotiate in good faith, compromising over and over and over again, then at the end have them eat dirt as Lieberman dictates the terms of the bill. Lieberman isn’t the only guy with an ego; it’s not surprising progressives are royally pissed and some might be losing perspective as a result.
danimal
For years, I considered myself a moderate Democrat. Then the Bush fiasco came, and I learned that I was actually a radical leftist with soshalist desires of ‘murika-hatin’ world domination.
After reading liberal blogs over the past week, I’m proud to learn that I’m a moderate again. Liberal hissy fits are insufferable.
@JenJen: Yeah, I agree. It all boils down to #20.
bemused
@mr. whipple:
‘Losing it’ is a chronic condition. I’ve been suffering from it for the last 9 years. Today, though, everybody’s exhaustion & frantic modes are cranked up.
Davis X. Machina
In Massachusetts, the only actual, real-world state with a purchase mandate, a state plan up to 150% of FPL, and subsidies for the rest, and with penalties — extracted via your income tax form — for non-compliance, in a September 28, 2009 Boston Globe/Harvard School of Public Health poll, 11% of respondents expressed a desire for repeal.
And the state legislature is still in Democratic hands.
SiubhanDuinne
@Max 6:10 pm
Missed the earlier Hardball but am about to watch the repeat if I can stand it. (I usually can’t make it through the full hour, or heck, even the first 15 minutes.)
But you say Tweety lost control for a while? How on earth could you tell?
Max
Deleting comment as my formatting went haywire
Moe Gamble
What Jay said (#41).
This bill does not promote health. It will not make health care affordable, even for those who get subsidies. And it will provide only a pretense of coverage, not real coverage.
The only people I know who think this bill is okay are people who get their insurance from their employer.
DougL (frmrly: Conservatively Liberal)
I am convinced that we need to finish that drive off the cliff (as a nation) and everything as we know it needs to crash before we can have any chance of recovery. We need to hit rock bottom and hit it hard. No, I do not want this to happen but I believe that it has to. People are flailing around, screaming and hollering about how bad things are or will be if this or that is or is not done.
Like an alcoholic or a junkie, our country needs to crash and crash hard before people will be willing to even start to face reality. Right now I don’t see any other way of getting out of this mess. Wingnuts are screaming for attention, blaming Obama and Democrats for our problems. Teabaggers are screaming for attention, blaming Obama, Democrats and Republicans for our problems. Progressives are screaming for attention, blaming Obama, Democrats and Republicans for our problems.
Everyone is screaming and nobody is listening.
MikeJ
@Davis X. Machina: There you go, using facts and stuff when what we want is vitriol.
What the fuck kind of progressive are you?
The Sheriff Is A Ni-
@DougL (frmrly: Conservatively Liberal): And what guarantee do we have that anyone will listen after the crash?
El Tiburon
Yeah, Ed Schultz = Teabaggers.
A liberal TV-talk show host = a bunch of crazed, racist xenophobes who have no idea why they are even mad.
Being too Liberal = Being too Conservative.
Yep, wanting to use the government in a positive manner to help our fellow Americans = A bunch of crazed, racist xenophobes who have no idea why they are even mad.
Cole, sometimes I wonder if you put your brain on pause when you type some of what you type.
Max
@SiubhanDuinne: I didn’t see it, but from what I read, you’ll know it when you see it.
Let me know.
Elie
@JenJen:
Absolutely! I’m using it!
Gwangung
@El Tiburon: If both are using ideology instead of nuanced thought, yes. Are YOU thinking the post through?
fizzlogic
I’m watching Hardball. Why does Matthews talk all over Dean but lets Landreau go uninterrupted?
FlipYrWhig
@DougL (frmrly: Conservatively Liberal):
The last time people were saying that unironically, we got 4 years of Bush, and then 4 MORE years of Bush. I’m not too keen on that prospect.
SiubhanDuinne
@Max. Segment just ended. Honestly? I’ve seen *much* better shouting matches, on Tweety and most other programs, cable and broadcast alike, where crosstalk is allowed. If it hadn’t been for your earlier heads-up I wouldn’t have thought twice about it.
Elie
@Davis X. Machina:
Thank you.
Another sigh…
Jay
“Davis X. Machina”
Unfortunately MA doesn’t reflect the US as a whole. The GOP will have a field day with “they’re forcing you to pay companies for nothing”.
But, as an aside, what cost controls does MA have? This plan has none.
Also, a quick search shows that the MA plan seems to have exploded costs rather than lower them…
How’s that sustainable?
harlana pepper
Oh my, someone raised his voice. Viney, I feel faint! Fetch me my smellin’ salts!
