Last week we learned that Obama, in what can be described only as AMAZING foresight, nominated Dawn Johnsen at the beginning of the year to appease progressives, and then killed her nomination just to show those progressives who is boss. Or to secure Senate votes for HCR. Or because he is actually George Bush II and doesn’t want her there, but wants credit for nominating her. Or because he secretly hates progressives and figured this was a good way to hurt them. Depending on what your flavor of conspiracy kool-aid is, it is one of those or maybe a combination of all of them. At any rate, it was, we were informed, a major betrayal to the people who elected him (funny enough, the people who are always telling us “they” elected Obama are always the ones angriest with him):
Barack Obama and Harry Reid owe an explanation to both Dawn Johnsen, and the voters who worked so hard to elect them, as to why they intentionally left Johnsen’s critical nomination out in the cold so long, and then killed it outright. The main media in the United States owe their readers the duty to ask the questions and demand answers. That much, at a minimum, is owed to the citizens.
Apparently he had so much fun stabbing the left wing in the back he is going to do it again:
Two sources with knowledge of the situation told HuffPost that they expected the re-nominations to be announced soon. But administration officials emphasized that no decisions have been made as of yet. Senate Democratic aides, meanwhile, said they were in the dark about where those nominations stood. The president can not officially re-submit a nominee until the Senate reconvenes on January 20, unless he is pursuing a recess appointment.
In the daily briefing on Tuesday, Gibbs said he did not “know what decisions have been made about nominees that have, as a result of being — having passed a year, need to be re-nominated.”
According to sources, however, the names of those people whose nominations were held up during the past year and are likely to be re-nominated include:
Dawn Johnsen, Assistant Attorney General for the Office of Legal Counsel
Christopher Schroeder, Assistant Attorney General for the Office of Legal Policy
Mary Smith, Assistant Attorney General for the Tax Division
Craig Becker, National Labor Relations Board
Louis Butler, U.S. District Judge for the Western District of Wisconsin
Edward Chen, U.S. Magistrate Judge for the Northern District of California
David Teeples, Army brigadier general
Over here at Balloon Juice, where we are all Obots, alternate theories prevail- such as Obama really wanted her confirmed, but was occupied or misread the level of Republican perfidy in the Senate. Those theories, which do not absolve Obama but also do not automatically assume the worst of Rahm Obama and take on the paranoid belief that Obama hates progressives, so they should probably be dismissed.
And before I leave, let me present you the obvious spin for the people who were peddling this nonsense last week- “Of course he wants her re-nominated! He saw how important our voices were when we screamed in outrage last week.” Which, of course, is more nonsense, as Obama has been holding strong with liberals all year.
And no, I am not writing this to just pick on progressives or to troll my website. I want my reality-based community back. Where did you all go? Or, to paraphrase commenter Cleek (who, btw, has an excellent blog YOU SHOULD VISIT!), “Show me on the doll where Rahm touched you.” Please come back. I liked working WITH you.
MikeJ
Page 432 in the Protocols of the Elders of Rahm is the bit about letting your enemies make fools of themselves.
Bruce (formerly Steve S.)
Who’s going to read the comment section if everybody just agrees with everybody else?
mr. whipple
John: I’m here almost exclusively because it’s insane out there. I can’t tell you how many blogs I used to bookmark that I’ve eliminated one-by-one.
Every so often I stop back at old places hoping it’s better, and it just isn’t. I miss some of the people/commentors at some places, but Obama seems to have made some of them as nuts as Clinton made some conservatives.
I just don’t see the point of the endless bashing, the endless ‘I told you so’, the endless ‘the administration should listen to my brilliant advice’ tone some folks take.
Cassidy
Buncha got-damn pansies. No wonder the Democratic Party is made of spineles twits. Look at their electorate.
General Winfield Stuck
We have members in other threads that say progressive bashing has jumped sharks and whatnot. Sorry, but I must dissent. First they are not progressive, we Obots are/ We may be wrong in the end, and bashing is another way of saying “I’m right leave me alone”. Don’t work that way, it’s called debate of politics and it ain’t bean bags.
You keep on keepin’ on mister Cole.
CalD
__
LOL! Now, I hadn’t heard that one before. I’m gonna use it though.
panicbean
Meh, we can get meta anywhere. We want pictures of the pets. Please. Thank you.
MikeJ
@mr. whipple: I’m with ya. I left my old haunts probably the day after the election. I just couldn’t stand the cutters of the democratic party.
Post: “Obama did XY and Z that liberals love!”
Comment: “He’s not yet torn down the Washington Monument, a phallocentric honor to a slave owner. He’s worse than Hitler.”
Neutron Flux
Well hell bro, I am here and will be for the duration. I got a six pack of perspective.
General Winfield Stuck
Where ya headed?
Mike Kay
but, but, but…. ah hell.
CalD
@mr. whipple: What you said.
General Winfield Stuck
@General Winfield Stuck:
That should have been “accusations” of bashing is another way of saying “I’m right leave me alone”
John O
I am in 100% agreement, John.
Things aren’t going as fast as I would dream, no question. But only a moron doesn’t understand that progress is being made as it always is, slowly.
Just for the record, though, I don’t mind the howling from the left as a political matter. There is plenty of that howling justified, and one advantage of our pathetic Corporate Media is they like focusing on the ideologues.
I don’t necessarily think it will be advantageous in ’10, if the better-is-the-enemy-of-the-perfect crowd has their way, but it will over a decade or two.
I was not a blind Obama supporter, though Hope does spring eternal, and I was caught up in the “President as King” thing after 8 years. But only emotionally, not intellectually.
rob!
OT: I’ve been casting the inevitable Barack Obama bio-pic in my head, and I’m thinking Will Smith as The Big O, and Stanley Tucci as Rahm. Thoughts?
gwangung
About 30, 35 years ago…I got caught up playing the “more progressive than thou” game, with me being on the more accommodationist side, arguing for more gradual and smaller steps. There was just as much bitterness and infighting then as there is now (and probably more).
Well, three and a half decades later, what’s happened? A good third of folks burned out and stopped doing anything, while I’m still plugging away. A third turned yuppie and went whole hawg into greed. A third stayed way more progressive than me and are still fighting the good fight—but when we meet, we tip our caps to each other and know that we’re on the same side, fighting for the same things. We’re not so much into playing “more progressive/more pragmatic than thou.”
THough I doubt many people will want to listen…
Mike Kay
If I recall this correctly, GOS overwhelming supported Edwards, not Obama.
Johnny boy was the darling of the intertubes.
And the dwebs got an entire 15% of the vote in New Hampshire.
robertdsc
LMAO.
rob!
BTW–WordPress’s spell-checker does not recognize “Barack” or “Obama” as words yet. WHAT’S A GUY GOTTA DO?
MikeJ
How are you using WP’s spell checker and not the one built into your browser?
Neutron Flux
And by the way, I am disappointed in Obama in that Cornell is beating KU in the first half.
And Rahm too. And Clinton also.
And that the high tommorrow will be 3 degrees, with 20 mph wind.
No, I am really pissed about all of the above.
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
That is AWESOME!
Seriously, though, most of the reality based community is still here. What I think has been happening on the Democratic side is this: It’s always easier to get angry at the kid who normally makes straight A’s when he comes home with a B than it is to yell at a kid who always makes C’s who comes home with an F.
MobiusKlein
We’re on Prog-threat level Orange now – Obama is Bush. (never made the chart)
Comrade Jake
What’s the over-under on the number of times one could ask that over at FDL before getting banned for life?
MikeJ
@Neutron Flux: While hatred of all things Jayhawkian was successfully drilled into me, it was before the whole “border war” thing made me nauseated with my side. I still can’t get excited about cheering for the slaveholding side of the war. Not the same sort of morons I was used to ignoring at football games.
Steve V
That Rahm comment is awesome.
rob!
@MikeJ:
Okay, my browser’s spell-checker then.
My point still stands: a black guy from Chicago named BARACK OBAMA became the President of the United States. I think his name deserves to be officially recognized by every spell-check program, ever, in perpetuity. I mean, what else does he need to accomplish?
DougJ
“Show me on the doll where Rahm touched you.”
Genius. Funniest thing I’ve read this year.
Alex S.
Nice to read about the option of a recess appointment. I don’t believe most of these Obama-screwed-us stories. One of the reasons is that Obama is a bad tactician, or it’s better to say, he doesn’t use this kind of tactics at all. He never spoke about reconciliation during the health-care debate, he hasn’t used recess appointments yet, refrained from cheap political points after this or that republican scandal and so on.. He should use some more of the options available to him.
Amy
The FDLers who want a jihad against Rahm think that he’s there because Obama is big fake but getting rid of him will lead to someone much, much better becoming White House chief of staff.
Major contradiction, eh?
gbear
I’ve been here for quite awhile but nobody’s noticed because being reality-based bores people to tears.
This is turning into an environment where ANY comment from BOB will receive half a dozen responses. ‘Normal’ is so passe.
BR
This is the same nonsense that the right went with during Obama’s speech to schoolchildren.
They claimed that Obama was really trying to indoctrinate them, and then that his future actions in changing the language or something was because they made noise about something non-existent.
SteveinSC
I told you I drank the fucking HCR Kool-Aid. How much more fucking reality-based can you get than that?
Neutron Flux
@MikeJ: Well OK, but I love me some MU football. So how conflicted is that?
That whole border war thing is tiresome.
South of I-10
Whenever I get disheartened, I think of President McCain, and everything seems much brighter.
EL
Just so you know John, lots of us are out there just ignoring the “betrayal!!!!” nonsense. It’s just not worth commenting on. I knew Obama wasn’t going to be able to do everything people thought he could. I wish he’d made some different decisions, etc., but I can’t think of who would have done better with the situation we’ve got.
I still like the guy.
pillsy
Conspiracy theories are a pretty common response to feeling powerless in a chaotic world.
The economy’s still for shit, the Republicans have much more power than they would in a sane system of government, we’re fighting two wars, annd everything that Democrats have done over the course of the year has been halting and riddled with unprincipled compromises.
If Obamarahma are dicking us in the collective eye for their corporate masters, then things can just get better if we replace them by voting for Nader of some shit. If, on the other hand, they’re doing the best they can, than erratic progress and an infuriating political process may well be the best we hope for.
Elisabeth
@mr. whipple:
Word.
J.W. Hamner
I don’t (and never have) read DailyKos or FDL (outside of TBogg and Ackerman) regularly, so I don’t know what it’s like over there… but it seems likes it’s calming down on the blogs I do read. Like people went home for the holidays, took a deep breath, and chilled out a bit. I’m fine with pressure from Obama’s left flank… even if it’s hyperbolic… I just don’t want every comment section of every blog outside of Ta-Nehisi’s to make me want to stab myself in the eye. Repeatedly. Which is where we were prior to Christmas.
I am cautiously optimistic that there will be no stabbing.
