This is disappointing, obviously:
Obama has wielded the power of the White House to craft an executive order that limited lobbyist hires in his administration, push federal agencies to share more of their data with the public and begin releasing visitor records for the executive complex on 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.
[….]“The greatest surprise is just how extensively these revolving door restrictions apply,” said Craig Holman, government affairs lobbyist for Public Citizen. “Obama has ushered in the first-ever policy addressing ‘reverse’ revolving door abuses: screening potential nominees to the federal government and managing conflicts of interest among appointees so as to prevent special interests from ‘capturing’ the agencies that regulate them.”
[….]
Unlike past administrations, Obama’s White House has been unusually attentive to ethics and transparency and to the reform advocates who lobby for them. They were consulted during the transition and often talk with White House officials to this day.
Just words!
DonBelacquaDelPurgatorio
Obviously, it is some kind of liberal trick.
Linkmeister
But, but…some guy set himself on fire trying to blow up an airplane!
Davis X. Machina
I reject your reality and substitute one of my own.
Jules
The best part of the article is teh!crazy in the comments…
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
Why do lobbyists need physical access to the WH when they can send secret radio signals directly into RahmObama’s brain?
valdivia
but Rahm is bitchslapping the progressives by tricking them with the nomination of Johanssen! He is doing it to cover his ass because he is just like Bush.
Joe Lisboa
Stop it! You’re ruining our narrative!
Bhall35
@Jules: Yeah, those comments are something else…
MikeJ
He’s throwing us under the slap in the bus!
Why oh why
Obama should read that Taibbi article in Rolling Stone because it seems quite a few top members of his economic team, and even his chief of staff, were on Wall Street payroll just a couple of years ago.
And of course, Daschle doesn’t count as a “lobbyist” either.
Midnight Marauder
@ThatLeftTurnInABQ:
First of all, if we have learned nothing from the firebaggers, it’s President ObamaRahm. So please…a little respect, if you could.
@Jules:
I’m glad you mention that:
I feel like that last one is pretty much the mission statement for teabaggers and firebaggers everywhere.
Chat Noir
@MikeJ: Win!
Common Sense
I like the people threatening to up and move cuz we are now the USSA. Umm, where are you going to move to? You do realize that we are pretty much the only country left that hasn’t figured out how to provide health care, right guys? There aren’t many GOP style paradises left unless you are packing up to head to Somalia.
Chat Noir
@Midnight Marauder: Wow. Those folks must’ve been asleep from 1/20/01 until 1/19/09.
Seanly
@Jules:
Yeah, someone dumped a ton of cray-zee on the comments over there.
One question – I musta missed the memo. WTF is a firebagger? Is that the name for Hamsher fans who think it’s a great idea to align with noted anarchist Grover Norquist over HCR?
Davis X. Machina
Obama doesn’t even have a beard.
Da Bomb
I HAZ DISAPPOINTMENT!
MY JESUS CAP LOCKS LIGHT WON’T GO OFF, BECAUSE BABY JESUS IS DISAPPOINTED.
WE ARE ALL SHIT SANDWICHES NOW!
Dreggas
@Common Sense:
After hearing that “Love it or leave it” shit for the past 10 years it is nice to throw it back in their faces.
beltane
You people think this is good news but the TRUTH of the matter is that you have been bought off by Rahm Emanuel. I hope you’re enjoying it there in the veal pen, you so-called progressives.
Ash Can
@Midnight Marauder: After reading those excerpts, I’m now convinced that “firebagger” is a far more suitable term than “teabagger” for these raving lunatics.
El Cid
Obama didn’t lift a finger to get Famke Jannsen’s approval in the Senate. He could have.
beltane
@Seanly: That’s exactly what a firebagger is. Now, thanks to them, there is a steady stream of Paultard diaries appearing on the GOS recent list. Please, someone, make it stop!
Blue Raven
@beltane:
Damn it. I keep not getting my checks from George Soros, now I find out that Rahm Emanuel owns my ass and I haven’t seen dime one of that hush money, either. When they say Jews are cheap, this must be what they mean.
Rahm, bubeleh, I’ll take my pay in something other than money. Dancing lessons would work.
Especially if you wear the tight pants.freelancer
@Common Sense:
Free-Market Principles at work! What we really need is less regulation.
Derek
Speaking of infantile accusations of corruption and other blogospheric stupidity… what the blue hell is with Sully’s sudden and inexplicable jihad against Janet Napolitano?
She has one interview…. one fucking interview and it’s Bush all over again? What? God, his bizarre spates of ideological intransigence are fucking infuriating.
valdivia
@Blue Raven:
wait wait here: Max and I called dibs on him first!
slag
I can’t decide. Is this excellent news for Hillary or John McCain?
Midnight Marauder
@Seanly:
This would be the
shameless nutpickingpost where the term made its Balloon Juice debut, I believe. But the comment that led to firebagger is so full of win, I’m just going to repost it here:slag
@Derek: Ummm…She reminds him of Janet Reno?
valdivia
@Derek:
see my comment in the previous thread which summarizes what lead to his present snit. I can guarantee you he is getting email about this. I emailed him a couple of times today and he only gets like this when he is being hammered for making a mistake.
linky: @valdivia:
joe from Lowell
I am capable of imagining a system that is even more strict than the one that has been implemented, so therefore, Obama is just like Bush.
That’s not…no no, listen, you’re gonna love this…I said, “That’s not…” Hey, are paying attention? You’ve gotta hear this. “That’s not Change…” Ooh, squirrel!!
beltane
@Derek: This is Sully we’re dealing with. One moment he is a brilliant journalist, tirelessly chronicling the Iranian uprising, while the next moment he is just another pissy airline customer, angered at having to take off his shoes all these years just so some Nigerian guy can come along and immolate his testicles without a care in the world.
licensed to kill time
@Midnight Marauder:
I also like the tom-fuckery bit. (Did the poster have to bite his fingers to keep from typing “Uncle-tom fuckery” ?)
Derek
@slag:
I suppose, that could explain it. It’s a Today Show interview. There are literally dozens of things that aren’t known about this incident, and yet somehow this is Katrina and 9/11 combined and singed onto a would be terrorists junk.
His random pick a bugbear to freak out about thing is worn out.
Max
@valdivia: Damn straight! Good looking out.
J.A.F. Rusty Shackleford
@El Cid:
Senator Kelly would have blocked it anyway.
valdivia
@Max:
:-) yes I am on it sister.
Joey Maloney
The AP is reporting that the new in-cabin security restrictions have already been lifted.
[Edit: oops, wrong thread. Well, anyway.]
Citizen_X
I don’t know what tom-fuckery is, but surely it belongs in the lexicon. With whatever definition.
Corey
Seriously, this is window-dressing – the administration is targeting “lobbyists” because lobbyists don’t poll well, even though they’re barely the tip of the Washington public affairs iceberg.
Meanwhile, the prohibition on lobbyists, while doing absolutely nothing to prevent regulatory capture, is actually keeping a number of qualified people out of government (keep in mind that not all lobbyists work for evil corporations).
It also doesn’t even remotely address the real, structural problem of why Congress is so susceptible to regulatory capture in the first place.
So, yeah…this is pretty much “just words”.
arguingwithsignposts
@Joey Maloney:
Link.
No mention of the electronics thing.
Keith G
@Midnight Marauder: Thank you for that repost. Still laughing my ass off.
Which 4 out of 5 Nigerians say is one hell of a lot better than burning my nuts off.
El Cid
@J.A.F. Rusty Shackleford: I dunno, I think when push came to shove Senator Kelly would prove spineless.
El Tiburon
This is all starting to sound like that Chris Rock routine.
Obama is now getting credit for shit he is supposed to do. We are so fucked in how we think politics should operate, that when Obama does something so basic we think of it as some goddamn big accomplishment.
The bar is so low and we expect so little, that when we receive very little, our tails are set-a-wagging and we start humping each others legs.
Yeah, maybe I’m greedy and I don’t get it, but I voted for Obama foolishly believing in Hope and Change. We’ve gotten some kibble and bits to be sure, but the fact is Obama is no better than Bush on the big ticket items.
arguingwithsignposts
@El Tiburon:
Weak sauce.