Viiiney!
Elisabeth
@Rey:
Call me a coward but I’m avoiding GOS today and for the foreseeable future. Constructive debate has given way to non-stop bashing by “Obamabots” and “Obama-haters.”
I haven’t watched primetime MSNBC, either. Criminal Minds on ION has been my savior. Well, and The Golden Girls.
Nellcote
@Max:
Landreau is either stupid or lying. She’s still confusing a public option with single payer and insisting that Dean is pushing the later when he’s actually pushing the former.
Elie
@Jay:
While I agree that cost controls are important, I thought that the first goal was to get as close to everyone covered as possible, no?
Now all I read as commentary from the left is freaking cost controls and how the mandate is gonna for sure be unaffordable and that everyone is gonna get horrible benefits — and we dont even have a bill passed yet but its for certain is sucks cause all the lefties say it sucks and it doesnt matter who can get covered now that wasnt before because this is not perfect!
Jay
@Davis X. Machina:
I also don’t see the equivalent to “Common Wealth” care in the plan from the Senate. Is there something comparable that actually controls cost unlike the MA plan which didn’t?
jfxgillis
John:
Slow down. If the progressives want to have any hope of shifting the bill even marginally in their direction in the House/Senate conference, they HAVE to present a credible threat to the Dem conservatives that progressives might kill the bill.
At this point, the Dem conservatives have a lot more to lose politically by the bill’s failing than the safe-seat progressives do. And since the Dem conservatives are primarily interested in their own political survival at the expense of good policy, the only way to rattle their cage is to threaten them with political extinction.
SiubhanDuinne
Well, Tweety decided it would be nice to invite Chucky T on as a guest, because, you know, he doesn’t get nearly enough camera time as it is. So I think I’ll just ankle on down to the local all-syndicated-stuff-all-the-time channel and catch up on Wheel of Fortune.
CalD
__
Yes.
Jay
@Elie:
You can easily cover everyone by forcing them to buy insurance. But what does that solve? That’s an illusion of a good health care system. It’s unsustainable absent cost controls. Subsidies will just have to keep rising because the murderous insurance companies will just keep increasing their fee. Eventually the system fails again. Subsidies can also be slashed which causes the system to fail even faster.
The plan here is clearly to reward the insurance industries not control our out of control health care costs.
Elisabeth
@SiubhanDuinne:
You have heard that Chuck and Savannah are getting a morning show?
dadanarchist
Keep defending Dean. Attacking Dean for pointing out the obvious – this is a toothless, shitty bill and it should be opposed – misses the point. Until progressives are willing to be pricks like Lieberman and Nelson, progressives are going to keep getting rolled like this.
Until progressives start threatening to burn the motherfucker down, we are never going to actually going to win a battle against assholes like Senator Droopy Dawg.
Of course, a problem is that progressives actually care about people while Nelson and Lieberman are sociopaths.
Doesn’t anyone remember the Clinton years?
Davis X. Machina
It’s unsustainable absent cost controls…
Which is why Massachusetts is discussing ditching fee-for-service and going to a capitation system for reimbursing physicians.
Nellcote
If for no other reason they should pass this bill so we don’t have to listen to gooper gloating.
Comrade Luke
@General Winfield Stuck:
Someone should create an URL shortening service that results in every page being framed by the GOS.
kth
I agree with The Nation (where Katrina van der Heuvel is or was the editor-in-chief) on many of their policy views. But they really don’t do politics. They simply have no conception of what it takes to get a bill passed (due exception made for the one or two politically sane people they have like Eric Alterman).
When someone repeats Pauline Kael’s quip to the effect that “I couldn’t believe Nixon won, no one I knew voted for him”, Nation writers don’t share a self-deprecating laugh at how politically cocooned they are. Instead they nod and ask “I know, what was that about?”, oblivious to the irony.
Jay
@Davis X. Machina:
I read that but, even if that works (and it’s not clear that it will from what I’m reading), MA isn’t the US Senate.
You’ll get nothing out of this group that harms the bottom line of their donors in any substantial way.
dadanarchist
My residual Marxism is emotionally sympathetic to this concept (what Lenin used to call “accentuating the contradictions”) but my intellect tells me that, in this country, this would be a path not to reform and renewal, but reactionary and authoritarian Beckist-style Republicanism.
FlipYrWhig
@dadanarchist:
You mean that time when liberals were constantly complaining about how terribly disappointed they were and how cynical they had become, to the point where Al Gore and George W. Bush were made to seem indistinguishable? That was fantastic! I think we all remember how empowered the liberal wing of the party was after those election results, and how much input they had into public policy.