Xenos
Good Point. I have been mostly in lurker mode for the last year. Kvetching about my disappointment in a president I only reluctantly supported in the first place just seems too boring to bother commenting about. And I am not even that disappointed about him in any case. I doubt anyone wants to hear it.
Elie
@mr. whipple:
totally agree — me too…given up on most of my old blogs. Pass through on a couple to take a peek from time to time, but I don’t linger long…
eastriver
Tell us what, if anything, has disappointed you about Obama, JC. Something you really hoped he would do, but didn’t. Then go stand in front of a mirror and call yourself a delusional, misguided idiot.
Remember, JC, that you were a rightie before you found the True Path a few years ago. Which means you’re used to being shat upon by the people (republicans) you elected. YOU VOTED FOR GEORGE DUBYA BUSH in 2000, ‘member? And I bet you were damn proud Gore never got in the WH.
But then you were so very, very sorry you voted for Shrub. So sorry you switched to the other side. You turned coat. Started batting for the other team.
I’m not saying ON ANY LEVEL OR IN ANY WAY that Obama is Dubya. That’s not the point. The point is your disillusion. Take a moment to try and recall how you stupid and betrayed you felt by the whole Bush admin and Bush supporters. Now ratchet that down about 50% (maybe quite a bit more) and you get a taste of what the progressives who feel betrayed by Obama are going through.
(Granted, you were also pretty sick and tired of the whole right wing movement, as I recall. But again, it’s how you felt that matters, not the object that caused your feelings.)
Elie
@EL:
I just want to know why Obama only gets one year to “fix everything”…what happened to the four year term of office?
AND
Why there was so much anger and hostility about what he HAS been able to accomplish (not enought, not strong enough, not fast enough, etc)
INCLUDING
The name calling: Uncle Tom (for Pete’s sake!), Sell Out, etc..
I will not forget that for a long, long time. THOSE labels from supposedly my left supporting, liberal allies?
I learned a bit too — on the libertarian vein on the left…Lots of comments about how much “I will be paying” without a whole lot of, “gotta get coverage for everyone, best we can – everyone” Opened MY eyes on that too..
ruemara
I’m here. & I can’t stand most of my former haunts. How about this for a thought exercise. We’re in a zombie movie and most people are infected by a virus. All you have to do is outlast the nasty virus and you’ll survive. This is the leftygressive Rahmabama scenario. We just have to outlast the current pearl clutchers until the bills are passed and we’re looking for the next freak out to happen.
@Elie:
Dude, he’s black. You have to excellent 24/7 and if someone catches you only being adequate, you’re just a faker who shouldn’t be reaching above your station.
General Winfield Stuck
@eastriver:
Dude, do you have any idea how tired this line of attack is around here. I mean, jeebus, even a propeller head like you can come up with something more original. It’s embarrassing to have idiot trolls. Where is your humanity and sense of trollage pride, mon?
Elie
@ruemara:
I think you are right… I would say it seems to be almost like some sort of illness in that it spread, peaked and is perhaps in convalescence?
What the hell happened — Really? Maybe like you say, some sort of post febrile delirium?
ppcli
When Bush’s appointees didn’t get confirmed as fast as he wanted, he just started appointing them all as recess appointments. No confirmation. It reached the point where Democratic senators finally had to show up for work on a rotating basis just to ensure that there was never officially a recess, as I recall. Our side, on the other hand, keeps being decent and principled. Is it wrong of me to fantasize about ruining a few Republican senators vacations by abusing the recess appointment privilege?
eastriver
@General Winfield Stuck:
“propellerhead”? Buy some new Dixie cups old man. You clearly missed the point of what I was saying. “Sense of humanity”? Are you drunk? “Mon”? I assume that’s a typo, not some Jamaican racist patois. If you think what I said is troll-ish, you have no idea what a troll is. Concern, or otherwise.
General Winfield Stuck
@eastriver:
Blah blah blah same ole tripe from tired troll fu ratfucking– mon (that’s hippy for gawd you are stupid)
Elie
This
Sadly
Maddeningly
Max
THANK YOU FOR THIS POST.
This has been pissing me off since I saw what Gibsy said in the pressure.
Bloggers like you linked to, and the Talk Left people used the Dawn Johnson thing to put up a post to chum the waters of their commenters, talking about how Obama doesn’t care about “real Dems”, etc. They so want to paint Obamarahm as a bad character.
Then, we it turns out they were wrong, and the meme no longer fits their PUMA agenda, nothing but crickets.
These same bloggers demand accountability in their media people. Isn’t it ironic? Don’t you think? Like a black fly in your chardonnay.
ruemara
@eastriver:
As Balloon Juice’s self appointed Jamaican, I believe General Stuck was attempting to recreate the World of Warcraft Troll dialect, an abominable simplified Caribbean patois. Ergo, not racist-so far.
@Elie:
post febrile delirium… I likey! I think when he was a cipher, he was, to put it impolitely “Our Black Dude”. He’s just like _____(us)-only BLACK! And he will totally do what we say. Except when he governs to the right, & he is governing to the right and going for left/progressive stuff when it is entirely within the scope of his reach, he is no longer a cipher, a mirror, etc; he becomes not just a disappointment, he nearly switches into dangerous other. There’s no time allowed for understanding what’s going on, or to really wait for results. He has to be exactly what’s desired or his most obvious differences will be called into play. It’s faster now because we’ve created echo chamber communities where opinion is fact and clueless bitching has weight. The nature of the criticism has slipped into the zones could be called bigoted or at least, perpetuating a stereotype, because it’s part of the lexicon of American culture. that’s just MHO.
General Winfield Stuck
@Max:
Or rain on your wedding day. sorry, love that song:)
Comrade Kevin
@rob!:
The spell checker on my Mac recognizes it when I type Barack Obama into this comment box in Safari.
Elie
@ruemara:
Man, you are funny and right on…
Agree and am entertained too!
Davex99
OMG that Rahm & the Doll thing killed me! No more unsupervised visits for HIM!
K. Grant
@ppcli: Can’t. The moment you stop being principled (if that is what is going on, which is my hope) it is all over.
Here is my hamfisted analogy – Gandhi at the salt works: police with truncheons (Republicans) come to stop Gandhi and the other satyagrahi advancing on the salt works. Gandhi’s people simply walk up, get beaten, and are taken away as the next group moves silently forward. The action is brutal, the ‘victory’ should seemingly be awarded to the police because they have stopped the action, but (and this is the really hard part) slowly and surely folks start to pay attention to those who are trying to make a change.
Obama is, if given the chance, going to wear down the stooges, and hopefully get the people’s attention so that they realize that he is doing things the way they are supposed to work in our check and balance government. But the moment he strikes back, or raises his voice, or anything else that sounds and feels like ‘violence’ (please take that metaphorically), is the moment when all is fully and completely lost. Obama really has to play this as straight as he can, and without rancor.
And this is where I get a glimmer of idealism and hopefulness – what if it works? What if Obama can actually get folks to start thinking about how to actually govern? I don’t think he will be able to do so, not with any ease whatsoever, but what if he at least sets the wheels in motion for such a possibility? And yes, I understand this is naive and pie-in-the-sky, but I am not going to give up on this lovely system of ours – its a fair shot better than anything else (with hat tip and apologies to Churchill).
cleek
aw shucks.
thanks for the shout out, JC.
Elie
Elie
@General Winfield Stuck:
Actually, rain on your wedding day is “supposed to be’ lucky…
The fly in your chardonnay signals sexual prowess…
Cat Lady
I just love the hell out of you and this blog Cole. That Cleek comment should have been the runner up to comment of the year. Perfectly played Cleek.
But I am an O-bot, so there’s that.
General Winfield Stuck
Or a drunk and horny fly?
Calming Influence
This blog I love, but it doesn’t have a specific focus. Sadly No! = skewering outrageous hypocrisy. Greenwald = constitutional issues. Jesus’ General = 11 on the manly scale of closeted homosexual Keyboard Komandos.
Firedoglake is a multiplex, and they cover a lot of issues. But it’s hard for me to fault Jane and Marcy for pushing back hard on women’s health issues. For Jane at least it’s personal, and her outrage in part springs from the fact that biological drugs (monoclonals) like Herceptin, which are as close to silver bullets for cancer as we’ve gotten so far, are not available under most insurance plans because there aren’t any generics available. This means people are left to choose between bankrupting their families to stay alive or dying a painful cancer death.
So yeah, rag on them for not being thrilled about this healthcare reform package, but try to keep it in perspective.
And isn’t it our duty to demand that our elected representatives work for us and not corporations?
Just sayin’.
Mnemosyne
@ppcli:
A commenter on Washington Monthly proposed bundling all of the appointments together and having one big marathon of approvals that lasts into the wee hours. After a few 3 am votes, Republicans might be slightly less enthusiastic about blocking every-damn-thing.
RandomChick
@K. Grant:
I just want to say, thank you for THAT! I get frustrated with him too, but what you wrote reminded me of what I imagined might be, during the election, when I first read “The Audacity of Hope”.
/obot
JenJen
This is probably the board quote of the century.
Just got back from “Avatar” (finally) and I’m in a fantastic mood. To know that quote came from one of us is like cherry on my sundae.
J. Michael Neal
@ppcli:
I fantasize about it all the time. I also agree with not pulling that kind of shit.
Look, anyone who thought that an attempt to change the atmosphere in Washington was something that would happen in a year was dreaming. So to was anyone who thought that Obama was only committed to it for the short run. I don’t believe he plays 11-dimensional chess, but I do believe that he thinks strategically rather than tactically. One thing that means is that he’s going to keep working at something long after most political junkies have lost patience with it.
I don’t know that Obama’s attempt to change the tone will work, but I don’t know that it won’t either. I also firmly believe that any attempt to make serious changes in the system that will last absolutely and utterly depend upon success in that endeavour. People like to point to FDR as being more confrontational, but then ignore what actually happened. The New Deal was incredibly polarizing, and mobilized the opposition completely. Then, World War II happened. That, by itself, CHANGED THE TONE IN WASHINGTON. After the war, the right wing nuts moved on to complaining about foreign policy, and the Republican Party of Eisenhower accepted the New Deal reforms as the Done Deal.
Other people like to point to LBJ. Sure, he got stuff passed. He also ignited the Republican revolt that gave us Reagan and Bush. Medicare survived, but look at the cost. To really take root, liberal structure need relative peace, at least on domestic issues. Polarization is, in this sense, our enemy.
Note that this isn’t just an American phenomenon. The consensus on basic social democracy was built, across most of Europe, on smoking ruins. The British Tories basically conceded much of it as the price of labor peace during the war. Aside from Konrad Adenauer, German conservatives had so thoroughly discredited themselves that much of the SDP program sailed through. Petain did much the same thing to the French right.
