Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

It’s pointless to bring up problems that can only be solved with a time machine.

Republicans firmly believe having an abortion is a very personal, very private decision between a woman and J.D. Vance.

… gradually, and then suddenly.

Do not shrug your shoulders and accept the normalization of untruths.

with the Kraken taking a plea, the Cheese stands alone.

If you thought you’d already seen people saying the stupidest things possible on the internet, prepare yourselves.

Motown is Joe-Town!

Why is it so hard for them to condemn hate?

Republicans: The threats are dire, but my tickets are non-refundable!

You cannot shame the shameless.

“The difference between stupidity and genius is that genius has its limits.”

When someone says they “love freedom”, rest assured they don’t mean yours.

You know it’s bad when the Project 2025 people have to create training videos on “How To Be Normal”.

The words do not have to be perfect.

fuckem (in honor of the late great efgoldman)

Beware of advice from anyone for whom Democrats are “they” and not “we.”

This year has been the longest three days of putin’s life.

Republicans want to make it harder to vote and easier for them to cheat.

Nikki Haley, who can’t acknowledge ‘slavery’, is a pathetic shill.

My years-long effort to drive family and friends away has really paid off this year.

“Can i answer the question? No you can not!”

Let’s not be the monsters we hate.

White supremacy is terrorism.

“I was told there would be no fact checking.”

You are here: Home / Tear-stained letter

Tear-stained letter

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This is truly an excellent take-down of David Sirota’s latest whine-fest (which adds “shame” and “humiliation” to the usual “under the bus/slap in the face” imagery):

I’d rather read Kathleen Parker every day, and Cal Thomas twice on Sundays, than David Sirota. At least those two conservative warhorses don’t file columns spattered with bitter tears when they don’t get exactly what they want.

And while John is the hippie-puncher-in-chief around here, I’d be remiss if I didn’t include this picture:

idiot_hippies

(from guess where)

Reader Interactions

125Comments

  1. 1.

    NobodySpecial

    Somehow progressives who worked hard for Obama’s election — like millions of other Americans — think they deserve special privileges that the rest of us don’t get.

    He must mean health care.

  4. 4.

    Uriel

    Oh, for fuck’s sakes. That picture is just too god damned precious for words.

    Literally. I have no words.

  7. 7.

    Rottenchester

    I hesitated to publish that cartoon because it was a little too subtle. What’s the affiliation of the first woman under the bus? I can’t figure it out.

  8. 8.

    nepat

    Hamsher, Sirota, Greenwald, Joan Walsh, Arianna Huffington, etc. If they were standing next to the Overton Window, I’d push them out.

  11. 11.

    Rottenchester

    @NobodySpecial:

    He must mean health care.

    No, I mean single-payer (which Obama didn’t even campaign on), without any compromises, by magic, immediately. Since that didn’t happen, David Sirota is looking in the mirror experiencing his shame for supporting Obama.

  12. 12.

    Rottenchester

    @MikeJ:

    I’m just guessing about the guy with the theta t shirt.

    You mean if I’m clear, I don’t get thrown under the bus by Obama? Somebody get me an e-meter.

  15. 15.

    DougJ

    In what possible way did Obama throw unions under the bus? I’m very pro-union and even I think he’s caved to them too much.

  16. 16.

    Rottenchester

    @beltane: If Jane Hamsher had a starring role in an anime feature, perhaps. Though I think most anime has a more reasonable plot than some recent FDL posts.

  17. 17.

    dr. bloor

    @beltane:

    She looks like Jane Hamsher, don’t you think?

    Does the fact that she looks like she’s channeling Dick Nixon make it more or less likely that it’s supposed to be Hamsher?

  18. 18.

    Roger Moore

    @MikeJ:

    I’m just guessing about the guy with the theta t shirt.

    I think it’s supposed to be an environmentalist with a green shirt. The theta is actually a no something sign, but you can’t see what it is that he’s protesting against.

  21. 21.

    Comrade Scrutinizer

    @MikeJ: The theta is the old symbol for Earth Day (although the original symbol was green, not white). That there’s a hippie treehugger what got run under the bus.

  22. 22.

    DougJ

    why do the hippies under the bus look like they’re having such a good time?

    They live for getting thrown under the bus. Isn’t that obvious by now?

  23. 23.

    Pangloss

    Can you raise both your hands and clap ’em
    Can you say, “sure, I’ll always try”
    Can you make friends among people and animals
    Basically, everything is easy
    Give it a try, you’ll see I’m right
    Cause if a mouse can be special, well so can you

    And my name is Mickey Mouse
    To my right is Minnie Mouse
    And we own a little place in Disneyland, California

  24. 24.

    fasteddie

    Whining is right. We have only been able to get the window from waaaay right to center-right. But they want their cake NOW. Like Veruca Salt.