Kryptik
I honestly still don’t know whether the bill is worth passing or not, mostly because of one thing, and that’s something people are forgetting, even you John:
They’re not done neutering it yet.
If you think the Republicans, Lieberputz, and the Blue Dogs Lieberputz is helping cover aren’t done stripping the varnish off this thing, you’ve probably learned as much as Reid has in dealing with the other side of the aisle.
SiubhanDuinne
@Elisabeth: Oh yes, I heard that. And I’ll be joining you in watching Golden Girls reruns.
DougL (frmrly: Conservatively Liberal)
@The Sheriff Is A Ni-:
We don’t. There is no guarantee that a total crash would fix everything (or even anything). With the teabagger contingent involved, I would guess that it would be possible that things afterward would be much like a Mad Max-type of nation.
Still, I don’t see any other way around the mess we are in today. I’m not saying that there isn’t a way, I just don’t see it right now.
@FlipYrWhig:
True but I think that Obama would have had an easier job of it in picking up the pieces from a total disaster. Instead, there is just enough of a system remaining that the pols are trying to get things back to the ‘good times’ we once thought we had, the public is ignoring the close brush with disaster that Cheney/Bush drove us to and the MSM is talking about Tiger Woods.
You can warn the public about disaster but generally they will ignore the signs until the hurricane is on top of them and shredding their lives. Then they will scream for someone to come and save them, demanding action NOW when they were the ones who put themselves in the position to start with by ignoring all of the warning signs. We like to think that we are the bestest and the smartest when in reality, in general, we humans just suck. The screamers will not stop screaming until the storm is on top of them, ripping everything to pieces.
We need worse than Cheney/Bush before we can possibly rebound. Note that I said “possibly” because nothing is guaranteed. We could even pull out of the tailspin we are now in but I think that is unlikely. Everyone in power wants to paper over the past, ignoring everything that brought us to where we are today, all in an attempt to ‘save the system’.
The problem is that the pols want to save the system for themselves, not us. Our pols are only going to do what is good for them (electorally) and if that means they have to screw over someone (or nearly everyone) to do it then so be it. Anything to prevent reality from seeping into our system of governing. We may vote for the pols but big business owns them so guess who is going to be favored and who is going to be paid lip service?
FDR is remembered for the disaster he faced and handled, and the disaster he faced was truly devastating. We are not there yet.
dadanarchist
Uh, no. It was the continual concessions demanded from Democratic Party liberals by Clintonite Third Way politicians, on matters ranging from trade policy (NAFTA, WTO) to welfare reform to the federal regulatory apparatus to tax policy. Liberals were promised over and over again, “just this concession and then we’ll get to your business.” And surprise, surprise, substantive liberal policy under Clinton never materialized and, in fact, Clinton’s main legacy was passing a bunch of shit that Bush I and Reagan had never been able to ram through Congress.
Finally, the left-wing of party activists and leftish voters (party regulars never did) defected and criticized Gore and some even voted for Nader. Incorrectly, as I said. But the move was understandable. Liberals and Lefties were tired of being fucked – the reaction was understandable. Democrats are risking a similar reaction again.
FlipYrWhig
@dadanarchist:
It didn’t fucking work the last time. Why would it fucking work the next time? How is the “reaction” going to lead to people taking the “left wing” more seriously? Has that ever happened? People blew up against Humphrey, blew up against Clinton-Gore, and at no point did the balance of power shift leftwards. We do this every fucking time. I’m sick of us and I believe in us. Imagine how fucking ridiculous it looks to people who _don’t_.
dadanarchist
One of the interesting points of Jared Diamond’s otherwise so-so book, “Collapse,” was the link between societal collapse and social stratification. Examining the collapse of civilizations/empires, Diamond concluded that a contributing factor was the isolation of the elite. When the elite are so elite that they are totally insulated from the implications of their decisions (or non-decisions), when their fate is not perceived to be tied up in the fate of their societies, there is no incentive for them to make socially responsible decisions.
Now I know that part and parcel of democratic governance is disagreement between factions and interests, but in the past our elite have pulled their shit together and done what was necessary. However, the elite in this nation (read Mike Davis on this subject) and elsewhere perceive themselves to be completely insulated and protected.