Stroszek
@Corey: Obama hasn’t unilaterally solved all the structural problems in American society! JUST LIEK BUSH!1
arguingwithsignposts
BTW, it should be mentioned that the executive order only applies to the administration. Congress can still wallow with the K-Street thugs.
Betsy
@Corey:
Lucky for Obama those independent ethics groups drank the Kool-Aid already. Wonder what Rahm’s done for them lately?
Nick
@El Tiburon:
good, just so we’re clear.
JD Rhoades
@Midnight Marauder:
These sorts of responses remind me of the people who jerk the knee every time you point out specific examples of why the media are nowhere near ‘liberal” .
“Everyone knows the media is controlled by liberals.”
“But: [Insert as many examples as you can think of of blind media acceptance of wingnut talking points here]”.
(long pause)
“You’re an idiot. everyone knows the media is controlled by liberals.”
FlipYrWhig
@El Tiburon: The fact is, “the fact is” IS a convenient way to make quick-‘n’-sloppy equivalences.
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
@Corey:
Because most voters are lazy and would rather watch re-runs of reality TV shows and episodes of 24 where stuff gets blown up and Jack Bauer gets to torture bad guys, than pay enough attention to their own govt such that they at least know the names of their own Senators, except once every 6 years when paid political advertising takes their cherished television hostage and sends them screaming into the next room demanding that their spouse do something to make it all go away?
Good luck rolling that rock up the hill.
Corey
It’s funny how these conversations usually go. Unquestioning Obama supporters point to what’s essentially a PR move and say hey! He’s doing stuff!
People who know better say, well, it’s actually a pretty thin rule, aimed at a small subset of the DC corporate machine, with the really dumb consequence of keeping other qualified and good people (who have happened to register as lobbyists at some point in their careers) out of government.
Then the Obama supporters say “Well, what did you expect him to do, actually do stuff? Eleven-dimensional chess!”
Stroszek
El Tiburon: The whole idea of hope and change was having a functional government. The fact that of the matter is that the murderous and often willful incompetence of the Bush admin is the biggest of big ticket items. Yes, it’s sad that we have to cheer on basic competence. Welcome to human history.
And if you’re going to regurgitate the stock Naderite slogans, keep in mind that Obama, for better or worse, ran as a Democrat, not a Utopian Monarchist.
Violet
@arguingwithsignposts:
Ha! Do not get in between Americans and their iPods. It’s only a matter of time before they’re allowed again.
I’m hopeful that the derision with which these latest “security” measures have been met means that they’ll be removed. Could it also be that the American people are getting a little smarter about what terrorism actually is? As in, if we overreact every time, then the terrorists really are terrorizing us.
Da Bomb
@Corey: So are you saying that the ethics watchdog groups, whom this article references is also drinking the O-Aid? How do you explain their praising of the Adminstration on this topic?
So that means, that the Campaign Legal Center, National Security Archive, Project on Govermnet Secrecy at Federation of American Scientists, and Public Citizen are all Obots right?
slag
@Derek: All true.
Plus, Brownie wasn’t criticized for failing to prevent Katrina. But rather for failing to respond to it. So, if you’re going to compare the two, shouldn’t the response be the basis of comparison? In which case, Napolitano’s organization, by most accounts, responded quite reasonably. Unlike Brownie’s. Not that I think a comparison is remotely warranted, of course, but Sullivan’s already jumped that shark.
Warren Terra
@ El Tiburon
Obama is getting credit for the shit he is supposed to do when doing said shit represents a major change from the past eight years – indeed, the past thirty years.
You want to complain about Obama’s failures on Habeas and Wiretapping, about his inability or even unwillingness to overcome military and congressional resistance on Guantanamo or even on Iraq or Afghanistan, you’d have a definite point. But when Obama is noticeably better in an important area than any other President from the last three decades it might behoove you not to piss all over him in that particular area, even as you decry his failings.
valdivia
@Stroszek:
FTW.
Corey
@Betsy:
I’d be happy if I were a Public Citizen type too. Obama is immeasurably better than Bush in terms of transparency. But the K Street bashing is nothing more than PR.
John Cole
Obots.
Malron
@Midnight Marauder: Firebagger takes on a whole new meaning after the Nigerian set his junk on fire this past Christmas.
Rejecting Reality
Have to admit, if they have an “r” next to their name they’re masters of the art of spin. Add being from a southern state and they’re a grand master of spin.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W8qcccZy03s
At this rate Dubya is going to be canonized just like
St. Ronnie before we know it.
http://thinkprogress.org/2009/12/27/matalin-inherited-terror/
arguingwithsignposts
@Corey:
If it keeps AHIP and PhRMA or the Chamber of Commerce or Business Roundtable off an advisory board, I’d call it more than PR.
But like I said above, the lobbyists just move on to Congress.
MikeJ
Why has Obama failed to execute his political enemies? Why has Paul Krugman not been found stabbed to death in his bath by Maureen Dowd?
Stroszek
@Corey: It’s also funny how pathological gripe-mongers reflexively scramble to preserve the mantra of infinite bitchiness by insisting that nothing short of the exercise of extra-constitutional powers to institute sweeping structural changes to definitively resolve problems endemic throughout all human civilization is praiseworthy… and that anyone who points out the absurdity of such a standard is simply an “unquestioning” bot who fails to see the infinite wisdom in tearing down one’s allies to negatively affirm ones own Godlike righteousness.
Corey
@arguingwithsignposts:
It doesn’t keep people from those organizations off advisory boards, it just keeps registered lobbyists off those advisory boards.
But you answered the real question in your post.
Public financing of campaigns would do a lot to fix the problem, but doing anything “divisive” and “backward-looking” like that would ruin the eleven dimensional chess game, now wouldn’t it.
Corey
@Stroszek: I literally said none of that, except the “unquestioning” bit, which you took out of context.
arguingwithsignposts
@Corey:
Which would have to be written up by Congress, which is captured by lobbyists. Because that is not an executive order.
As an aside, how would public financing for 537 politicians work, exactly? (460-odd incumbents plus challengers every two years)?
Where’s that money going to come from?
Just curious.
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
@John Cole:
Oh puhleese – Obots is oh-so-2009. I call dibs on being a Rahmdroid. That is going to be the new black in 2010.
Gwangung
@arguingwithsignposts: So, where does campaign finance reform stand in priorities via a vis environmental reform, green energy initiatives, jobs program? Above DADT, I take it?
And….incremental or sweeping?
jurassicpork
Here are my Top Ten Reasons why Obama ought to be a one-termer. Feel free to add your own major reasons. Lobbyists are just a subset of my top ten reasons.
Martin
@arguingwithsignposts:
Since most of the money they spend is on TV/Radio advertising, start by mandating that the airwaves that we own be opened to political ads.
The rest of the money should come from a spelling/grammar tax on protest signs, and a penalty every time someone compares an elected official to Hitler.
Corey
@arguingwithsignposts: Of course, you’re right. Reform of Congress is by far the most important thing here. That’s kind of my entire point – that not only are the administration’s new rules ineffective and in some cases actually counterproductive, they also miss the real place where regulatory capture happens.
Note that I’m not suggesting that Obama start a putsch in the Senate chamber, or issue sweeping proclamations reforming Congress. You do this with rhetoric and with a few members who can be counted on to propose legislation that you like. At this point it’s more important than the substantive issues we have to deal with since it’s clear that effective solutions to those issues can’t be moved through Congress as it’s currently composed.
As far as public financing – different countries do it different ways. Even as an unfunded program we’re talking a pretty tiny amount of money here – $500m would fund a congressional election cycle, I’d guess, and would certainly pay for itself in decreased rent-seeking among big donor corporations.
John Cole
I’m a fan of not only the reflexive whining, but the arrogance to assume that Corey knows more than all the public watchdogs in the piece. The only thing missing is a “sheeple” and a letter co-signed by Grover Norquist.
bystander
Oh, well then, someone ought to tell David Simon about all this new found ethics and transparency. Wonder how he got so far behind the curve? Tough to keep up these days.
In the meantime, this is something I can get excited about.
John Cole
@jurassicpork: Awesome. I’m assuming that you will just bend over and stfu from 2012 to 2016 or 2020 as the Republicans have their way with the country when Obama is defeated after one term.
valdivia
@ThatLeftTurnInABQ:
oh oh me too, me too!
