I think we’ve done a pretty good job here at highlighting how much good news there is for conservatives these days. But we probably don’t spend enough time discussing how much bad news there is for Democrats. Here, Marc Ambinder explains why Bush-era policies are Obama’s fault:
(1) If, as ABC News reports, the plotters of the Christmas Day attack were released from Guantanamo Bay to Saudi Arabia in 2007, is the Second Term Bush Consensus about repatriation…the current administration’s faith in the Saudi Arabian rehabilitation system…the fragility of the Yemeni government…the entire Obama counterterrorism strategy?
Ambinder goes on to list ten questions for Obama about terrorism, none of them involving DeMint’s block of the confirmation of the new TSA chief.
(h/t commenter Comrade Jake)
danimal
Perhaps it’s time to teach basic calendaring and responsibility to the GOP.
We can use 9/11/01 as the start point. All events before 9/11/01 were Clinton’s fault. All events after 9/11/01 are Obama’s fault. Absolutely nothing is Bush’s fault. And Congress is run by Democrats, so anything done by the GOP is the Democrat’s fault.
Nevermind, they’ve got it down pretty good.
Ugh
Gosh, if only we had some sort of process whereby we could determine whether people who the government says have done something bad really did do that bad thing. Sadly, we just have to let everyone rot in our gulag as such a system must be impossible to develop.
Derelict
It’s the usual win-lose proposition that any elected Democrat faces. If the previous Republican policy can be definitively shown to be the direct cause of the present disaster, it’s the DEMOCRAT’S fault for not repealing the policy in its entirety.
If the Democrat DID repeal the policy but the disaster happened anyway, then it’s obviously the Democrat’s fault for either having repealed the failed policy, or for not repealing it swiftly enough or completely enough.
In sum, no matter what happens, it’s ALWAYS bad new for Democrats, and ALWAYS good news for John McCain.
Demo Woman
WTF… Does #1 say he’s putting to much faith in the last administrations programs and #2 say he’s not putting enough faith in the last administrations programs.
Am I the only one that finds his list incomplete, confusing and just plain dumb.
Comrade Jake
Yeah that first one struck me as well. I know Ambinder walks on the wingnut wild side more than once in awhile, but that question is astonishingly deranged.
El Cid
Clearly this is the fault of Barack Obama, because the Democrats were elected to the House and Senate in 2006 and also NANCY PELOSI WENT TO SYRIA. Duh.
mk3872
But except for the release of Gitmo prisoners in 2007 & 2008, the shoe bomber, the Anthrax attacks and 9/11, Americans MUST remember that Bush/Cheney kept us SAFE!
What an easy foreign policy that is. The more you scream “WAR ON TERROR” and then lie about the results, the more effective you are.
Wag
In Washington, everything is a zero-sum game. Since all political reporting must be perfectly neutral, and the press is quaking in it’s collective boots about being called the Liberal Media Elite, the obvious solution is an equation wherein everythning the GOP does is defined as successful, and, since the final answer MUST be zero (and thereby impartial), everything the Dems do, by definition, must be a complete fail.
GOP “success” – Dem “fail” = Naught.
I guess that sums up the past decade pretty well, don’t you?
Zifnab
It feels like campaigning against these guys should be just laughably easy. Hell, DeMint is already stirring up trouble with Republican Leadership. Isn’t it time for someone in his own party to take him out at the knees? Where’s a South Carolina primary challenge?
@Derelict:
I am genuinely curious at how this logic runs with the general public. Is this all just Washington Press Corps inside baseball? Wingnut heroes like Rush and Hannity have done a great job of moving the smear jockeying out to the public at large, but I would still be surprised if one in a hundred Americans even bothered following this back-and-forth. And of those that do, how many honestly take the bait?
“Good news for John McCain!” has been a punchline for over a year now, after all.
John S.
What’s equally deranged are the nest of Teabagger commenters over at Ambinder’s complaining that he’s an Obama apologist.
I find these people amazing in that they were the same ones yelling at me to accept Bush’s failures for 9/11 and join with them in helping to heal the country…and now they gleefully attack Obama over failed terrorism attempts and seem to wish for a successful one if only to bring Obama down for the “good of the country”.
Real patriots they are. I just don’t know how they do it with a straight face.
JenJen
Also, Ambinder would like to know why the President went golfing after the attempted terrorist attack on the Northwest flight:
Ambinder misses the point, of course. Bush wasn’t criticized for golfing, he was criticized for what he said while golfing:
Now, Ambinder seems to get why the President didn’t say anything during his golf outing, but I still think he’s missing the thrust here.