Absent *something* that produces that sort of consensus, nothing that Obama gets passed is going to last. He needs for the Republican House of Nuts to isolate itself and still be there, ready when someone reasonable arises. It may not happen. Maybe the GOP doesn’t immolate fast enough. Maybe the economy stays in the toilet, and the nut house manages to get elected. The long term play, though, is very clearly to stay cool and not do things, like abusing recess appointments, that do institutional damage. In the long run, institutions of government are things we need. Conservatives attack them for exactly that reason. That would be doing their work for them.
I can see an argument that the system is so broken that this sort of long term success just isn’t possible. It’s easier to destroy than it is to create, and the wingnuts may have wrecked things so entirely that consensus isn’t possible, not just now, but for the foreseeable future. In this case, yeah, you have to just use every weapon that comes to hand. I just disagree with this, because I think it will produce, at best, a Pyrrhic victory. I’m just going to hold ut hope that there is an outbreak of reasonableness somewhere, because I think that all of the alternatives are bad.
valdivia
for people here clamoring for recess appointments: they last only a year. Yeah it’s great to have someone in there for a year but then its over and you have to go through the whole thing again. Not worth it. Better get the person approved the right way especially when the votes are there and the only thing preventing the vote is a stupid anonymous hold.
ps thanks for this post John. And that Rahm comment, pure fucking gold Cleek.
J. Michael Neal
@K. Grant: Or what he said.
Bruce (formerly Steve S.)
This pretty much sums up why I don’t quite get the FDL Derangement Syndrome around here. Yes, Jane Hamsher takes provocative positions that sometimes make you shake your head, but there are a number of writers over there covering different issues. They’re not my favorite blog but they’re in my rotation.
Since Doug mentioned it a few days ago I’ll put in a similar recommendation for Counterpunch. Forget for a moment that Alexander Cockburn is an old school leftist with some unorthodox contrarian ideas, they publish pieces on a great many topics from many different sources and you’re bound to find something of interest over there. Plus Cockburn’s always a good read, even when you think he’s full of shit. Kind of like Taibbi.
gizmo
A big part of the problem here is that the Obama administration is doing a really, really shitty job of telling its own story. There are all sorts of small but significant tweaks and improvements going on within the various agencies of the Federal government, but unless you’re an obsessive blog junkie, you don’t hear the news. Obama needs to have a team of people whose sole responsibility is to make sure that good news is being broadcast far and wide. The progressives who worked so hard to get Obama into office are discouraged because the administration has failed miserably at the care and feeding of that base. Obama had an army of 13 million smart, motivated, effective people behind him at the end of the campaign, and he has pretty much succeeded at rendering them inert.
different church-lady
God bless you John: 15 months ago I never imagined I’d need to read Balloon Juice to keep me from going insane after reading Daily Kos.
Nick
By the way, the anyone notice the tears Jane Hamsher is shedding over poor progressive hero Byron Dorgan leaving the Senate, but it’s ok cause he’s just sticking it to Rahmbama!
Jane Hamsher, eight months ago;
http://firedoglake.com/2009/05/05/byron-dorgans-wife-lobbied-against-cramdown/
Nick
@gizmo:
Oh, is that why my friends in Ohio are taking personal days on Jan 22 to see him speak there?
General Winfield Stuck
@Bruce (formerly Steve S.):
Just speaking for myself. I see Balloon Juice as mainly existing for the reason that brought me here in the first place. And if one word could sum it up, it would be pragmatism, and also anti-republicanism which shakes out to be more or less supporting dems to be and stay in office, in liew of the alternative.
I think Obama has and is sticking to his campaign promises more than any other presnit in my lifetime, and that is my primary measuring stick. And until that changes, I will remain an obot, and defend against irrational attacks coming from whichever direction to keep a dem in and a wingnut out of the Oval office. Just so happens, right now and looking into the near future those attacks, with what I see as irrational reasons considering the big and realistic picture of the body politic, are coming from the left. Wish it were not, but it is.
Elie
@gizmo:
“the administration has failed miserably at the care and feeding of that base”
Feeding the base is not, in my opinion, what his priority should be to govern
That is old school Bushpolik thinking…not something that I think is really what we need…
Governance is about running things to the benefit of all of us. Yes, he has to be mindful of those who supported him — but only to the point that those considerations serve to benefit the larger population..
Is that what Bush did?
Well – No. (see reference to Bushpolitik) Bush did not. You see what it did to our country. He just fed his “hommies” and told the rest of us to “screw” ourselves. You advocate the same thing from the other direction…
Not a good thing — not a right thing in my opinion..
Midnight Marauder
Is that…Dawn Johnsen…at the TOP OF THE LIST?! OF PEOPLE TO BE RE-NOMINATED?! Oh wow, this is such pleasantly surprising
yet somewhat expected if you were sane or not a firebaggernews. I think I’ll take a break from prepping for Immigration Reform to celebrate a little./O-Bot…AWWWWAAAAAYYYY!
+1
Elie
@JenJen:
Glad you seemed to have enjoyed Avatar…
This is another one of those polarizing opinions: either you liked it or its “superficial drech with no plot”
I LOVED it…no apologies, no nothin…
Second coming? No way — just wonderful, experience that felt good…and I needed that when I saw it…
I am reminded, by the way, of what visual creatures we are and how that vision cortex maps to our emotions just like those little fibers at the end of the NaVi’s braids wrapped into the spirits of the creatures in their environment…
Elie
@Calming Influence:
“This blog I love, but it doesn’t have a specific focus”
That is what I love about it, frankly.. Not ideological, no one right way to think…emphasis on learning…
I dig it.
Svensker
@Elie:
No, no, it’s the chardonnay in your fly….
Elie
@Svensker:
:-)
Corner Stone
@Nick:
Damn. You have 13 million friends? Are they all in Ohio? Are you King James?
Glidwrith
Rants about what Obama can and can’t do with respect to Congress are one thing, but here is one thing I am bitterly disappointed with: Obama’s use of the DOJ and the continuance of court cases with respect to wiretapping and indefinite detention (see Glenn Greenwald). I’m sorry, but this is solidly within his purview and I didn’t think it was asking too much that the Presidency revert to the rule of law rather than what Bush perverted it into.
duck-billed placelot
This post is distressingly similar to the “you gay people hush up now” one. Progressives have legitimate reasons to feel disgusted/angry/betrayed.
The thing that gets to me is how misapplied the Obama-anger is. Really? He’s like Bush because of non-cabinet-level appointments? Because the expanding prison at Bagram, or the preventative permanent detentions, or the military tribunals, or the over-invoking of state secret privileges in court, or the racial profiling that’s ramping up now – any of those seem like legitimate ‘horrible decisions that are under executive jurisdiction that remind us of Bush’ beefs. Maybe not so much Dawn Johnsen.
Obama has made progress in important areas, but in some areas – notably most of Greenwald’s beat – this administration is not an improvement. Too much to do doesn’t cover the sins of actions taken. He’s done some good stuff, too, but ‘better than McCain/Bush/the Mafia/a T-Rex with an armed nuclear warhead’ is not the standard to which we should be holding our president.
Comrade Doctor General Michael Brown
Yeah, well when/if he renominates Johnsen, then you’ll actually know whether games were played with this nomination.
Until then: What’s hard to believe about Obama nominating someone he knew Republicans would stonewall, just to get sme more left approval? And then leaving her to twist in the wind? After all, it’s not a critical post, and he’s already fired people who don’t tell him what he wants to hear, like Craig.
Corner Stone
@Midnight Marauder: Let’s not count our Johnsons before they hatch.
Or Johnsens either for that matter.
Elie
@Corner Stone:
LOL!
kwAwk
John – The reality is that Obama seems to have over sold himself during the campaign and the reality of an Obama administration has disappointed quite a few people. Slamming other progressives and other members of the progressive blogosphere isn’t going to help resolve that.
The fact of the matter is that the Obama folks openly courted the Howard Dean wing of the party in order to win the primary in 2008. Hillary Clinton was the safe, slow progress, establishment candidate. Remember?
Obama was CHANGE!!!!
Now that Obama is Hillary Extra Lite all those Deaniacs are a bit disappointed. Even Dean is disappointed. There just doesn’t seem to be any line in the sand that Obama is willing to draw. He is Mr. Accomodation. Any bill is good enough as long as Obama gets to claim credit for having led the way.
The truth is that there are a lot of people who actually believe in liberal Democratic values. For the past 30 years we’ve basically had our ideas demonized, and even the label liberal demonized and turned into something supposedly shameful.
The public option represented something more than just a strike at insurance companies. It was redemption of the notion that government isn’t always the problem and the private sector doesn’t always do things better than the public sector. Obama negotiated that away almost without a fight. Nancy fought. Harry fought. Barack? Not so much. Instead HCR turned into an affirmation of the anti-liberal tirades of the likes of Limbaugh and Hannity without Republicans having to lift a finger to pass it.
This mentality of the shameful liberal bleeds into other areas. Most notably we’ll see in the next year will be the financial reform legislation. We’ll see in the next year all of the old crazy justifications for not properly regulating the market based upon liberal socialism boogeymans being trotted out. So this year when Wall Street is writing their own financial reform legislations, don’t be suprised.
Nick
@Corner Stone: No, I have four, so I guess he only demoralized 12,999,996 of his supporters, no?
General Winfield Stuck
@Glidwrith:
I see that different. I see it as a constitutional scholar president not by political pressure from the left short circuiting cases that were already in the judicial system.
He is letting the courts decide the fate of those cases and not injecting politics into them. They may well end up at the supremes for their final decision, whatever that may be. I know it is full of wingnuts, and personally I don’t want them deciding anything. But this isn’t personal, it is returning to the rule of law IMO, and just pulling the plug for political expedience is actually doing it Bush’s way. I think.
As far as indefinite detentions, I believe Obama is working out that big crap sandwich left him by Bush, may not be as fast as some want, but it is moving in the direction that now it looks like only about 50 detainees will be kept indefinitely. And I suspect these are avowed AQ members that make no bones about attacking us again if released.
They should then be converted to POW’s and i bet that will happen. But I don’t want them released if they vow to kill more Americans. Do you?
Nick
@Comrade Doctor General Michael Brown: Let’s co-op the crazy now.
“If he really wanted Johnsen confirmed, he would have made a recess appointment”
yeah, there’s the argument.
DougL (frmrly: Conservatively Liberal)
This DFH who largely agrees with you on just about everything is still here but not commenting much because of work and just about having our Mustang put back together. That and everything happening lately among manic progressives and chronic conservatives has been well summarized by you, your blog minions and the saner commentary here.
The rest is entertainment. ;)
kwAwk
In addition to my last comment which is awaiting moderation, let me add that when Obama campaigned on CHANGE!!! it is apparent that he only meant changing the means of political discourse, which he has failed to do (not really his fault because he certainly was accomodating enough to the right) and didn’t mean that he wanted a swift change in direction for the country, which he hasn’t provided either.
gwangung
That means he has a post unmanned for over a year. Kinda stupid if you ask me.