Corey
@John Cole: It’s not like I just magically came up with these objections; people have been saying similar things since the lobbyist policy was announced. Also, I’m talking specifically about lobbyists; most of that piece was about other transparency efforts for which the administration should be generally praised.
Not everyone with a few negative words to say about the President is a firebagger, by the way.
Da Bomb
@John Cole: I really thought that the blog the commenter was referring to was a joke. But apparently, I was sadly mistaken.
Yet again, I am glad that the blogosphere is only 2%-3% of the electorate.
Some on the blogosphere are slowly disconnecting from reality.
http://www.gallup.com/poll/124484/obama-approval-slide-finds-whites-down-39.aspx
http://www.bobcesca.com/blog-archives/2009/12/alienating_blac.html#comments
Comrade Kevin
@jurassicpork: That post of yours is so full of FAIL, I wouldn’t even know where to start.
Sleeper
@Stroszek:
What’s not funny is how incredibly thin-skinned and bitchy both sides have become when it comes to talking about the Obama Administration. Either people complain that he’s a corporate stooge no better than, or worse than, Bush, or else we’re treated to a mock display of high dudgeon about some marginally good piece of policy whereby the complainer’s use of absurdly over-the-top criticisms about the president are meant to be a devastating indictment of any who would question Obama as being just a bunch of pie-in-the-sky hippie lunatics or liberal authoritarians longing for a McGovernik tyrant to bring the rainbows to town.
It’s gotten incredibly annoying. Hyperbole doesn’t serve any fucking purpose. And believe it or not, politicians are seldom consistent actors. People can approve of something they did on Tuesday while still angrily carping about what they did on Monday. Good behavior does not exonerate bad behavior, just as disappointments do not negate real accomplishments.
Sleeper
@John Cole:
So you’re suggesting it’s all or nothing. You can’t possibly criticize anything this administration does without being objectively pro-Norquist?
That’s nonsense. You are better than that.
Demo Woman
@Da Bomb: Thanks for the link. I especially liked this comment from Cesna’s post.
Socraticsilence
Somehow this will be overlooked on Talkleft, et al in favor of something that makes Obama look bad. All bow before my awesome pyschic abilities.
Violet
I think Obama is doing a pretty good job with some pretty awful inherited crap. He’s not perfect. There are things I wish he’d do sooner or differently. But he’s a smart guy who takes time to think things through. I have a reasonable amount of confidence that when he makes a decision he’s spent a lot of time thinking of the consequences.
Overall, I’m pretty happy with him as President. It’s a refreshing change.
arguingwithsignposts
Assuming, of course, that there’s some kind of limit. And also, I’m pretty sure there would be a Supreme Court challenge, because you’d have to keep out all the 527 and issue-based money.
Mnemosyne
@Sleeper:
And yet you have people in this very thread trying to negate this as not enough even though it is an actual accomplishment.
I think that’s where at least some of the defensiveness is coming from, at least with us Obots (Rahmdroids?). If we do point out something good that happened — like, say, Ledbetter — it immediately gets dismissed as no big deal. In fact, pretty much any mention of any of Obama’s accomplishments gets dismissed as no big deal, which gets pretty frustrating and makes one less likely to go along with complaints about things that actually are a continuing problem, like national security transparency.
For most people, a constant rain of criticism with no praise doesn’t make you work harder. It makes you ignore the criticizer.
Waynski
@ Corey — Public financing of campaigns is a great idea whose time will never come. The current system so favors incumbents that Congress would essentially be voting to make it harder for them to get re-elected. That just won’t happen.
demimondian
@Mnemosyne: I prefer the term “Orahma worshippers,” myself. More descriptive, you know, and less likely to leave a misapprehension.
Chyron HR
@Corey:
But everyone with a few positive words to say about the President is a “unquestioning Obama supporter”. Glad we cleared that up.
Royston Vasey
@Violet: I’ll second that notion, Violet.
Da Bomb
@Mnemosyne: THIS.
I can’t count how many times, I have put up the list of accomplishments from TPM or refer to Politifact for a list of accomplishments and how these lists are categorized as “just gestures” or “they are no big deal, because that’s what the President is suppose to do.”
I just start to zone out now when I hear the criticizing.
There is some article on HuffPo, accusing Obama of being Judas. I am not even linking to that tripe. I can’t take very many “liberal” blogs seriously anymore.
Betsy
@Mnemosyne:
Ding ding ding! This.
One of the sources of rancor in these discussions (and I’m not actually referring to Corey here, because s/he hasn’t said this that I’m aware of) is the conflation by some people on both sides of criticism of Obama’s problems/failings with a total failure of the Obama administration and a designation of him as NO BETTER THAN BUSH!!!11!
The Jane Hamshires of the left (sorry, I couldn’t resist), upon deciding that Obama is not doing enough of what they want on a given issue or 3, immediately decide that he’s not worth having at all. After those voices get loud enough, people who still support Obama start interpreting almost any criticism, especially on the issues that those folks care about, as all-encompassing denunciations of his presidency.
Meanwhile, the first group decides that any liberal/progressive who doesn’t agree with them on the 100% FAIL that is the obama administration is an Obot who refuses to see Dear Leader as making any mistakes or failures of principle at all.
Thus, we end up talking past each other.
I personally view his administration through the lens of American history. I think he has done and will do a lot of things wrong – both tactically and morally. I nonetheless regard him as likely to be one of our better presidents. I challenge any of those currently calling for him to be a one-termer to name a president who hasn’t done and said some truly horrendous things. Lincoln, TR, FDR, JFK, Johnson – they all made some truly reprehensible moves. So if the criteria for keeping a president in office is that they have to be perfect, we’re fucking screwed.
Sleeper
@Mnemosyne:
I have to be honest here, and I hope this does not offend you, because I don’t know you personally and to dismiss someone based on some blog comments is probably unfair. But people who feel personally defensive because someone criticizes a politician they support…I dunno, to me that shows that their support is wrapped up in a lot more than just the man’s policies. I reject the notion that some in the blogosphere espouse, that supporting Obama is just blind hero worship. But then you have people taking personal offense whenever the man takes heat. Why would you feel defensive about it? It’s not as if any of us here are part of the administration and had any part in its accomplishments. That’s just an odd reaction to me.
I hope I’m just reading too much into how you worded this, and again, no personal insult is intended.
I think you are mistaking the motivations of politicians with the motivations of everyone else. Politicians who want to remain in office do not usually have the luxury to go sulk and brush off supporters (or “former supporters” or whatever they might call themselves when angry) who are unhappy with their performance in office. And we are not trying to make politicians like us on a personal level, we’re trying to move them towards substantial policy shifts. Again, to me this looks like you’re personalizing and internalizing political criticisms against a politician you don’t know. I don’t understand this tendency.
valdivia
@Da Bomb:
just seconding what you said, as usual ;-)
Colette
@Citizen_X:
I can’t define tom-fuckery, but I know it when I see it.
Brachiator
@Corey:
Ah, the other shoe drops.
Short answer: No, it wouldn’t.
Slightly longer rebuttal question. Can I have public financing of campaigns if not a single dime goes to the Republicans, and never, never, never, ever to Ralph Nader?
Could I have twice as much go to an independent or little known candidate that I like instead of to an incumbent with strong name recognition?
More seriously, as an old California pol once said, “money is the mother’s milk of politics.” Public financing of political campaigns really isn’t going to change that.
KevinD
“LEAVE OBAMA ALOOOONNNE!!”
Betsy
@Sleeper:
I’m not speaking for Mnemosyne, but as a general issue, I think my comment at 94 might get at some of what you’re asking.
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
@Betsy:
This. I do the same thing – contextualize everything using what we’ve seen before as a baseline. On that basis I’d say Obama is doing a fair job of dealing with a much worse than average position in terms of the cards he was dealt. Is it time to start carving out the back side of Mt. Rushmore to make room for his likeness? No. Is it time to start writing his political obituary either? No. Most great presidents weren’t seen by much of anyone as being great until after they were out of office. We don’t appreciate what we have until its gone – that’s just how humans are wired. So my magic 8-ball says “situation unclear, try again later”.