I too think this mofo is going down, but I don’t think it is going be pretty or necessarily dramatic, so much as a slow, gradual emaciation.
dadanarchist
What are you talking about? A small group of leftists voted for Nader in 2000 – this is not the same as some mass defection by the liberal wing of the party. Basically what you are saying is that the liberals should shut up and take it like a good little bitch, right? And how exactly is that going to lead to people taking the Left seriously or implementing their interests, if the moderates know they’ll roll on everything? The progressive wing folds, every time, the centrists know it, and as a result, no progressive legislation ever gets passed.
I’m not saying they should do it on this bill, but until the Democratic left blows up piece of legislation, they will never be taken as seriously as the conservadems and Blue Dogs, who blow shit up all the time.
I’d like to see the Left hold a bill hostage for once.
Finally, I’m not advocating not voting for Democrats – I’m merely pointing out that people will stop voting for them if they don’t start doing shit that matters to their voters. You can call those people idiots if you want, but that’s how politics work: people vote for politicians who they believe represent and implement their interests. When they get fucked over by those same people, they either vote for somebody else or stop participating. This is how representative democracy is supposed to work.
DougL (frmrly: Conservatively Liberal)
@dadanarchist: “I too think this mofo is going down, but I don’t think it is going be pretty or necessarily dramatic, so much as a slow, gradual emaciation.”
Sadly I have to agree with you on this, it will be a painfully slow spiral into the ground. I was talking about this with our daughter earlier today and she told me that while she will remain politically engaged and vote for Democrats (easy in our state with Wyden and DeFazio), her friends are disgusted with ‘the system’ and want to wash their hands of the whole mess. What is interesting is that her friends don’t really blame Obama, they place the blame on our senators and representatives from both parties. Even they understand who is supposed to write the laws and are placing the blame where it belongs.
“I’d like to see the Left hold a bill hostage for once.”
No shit, that and stripping committee assignments and chairmanships from some deserving assholes. Problem is that would require someone with balls. Pelosi might have the balls but everyone knows that Reid is a political eunuch, he is about as effective in leadership as cleaning up cat shit using another pile of cat shit.
gwangung
Wouldn’t that work best when the Blue Dogs and Republicans are working together on something?
FlipYrWhig
@dadanarchist:
Yes, because I love rape analogies, you sick fuck.
I am a liberal. And this whole thing only makes me hate more people. I always hated Joe Lieberman. But now I hate Glenn Greenwald, and Jane Hamsher, and John Aravosis, and Markos Moulitsas. Happy? If liberals bring this down and it kills 3 years worth of presidency from the most liberal person who could ever possibly get elected in this fucking stupid-ass country full of selfish morons, I will not be happy, not at all, and I will remember that I expected jack shit out of Joe Lieberman, but I expected better out of the people whose work I used to respect until they decided _they_ needed to feel like Big Men, right. now. Fuck all of you. I’m out for a long time.
dadanarchist
.
Ah, Oregon. It was living in Portland in the 1990s and early 2000s that kept me voting Democratic, cuz I could vote for Wyden, Blumenauer, and Kitzhaber. Principled public servants all with new, sensible, innovative ideas about pragmatic progressive policy that is actually both feasible and progressive. Obama’s first strike in my mind was when he never considered the bevy of Oregon politicians for cabinet level positions (though Earl, DeFazio, David Wu, Kitzhaber were all considered).
If I’d been living somewhere else, I would have long since stared voting Socialist.
dadanarchist
Not a rape analogy, but whatever….
No, but I think you need therapy. I don’t like the health bill, but I don’t hate Matt Yglesias, Kevin Drum or Ezra Klein for arguing that it should pass anyway.
That’s just the thing, innit? Obama was elected on his liberal platform, with a liberal mandate, to enact liberal policy and so far we’ve gotten jackshit. Could all those things enable him to overcome Lieberman’s jackassery? No, probably not, but for his supposed “signature issue” he expended almost no political capital or effort in getting any actual substantive policy (as opposed to insurance) reform.
Dude, its the blogosphere. Hyperbole and overreacting comes with the territory (you being a case in point) – calm down. The bill will pass. People are just venting their frustrations (which are legion, and justified).
Chris
(shrug) Sure; I’m not sure the analogy works all the way through, but it’s certainly a decent basis for comparison.
The thing is, I think about how effective the teabaggers have been at moving their party, and the general debate on the important issues of the day, in their direction.
And it makes me a bit jealous. It makes me think, “How could we get clout like that?” And it makes me think it’s worth trying different methods, from compromising with the White House/Lieberman/Blue Dogs/President Grassley, to using the same “meh, we’re not going to vote for a bill we don’t like enough” threats that the corporate centrists are (though if you can find a progressive bloc that’ll actually stick together to maintain leverage, you’re watching a different debate than I am), to threatening to sandbag the bill this year so we can run a campaign on it next fall, and the election after that, and the one after that (instead of saying, “We gotta do this now or it’ll be a decade until anyone tries again!”).