If it’s a minor post (an argumentI don’t find valid), then the left should be insulted that being given such a minor payoff. Except that wasn’t what I heard when her appointment was first announced. And, at any rate, the blame still goes to those blocking her, not the person making the appointment.
JAHILL10
@Elie
Governance is about running things to the benefit of all of us. Yes, he has to be mindful of those who supported him—but only to the point that those considerations serve to benefit the larger population..
EXACTLY!!!!! His first mission is to demonstrate that government can be a force for good, when for so long it has been just the opposite. And that means he has to govern for the good of everyone. Not just his base.
And seriously, if we are ever going to get back to some level of civil discourse in this country, if we are really going to “change” the way things are done in Washington, this has to happen. Otherwise we just swap majorities and each one no matter what their political stripe can find some excuse for not doing anything other than line their pockets while they are in power.
It doesn’t carry the visceral pleasure of sticking it to the repubs, getting all your pet legislation passed in the first six months, whatever, but it has to happen for the good of the nation. Obama plays a long game and I am willing to let him play out his hand.
Calming Influence
@Elie:
And exactly why I love it. I read other blogs for other reasons. It’s not that complicated.
kwAwk
JAHILL10 – You don’t get it. Yes Obama is supposed to be the President of everybody but as the head of the Democratic Party he is supposed to be fighting to show how Democratic values are good for everybody.
If he thinks Republican values are best for everybody then he should have ran as a Republican. If he thinks Joe Lieberman’s values are best for everybody he should have ran on the Connecticut for Lieberman ticket.
Nick
@kwAwk:
Yes, there were a lot of us saying “don’t expect the world” and were ignored as concern trolls.
this was pretty obvious during the campaign.
Calming Influence
@Elie:
To be more specific: this is one of the last places I would come for detailed information on the house and senate versions of the health care reform bills. And there’s nothing wrong with that.
Nick
@kwAwk:
What exactly ARE Democratic values anyway?
ricky
@Belafon (formerly anonevent):
Number of kids and their GPA’s please?
JAHILL10
@kwAwk
What you don’t get is a lot. But the whole permanent campaign business was a Bush/Rove innovation. If you think Obama is governing as generic Republican or McCain would I want some of what you are smoking.
kwAwk
No it wasn’t obvious Nick. It really wasn’t. The Obama folks played up the misconceptions of Obama during the campaign. There were a lot of people saying that Obama was the human Rorshack (sp?) test but the Obama folks kept at it.
Now they’re paying a price for it.
Elie
@kwAwk:
You just dont get the situation…
You are in all black and white thinking: if x happens, one side “wins” — in an absolute, forever fashion and outcome. If Y happens, the alternative happens, absolutely. You don’t see the actors in this as having transitional positions or complex motives or in reality as being a complex and evolving. Things are either up or down, yes or no and fixed in time forever. Instead, I and I think many here, see complex reality and facts that move stuff forward on many levels — sometimes, yes, with backwards steps, but the overall movement is in a direction…
There are many many models in nature that reflect this same process. Decisions and change on this scale (national) and complexity are rarely made as simple, one phase change. In fact, social and political change can’t even happen that way…
Now, if we talk about tsunami or asteroids…maybe then we can talk about what for you is the nature of change that really matters…
General Winfield Stuck
@duck-billed placelot:
Seriously, I would like some more info on this charge. Links?
And not the Bush era ones now in courts.
John Cole
I had hoped financial regulation would have been the number one priority, considering the monumental challenge at the time he took office was an economic meltdown brought on by deregulation and outright thievery.
I had hoped he would have stopped confirming Bush era behavior regarding national security issues. He hasn’t, but he has been better and is moving in the ride direction on Gitmo.
I had hoped a lot of things, but they didn’t go exactly the way I wanted. But I understand other things are going on, and he has a lot on his plate. So I will wait. I also understand he has done tons of other things which I agree with- needle exchange and numerous other issues.
It is almost like he has four years to do shit before I have to cast final judgment and decide whether or not he is worth voting for again.
General Winfield Stuck
@Elie:
Kawak is a 2008 primary era dead ender Hillbot troll. Just so you know.
kwAwk
Elie – Well we have a lot of examples provided to us by FDR and LBJ of change that happened quite quickly.
60 votes in the Senate is a once in a lifetime opportunity for changing the direction of the country. It is one that I’m not sure Republicans have ever had. Too bad it was wasted with political infighting and bickering by a party that couldn’t seem to come up with a coherent plan.
Obama didn’t campaign on incrementally moving the ball a few feet in the right direction.
Nick
@kwAwk: I’m sorry that you had some delusions of grandeur over Obama because he didn’t simply say “oh, gee wiz, we’ll just do what we can” but let’s face it, if he had came out and said “I’ll probably just do what I can get done and won’t promise you anything” you would’ve voted for another Democrat who delivered delusions of grandeur.
If you had paid attention and wiped away the stars from your eyes, you would’ve heard Obama when he said “change will be hard, change will take time, change will take patience, change won’t always be pretty”
This is the best you’re going to get in America, deal with it.
Calming Influence
If you don’t see political activism as a rugby scrum, you’re not getting it.
kwAwk
Nick – Listen to General Stuck over there. I voted for Hillary. I was never a starry eyed Obama guy. I’m just telling you why so many people who did become starry eyed Obama guys are now having buyers remorse.
Nick
@kwAwk:
No, we really don’t…most of FDR’s surviving changes, like Social Security, did not come until many years into his administration, and even then it left out like half the goddamn population. WPA didn’t even get through Congress, and, again, was controlled by racists, and EVEN THEN liberals weren’t satisfied with his changes, remember Huey Long?
LBJ’s successes came after failures…his Civil Rights Act came after two other ones that were watered down to nothing, and even the 1964 Act was watered down from it’s original. Medicare and Medicaid FAILED the first time and only got passed because Democrats didn’t take a beating in the 1964 elections.
I think you have some fantasy notions of what FDR and LBJ accomplished. Guarantee our descendants will have some fantasy notions of what Obama accomplished to and someone will have to try to explain to them how Obama got shit from liberals about not being liberal enough.
Nick
@kwAwk: ah a PUMA troll, I get it now.
Midnight Marauder
And things like this make me very happy to have an competent adult in charge once again:
Obama Orders Air Marshal Surge by Feb. 1: ‘Race Against Time’
Glidwrith
@General Winfield Stuck: My memory may be faulty, but I do recall Greenwald mentioning that Obama had gone beyond the Bush claims of presidential power in the courts. Something on the order of claiming immunity for any and all actions of the presidency and his advisors. I’m fuzzy on the exact arguments – not a lawyer and it’s been a few months. As far as converting Gitmo detainees into POW’s, I’d do a happy dance since it would bring them back into a recognized body of law, though I haven’t heard of any such movement. With the avowed killing of Americans – they’d have to be pretty damned stupid to openly claim such. With respect to actual law (again not a lawyer), doesn’t there tend to be a fuzzy line between speech versus actions? How much of a gray area is there? We had folks running around with Bible verses wishing harm to Obama, yet no arrests were made. However, they are detainees and not granted our citizen’s rights, yet if Gitmo closes they will be on our soil. What sorts of rights actually apply to civilain versus military prisoners?
Nick
@kwAwk:
Actually that is exactly what he campaigned on, as, you see, in our type of democracy, moving the ball a few feet in the right direction IS change.
Elie
@General Winfield Stuck:
Yeah – ok — I see the dead end coming up ahead. NO OUTLET…never seems to be with these folks
Its all about wanting to turn a switch and everything is fixed.
I just cannot understand the thinking. Almost nothing serious in my life works like that. NOTHING.
I can’t demand instant results at work, in my relationships or anything. Even my freakin footaball team (the BEARS) take the long range approach to change.
But for some reason, I should demand, DEMAND, that the guy elected President a year ago, fixes everything in one step, forever…
Its beyond … rationality? Fevered delusions? What?
Calming Influence
Wee! I’m an incrimentalchangebot!
mcc
@Mnemosyne:
One of the nice things about having the health care bill done is that dramatic measures that have the potential to tie up Congress for awhile suddenly don’t have the costs they did before. I don’t know if they’d really do something like this over just the appointments, and they might want to get the jobs bill out of the way first, but it’s an option in a way it wasn’t really before.
(Personally I just want Barney Frank’s claim that the House will be addressing ENDA in February to turn out to have been true.)
kwAwk
Lmao you guys like to call others idiots but every time somebody disagrees with you they inherently become a troll.
Nick – Perhaps the civil rights act of 1964 was watered down from its original version, but it wasn’t gutted the way Healthcare Reform was.
You guys still don’t get it. Obama had the votes in the Congress to get as liberal of a policy package passed as he will ever have in his administration. It doesn’t get more liberal from here, it only get less liberal.
ricky
@kwAwk:
Those Obama people were (but aren’t now) so devilishly clever. And those Democratic voters were (but aren’t now) so gullible and easily duped. So much for the charge that after a year there has been no change.
Calming Influence
Maybe we should all submit our opinions on what the acceptable increments are, just so we don’t push too much.
burnspbesq
@Midnight Marauder:
Amen. Dawn Johnsen is ridiculously qualified for that job.
But I don’t worry so much about OLC, because while Dawn Johnsen is getting the full treatment from the Republicans on the Hill, Marty Lederman is on the job.
kwAwk
ricky – They weren’t so clever. Right wing attacks on the Clintons for almost 20 years had done most of their dirty work for them. George W. Bush destroyed the credibility of the Republican party in 2008.
Obama merely took advantage of what was already there. He won and won handily simply because 2008 was a year in which almost any Democrat would have won.
Cain
@gizmo:
uh huh.. in 2012 I’m going back on the field to get the man re-elected. Whoever the republicans are running are going to be utter disasters…
cain
burnspbesq
@kwAwk:
Sorry, but no. Obama is exactly what he always was. The reality is that a lot of progressives projected like crazy onto Obama, failed to effectively manage their own expectations, and are now behaving like a day-care center just before nap time.
JAHILL10
@kwAwk
Well, which is it? Obama’s people cleverly (or not so cleverly) oversold him or any Democrat could have been elected?
Thoroughly Pizzled
@kwAwk: Correction: Obama HAS the votes now, but it’s not as likely he did before the bill reached the endgame.
General Winfield Stuck
@Glidwrith:
I have heard of Obama using the State Secrets claim once. But that is all, as far as I know. And again, with so many on the left, they conflate concepts and practices that have always existed with Bush abusing them . Rendition is one example of that, being a time honored form of expedited international extradition. And extra ordinary rendition also, though rarely used before Bush, mostly for people like Adolph Eichman and certain drug kingpins and international criminals. Bush used it to send detainees to countries for the purpose of torture for information.