As for people talking past each other, that’s pretty much politics as usual – more tribalism than anything else. We’re a big country, there’s room for a lot of different tribes. I don’t see much point in taking it too seriously until we get closer to election time.
Mnemosyne
@Sleeper:
No, I feel personally defensive because people call me stupid if I disagree with them that the latest “scandal” is OMG WORSE THAN BUSH! Maybe if people could couch their criticisms without talking about Obots and how stupid people were for voting for the guy because he’s exactly like every other politician, the criticism would get a little farther.
But since I don’t agree that Obama is just as bad as Bush was and we all would have been better off with McCain because at least then we would have known where we stood, apparently I’m a complete moron living in the veal pen eating a shit sandwich. Or something. I’ve started tuning out the invective, frankly.
They do if those supporters are a small minority who have managed to turn off the people around them who might have listened if they’d been able to refrain from tossing around insults like “Obots” for a few minutes.
I’m not sure why you’re not understanding why I feel personally insulted when someone personally insults me based on what I say about a politician or a policy. There’s a difference between, “I don’t like this policy” and “You’re an idiot if you don’t reject the politician who came up with this policy.” One is not a personal insult. The other one is.
MikeJ
@Colette: I thought it was buggering a turkey.
sparky
one reason people like me tend to be a bit tetchy about claims that Obama is doing all this wonderful stuff is that no one really seems to pay attention to what happens after the nice words. for example the PolitiFact people (referenced above by the proObos) point out that on the point of this post Obama has not kept his promise. why? because yes, there’s a policy, but guess what? the WH can issue a waiver so the policy is a nullity. and guess what else? if there’s a waiver, it’s a secret waiver.
but yeah, keep cheering for those pretty words.
sparky
@sparky: sorry, linky added for clarity.
Da Bomb
@sparky: I stop reading after proObos, which is pretty lame, but whatever.
Oh Politifact, is also known for posting updates to any promises that are considered broken or compromised. Because maybe at some point within the next oh, 36 months, those issues might be revisited.
eemom
@Sleeper:
“But people who feel personally defensive because someone criticizes a politician they support…I dunno, to me that shows that their support is wrapped up in a lot more than just the man’s policies.”
Damn, you found us out. We’re not just Obots — we’re all Obama’s girlfriends, boyfriends, and illegitimate children. We thought this blog thing was teh perfect cover.
joe from Lowell
This, exactly.
We get people denouncing Obama as a warmonger, and then the Nobel Peace Prize Committee gives him the award. Did you see anybody who had been denouncing “warmonger Obama” take so much as a second to consider whether maybe they should revisit their opinion?
On the HCR bill, we get these fevered denunciations that anyone who wants to take half a loaf and pass the Senate bill is not only wrong on tactics, but a corporate stooge in the thrall of the insurance companies. Then, Howard Dean and Anthony Weiner – who had been held out by internet progressives as the best, most reliable voices on the issue – come forward and say the Senate should pass the bill. Did anybody who had been singing their praises step back and question whether they might be making a mistake?
Of course not.
John Cole
@Sleeper: Of course there is room to criticize Obama. What is driving me insane is that whenever anyone points out anything positive, you have someone come in and tell you that actually, they know more than everyone else, and that what you were touting is actually a negative and everyone is just too stupid to know the real truth.
My next favorite option for the perpetually distressed is the “sure, he is better, but it is still not enough” crowd, who never find a piece of positive news that just can’t wait to shit all over.
The most cherished right among liberals, I’m learning, isn’t to life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness, or the right to vote or free association or the right to free speech, but instead the most important right is to bitch constantly, without any sense of perspective, and without any consequences. While our honest liberals are patting themselves on their back for their integrity because they criticize EVERY SINGLE FUCKING THING the administration does, they will refuse to take responsibility for the people like JurassicPork who are going to sit out the next election or flip to the other side.
slag
@Mnemosyne:
And people who are more critical of the administration get defensive when people call them stupid and the latest round of “ponies” and “unicorns” starts flying about.
I’m with Sleeper. The hyperbole has to stop. It’s counterproductive and annoying.
Mnemosyne
@sparky:
So since the story that DougJ linked to is dated yesterday and the Politifact post was last updated six months ago, do you think that maybe some new information has come in during the last six months that made Public Citizen and the other watchdog groups happy?
Just a thought.
Mnemosyne
@John Cole:
This.
El Cid
Personally I’m pretty unbothered no matter how much hyperactive commentary appears on blog comment sections, because that’s precisely the sort of place where that sort of stuff should occur.
Da Bomb
@John Cole: Double THIS.
sparky
@Da Bomb: i thought the Obos thing wasn’t too bad, but win some lose some. i don’t understand the rest of your point. if you are saying “things change” well, yeah, that’s true. it’s not clear to me how that nullifies my observation.
General Winfield Stuck
@Sleeper:
You seem to thank since you are a dem and allegedly a former Obama supporter, then you have some special right to come onto a thread and wank Obama fail on a topic that to whatever degree, is something positive Obama is doing.
As predictable as DougJ’s snarkish spoof title and first sentence, you do just that and then claim we are the ones with the problem.
Here it is in a nutshell, presidential politics is played within the self contained world of two choices, always. One choice democrat, one republican, that’s it. Now constructive criticism is not only allowed but encouraged. You were set up by DougJ to show your true colors. And you have, with others also.
And it isn’t constructive criticism for a presnit you support, it is wanking reflexively against one you oppose and this blog is well known to allow dissent but supports the non republican candidate. Always has been like this since Cole left the wingers in 2005. So it is primarily a yellow dog dem blog most broadly, and supports Obama because he was chosen as the non republican, or dem candidate in the two choice realm of presidential politics.
Therefore, you will be treated as a troll, just like any republican that comes here to oppose the dem president.
NO MATTER WHO THAT IS. And by all means bring your critique and advice on how Obama can govern better. But when you bring that critique as anti Obama dogma and nothing else, you shouldn’t depend on yer being a former supporter or a concerned dem to provide cover. Won’t wash.
And the Obot stuff we do is snark and also a message that we think most of your critique is simply PUMA bullshit, and this thread proves that. It seems the 2012 presnit dem primary has begun early. Be honest and tell us your candidate and we can start that debate instead of the stealthy concern crap for a president you oppose. ie Obama.
I am speaking for myself only with this comment on making broad assertions as to my opinion as to about the nature of this blog is, and other fancy stuff.
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
@John Cole:
When you find a non-trivial sized community of perfectly reasonable, logical, sane, non-bitchy people, please send me a postcard so I know what it looks like. Sir Thomas More would like one, too; I think he collects them.
slag
@Mnemosyne: Actually, that is hard to disagree with.
Seanly
@arguingwithsignposts:
muwhahahaha, I can once again beat off beneath my blanket to the Hustler in my carry-on.
Da Bomb
@sparky: I don’t understand your point.
Maybe you don’t have a legit one, maybe you like to just piss on any sort of accomplishment that is highlighted.
I just don’t fully engage with people who base their arguments by what they observe. I like to see facts.
Since you linked to an entry from Politifact that is 6 months old and they obvious update information as policies are implemented then it really wouldn’t matter what your observation is, now wouldn’t it?
Mnemosyne
@slag:
Oh, I’m not saying there’s not fault on both sides. I’ve made my share of pony remarks. But I ended up in so many arguments with ill-informed people who were denouncing things that weren’t even in the bill during the healthcare thing last week that it’s set my radar on high alert for complaints about Obama’s policies.
Part of the problem is that some of the issues are basically insoluble. If you think that private insurance companies need to be completely dismantled, nothing about the healthcare bills in the House and Senate is going to make you happy and we’ll just keep circling around and around on that single point for so long that people will start talking about ponies.
Jenn
@Sleeper:
Oh, please, this is disingenuous. I don’t get “personally defensive” when someone criticizes President Obama. I do get a bit defensive at times, when I’m told I’m a tool of the Obama-Rahm machine for not thinking that !!!HE’S NO BETTER THAN BUSH!!!!! He’s not perfect, he’s not done everything that I’ve wanted him to, as quickly as I’ve wanted him to do it. Hell, I’m quite sure that he hasn’t done everything that HE’S wanted to, or as quickly. (I mean I thought the Republican caucus would be bad, but I never imagined that they could get **this** bad.)