  26. 26.

    scudbucket

    Save the minutes on your cell phones: Obama (apparently) wants to finish up with healthcare after Brown is seated. See TPM.

  27. 27.

    beltane

    @baxie: Because if they were in the bus no one would see them, which is far worse than being under the bus, especially an inflatable bus, which this one obviously is. Being thrown under the bus is a badge of authenticity.

    This is starting to feel like the 90’s all over again, when I somehow managed to simultaneously hate the Republicans while despising almost every faction on the left. But at least back then I was younger and had a lot more disposable income.

  29. 29.

    NobodySpecial

    @Rottenchester:

    Well, that makes no sense, since single payer is something everyone gets, not just progressives.

    Do you think maybe the writer just disagrees with Sirota and instead of arguing what Sirota wrote, just makes up something to rant about? ;P

  30. 30.

    Uriel

    @baxie: I think that’s supposed to suggest that they’re all o-rahm-atrons or sheeple or some such. Lured to their cruel demise by the One’s Hopey Changey Spechifying. ™

    You know, as opposed to the smart serious people who move the levers of the world towards justice and righteousness by the puissant mechanism of bitching on the internet and drawing cartoons. And, of course, their own indomitable will.

    But that’s just my interpretation. Great art is often subjective.

  32. 32.

    Corner Stone

    @FormerSwingVoter: I swear to God I looked around for The Onion banner for like 10 minutes.
    Xenos – I apologize to you. *This* was in fact the funniest thing I have ever read on the internet.

  33. 33.

    Corner Stone

    “Here’s one thing I know and I just want to make sure that this is off the table. The Senate certainly shouldn’t try to jam anything through until Scott Brown is seated,” Obama said. “People in Massachusetts spoke. He’s got to be part of that process.”

    “It is very important to look at the substance of this package and for the American people to understand that a lot of the fear mongering around this bill isn’t true,” he said.

    Asked about Obama’s comments, Press Secretary Robert Gibbs said the White House still doesn’t have a concrete plan on how to move forward with health care.

  36. 36.

    andy

    Count me in with the hippies…politicians may need to compromise, activist don’t. If we don’t tell them what we want, how will we get it?

  37. 37.

    Chyron HR

    “Orahma’s killing the bill! This is pissing all over the true leftists who demanded that the bill be killed!”

  39. 39.

    Just Some Fuckhead

    Awesome, I was really chafing under John’s call to work together towards the 90% we agree on.

    So tell me more about this solidarity with Kathleen Parker and Cal Thomas.

  41. 41.

    Comrade Scrutinizer

    @beltane: You’re right about it starting to look like the 90’s redux. One of the nice things about my political orientation is that damn near everyone in the good ol’ US of A is to the right of me. Since my vision of Socialist Utopia has no danger of appearing on these shores in my lifetime (or that of my children and soon to be spawned grandchildren) I don’t get too invested in the childish games that the Near Right play—I’m just amazed that they seem to be getting more and more clueless at how the political game works. The Repubs, bless ’em, are a bunch of fucking feudalists who won’t be happy until we’re all peasants working for the lord of the manor again, but they understand power, and how to use it. And when they are out of power, they know how to minimize the impact of being in the minority. With the possible exception of LBJ, I don’t think we’ve had an effective honest-to-Christ liberal running the Executive since FDR.

  42. 42.

    Rottenchester

    @NobodySpecial: I wrote the anti-Sirota tirade. I do try to argue against what Sirota said, insofar as I could distinguish his argument from the tracks of his tears.

    The main argument Sirota makes in that piece is that Democratic leadership didn’t “try hard enough”. He makes that argument because it fits into his Rahm/Obama frame. However, the truth is that a few conservative Democrats slowed down the bill, not Rahm, Harry Reid or Obama.

    I also think that progressives, who say they “elected Obama”, ignore the work of a whole bunch of people who worked hard for Obama yet merely expect him to do the best that he can given the shitty Congress that he’s saddled with. That’s why I accused them of thinking that Obama has a can of fairy dust under his desk that he could use to grant all their wishes, yet he hasn’t done it because Rahm didn’t tell him to. The fact is that the HCR bill that came out of Congress isn’t that far from what Obama campaigned on, and it’s dead now anyway, because Congress spent a year dicking around and couldn’t even pass a pretty middle-of-the-road reform.

  43. 43.