Oh, wait, I guess that last one only works for Republicans. Never mind.
Elie
@dadanarchist:
”
”
I think that you are absolutely right…from the grassroots up we need to replace much of the current Congress. There are definite strategies for doing that and they involve engagement of a different sort than blogging – alone that is (blogging has a role)
That said, we have the people we have NOW — not the one we wish for (hmm, where does that sound familiar from -). Retreating from this effort, relinquishing the opportunity to move forward NOW is tactically stupid in light of the fact that we have not way of thinking that the facts on the ground are going to be different in the near future if we retreat. Also, as has been endlessly pointed out, the pattern of legislative change in this country has supported initial legislation that is improved by regulation and over time, improvements to the actual legislation. Honestly, we did not make that up, that was what happened in much of the social change in this country. For some reason, the left/progressive blogosphere has decided that this will not happen this time for reasons that they are 1) unable to articulate, or 2) well, because shut up!
There is a rational, practical dimension to doing anything big whether in the private, medical, government or whatever sector. Big stuff is hard to do and is usually phased in (magic word) PHASED IN. Look around to most of the major projects on this earth, forget in this country, and that is what you see. PHASES — or indelicately, Incrementalism..
Climbing a mountain like K2 or Everest require phases of heavy climbing up and down to take up supplies and cache them, then climb back down and take up more higher and so forth. Finally, the various teams can make their run at the summit once all of this is staged. You could look at each prep climb as a failure to not reach the summit. Or, you could think about preparation — both physical and psychological and tactical.
Well you could, but then you wouldnt be a leftie
Xenos
At the rate we are going, the next generation of lefty teabaggers will be masked anarchists throwing Molotov cocktails at homeland security tanks. The up and coming generation has nothing to lose but their $20,000 insurance policies.
El Tiburon
Gwangung:
Oh, so ideology is out of bounds? It all has to be nuance? Really?
I thought that was the problem with us liberals: too much nuance.
Call it what you want, the fact is our healthcare system is fucked up. If it takes a hard-left ideology sans nuance to fix that shit, then so be it. The wingnuts talk about death panels and we talk about saving lives and saving money. Is that ideology or nuance? Who gives a flying fuck. It is what it is.
Fact is Ed Schultz, regardless of one’s opinion of him, is not the same as a teabagger as Cole suggested. Period.
Point out to me the ideologues on the left that in any way equal the ratfucks on the right. They don’t exist. Again. Period.
gwangung
Yes, really.
Because details matter. The ideal combo is ideology and details–big picture and the instructions to bring that big picture into fruition. And I do not EVER believe that ideology sans nuance or details can ever fix anything–it’s more likely to smash things to bits. And you STILL have to have the details to put it back together again.
The deal is being an idealogue, not a carbon copy of a tea bagger. It’s using ideology without taking the wonky policy steps to implement it.
dadanarchist
The next generation?
dadanarchist
I don’t disagree with your general sentiments. Nonetheless:
1. Yes, historically, legislation has been improved on over time. However, setting aside human rights law, what legislation pertaining to anything having to do with working conditions, financial regulation, industrial regulation, trade policy, social policy and welfare, i.e. anything having to do with strengthening the working and middle classes vis-a-vis the rich, has been improved on since Reagan? I can think of one thing only: SCHIP.
In the last 30 years, right-wing economic ideology has won every battle. All the tinkering has been to widen loopholes and reduce regulations, at the expense of the people and to the benefit of profit. Fuck, even the recent hike in the minimum wage still has not restored it to 1973 levels.
2. The point I was trying to make is that we currently have a lot of excellent representatives already in Congress, in the House and in the Senate. There are probably more true-blue progressive in the government than there have been at any time since the New Deal. What I want them to do is start flexing their muscles. I understand they are basically engaged in a destructive game of chicken with immoral asswipes like Joe Lieberman and cowards like Blanche Lincoln, but if they are not willing to actually carry through on a threat, or fuck, even make them in the first place (Grijalva is refreshing in this regard), they render themselves powerless. We always need *better* democrats, but we have a lot of pretty good ones right now that could get a lot of good stuff done if they a.) stand up for themselves and b.) if the WH were willing to work with them (which it has *zero* interest in doing).
TuiMel
@Tom Hilton: And just who is behaving in that way, pray tell?
itsbenj
No – just people like yourself who can’t handle disagreement…