Further, I think it’s naive to think that politicians aren’t human beings, and aren’t motivated by similar things as everyone else. If someone is acting in good faith, and all they get is criticism for their efforts, then maybe you will get them to change, or maybe you’ll get them to either stop acting in good faith, or just start ignoring the critics. After all, if nothing you ever do will please a certain group, why spend the energy (or political capital) trying?
Sometimes when I read these over-the-top critics (in general, not in direct reference to your post), I wonder whether people were expecting some magical monarch to come wave a wand and make everything all better or impose his will by dictatorial fiat, rather than the constitutional scholar who believes that all of the branches of government should do their own bloody jobs. Frankly, I also worry about the state of their long-term memory, because I clearly remember the Bush administration and the knot that frequently lodged in my gut. And I am really *really* glad that we’re not there now.
Sleeper
@Mnemosyne:
See, this is what I am talking about. This is really fucking annoying. The original critic in this thread was Corey, I believe, and he (or she I guess, I have no idea) said nothing at all like this.
I disagree that people were stupid to vote for him (although, since I voted for him, I guess that’s self-serving logic…) and I really can’t stand the embittered PUMA-types, declared or undeclared, who seem to think that Hillary Clinton is some great working-class hero. But I do think Obama is just another politician. He’s a more successful one, at least in terms of getting elected, obviously. But that’s all he is. It’s a mistake to mythologize the guy.
I’d say your comments suggest exactly the opposite, to be honest.
Maybe this is the disconnect, right here. I am talking about people criticizing the president, and you are talking about people criticizing…you. Sure, there are some who do both, but MOST people who are mad at Obama about Issue X are mad about Issue X, they’re not slamming you. It has nothing to do with you.
Sort of like the difference between “I think Obama was clearly the best of the two choices we had in 2008” and “You need to shut the fuck up unless you want President Palin in 2012! Obama is the best possible president we can have right now!!” That game works both ways.
mandarama
@Betsy:
Exactly. Thank you for your terrific phrasing.
I’m literally floored at the fact that anyone claiming to be a liberal / progressive / DFH / nom du jour would say this POTUS should be a one-termer. Do they believe he would be replaced by someone else from our side? In this system? Really? And if the implication is that we should just let the Republicans screw the pooch all over again in order to harden our resolve…oh good Lord.
It’s also occurred to me that there’s a great deal of irony in the fact that the blogosphere is yelling that Obama is supposed to be able to personally corral every Democrat in Congress into voting lockstep w/his agenda and never criticizing him in public…when we voters can’t even manage to hang in there a year before jumping ship and yelling “off with his head.” And we’re not getting paid in dollars or influence to do so like Congresscritters are.
Martin
@Corey:
As much as I agree with public financing, the Supreme Court has killed any means to actually enforce it.
Sorry, but Obama can’t fix the two branches preventing this from happening.
slag
@Mnemosyne:
This seems mostly right to me. Although I think the problem is deeper than just the healthcare bill and is more about coming to terms with how little influence progressives still have in this country even with a fairly strong Democratic majority. I think people find that incredibly disheartening for many reasons and would rather focus blame than internalize that reality. Nonetheless, as a result, we definitely do tend to circle the issues. And circle. And circle…
Mnemosyne
@Sleeper:
No? I wasn’t the only one to read what Corey said the way JC did:
What is driving me insane is that whenever anyone points out anything positive, you have someone come in and tell you that actually, they know more than everyone else, and that what you were touting is actually a negative and everyone is just too stupid to know the real truth.
Especially since Corey’s complaint seems to be that the executive order only applies to the executive branch which is, you know, the way things work. The executive can’t issue orders to the legislative branch. But, again, I point out things like that and I’m an Obot who can’t handle the truth.
Until I say, “I don’t get what the big deal is about Issue X.” Then all of a sudden I’m an Obot.
Again, back to last week’s healthcare wars. I still have not found a single person to explain to me what the functional difference would be between a public option administered by the HHS and having the OPM administer a plan that private citizens can buy into. I honestly don’t get why the public option has to be the hill that we kill the bill on since we’re functionally getting the same thing in the Senate bill.
But if I ask actual questions like that, I get dismissed as an apologist who wants everyone to eat a shit sandwich. Stuff like that gets on my nerves.
Svensker
@ mandarama
One of my favorite liberals now thinks that we should have elected McCain/Palin because they would have been so bad that the “revolution that we need” would be more likely to happen.
With all the wackos on the right in the family, and now the wackos on the left, I’m not talking politics in any of my circles any more.
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
@slag:
By my scoresheet there are roughly half-a-dozen (i.e. 6-8) major power centers in DC. The WH, the Senate, the House, SCOTUS, the media-infotainment complex, the mil-industrial complex, and the national security state surveillance/intelligence complex (I break this apart from the MIC because of the DFH’s in the CIA who fought against Rumsfeld and Cheney in the previous admin).
The Dems, not all of whom are progressives, now control the WH and the House. The Right controls SCOTUS and the media-infotainment complex, and has a larger share of influence in the MIC and the surveillance/intelligence state. The Senate is a tie, not because Dems are in the minority, but because the structure of power in the Senate favors an obstructive minority.
So by my score sheet that tallies up as 2 power centers for the Left, 4 wins or close calls for the Right, and 1 tie. And progressives wonder why it is so hard to get things done.
Mnemosyne
@slag:
I think you’re right. We have some very deep structural problems in this country that, unfortunately, any president only has so much influence on. We can push for better policy where we can (like keeping pressure on Geithner and the other economic advisors who think that propping up home prices is more important than slowing foreclosures) but we do have to admit that it took 30 years of Republican policies to dig ourselves into this hole and it’s going to take more than a year of Democratic ones to dig out again.
I understand people feeling hopeless — it gets me cranky sometimes, too — but turning our anger on one guy as the source of the problems doesn’t get us very far. I was pissed off at Bush, too, but even there I knew the underlying problem was things like 30 years of conservative faith in tax cuts solving all problems, not just what Bush himself was doing. Getting Republicans out of office was only Step 1. We have about 1,646,073 steps to go in order to actually fix things.
mandarama
@Sleeper:
I agree with this, except for the “just another” modifier. He is definitely a politician–and the best way of learning about that for me was reading both his books and David Plouffe’s campaign book. Rather than mythologizing Obama for me, all 3 texts offered a really clear and consistent picture of a politician who understands the game, plays it, but plays it fair.
The thing is, we are led by politicians. We have been and will be. There won’t be a President who is not a politician. I think Obama’s smarter and more gifted than most of his fellow politicians, and has a stronger sense of ethics and service than most of them as well. That’s enough for me. Look at other prominent politicians–this isn’t just a case of “well, he’s better, so we should be happy,” this is a case of “other people who think they should be President include Mitch McConnell, Tim Pawlenty, and Haley Barbour.” No way does Obama belong in the same “that’s all he is” category with those guys.
arguingwithsignposts
OMG! Obama addresses the 12/25 attack! THREE DAYS LATER! HE DITHERED ON THAT TOO!
Well, at least MOST of us will never give in to fear and division. GOP members of Congress and the whingenutosphere? Not so much.
El Cid
Pete Sessions in luuuuuv:
Just hours after federal agents charged banker Allen Stanford with fleecing investors of $7 billion, the disgraced financier received a message from one of Congress’ most powerful members, Pete Sessions.
“I love you and believe in you,” said the e-mail sent on Feb. 17. “If you want my ear/voice — e-mail,” it said, signed “Pete.”
The message from the chair of the National Republican Congressional Committee represents one of the many ties between members of Congress and the indicted banker that have caught the attention of federal agents.
mandarama
@El Cid:
I know there are significant implications in this story, but all I can get my mind around right now is EWWWW.
El Cid
@mandarama: “Whenever I look in your eyes, I see dollars. I can’t go a day without thinking about that time at the beach when I realized how truly, truly rich you are. My heart swoons just thinking about your investments. XXXOOO.”
Sleeper
@John Cole:
I don’t agree that all attacks on a politician also qualify as attacks on the politician’s supporters as being blind and stupid. Surely, one can go out of one’s way to do both. But the prevailing attitude here lately seems to be that “If you’re picking on Obama, then you’re picking on me!!”