Hunter Gathers
Ambinder just wants Captain Texas back running the show, along with a nice upper class tax cut.
Bulworth
The TSA nominee is only being held up because he loves teh unions, and I think we can all agree that a few thousand lives and a few bombed airplanes are acceptable collateral damage in ensuring that the war against unions is won.
mk3872
@JenJen: Ambinder is comparing 9/11 to a failed jerk-off trying to light his pants on fire. Nice job of false-equivalency, I suppose.
Observer
People still read Ambinder?
Why?
Ash
@Observer: Because he likes to list things and people love their lists?
JenJen
@mk3872: I mean, really. Ambinder drives me freaking nuts.
And you know what else? I don’t recall Bush leaning casually against a tree when he said “Now watch this drive,” either. Ambers’ memory is failing him, yet again.
Senyordave
I still think the Democrats need a pit bull to call out scumbags like DeMint.
How about someone pointing out that DeMint has helped the terrorists with his hold on the TSA nominee. How about a fucking ad about this?
I am truly afraid that the GOP will have huge wins in 2010.
Joe
Maybe after the government comes up with a security system to prevent terrorist attacks, they can move along to preventing all other crimes from occurring. Once they finish with that they can prevent all accidents. Then finally, they can work on preventing all deaths and injuries. I would like to see people take a chill pill (part of Medicare Part D if you are a senior) when it comes to terrorism, and think about how likely it is that they will die while driving their cars. Holy shit, I live in Ohio, I am dramatically more likely to be killed in a combine header than I am to be killed by a Mouhammedite.
Joe
disclosure-I am a farmer, so the combine thing is relatively likely
AnderJ
The story Ambiner links to does not say (or imply) that the plot involved people released from Guantanamo in 2007. Did anyone change the link?
Ash
@Joe: Minority Report was set in 2054. That’s a good target date.
Tom Cruise will probably be dead by then, though. :(
jeffreyw
Bad news for Obama? The hold DeMented has on the blackety black TSA nominee is because Obama is also black. Connect the dots. Obama needs to go the Michael Jackson route and become white or else he will fail. Q fuckin E D
jeffreyw
@Ash: You say that like it’s a bad thing.
jeffreyw
Know what else is bad for Obama? He’s from Illinois. Everyone know the crazy rubs off on anyone near.
El Cid
I will be surprised if DeMint faces any serious criticism from elected Democrats for this. Just sayin’.
Nick
@Senyordave: you know what, it’s almost pointless because inevitably the media will take his side and bitch that it’s Obama’s fault for nominating a “controversial” person.
Emma
John S: You are assuming that they are acting deliberately in bad faith. I’ve finally come to the realization that they are in a state of dissociative fugue. They are traumatized by reality and have escaped into their own world.
In other words, it makes sense to them. To the rest of us, looking in from the outside, it looks either insane or phony.
phantomist
Can anybody remember whether or nor DeMint is “with us or against us” in the war on terror?
The Grand Panjandrum
This is a question EVERY journalist should be asking: Did that dumbfuck trust funder who tried to blow up the plane have this on his iPod?
Ash
How is anyone supposed to know anything when you still have “news outlets” “reporting” rumors? i.e., they just said Crotch Bomber bought a one-way ticket.
JenJen
@Senyordave:
Something tells me that Democrat is going to be Al Franken. He was born unto this, if you ask me.
Speaking of which, this is one of my favorite Political Photos of 2009!
CalD
Quick. Who said it?
(Apologies for cross-posting this… if anyone here reads PoliticalWire.)
Fair Economist
If Obama wanted a successful administration he’d grab the throat of the Republicans with this and accuse them directly of putting the country at risk for political gain. Every hold, every filibuster threat, would be answered on the evening news with “once again, the Republican are obstructing our government and aiding our enemies”.
Unfortunately….
JGabriel
Zifnab:
It’s not so much that most Americans are following this back-and-forth, as that it sets a tone and a frame that’s communicated in the nightly news that they watch. Thus they end up thinking Democrats are incompetent on security, that Obama increased the deficit in one month more than Bush in his entire term, that Bill Clinton is somehow responsible for 9/11, and that health care is already a failure even before being passed — and few of them even know how they came to these conclusions or where they heard them.
It’s propaganda, Jake.
.
Stefan
I still think the Democrats need a pit bull to call out scumbags like DeMint. How about someone pointing out that DeMint has helped the terrorists with his hold on the TSA nominee. How about a fucking ad about this?
Yep. We need a prominent Democrat, a Senator or Congressman, to start coming out and saying things like “Jim DeMint is objectively pro-terrorist. Jim DeMint is willing to sacrifice American lives to his sick obsession with denying job safety to hardworking federal employees.”