But now any use of rendition is considered bushlike. And the list goes on for SS claims Bush allegedly used to cover crimes, etc…. etc…. And there is no evidence that Obama is using any of these things for illegal purposes. It is why I no longer care much for Greenwald, because he seems to be fueling these misconceptions on the left.
I am all for activists like the ACLU who I mostly do trust to highlight and push Obama on things like long term detentions, though there is a war on with AQ that is sanctioned by the UN and international law. Pushing for POW rights is a good thing to do, but ignoring that there are folks who really want to kill us is not wise IMO.
kwAwk
JAHILL – When people were at those rallies chanting ‘YES WE CAN!!” Do you suppose what they really meant was ‘YES WE CAN LET JOE LIBERMAN WRITE THE HEALTHCARE REFORM BILL!!!”
The fact of the matter is that if you listened to Obama talk about his agenda you came away with one perspective, but if you bought into the campaign rhetoric you came away with another. Obama oversold himself to win the primary against Clinton. His performance in the general wasn’t really all that spectacular.
In spite of a Republican President polling in the 20’s for approval, Obama probably doesn’t win the Presidency without a major assist by a stupid pick by McCain in choosing Palin and a complete melt down of Wall Street.
Calming Influence
Obama is the president TODAY. What he campaigned on, what he said in interviews, what he said in our dreams, and what Rahm jerks off to in the oval office coat closet is absolutely fucking irrelevant. Our job, as active participants in this democracy is to fucking PUSH the chief executive to do the right fucking thing.
The chief executive’s job is to figure out how much progress he can make in the direction he’s being pushed with the resources he has.
So let’s do our job, and demand Obama to do his.
ricky
@JAHILL10:
I’ll let “dead end Hillarybots” speak for themselves or be so characterized by others.
But my feeling is the answer to both questions is yes.
Many liberals wanted to believe Obama was a black Messiah.
Nobody wants to run a campaign ratcheting down enthusiasm.
Bush screwed up so badly many people were willing to give any Democrat their vote.
Liberals who now pronounce themselves disappointed will also deny that they are the same minority they were before the election. They think the mandate given to Obama was for liberal policies and that 60 Democrats in the senate means 60 votes for liberal policy. That’s the fundamental flaw they have that made it easy for them to delude themselves about what Obama would be as President as opposed to what he always was and is, a pragmatic, intelligent, ambitious Democratic politician.
That said, all of this internal “problem with the base” could have been avoided in a single stroke on Inauguration Day if Obama had simply whisked Mr Cheney’s wheelchair to the edge of the Capitol steps and let go.
gwangung
Heh. That’s good will that’d take him through this term and most of the next term…
Glidwrith
@General Winfield Stuck: The Bush era suits are still in progress and were picked up by the Obama DOJ. They have been actively pushing or exceeding the Bush lines in executive privilege. I will try links, but I don’t do this very often:
http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2009/02/09/state_secrets/index.html
http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2009/04/28/secrecy/index.html
Here are things he’s done independently of any Bush court action:
http://open.salon.com/blog/kevin_gosztola/2009/05/14/obama_employs_bush_administration_tactic_blocks_photos
http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2010/01/05/rule_of_law/index.html
‘Night………
kwAwk
@calming influence
Very true, but around here not being willing to accept anything Obama does and being thankful for it is libel to get you labeled a dead ender hillbot or an idiot who doesn’t understand reality.
With Obama everything he doesn’t accomplish is inherently not accomplishable.
Glidwrith
@General Winfield Stuck: I pulled a bunch of links and was banished to moderation hell. Hopefully it will come through, but I’m done in for the night.
Does this work? http://www.salon.com/opinion/g…..index.html
General Winfield Stuck
@Glidwrith:
UH, not really. It’s to the front page of Salon with about a gazillion different stories. You will need to link to specific ones you are using for evidence, whatever that is.
JAHILL10
@kwAwk
Hey PUMA, I was one of those people shouting “Yes, We Can” at those rallies, I was one of those people canvassing neighborhoods and doing GOTV work for Obama. And I’ll do it again in 2012. But Obama never promised me he had mind control powers over a tool like Lieberman and I never believed he did. We changed the person sitting in the White House, we didn’t change all of Washington overnight. A project that big takes time and concerted, sustained effort. You know, like grown ups who have a realistic vision of the future would do.
What we did send a man there who was going to get the ball rolling. And I am very glad we did.
As for:
“His performance in the general really wasn’t all that spectacular.”
WASHINGTON, Nov. 5 (UPI) — Sen. Barack Obama won the U.S. presidential election in a historic blowout victory Tuesday.
Obama, D-Ill., won by a 6-point margin in the popular vote, 52 percent to 46 percent, over Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz. He eclipsed President George W. Bush’s 2004 record to win more votes than any other individual in American history. Some 62,438,115 people cast their ballots for him.
As we had predicted in UPI Analysis, Obama’s margin of victory was far wider than almost all pundits had expected. McCain trailed him by more than 7 million votes.
Glidwrith
@General Winfield Stuck: Dammit – it showed the proper address:
Gah – it’s too late a night for me – other articles were about Obama suppressing photos and expanding Bagram…
DougL (frmrly: Conservatively Liberal)
@kwAwk:
Shorter kwAwk: “Having voted for Hillary, while I am not an expert on Obama supporters and how they feel about him I did stay at a Holiday Inn last night.”
Your concern has been noted.
Calming Influence
@kwAwk:
Very curious indeed, because of the open-minded and irreverent nature of this site.
Here’s my gut feeling, fully recognizing that this is John’s site and as a commenter I’m at best a remora, at worst a leech:
If someone’s O.K. with effective drugs being available only to the new American Aristocracy, fine. They can take their bowl gruel, sit down, and shut the fuck up. But when they try to tell me that I shouldn’t demand more, I REALLY want to kick them hard in the nuts.
Glidwrith
@General Winfield Stuck: Curses, I’ll ask for help later but here’s a painfully typed-in one (put in the salon.com then add in the rest:
/opinion/greenwald/2009/11/01/state_secrets/index.html
kwAwk
Well JAHILL, I’d say that if Barack Obama wanted to have an influence over Joe Lieberman’s behavior regarding the public option it might have helped if he had actually tried. Which according to Joe Lieberman he didn’t, and according to Obama he never campaigned on the public option, which of course he did. Come to find out Obama just didn’t think it was all that important. A lot of people did though.
This conversation reflects the constant excuse making for Obama that goes back two years. Nothing Obama does is Obama’s fault. Its Joe Lieberman’s fault. Its the fault of all those people who voted for him who thought he meant what he said. Its Hillary Clinton’s fault Obama was embarassed by his Pastor.
If there is a group of tuned in people anywhere in this country that know what Obama campaigned on, it is the folks at the DailyKos. Those folks write 30 paragraph essays on the congressional elections of 1848. They know what is going on and what they were and were not promised. The problem is that Obama was so busy trying to make himself indistinguishable from Clinton from a policy standpoint that he boxed himself in with his pragmatic, I’ll take what I can get attitude. He included a lot of things in his platform in order to get elected that he really didn’t care all that much about. He apparently thought they were bargaining chips. Others disagreed and thought they were the meat and bones.
General Winfield Stuck
@Glidwrith:
I agree the whole situation about detentions is a problem that I am not happy with, which is why giving prisoners full POW rights should be applied.
As far as the photos go, I think the reason for withholding them was to not cause muslim rioting and people getting killed due to inflaming passions in that part of the world. That would include American GI’s and other muslims, just to show pics of things we know happened by way of the Bybee memos that were released and were much more important IMO. I agree with the decision to withhold them for those reasons.
kwAwk
@dougL formerly known as whomever
Did you ever stop to think that perhaps the reason people around here have such a hard time understanding the folks at the GOS is because the GOS is a Democratic/progressive blog and this is an Obama blog?
FlipYrWhig
@kwAwk:
So what’s the fucking problem, then? If it’s the most liberal possible bill he could pass, how is that a big “gotcha!” moment for Obama doubters? If anything, shouldn’t they be thanking their lucky stars that he managed to extract maximum liberalism from an inhospitable environment?
Midnight Marauder
@kwAwk:
Surely, you jest?
kwAwk
You’re confusing the most liberal policy he will pass with the most liberal policy he could have passed.
FlipYrWhig
@kwAwk: GOS used to be an “elect more and better Democrats” blog. They threw their weight and bucks behind Brad Carson, Stephanie Herseth, Jon Tester, Scott Kleeb, and others, all on the right wing of the party. They mocked single-issue groups for doing things like supporting pro-choice mainstream Republicans over pro-choice newbie Democrats. Then at some point there was a massive course correction, and they decided to be as ideological and narrowly focused as the original credo said they _weren’t_.
FlipYrWhig
@kwAwk:
That’s not confusion, that’s truism. Do you really think there was a way to get 60 votes for a _more_ liberal bill, but Obama decided not to do it, just for spite?
kwAwk
Flip – I agree that DKos has become more ideologically focused but at the same time I would say that the political atmosphere in Washington has become more focused on taking down the influence of the netroots.
Lamont/Lieberman scared the hell out of the democratic status quo in Washington.
4jkb4ia
No comment. bmaz made a mistake. The end.
kwAwk
I don’t assign spite to Obama. I think he decided not to do it simply because it didn’t mean that much to him and he was too focused on trying to get a bi-partisan bill.
Obama ran on being bi-partisan. The republicans saw that campaign promise and decided that the easy way to make him fail at that pledge was to not be bi-partisan.
Bi-partisanship is a funny thing, it only works when both sides want it to work, not because somebody commands it to work, and the wingnuts are brainwashed day and night not to abhor bi-partisanship by the likes of Limbaugh, Savage, Foxnews et al.
DougL (frmrly: Conservatively Liberal)
@kwAwk:
HAHAHAHAHA! “The GOS is a Democratic/progressive blog”. Stop it, I’m gasping for air! No, really… HAHAHAHAHAHA!!
Fuck you are funny! I’ll be sure to tip the waitress, keep up the funnies.
The GOS is a mosh pit of the sane and the insane on the left, with liberal dashes of ratfuckers, Ron Paul worshipers, HamQuisters, PUMAs and other assorted nuts who volunteer to help bloody everyone up a bit more. I left that shithole in 2005 and other than the occasional nut they find it is pretty much a nonstop sideshow of the uninformed and the self-important beating each other up to score points in an attempt to gain TU status, which gives them the ability to shut down others who they disagree with by ganging up and hiding their comment.
Fuck that shit.
Joe Buck
Obama could do what Bush did, and make recess appointments.
bmaz
@4jkb4ia: Actually, i do not believe I made a mistake in the least. The acute criticisms were entirely valid and the Johnsen nomination was, indeed, killed. That a year was wasted and the Administration now may start over and nominate her again does not invalidate what was written. Here is a better question, assuming Obama is to nominate Dawn again, what will be different this time? Will the nomination be more stridently supported and fought for this time; if so, what is the explanation for not doing so the last time? It is my unmitigated assertion that the votes, including the 60 needed for cloture, were there for the taking the last six months, as I described fully; why was a vote never called? Why will it be now all of a sudden? Those are questions for any new nomination of Dawn Johnsen; as to the one that is dead and gone, the point of the post was quite correct. Your mileage may vary, and I respect that. But I made no mistake.