Honestly I think that this should be the default attitude people should take with every politician. But for a recent convert I can see how you might find it fucking annoying – as a lifelong liberal, I am so used to complaining that maybe I don’t even notice it anymore.
If it’s down to JurassicPork, then it’s already over, I hate to tell you.
I think the number of people who criticize EVERY SINGLE FUCKING THING Obama does without caveat or qualification (i.e., he didn’t go far enough or he needs to keep at it in order to win that person’s support) is so small as to not merit discussion. I probably criticize most of what Obama’s done (not on here, for which I am sure most are grateful) but I’m not blind and I do see that the modern Republican Party would be worse, and my criticism doesn’t mean I am an automatic third party vote in 2012 or anything like that. It does mean I have misgivings about what the guy I picked has been doing sometimes. And I think most of the guy’s critics are in the same boat I am, and to be honest it’s fucking annoying to have criticisms dismissed by people saying we just wanted ponies and unicorns and a hippie Fuhrer just as powerful as Bush and all that crap.
sparky
@John Cole: points taken, though i tend to agree with El Cid that blog comments are, really, the place where one should expect people to hyperventilate a bit. after all, no one requires us to read them or to post our uh thoughts.
that said, i think a fair distinction can be made between people who hyperventilate because Obama isn’t perfect and therefore horrible, and people who are more concerned with certain principles (or what some are pleased to call notions) and who find Obama wanting when he is measured against those yardsticks. now, it’s a perfectly valid criticism to say of people like me that “i’m too doctrinaire” or “too lefty” or “you don’t know the political realities” but that retort does not, by itself, make the administration’s stance valid. further, it fails to address what some people would consider a bedrock assumption–if you compromise away all the major principles you think are important then what, other than power, remains? i think it is fair to assume that most people operate with some set of what they consider to be principles that can be, perhaps, bent, but when broken, that is a bit too much to swallow. (this assumes that we agree on principles, and nothing could be further from the truth, for one person’s principles are another’s “whatever”.)
one other thing here–the “wrongheadedness” of a decision to sit on one’s hands doesn’t automatically invalidate the analysis leading to that decision (hard to say it helps, though). it seems that there’s a fair amount of reading backwards from that point, and that seems a bit misguided.
incidentally it’s not clear to me what is wrong with making a threat to sit on one’s hands.
perhaps this post is just trolling people like me. whatever :P
J. Michael Neal
@Martin:
This, but more so. The Supreme Court *should* be killing effective campaign finance reform, because it *is* a First Amendment violation. If you go back to the debates about the Bill of Rights, the ability to publish pamphlets/newspapers with political opinions was at the very top of their list, in an environment where there really wasn’t any distinction between political journalism and partisan advertisement.
The world changed. Partisan television ads are very much the equivalent of 18th century pamphlets. They lie at the very core of what freedom of speech is supposed to be about. Any attempt to prevent people from taking out television ads that attack politicians has to be considered unconstitutional by any reasonable reading of the amendment.
Which is, of course, a very serious problem. I’m of the opinion that, without root-and-branch campaign finance reform, our republic is in serious trouble. But there isn’t any good way to get from here to there, short of a constitutional amendment. Instead, we get half-hearted reforms that, in an attempt to stay within the Constitution, are so riddled with loopholes that they are, at best, mildly effective for at most one election cycle. Yes, the self-interest of Congress leads it to an unwillingness to pass anything substantive, but the whole idea is at odds with the most basic political philosophy that the United States is built upon. That may be a weakness of the philosophy (though I think it has some countervailing strengths), but that doesn’t mean we ought to pretend that the problem isn’t there.
El Tiburon
@FlipYrWhig: Sorry, didn’t realize I had to enumerate all of the “Big Ticket” items that Obama is no better than Bush on.
Fact is, Obama is NO better than Bush on Afghanistan.
Fact is, Obama is appears to be worse than Bush on using drones to bomb targets in Pakistan
Fact is, Obama is NO better than Bush on indefinite detention and other related civil right issues
Fact is, Obama is NO better than Bush in giving trillions to the Too Big Too Fail financial industries.
Fact is, Obama appears to at least be enabling a massive tax-payer butt-kiss to the healthcare industries.
Oh, but Obama makes a play at maybe enforcing some ethical rules on this or that and maybe a bit more transparency, well, I am impressed.
Sorry, you all can take your Stockholm Syndrome and your pacifiers and go sit in front of the boob-tube. I guess I’m more of a Hamsherite. I’m mad as hell and I ain’t gonna take it anymore. It would be nice to see some of the same passion from the rest of you.
Seanly
I have no qualms about voting for Obama. I’d do it over again and will vote for him in 2012.
Sorry if I seem like a reflexive jerk here, but I can’t bring myself to ever consider voting for a Republican for President. Their entire platform is full of stupid, reactionary, authoritarian bullshit. They profess to be good Christians while continuing to show themselves to be at best snake oil salesmen and fleece artist and at worst, people with no true morals at all. They worship Mammon and violence and are enemies of tolerance and rational thought. They’ve trampled down any in their midst who may have good ideas or wise discourse to add.
Given my feelings, I have entirely no problem voting against the Republican candidate and for the Democratic candidate for President from now until the time when Republicans gain some sense (and probably not then either). If I happen to like the Democrat then that’s just icing on the cake.
Obama’s speeches remind me of why I am a Democrat in the same way that the empathy and community at the ends of “A Christmas Carol” and “Its a Wonderful Life” remind me of the same. Sorry if that’s not intellectual enough, but it’s true.
I hope Obama can deliver on more of his agenda. I wanted a bigger stimulus with less tax breaks and more infrastructure funding, I wanted Gitmo closed, I want us out of Iraq and Afghanistan. I want those who actually harmed Americans prosecuted and destroyed. I don’t want to be a citizen of a country that tortures. I’ll take wins on those desires in small pieces if I have to.
But I know that there is a socio-economic status quo that will not change in America. The system sucks and can only be changed so much short of another revolution. Obama and a reluctant Democratic congress are the means at our disposal to achieve a progressive agenda and they will achieve some but not all of my desires.
El Tiburon
@Warren Terra: Great. We win on the little things. But those big important issues where people die and whatnot, eh, what are you gonna do.
DonBelacquaDelPurgatorio
@El Tiburon:
Somebody has their BOB on.
Sleeper
@General Winfield Stuck:
Are you speaking to me? Because none of this addresses anything I’ve said on this thread. I didn’t say I was a Democrat (not registered), I didn’t say I was a former Obama supporter (I voted for him, donated to him, and complain about him a lot), and I didn’t say one word either way about the executive order regarding transparency in government (it’s a good start but needs improving – ooh, sounds like I’m a PUMA). And I don’t have some special right to come onto this thread, I have the exact same right as you and everyone other commenter here to come onto this thread – i.e., to contribute to the conversation unless the blog’s owner decides to ban me.
And then the rest of your post goes on about me being a Republican troll spreading counter-Obama agitprop or something. Whatever. Go in peace, my son.
DonBelacquaDelPurgatorio
@jurassicpork:
Here is my Top Ten Reasons All Rolled Into One why you should vote for Obama in 2012:
The Republican crapheads who will run against him.
The End.
Ana Gama
I have a headache.
General Winfield Stuck
And in addition to the constant whining we are picking on dissents, now you are reading our motives too. Jeebus, is it all that complicated. It is not personal, we are all equal false personas here, none more equal than others.
The formula that prevails is simple. You say something, then others respond. No one gets banned and everyone gets their say. And no one has special cover because they are alleging Obama failures. When others disagree, they just do, and life goes on to the next round, or thread.
Stop yer whining and lay it on us. And we will lay it back when we disagree. This is Balloon Juice. And that is some hot air.
And if you are concerned that Cole and others have certain beliefs, then you are concern is confirmed, they and he does. Them’s the breaks. And no penalties are assessed for those who have different beliefs.
Sleeper
@sparky:
Seconded.
MH
It’s worth remembering that the reason we want to keep lobbyists out of government is not that they are just pure evil. It’s that they influence our elected leaders to do things contrary to the public interest. Looking specifically at financial reform*, what good does this executive order do when Wall Street already has Geithner, Summers, and Rubin in Obama’s cabinet/inner circle?