Of course, at first the Villagers will gasp and clutch their pearls and collapse in shock at how some lout dares, dares! to be so uncouth (which, of course, they’ll never do if a Republican says the same about a Democrat) — but after time, these kinds of attacks will catch on, and DeMint and his ilk will be more careful. And it will have helped to get this idea of “Republicans aid terrorists” out into the general conversation.
JGabriel
Senyordave:
This.
.
JGabriel
Nick:
No doubt that’s true, but it would be even more bullshittier than usual.
DeMint’s line is that he’s opposing Obama’s nominee to prevent TSA employee’s from unionizing. Since that’s an Obama policy — implementable no matter who the nominee is — DeMint would block any nominee, controversial or no.
.
Stefan
It’s not so much that most Americans are following this back-and-forth, as that it sets a tone and a frame that’s communicated in the nightly news that they watch. Thus they end up thinking Democrats are incompetent on security, that Obama increased the deficit in one month more than Bush in his entire term, that Bill Clinton is somehow responsible for 9/11, and that health care is already a failure even before being passed — and few of them even know how they came to these conclusions or where they heard them. It’s propaganda, Jake.
A few times a year I venture from my elite liberal enclave on an archipelago of islands off the American mainland (i.e. New York City) and venture into the heartland. That sort of stuff is exactly what I encounter when I talk to people about politics — they believe this stuff, but they don’t even really know how or why I believe it. It’s almost impossible to disabuse them because to do so requires me to spend hours re-establishing basic facts that have become distorted in their minds (no, Clinton didn’t actually cut the defense budget in 1992 because he didn’t become president in 1993; no, the 2001 recession didn’t start under Clinton because he left office in January and the recession didn’t begin until March; no, Saddam didn’t kick the inspectors out, George Bush did, etc. etc. etc.).
burnspbesq
Slightly OT, but check out this “debate” between Spencer Ackerman and Pat Buchanan over the treatment of the bomber manque.
http://washingtonindependent.com/72347/spencer-ackerman-vs-pat-buchanan-on-msnbcs-morning-joe
The Republic of Stupidity
Derelict
There… better… no?
WTF don’t those boys, and girls, grow a pair and learn to fight back?
Ed Drone
@Bulworth:
That’s because the terrorist threat will eventually go away, but the struggle against workers exercising their rights will never end.
Ed
kay
@burnspbesq:
Pat Buchanan is incoherent. He has to decide. He doesn’t recognize this as a traditional war, using whatever metric he relies on, whatever he pulls out of his ass that day, in fact insists it not be a war, but only when he’s talking about the US side of the equation.
What exactly does he want? He wants the rules of war applied, except when that puts the US at any disadvantage, or entails any risk or investment for the US.
I mean, Christ. His whole position has degenerated into babble. He’s an absolute stickler for the rules, except when he throws the rules out the window.
I think he has to take two weeks off and just make this thing hang together. It’s falling apart.
Ed Drone
Another point about the Republicans is their votes against budget and funding for the very people, procedures and machines that might have caught this guy. Who hates the USA so much as to deprive our flying public the safety they so richly deserve? And who hates the American public so much they let anti-working-class bias keep the DHS and TSA from creating working rules in conjunction with their employees (instead of having a politicized bureaucrat mandate those rules, and thus put onerous work rules over the very people keeping us safe)?
The answer to who would rather politicize the DHS at the cost of travelers’ safety is, of course, the obstructionist Republican Party, who are determined to oppose every action of this administration without regard for its effect on the country.
Vote ’em out! Keep ’em out!
Ed
Corner Stone
@Stefan:
It’s exhausting sometimes. And when you make a clear, indisputable, backed up by evidence fact they just talk louder. Then in a couple weeks they re-bunk you with the exact same distorted lies.
Michael
Propaganda works best on white people.
Film at 11.
simonee
Anyone have a chance to read Ambinder’s “What I got Wrong in 2009” piece?
It’s quite a hoot.
chrome agnomen
after all, bush 2 did inherit the fall of the roman empire, prohibition, the 30 year war, the chinese counter-revolution, slavery, and katrina from obama.
Ruckus
@Joe:
You don’t need to worry about the terrorist attacks if you have biz insurance. You can now buy coverage against attacks and in fact a good portion of the cost will be paid by the government. One little catch, if you decline because you’re not insane or actually realize that this is one of the least likely bad things to happen to you, is that you get to pay to decline the coverage as well. Oh and this is a piece of paper that you have to sign to get the rest of the insurance, that you do need.