FlipYrWhig
@kwAwk:
I agree that he wanted a bipartisan bill, which is why the whole thing got bogged down for months in the Baucus committee, which was an attempt to get 3 Republicans to sign on to the plan. (One pleasant effect of a bipartisan bill: enabling the Senate Dems to tell Joe Lieberman and/or Ben Nelson to go piss up a rope.) So they were left having to satisfy the most conservative Senate Dems.
But I don’t know about “didn’t mean that much to him.” It basically consumed a whole year. If it didn’t mean that much, they could have sent down the Do Not Resuscitate order at any point before August.
My view is that they spent a lot of time coming up with a plan that had enough of the cost control stuff in it to satisfy Democratic budget hawks, and enough of the expanding access stuff in it to satisfy Democratic, um, Democrats, the good kind, and did enough to co-opt the big moneyed interests that sank the last attempt that they’re on the verge of actually getting something done. I think a more crusading bill would have made rank-and-file liberals (like me) very happy, and would have drawn the implacable wrath of every powerful lobbying group, and once again we’d be left with a situation where mass of gullible goofs decided that they hated Big Gummint, leaving us happy with Our Great Plan but ultimately left with the status quo in place, ruing why our friends and neighbors were just so very stupid and blind to their own interests. Again.
That’s why I truly don’t mind the insider deals with the pharmaceutical industry and all that. Unsavory, yes, but in the 1994 effort they kept fucking that chicken but good, and ultimately we were all rogered roundly. So I’m reasonably certain that this is in fact the best that could be hoped for.
The Gimp
@kwAwk: Tell me, in clear, coherent specifics, WHAT Obama could have done to get Joe to back the public option. THEN do the same for Ben, Blanche and Mary.
Sixty Dems don’t mean 60 liberals or progressives, which numerous people have pointed out. Yet you keep blaming Obama for not trying, when it’s pretty obvious that NOTHING would have moved them.
Fuck, we had to pay for Nebraska in perpetuity just to get Nelson to agree to what we DID get.
Ailuridae
@The Gimp:
In fairness by all indications Ben, Blanche and Mary and every other Democrat in the caucus was on board for the Medicare expansion which was a far superior piece of progressive legislation than the middling public option Schumer had mocked up. They all negotiated in good faith and it looked like Harry Reid was a fucking genius. And then Lieberman fucked the caucus.
I have no love for Ben Nelson but there is something incredibly unfair and dishonest about lumping him in with Lieberman in this.
The Raven
I am glad to hear that Johnsen has been renominated, but wonder if she will be left to twist in the wind for another year. We corvids are very interested.
Emanuel was a Blue Dog long before he became part of the Obama administration. He was instrumental in pushing through NAFTA which, in turn, contributed to the loss of the House to the Republicans in 1994. He was a supporter of the Iraqi war in 2002.
Tell me again why I am supposed to think well of him or the man who hired him? I must have missed something, somewhere.
The Raven
& don’t you dare point at Obama’s small improvements. They do not make up for writing the banks and insurance companies a blank check, for the failure to support Main Street, or for the havoc the health care bill is going to wreak on the middle class.
BTW, Joe Lieberman was Obama’s mentor in the Senate and would have been stripped of his Senate influence if Obama had not protected him.
DougL (frmrly: Conservatively Liberal)
@The Raven:
It’s clear that you are looking for an argument and nothing more than that. You’re absolutely correct about everything, you have it nailed down like nobody else on the internet.
Now take that to the bank and see what it gets ya.
Uriel
@mr. whipple:
This. This, and and endlessly this.
Hell, I even used to wander by fire dog lake once a day or two not that long ago. Now I’m beginning to realize that the Jane Hamshires of the left are only tolerable to the extent that their tenancy towards chicken-little hyperbole is matched with the objective reality of having an administration that is the equivalent of throwing Darth Vader, Baron Harkonen and Anton Chigurh into a blender set to “extra-fucking-crazy.”
Introduce a situation where the sky isn’t exactly falling, but doesn’t quite encompass the range of bright baby blues to cozy coral hues you’d hoped for, despite the simple dictates of reality that politics encompasses, and suddenly-
WHAM!
They devolve into a sparking, corroded puddle of directionless seething over imagined slights, vague umbrage, and grandiose self-importance.
What with pearl clutching over this current outrage, the failure of the Obama admin. to completely nationalize the banking system, his failure to pass a HCR bill that God himself couldn’t have even pushed thought the house, not being able to somehow travel back in time to undo the Bush’s TARP bailouts and his complete failure to legalize gay marriage, cannabis, and purple unicorns in all fifty states in his first two weeks in office- It’s gotten to the point where I’m wondering if I’ll have any on-line venues left when ’12 rolls around.
I mean, on the one hand, the idea of holding Obama’s feet to the fire is a good and necessary thing- on the other hand, french kissing your acetylene blow-torch every night before passing out in ecstasy over what imagined slight the morow might bring, is another.
Ailuridae
@The Raven:
Blue Dog is a caucus within the Democratic membership in the house. How, exactly. could Rahm have been a Blue Dog before he joined the House? And, why, if he were a blue dog did he caucus with the DLCers who are far to the left of the Blue Dogs? And why if he was a Blue Dog did he have the most liberal voting record of anyone in the DLC caucus? How many people in the Blue Dogs receive 100s from NARAL and zeroes from the NRA?
Do you know anything of his voting record as a Rep? Or do you not know what a Blue Dog is?
Honestly, the FDL-bots would be more entertaining if they could make coherent arguments.
kay
@The Raven:
You haven’t made a persuasive argument on any “havoc” the health care bill is going to create “in the middle class”.
In fact, the numbers would indicate that the poor and lower middle class benefit most from this bill, which is why “kill the bill” opponents pivoted (once that was made clear to you, despite a lot of nattering about concern for “the poor” ) and decided to predict the dire political ramifications on the “middle class”, without a shred of data.
I am glad you’ve (finally) dropped the whole “the base loathes Obama” theme, which was never indicated by polling.
Obama polls well with Democrats, and the group he polls best with are the people who don’t have health insurance.
The same people who are going to be subject to any mandate.
College-educated white people have health insurance. 94% of them.
Maybe we should ask the people who don’t have health insurance if they’re happy about reform, since they’re the people who are affected, and they’re the people who approve of Obama’s work on this, although (apparently) they are suddenly and inexplicably no longer the “Democratic base”.
The Raven
@DougL (frmrly: Conservatively Liberal): just trying to change a few minds.
What you said–it is what I heard from Bush supporters over and over. It took years for reality to penetrate. Some people still believe.
Can you refute what I have written? Emanuel, Lieberman, and Obama; the bailout for the largest banks and insurance companies and not Main Street–it is all as I have said. Only my remarks about the impact of the health care plan–the health insurance plan–on the middle class are debatable. Up to a few months ago, at least Obama had not involved us in another war. Now there is Yemen.
Just who is reality based here?
kay
@The Raven:
There’s another fantasy that’s been promoted endlessly on Kos and FDL and elsewhere, and it’s this: the gap in enthusiasm between Democratic and Republican voters indicate Democrats are unhappy with Obama.
But that was never the analysis, and never the reality before.
Democrats were enthusiastic in 2006 and 208 not because they were happy with leadership, but because they were unhappy. That’s always been the analysis, that voter dissatisfaction drives turnout.
Kos gets a set of numbers that indicate Democrats aren’t as likely to turn out as Republicans and he turns the accepted explanation for that on its head, and declares that means Democrats are unhappy? WTF?
Republicans are more motivated because they oppose Obama. Democrats are less motivated because they support him, and he’s in power. 6 months ago this would have been the obvious conclusion on any enthusiasm gap. Now, inexplicably and suddenly, we have an alternate explanation, one that fits the theme. That’s not reality based. That’s looking at a set of numbers and making it fit a conclusion.
The Raven
@kay: “the poor and lower middle class benefit most from this bill.”
On average. Do you want to explain to group who don’t benefit, and there will be some, why it is that they’re getting the shaft while the insurance companies are getting the money–their money? Do you want to explain to the people with the good health care plans why their plans are being taxed, probably out of existence?
People don’t yet realize the deal they’re getting. Once it shows up in their wallets and they find out how bad the insurance they are now required to purchase is, conveniently after the next Presidential election, then, matters may shift. Or maybe not. Think of how many people still think that “deregulation” is good for them and the USA, even as it destroys their livelihoods and savings.
“The base” is the people who are going to come out and work campaigns; not Democrats in general. That’s mostly progressives, who the administration has stiffed in many ways.
DougL (frmrly: Conservatively Liberal)
@Uriel:
This. And…
Fucking GOLD. Right up there with John’s “tire rims and anthrax” comment.
@The Raven: “Can you refute what I have written?”
Wrong question. How about: “Do you want to waste your time arguing with a brick wall?”
No, but thanks for asking.
Ailuridae
@kay:
Obama polls well with Democrats, and the group he polls best with are the people who don’t have health insurance
That’s such bullshit. You are your fucking facts. Fuck your facts.
The Raven
@Ailuridae:
Emanuel (it surprises me how many people seem to be on a first-name basis with him), through his White House career, was one of the people who made the Blue Dogs possible and powerful–they were formed in 1995, after the Democratic loss of the House, which Emanuel contributed to.
Ailuridae
@The Raven:
Do you want to explain to the people with the good health care plans why their plans are being taxed, probably out of existence?
How many times can you refute one line of argumentation before someone stops making it?
Explain how a family plan being valued at 28K when the excise tax kicks in at 24K poses an existential threat to that person’s insurance? Hint: you can’t.
Ailuridae
@The Raven:
So yeah, I take it you conceded that Rahm isn’t a Blue Dog. That’s a charming argumentative tactic you have there: make shit up out of whole cloth, get caught in an out and out lie and then dissemble some more about the matter.
kay
@The Raven:
An excise tax on 20% of a health care plan that exceeds TWENTY SIX THOUSAND DOLLARS annually in value is “taxing them out of existence?” Cry me a river, Raven. You were receiving a tax exemption so your employer could funnel 20% of your wages to private insurance companies. “Liberals” are now protecting that absolute give-away to insurance companies? It’s a fucking gift to insurance companies, using the tax code. I mean, really, the hypocrisy on this is just ridiculous.
You know, Raven, is pisses me off to no end that you started this campaign with with concern for “the poor”. I think you’re using those people dishonestly to pursue this.
Once you finally, finally were forced to accept that this was the largest expansion of health care for the poor and lower middle class in 40 years, you pivoted and started crying over an excise tax on that portion of health care benefits that exceed better than 26k a year.