I mean it’s a nice gesture, but if lobbying groups get what they want anyway, then “just words” is an accurate description, no? It’s not that this is a bad move, but by itself it’s inadequate. I guess it could be the first step of a real solution, but until that happens, it’s premature to put this in the “win” column along with Ledbetter.
*although this applies to HCR and other issues as well, to varying lesser degrees
General Winfield Stuck
@Sleeper:
Well, actually, I was speaking in general with that particular quote. Was going to edit to say so, but wouldn’t let me. But I will say you are one that is whining about your treatment here and assigning motives to we who don’t buy your criticism.
And general smarminess. But that is just my opinion.
sparky
@Da Bomb: here’s a more recent example. i am still puzzled at what exactly is so horrible about saying this reform is not what it is cracked up to be. do i think it is an improvement? yes, or at least i hope it is–though that is, candidly, a hope. did you know that lobbyists are apparently on track to rake in the most money ever this year?
Sleeper
@General Winfield Stuck:
For what it’s worth, my original post was about how both sides engage in ridiculous hyperbole and both sides should be a little more measured in their responses to things.
General Winfield Stuck
@Sleeper:
Let me ask you a simple question. Do you plan to support Obama for reelection in 2012, or will you support a dem primary opponent?
slag
@Mnemosyne:
Exactly. And this is why talking about ponies or Bushes is not only pointless, it’s harmful. We have to make progress. But that’s not going to happen by retreating into our little poo-flinging sects and reloading.
So, when John complains about the complainers, I’m going to support that because there is value in stepping back and appreciating–unapologetically–the progress being made. And when others complain that it’s not enough, I’m eventually going to agree with that too because it isn’t enough. At least, that’s the approach I’ve committed to taking until I get frustrated with everyone and decide to hunker down in the hills of Wyoming with nothing but the clothes on my back and a rocket sewn into my pants.
General Winfield Stuck
@Sleeper:
Hyperbole is the mothers milk for blogging. Makes Sleeper and Stuck grow up to be strong and handsome. :)
Sleeper
@General Winfield Stuck:
I think that’s a bit like asking if I will vote for Kris Kringle. No one is going to contest the 2012 Democratic nomination (caveat: this is assuming Obama chugs along at the same level he’s at now, or even makes some major accomplishments in the next three years – if some major scandal or disaster or something happens then who can say). This isn’t 1980 and I don’t see a Ted Kennedy out there who has the gravitas or ability to even consider mounting such a challenge.
Now if you’re asking do I support the idea of someone, anyone, LAUNCHING such a primary challenge, then I’m of mixed feelings about that. Speaking generally, I think all candidates should have challengers, even sitting presidents. I think we’d have a healthier political life if that were commonplace and not extraordinary. Do I think it would serve any practical purpose in 2012? It’s doubtful.
Laura W
@Sleeper: For what it’s worth (nothing), I have appreciated your contributions to this thread and your even-tempered and patient efforts to articulate your points without making “others” the bad guys and polarizing.
Refreshing.
(Do you mentor?)
Midnight Marauder
@Sleeper:
There are some people who would vehemently disagree with that notion.
Caveats and all.
Sleeper
@Midnight Marauder:
They’re wrong.
I don’t really count Mike Gravel-level candidates as serious challenges for a nomination, and the way that FDL is waging this campaign combined with the uphill climb they’d face in gaining media sanction as a legitimate force, a Mike Gravel is the best they’d manage to land.
Of course three years is a long time, so, who knows what the landscape will look like then. I don’t see it changing enough to allow for a 2012 primary race though.
Sleeper
@Laura W:
ha. Perhaps unsurprisingly, I’ve never been asked.
joe from Lowell
joe from Lowell
Consider this: it’s gotten to the point where John reports positive developments coming out of the Obama administration under the headline “More Obama fail: This is disappointing, obviously…”
and is he is absolutely right to do so, as the threads are immediately overrun be people who, for whatever reason, see to it that every report about something good is followed up with a maelstrom of denunciations.
You don’t like the health care bill? It’s not like there aren’t a bazillion threads about the health care. Why does somebody write a comment about how terrible Obama sold out on the health care bill, and on a million other issues that have nothing to do with ethical standards and lobbyist access, on a thread about that subject?
Because they feel a need to make sure that nobody thinks positively about anything this president has done. “Quick, Robin, the administration did something good! We must shit on it immediately, or people might have an approving thought of Obama!”
It’s this obsession with tearing him down, personally, that grates. The bizarre need to make sure and put him down for something, no matter how irrelevant, so no positive story will ever stand unrebutted.
Ruemara
@El Tiburon:
You know, your assumption that if we had “passion” we’d be in agreement with you is…let’s call it naive. My passion is extended on contacting Congress and the President to get what I need, not whining in a thread about the few good things happening that I want to have happen, about the things that are not happening right now.
@joe from Lowell:
This. Also. Too.
les
@slag:
Why would you believe there’s any correlation between Democrats and progressives? How many actual elected progressives are there in the Senate–one? Two? Maybe a few congresscritters–but no great movement. There’s a sense in which the Bush disaster apologists are right–the U.S., at least in its elected persona, is a center right nation–or maybe more accurately, a corporate/right nation. We just missed a second DLC president; and the difference between DLC and the corporate wing of the repubs is too narrow to matter.
I don’t know, maybe my definition of progressive is too tight; but there’s scarcely a national politician in the US who would be anything but right wing in most of the civilized world.
Midnight Marauder
@Sleeper:
I definitely agree with everything you’re saying above. I just thought it appropriate to note that there are some on the left who will mount a vigorous primary challenge in 2012–albeit a blindingly misguided and horrendously unconstructive challenge.
And they would still do this if President Obama had George Bush and Dick Cheney publicly executed on live television in the Rose Garden tomorrow afternoon.
Gwangung
Yeah, that’s what gets me about the negative freakout. There demonstrably isn’t a progressive base in Congress, so the denunciation of Obamafor betraying the progressive “base” just seems detached from reality. If we work our butts off we could expand to a real beachhead in six to eight years, but the disillusionment seems misplaced (and very wngnut like in the misperception of reality).
chrome agnomen
wow. a lot of comments. i got to about 100.
what a lot of the commenters here are trying to get at is that we should strive toward criticizing not complaining. if i may be allowed to stretch a little, criticism implies to me critical thinking. this is, broadly speaking, what defines us as liberals from the other side: the fostering of critical thought. not the knee-jerk reactionism that we have seen so rampantly displayed since jan 20 especially, but really throughout the course of recorded history among the conservative faction of the population.
constructive criticism, not destructive complaints.
General Winfield Stuck
@les:
NO, it’s just wrong. Progressive is above else about progress, and the senate has a lot more than a couple. I think you are confusing the term progressive with ideologue, something the left side blogosphere especially is very wrong in labeling themselves that which they aren’t.
Obama is neither a corporatist, nor an anti – corporatist. He is neither a hawk nor dove. He does have the mental capacity to grasp the big picture including the extremes in both directions and also the fuzzy shades of grey to be a good, and possibly great leader and president.
It is no accident he let’s the other branches of government do their business without the heavy hammer of the executive branch pounding them to do his bidding. He actually believes in separation of powers and divided government. Something neither the netroots on the whole or the RW blogosphere on the right believes in.
He is a real progressive pragmatist that accepts the machinery of governance the founders gave us, and applies his efforts and smarts to get the best results toward progress as is possible within that machinery and all it’s moneyed forces contained therein, unfortunately.
And that will never be the ideal, that the ideologues who falsely claim to be progressives want, and so they come here and parse and split and wank he isn’t one of them.
NEWSFLASH — he ain’t and never was and never claimed to be.
today’s cracker jack box zen
There are no heroes in politics. There are only people who want something, and people who want something else.
Deal with it. Cause it will not get any better than that.
And i love me doggie. And parakeet.