I read Kos and it’s like reading a right wing site. You leave half the data out and you switch tactics once you’re trounced on facts.
All you’re going to do is convince the 30 million people who directly benefit from this bill that they shouldn’t credit Obama or Democrats with any benefit to them. How do I know this? Because you succeeded in doing that with the stimulus. Tens of millions of people benefitted from the stimulus, with everything from increases to unemployment checks, to hiring on infrastructure to retaining teachers and cops, to shaving TWO FULL POINTS off the unemployment rate. That’s what the stimulus did, Raven. That’s what happened. You won’t find that on Kos, but the stimulus was a big success.
Thanks to liberals allying with conservatives to trash the stimulus, no one knows that. You’ll do the same with health care reform.
Ailuridae
@kay:
You just saved me a lot of typing. Thanks!
kay
@The Raven:
I’m afraid what happened with the stimulus is going to happen with health care. The stimulus directly benefited millions of people. Just the aid to states alone was an absolute lifeline for the unemployed.
Liberals, allied with conservatives, have somehow managed to make that (admittedly partial) success a failure.
That’s not just wrong on the facts. It’s goddamn stupid. Here’s a hint: if you want to sell liberal economic policy, don’t trash the program that is called ‘the stimulus” where 60% of the money went to liberal economic policy aims. It’s the dumbest political move I believe I have ever witnessed. You happily allied with conservatives to discredit your own ideas, because they were only 60% your ideas. That’s just dumb.
kay
@The Raven:
I mean, there’s a reccomended diary on Kos that suggests taxing all Medicare beneficiaries to replace the excise tax. ALL beneficiaries. To avoid an excise tax on 20% of 26k in health insurance, “liberals” are now promoting the idea that lower middle class Medicare beneficiaries should pay more taxes?
That’s a conservative argument. Conservatives are, right now, promoting the idea that we have to “broaden” the tax base. That means tax lower middle class people.
You guys have gone full circle. All of these tax arguments you’re using could have been penned by Grover Norquist.
slightly_peeved
The US will get progressive policies like the rest of the world has when they start winning elections like progressives in the rest of the world can. Simple as that.
Progressives in the US don’t win many elections. Either because the US electorate is not particularly progressive, or because they are but US progressives are lousy at campaigning. Not sure which myself.
Blaming Obama, a conservative in any country other than the US, for this sounds a bit unfair.
And he did, you know, work to turn the collapse of the US banks from a financial Chernobyl to a mere financial Three Mile Island. That was pretty important. I liked that.
Mary
I haven’t been here in a couple of days but I’m gobsmacked that the FDL crew is here and everywhere else on the internets making these roundly debunked arguments on healthcare, in the middle of the night, no less. Is Grover paying overtime, boys?
MNPundit
Liberals != Progressives.
How stupid can you fucking be?
DougL (frmrly: Conservatively Liberal)
@Mary:
I think it’s pretty entertaining but I’m not trying to have a real conversation with them, that’s far less productive than playing Internet Whack-A-Mole. ;)
The far left has gone so far left that now they are shaking hands with the far right. You can’t reason with the far right and the same thing is happening to the far left, they are going beyond reason and into black helicopter territory.
Mary
@DougL (frmrly: Conservatively Liberal): Yes, it’s whack-a-mole, all right. But I really don’t understand the bizarre intensity of their self-promotional attempts to persuade the entirety of the internets as to the rightness of their position. What’s the point? Panicked reaction as to imminent loss of status or position? Honking large paycheck? Mania?
Mary
@DougL (frmrly: Conservatively Liberal): I think what’s most notable, aside from the fact that they have adopted right wing arguments, is that they have no sense of humor. None.
They make BOB look good.
brantl
I agree with a bunch of what you say, JC, but there’s still a bunch of stuff that the Obama administration is defending that the Bush administration did, that is completely mystifying. I have a couple of lawyer brothers-in-law, and they are just as confused, so it’s not just legal mumbo-jumbo. He could do better than this.
And it’s pretty hard to keep your sense of humor, when times are as bad as the leftovers of the Bush administration has made them.
Mary
@brantl: Well this blog is rolling in laughter, every single day, last time I checked.
gelfling545
I really believe that some of these people would be happier if McCain/Palin had won the election. They need someone to hate and Obama makes it hard to do that reasonably. Do I like everything Obama has done? No. Do I think he’s miles better that McCain/Palin? Oh yeah.
Michael D.
I don’t see Sonny Crockett in this list!? Where is Sonny Crockett?
They!
Are!
A!
Team!
Goddammit!
eemom
@bmaz:
“It is my unmitigated assertion….”
To paraphrase Jon Stewart to Tucker Carlson, you’re just as much of a pompous ass on this blog as you are on your own.
kay
@bmaz:
Why don’t you get the sixty on record? That would be a worthwhile thing to do, instead of rampant speculation.
There are plenty of “national security” Democrats, and some of them were absolutely complicit in the abuses during the Bush WOT. They have an absolute interest in blocking confirmation, and they have an absolute interest in pretending they aren’t.
Get them to commit publicly to confirmation. Get Feinstien on Lieberman on record, to commit to a final vote, not a committee vote. Get Jim Webb.
scott
“I want my reality-based community back. Where did you all go?”
They/we probably took a break from you out of sheer exhaustion at having to listen to you prattle on and on and on and on about what a bunch of assholes we all are.
We still love ya John but even us patient and understanding progressives can only take so much of your crazy aunt in the attic shtick before all we can hear from you is “blah blah blah blah”.
NobodySpecial
@eemom:
Mirrors? Mirrors? We are ALL guilty of that on this blog.
onceler
Wowsers, it sure is easy to attack totally made up, cartoonish points of view than, you know, real arguments. As someone who knows a close relative of Dawn Johnsen, I can tell you there is some real bitterness regarding the timidity with which her nomination was handled when it became clear the the Repubs were going full obstructionist. Dems could either have pulled together, or enabled the Blue Dogs. They did the latter. Put your hands over your eyes and ears all you want for this behavior, but it fails every time. Every single time. But whatever, clap louder! Be happy! This is the best we can do!
Phoenix Woman
@General Winfield Stuck:
DKos is almost unusable now for that very reason — it’s like the 2007-8 primary season again. People are now HRing folks for the slightest of pretexts. Used to be that if people would simply avoid diaries they didn’t like and let them scroll off the diary sidebar and into oblivion. Nowadays the goal is apparently to attack and punish the diarists for daring to say something the attackers don’t like.
onceler
@scott: right, agreed. what do you expect when you set out to insult your own readers? A lot of people are wondering the same thing (where’d the reality-based community go?) about places like this blog. The criticism of the progressive point of view here is certainly not reality-based. The straw men here have been beaten to death over and over and over. It doesn’t get any more convincing the more we see it played out. It just looks sad and desperate at this point.
4jkb4ia
bmaz is here! He wrote it so I didn’t have to! What I was going to write is this:
bmaz made a mistake that the nomination is dead. bmaz did NOT make a mistake that although Obama may have “overestimated the level of Republican perfidy in the Senate” all that he had to get was one vote. This one vote could have been Ben Nelson who is now in so much trouble over HCR and the pro-life issue he had to appear in a state advertisement. This one vote could also have been Snowe or Collins. Although Obama has to walk in many different directions and chew gum at the same time, don’t overestimate the effort it takes to get one vote if the nomination is a priority to you. Dawn Johnsen would report to Holder. She would be not part of the inner circle in the way that Greg Craig was. However, if you want to dismantle the Bush-era legal claims, you go to Congress for the powers you can legally have, but you also have her there to interpret those powers honestly and overturn the claims from the office they came from.
And I am very pleased that bmaz seems to have forgiven me for the imprecations I made about him and Brett Favre.
kay
@4jkb4ia:
I just think it’s incredibly naive to think there are 59 Democrats in the Senate who are eager to dismantle the Bush-era legal claims.
To believe that, you have to believe all of the Democrats in the Senate were unaware of the outlines of those Bush-era programs, and opposed them.
They weren’t. They didn’t.
We just watched those same Democrats pass legislation to disallow Holder from bringing detainees to the US. We just saw them do that. Doesn’t that tell you something?
Why do you continue to assume Obama is blocking Democratic Senators from doing what they want to do? Does that make any sense?
Xenos
@kay:
Considering the marginal tax rates of most people getting health care plans exceeding $26,000 per year, an excise tax of 20% is damn generous. We could always just cap the deduction at $26,000 and most people on these plans would be paying 25-35% on the difference, or whatever bite the AMT would be taking on the excess.
But no, give the folks a flat tax and they act like you are going all Eisenhower on their asses.
kay
@4jkb4ia:
Obama starts with the benefit of the doubt on Johnsen for one reason: he chose her. The Democrats in the Senate didn’t choose her, he did.
Once it gets to the Senate, it’s their turn to show they support this person.
So how did this end up backward? How did the person who chose her end up as the person most likely to block her nomination? What evidence is there for that? Common sense tells you it should go the other way. If I were looking for why her nomination didn’t go forward, I’d look to the obvious: the Democrats in the Senate. I’d particularly look to the Democrats who 1. were complicit in Bush-era abuses, and 2. showed us they had no intention of revealing-reversing those abuses when they voted to block detainee transfer to the US.
What is the logical, chain of events reasoning that gets you to Obama, and assumes 60 Democrats?
General Winfield Stuck
@Phoenix Woman:
This whining about us mean “not progressive enough” meanies bashing the “the true progressive dfh’s” is imo ,highly similar to the Malkin School of WATB’s passive aggressive school of poor little meism. It is sad to see, though educational at the same time. The beatings will not stop however, until the prima donna preening from the pure does. And fuck a bunch a morale.
valdivia
For the last time–recess appointments are temporary. They last only one year. Doing this with important appointments is stupid because you have to get started again with a new person after that year. Bush did this because he did not care about governing.
4jkb4ia
Where did I say that Obama is blocking Democratic Senators from doing what they want to do? Where did I say that Obama has any power over Joe Lieberman whatsoever, for that matter? Harry Reid has the power to punish Joe Lieberman. Joe Lieberman’s behavior in this whole sordid affair shows that he is running away from his Democratic constituents who made their will very clear in polls. Even if Obama had made more of a “principled stand” in Westen-speak so that people can say, “The President is for these things, X, Y, and Z, and I will get behind the President”, Joe Lieberman does not have to think that his political future is tied to the President.
Allowing Congress to shape the powers you will have is already a disavowal of Bush who presided over a thicket of lies and distortions to Congress and threatened to veto anything Congress gave him which touched accountability for the abuses of power that Congress knew about at the same time as everybody else. What I meant to say was that with something like where enemy combatants can be tried, Obama has the power to do whatever he wants to them. Ultimately Congress has the power to define the military commissions, who should appear before them, and what rules of evidence they should use. An OLC opinion can do none of that.