Obot out
Nick
@El Tiburon:
For this, I am particularly thankful as this is how we should be fighting terrorists instead of invading random countries and wasting lives trying to turn them into Minnesota in the Desert.
les
@General Winfield Stuck:
I can’t tell if you’re agreeing or disagreeing, on the presence of a progressive movement or cohort or whatever. I’m not disagreeing with your point, just talking words. Certainly Obama is not a progressive–he’s a moderate Democrat, never claimed otherwise. I don’t agree that “progressive” simply means progressing–progressive denotes a direction, not just movement from the status quo. I don’t think there would be all the froing and toing if progressive didn’t have some meaning–the view that gov’t is a legitimate player in realms where the market doesn’t work, either demonstrably (health care) or theoretically (safety net–e.g., Germany didn’t have to pass a massive stimulus bill because the policies to deal with unemployment pressures, income interruption, etc. were in place.) To me, at least, progressive is a defined (if amorphous) place, and it ain’t us in any meaningful sense.
Mk3872
@Jules: @Jules: @Jules: Geez, when did The Hill bcome a haven for Drudge, Rush and Malkin trolls? Man, the hate in those @Jules: is sad. Some of the comments sound like stock copy & paste.
scudbucket
@General Winfield Stuck: He actually believes in separation of powers and divided government.
Well, Taibbi, Lizza, Ambinder, the Firedoglake crowd, Greenwald, the NYT, etc., say your wrong about this: he, and his operatives, had their fingers in all the shit that’s gone down. Time to face the facts here.
General Winfield Stuck
@les:
To boil it down. Either you think Obama is moving in the right direction, or not. If not, then find another candidate to support that will. And if you think Obama is moving in the right direction, then offer constructive criticism and no one will fault you for that.
But when dems can’t even support something so basically positive as the topic of this thread, then it seems anyone who finds fault in even that, should get honest with themselves and us and get another candidate to support.
And I do disagree strongly with the misuse of the word progressive by the left who see anything short of the ideal as betrayal to their cause, ergo what we have recently witnessed on HCR. This is not progressive thinking. It is ideological dogma, no more, no less.
Even if I may also believe in that ideal, I accept progress toward it./ Herein lie the different betwixt us.
El Cid
I haven’t read through the whole thread, but weren’t people — self-perceived sober liberals and bloggers, I believe — mocking Obama earlier for how his rules on lobbyists in his administration had done huuuuuge damage to his ability to staff agencies?
I mean, not including, say, when ‘the Senate’, or occasionally Jim DeMint alone, block qualified nominees?
General Winfield Stuck
@scudbucket:
I am not sure if you are being snarky, but will assume not. And here is my answer. If being snark, then ignore my response.
I think all those listed are, to varying degrees as warranted, full of shit. Them’s my facts faced. Don’t confuse existing presidential powers that were abused by Bush, with Obama using them without abuse.
AhabTRuler
Is it commonly held knowledge that Nader founded Public Citizen?
General Winfield Stuck
And I will add that it is sadly comical to hear “progressives” complain that Obama is using Bush like presidential powers to a fault, while at the same time complaining he is weak and let’s congress have it’s way.
AhabTRuler
@General Winfield Stuck: No, dammit! It is comically sad!
Lisa
This thread is all kinds of win. Midnight Marauder, you are the bomb-diggity.
lol!!
Lisa
General W. Stuck:
Re: #167:
Word.
Beautifully fucking said.
scudbucket
@General Winfield Stuck: Well, he certainly hasn’t written EOs that violate the law, if that’s what you mean. I agree. But he has not rescinded the more odious ones either, for whatever that’s worth.
More specifically, I thought you were expressing the view that Obama has been a silent sideline observer of the Congressional maelstrom that was, for example, health care reform, or the bankers bailout, without crossing the line of interference between the Branches. Another example: the Freddie/Fannie open-ended bailout, even as they continue to foreclose on delinquencies. I think this view, of Obama as the passive ‘let Congress do it’s thing’ has been debunked, and it’s time to recognize that some of what’s coming out of congress is to his liking. He owns a big chunk of the shit he’s handing us.
scudbucket
@General Winfield Stuck: And I will add that it is sadly comical to hear “progressives” complain that Obama is using Bush like presidential powers to a fault, while at the same time complaining he is weak and let’s congress have it’s way.
No, you have the progressive complaint wrong. It’s that he’s using his presidential powers to shape legislation, and using the cover of a weak congress to explain it away.
Comrade Kevin
Anyone who has to preface their arguments with “Fact is” is likely stating something that is, at best, debateably factual.
General Winfield Stuck
@scudbucket:
You are going to have to list these you reference before I can comment on them.
And as far as the whole TARP bailout mess and how that’s been handled, I have criticized it from the beginning. But my knowledge is admittedly limited in this area. I will note that the TARP money is being paid back, fwtw.
You have no evidence that Obama is getting “to his liking”, just more left wing wanking a meme. There has been all sorts of give and take behind the scenes for ANY HCR bill to get this far. He didn’t write the bill, congress did, and we don’t really know yet how it all shook out, and won’t till some time has passed. But this notion Obama is a corporatist at heart is just bullshit on it’s face. It belies his life experience as a community organizer and his written beliefs. Though like I said he is also not anti-corporatist, which seems to me to be the main gripe by the left projected into something else of being a corporatist.
General Winfield Stuck
@scudbucket:
Jeebus, you guys flip memes faster than the wingnuts.
Ailuridae
@El Tiburon:
This is all starting to sound like that Chris Rock routine.
Obama is now getting credit for shit he is supposed to do. We are so fucked in how we think politics should operate, that when Obama does something so basic we think of it as some goddamn big accomplishment.
The bar is so low and we expect so little, that when we receive very little, our tails are set-a-wagging and we start humping each others legs.
Yeah, maybe I’m greedy and I don’t get it, but I voted for Obama foolishly believing in Hope and Change. We’ve gotten some kibble and bits to be sure, but the fact is Obama is no better than Bush on the big ticket items.
On the odd chance you didn’t know the name of that routine already its called Niggas vs. Black People. Just something to shelve away the next time you reference it in relation to the first non-white President in United States history
scudbucket
@General Winfield Stuck: Yeah, it does require some flexibility :-)
Lisa
Ailuridae: @#185 – Boy they can barely contain themselves from screeching “You disappointing dark black darkie blackity blackass!”
DougL (frmrly: Conservatively Liberal)
The Manic Progressives wanted a W equivalent from the left as president, they want a deciderer for their side who will shove every dream they have ever had right down the throat of congress and the people. Anything less than that and they will chant EPIC FAIL. If anyone has the audacity to disagree with them on anything then that person is obviously wrong since they are always right. No room for disagreement, no gray areas at all, the course they see is absolutely correct and everyone who disagrees with that is an O-bot or any other number of derisive terms they have come up with in a blatant attempt to dismiss any criticism of themselves and shut down debate.
I don’t know how many times I have started to read what looks like a well written critique of Obama only to have it spoiled by cheap shots taken at the other side. Entering into any kind of substantiative discussion with someone who pulls this shit is futile, you are simply wrong and they are right. End of discussion. The louder the fauxrage gets on the left, the more I tune them out. Progressive is a word that is well defined and I don’t think it means what they think it means.
But of course, they are right and I am wrong and here we are.
Mark D
This, this, a bajillion times this.
Watching folks on the left cry over and over about how Obama hasn’t done everything they want right fucking now really is getting tiresome.
That doesn’t mean dude can’t be criticized — he’s handled things like DADT (absurd) and his economic team (absurd squared) very poorly. But, as others have noted, that’s not really the basis of the criticism.
The basis seems to be that he’s not magically making everything just the way they want it as soon as they want it.
It’s a very childish way to view politics, IMHO, and ignores things like what powers he has vs. those Congress has, the real changes that have taken place, the reality of what can actually be accomplished and how soon, etc.
There’s still a long way to go, and I like that people on the left are holding Obama’s feet to the fire. It’s an absolute requirement for democracy to work, and something that separates us from the right (e.g., not reflexively defending everything “our side” does).
It’s a shame, however, how little heat they apply to Dems in Congress who are, IMHO, a much, much, much bigger problem than Obama or Rahm … and much easier to solve.
If we can get better Dems there, the left will get more of what it wants. As a bonus, it’ll be a lot more productive than just blasting Obama for every little slight (or, if you’re jurrasicspameveryliberalblog, deciding to let the GOP finish destroying our nation).