I wanted to join in the Daily Kos bashing. An environment where bonddad can be driven away and is taken up for THREE WHOLE DAYS with dividing into pro- and anti-Jane Hamsher camps with 1000-comment posts because they seem more comfortable with personal attacks than strategizing can’t be described as anything other than toxic. OTOH the commentary on hekebolos’s original diary on Dorgan was pretty good, and the front pagers are trying to remain sane.
kay
@4jkb4ia:
You’re saying it over and over again, every time something gets to Congress. It’s nonsensical. Too, your singular focus on Lieberman is naive, IMO. Of course he doesn’t want Bush-era legal abuses rectified or investigated, but he’s not alone in that. How do I know that? Because we had a whole passel of “national security” Democrats who were all but rubber-stamping Bush-era legal abuses, after 911, and I haven’t seen a whole lot of action since 2006 to undo that.
How is Obama blocking her confirmation? You’re telling me he put her up, changed his mind or somehow tricked you, and then was able to force the Democrats to change their minds too?
What about this: certain Democrats in Congress have and had no intention of uncovering or rectifying Bush-era legal abuses because they either rubber-stamped them, or were actively complicit in them.
4jkb4ia
@kay:
Well, here is the latest from Main Justice on this nomination. You are correct. Specter and Nelson are against it. Specter was a Republican for all of the Bush abuses.
A thread which John didn’t notice, which preceded this one, was about the a) slow and b) centrist appointment of judges by the administration. In that case everybody is responsible. The Senate is responsible for not confirming the ones who get out of committee because the Republicans feel like being jerks on everything. Obama is responsible for not nominating them. The WH counsel’s office, which vets them, may be responsible too. I think the question in my first comment is not who is responsible but how important it is to Obama to have her there.
Crust
Well, the people who are angriest with Obama are the Tea-Partiers. I must keep missing it when they tell us “they” elected Obama.
Me too.
kay
@4jkb4ia:
Of course, it is entirely possible Obama also doesn’t want Bush-era legal abuses overturned or rectified, along with several Democrats in the Senate.
But what would tend to go against that, in Johnsen’s narrow case anyway, is the fact that Obama chose her.
kay
@4jkb4ia:
I’m asking you to go a little further than Specter, who is, in my opinion, completely dishonest and dishonorable.
Just go back to what we know about the immediate aftermath of 911, and how Dems were fucking falling all over each other to give Bush a blank check on just about everything.
I have to tell you I knew it wasn’t going to easy to undo some of this abuses, or launch inquiries. Not because of Republicans, not solely. Because some of the Democrats had to be complicit, and may still endorse these things.
Joy
I’m still here, but don’t comment much because everyone usually has voiced my thoughts. I’m not going anywhere. This is my bastion of sanity. Don’t go to FDL or TalkLeft anymore. I’ve recently found BooMan though and enjoy his blog and community.
Da Bomb
I am still here too. It’s one of the few places, I venture to. Also Booman, Al Giordano, Bob Cesca, and WeeSeeYou.
Margaret and Helen should write more often and I still read Nate Silver, Sadly NO!, and The Mudflats occasionally.
I stopped reading DKOS and HuffPo a long time ago.
FDL was never on my radar, other than TBogg.
Da Bomb
Oh and Cleek’s comment rocks!!
4jkb4ia
@kay:
Whatever I said that gave you that impression, I have respect for Congress as a separate branch of government. Simply because the Congress and the President are of the same party doesn’t mean the President always magically gets his way. In fact, FDR could not get anything major through Congress, which was dominated by his party, after the fiasco with packing the Court. Bill Clinton is Exhibit B. Even if Ben Nelson isn’t one of the old segregationists he is very popular in his state with his consistent record of bucking his party.
Joe Lieberman is important because the Democrats have 60 votes only with the goodwill of Lieberman, who isn’t a Democrat.
When you put it that way, Obama is not blocking her confirmation. Specter and Nelson are, and the Republican who wouldn’t give unanimous consent to hold the nomination over. Let me be clear: there is “Obama won’t fight when he has difficulty”, or “Obama doesn’t know how to fight when he has difficulty”. This meme goes back to Obama vs. Edwards in Blogtopia because Edwards supporters were definitely pushing it. I think that is the meme in bmaz’s post. Then there is “Obama really controls everything because people are afraid of Rahm”. That’s a conspiracy theory. Bmaz didn’t write that in that post. The 400-comment post I didn’t read all the way through yet.
4jkb4ia
@kay:
But the point is that Obama has got 58 votes from that side for Johnsen so they are willing to overlook their complicity for the President’s nominee. Whether they are willing to overlook their complicity on something like fixing PATRIOT now that we have some distance from that time is clearly something different.
The Raven
A few more remarks:
“Talking to a brick wall” is how every progressive victory in begins. Progressives can’t take the walls down, but we can mark them for demolition.
To me it seems that Obama’s supporters are reduced to fighting to defend the heels of poisoned loaves: in civil rights, in foreign policy, in banking and finance, in labor, in industrial policy, in health care, in environmentalism, in women’s rights.
Emanuel helped make the Blue Dogs possible in the Clinton administration and is their ally in this administration.
The CBO does not agree with the claims made in defense of the health insurance excise tax. It neither contains costs, nor is necessary to finance the reforms. It will harm unions and will therefore be an economic depressant: when unions lose, the majority of employees, union or non-, lose.
While Obama’s approval ratings among Democrats remains high, as of last week, polling indicates that the number of Democrats who are planning to vote is 45%, as opposed to 75% of Republicans. The Democratic Party will have to make a great effort to get out the vote in 2010. Most of the progressives who usually work on such efforts are currently demoralized by the Obama administration’s conservatism. It is difficult to see what the Democrats can do to mobilize their base in the coming year, though it is possible that “declaring victory” will work.
Croak!
EL
@valdivia:
Obama usually plays a long game. In addition to the appointment only lasting a year, he can also highlight Republican obstructionism.
General Winfield Stuck
Yea, that’s what it is. Head to desk.
oh NoeS !! This isn’t really hap hap happening.
I guess then we Obots will all just have to humble ourselves and kiss Jane Hamsher’s ass at regular intervals. NOT>
kay
@4jkb4ia:
I think you’re naive if you think he has 58 for progressive issues.
Show me the votes. No one has been able to show me 50 for a public option.
I think members of Congress generally come out publicly in support of issues they plan to insist on. When they don’t, I don’t count them in the “yes” column. While I completely loathe Joe Lieberman, I’m not running around deluding my self that Feinstien is some Rule of Law civil libertarian, and Lieberman is the only tough on terra Democrat.
Again: if you want Johnsen nominated, get 60 on record supporting confirmation. Obama put her up. The burden is on the Democrats in Congress to show they support her.
kay
@The Raven:
The party in power always has to make a greater effort to get voters out. Look at Congress in 2006, and the Presidential election in 2008. Democrats were out in droves because they opposed the Party in power.
I thought you guys were activists? This is activism 101. The party in power has the less motivated electorate.
eemom
@Phoenix Woman:
“Nowadays the goal is apparently to attack and punish the diarists for daring to say something the attackers don’t like.”
oh, you mean the way anybody who doesn’t kiss Jane Hamsher’s ass is attacked and banned over at your place?
There are fewer and fewer commenters there who don’t, in fact, kiss Jane’s ass. Funny that.
kay
@The Raven:
Raven, you’re down to the excise tax. You know that, right? Your principled objection to this is reduced to an opposition to a tax on that portion of your private health insurance that exceeds 26,000 in value.
People paid minimum wage in this country, average 15,132 dollars a year. Total. You’re objecting to a tax on that part of a tax exempt benefit that exceeds 26,000 a year.
You can’t defend this on progressive grounds. You can defend it on fairness grounds, and I would agree with you. I think there should be other taxes on high income earners, in addition to the excise tax. But you can’t defend this on classic progressive grounds. Because your big objection is to a tax on a tax exempt benefit, and that benefit goes to private insurers.
eemom
@kay:
Kudos to you for continuing to try to explain reality to these brick wall fantasy dwellers, but I fear it’s a hopeless task.
General Winfield Stuck
@kay:
Kay, the folks like Raven know that full well. They are in full PUMA mode now, and pumping out bS memes are the order of the day. FActs don’t figure into the trollage propaganda. They are past serious and factual criticism of Obama and now oppose him. Not all of the dissenters, but the ones who cough up nonsense like Raven in this thread have jumped the loyal dissent shark.
edit- and as far as electoral politics is concerned they are no different or better than the wingnuts, and this is how i for one will treat them. Nope, they are worse than the wingnuts. in my book
kay
@eemom:
I just read the SEIU statement (released today) and they didn’t mention opposition to the excise tax. So, that’s an interesting omission. I have a theory on that, eemom!
I have to work this afternoon so I’ll spare you-all for a little while :)
I promise I’ll shut the hell up.
eemom
@General Winfield Stuck:
“Nope, they are worse than the wingnuts. in my book.”
and in mine. If they get their way they are going to deliver us right back into the dark ages of republican rule.
So I guess it’s fitting that they are now the teabaggers’ allies.
les
Thank you, gentle commenters, for absolutely demonstrating John’s cry for the loss of the reality based.
Xenos
How do the firepups think the surcharge is going to apply? They don’t think that a plan costing $26,001 per year will have an excise tax of $5,200.20, do they? Am I wrong in assuming they have a basic understanding of how taxation works?
I guess I need to go over there and ask…
shep
Yawn.
Who was Obama talking about? That would be Billy, 11-time-visitor-to-the-White-House-during-the-negotiations-to-keep-paying-more-than-anyone-else-in-the-world-for-prescription-drugs Tauzin.
Liberals may be cranky but, for the most part, they’re not sounding irrational. You…?
lol
@Phoenix Woman:
This is pretty funny coming from someone that’s consistently supported the crowd that’s turned DK into a cesspool of wanna-be tea-baggers.
You’re one of the biggest FDL tools on the site.
lol
@eemom:
Actually, I’d say the tide has turned against the firebaggers on DailyKos. Phoenix Woman is part of the die-hard crowd of 40-50 firebaggers that mindlessly rec up anything anti-Obama. They’ve raised their profile because they’re well-organized (and the front-pagers are generally clueless) and always rec up the FDL shit right away, instantly propelling it to the wreck list. But if you look at the FDL critical diaries, they get waaaaay more recs than anything Jane’s attack dog ever wrote.
After months of organized bullying, they’re whining that the rest of the site is standing up to them. Wah wah. Cry someone else.
blackwaterdog
@mr. whipple:
Oh man, me too. I stopped visiting 90% of the places i use to check 3 times a day. The Obama-Hate scares me to death. People lost their collective minds. They ignore reality, they ignore the horrible mess this president was “awarded” when he came in, thy ignore the incredible amount of good things that he’s done this past year – They just kick him in the balls every day and twice on a Sunday.
It’s a glorious display of self-destruction.