    Comrade Scrutinizer

    @beltane: You’re right about it starting to look like the 90’s redux. One of the nice things about my political orientation is that damn near everyone in the good ol’ US of A is to the right of me. Since my vision of S-word Utopia has no danger of appearing on these shores in my lifetime (or that of my children and soon to be spawned grandchildren) I don’t get too invested in the childish games that the Near Right play—-I’m just amazed that they seem to be getting more and more clueless at how the political game works. The Repubs, bless ‘em, are a bunch of fucking feudalists who won’t be happy until we’re all peasants working for the lord of the manor again, but they understand power, and how to use it. And when they are out of power, they know how to minimize the impact of being in the minority. With the possible exception of LBJ, I don’t think we’ve had an effective honest-to-Christ liberal running the Executive since FDR.

    (reposted because I am rebelling against the stupid POS mod filter.)

  44. 44.

    area man

    I have always sort of assumed that being a progressive meant believing in progress, no matter how infinitesimally small and frustrating that progress may be. That may be my own political naivete showing but I think I’ll continue to call myself a progressive and use some other term for the people who want all their ponies yesterday. It’s been a rough morning, tho’, and I’m out of creative juice so for the nonce I will just go with “reality-divorced tantrum throwing dipshits.”

  45. 45.

    Mnemosyne

    @Chyron HR:

    “Orahma’s killing the bill! This is pissing all over the true leftists who demanded that the bill be killed!”

    Hee. Yes, I, too, am waiting for the 180-degree turn of the “kill the bill” folks having conniptions because the bill was actually killed.

  46. 46.

    Bender

    That will leave a mark! Mort Zuckerman gives The Zero the business end of the shovel in a piece entitled “He’s Done Everything Wrong.”

    This health-care plan is going to be a fiscal disaster for the country. Most of the country wanted to deal with costs, not expansion of coverage. This is going to raise costs dramatically.

    In the campaign, he said he would change politics as usual. He did change them. It’s now worse than it was. I’ve now seen the kind of buying off of politicians that I’ve never seen before. It’s politically corrupt and it’s starting at the top. It’s revolting.

    …Five states got deals on health care—one of them was Harry Reid’s. It is disgusting, just disgusting. I’ve never seen anything like it. The unions just got them to drop the tax on Cadillac plans in the health-care bill. It was pure union politics. They just went along with it. It’s a bizarre form of political corruption. It’s bribery.

    …He’s lost his audience. He has not rallied public opinion. He has plunged in the polls more than any other political figure since we’ve been using polls. He’s done everything wrong. Well, not everything, but the major things.

    One business leader said to me, “In the Clinton administration, the policy people were at the center, and the political people were on the sideline. In the Obama administration, the political people are at the center, and the policy people are on the sidelines.”

    I’m very disappointed. We endorsed him. I voted for him. I supported him publicly and privately.

    …The fiscal program was a disaster…It’s very sad. It’s really sad.

    He’s improved America’s image in the world. He absolutely did. But you have to translate that into something. Let me tell you what a major leader said to me recently. “We are convinced,” he said, “that he is not strong enough to confront his enemy. We are concerned,” he said “that he is not strong to support his friends.”

    In the meantime, the Democrats have recreated the Republican Party. And when I say Democrats, I mean the Obama administration. In the generic vote, the Democrats were ahead something like 52 to 30. They are now behind the Republicans 48 to 44 in the last poll. Nobody has ever seen anything that dramatic.

    Cue the anti-Semites!

  47. 47.

    gex

    As an aside related to the image (in an article about the national prayer possibly being attended by the Ugandan that proposed the death penalty for gays), I think it is reasonable for gays to ask that some sort of objection be raised.

  52. 52.

    Uriel

    @beltane: Sorry, that should have said “Mallard Fillmore.” Which makes more sense.

    Also, that comment should have been moved to requesting deletion before anyone actually noticed it. Which, makes even more sense.

    Or never posted. Which makes the most sense of all.

  53. 53.

    Maxwel

    “Senate certainly shouldn’t try to jam anything through until Scott Brown is seated,” president says

    Certainly not. That wouldn’t be nice and fair. And the banksters wouldn’t approve.

  54. 54.

    NobodySpecial

    @Rottenchester:

    The main argument Sirota makes in that piece is that Democratic leadership didn’t “try hard enough”. He makes that argument because it fits into his Rahm/Obama frame. However, the truth is that a few conservative Democrats slowed down the bill, not Rahm, Harry Reid or Obama.

    I am reminded of the phrase ‘The Buck Stops Here’.

    Reid, Durbin, even Emanuel and Obama have roles to play in advancing legislation. To pretend that the failure of the legislation is all the fault of Conservadems is to ignore the very real role all of the above could have played in convincing them not to stray.

    I also think that progressives, who say they “elected Obama”, ignore the work of a whole bunch of people who worked hard for Obama yet merely expect him to do the best that he can given the shitty Congress that he’s saddled with. That’s why I accused them of thinking that Obama has a can of fairy dust under his desk that he could use to grant all their wishes, yet he hasn’t done it because Rahm didn’t tell him to.

    Well, you’d be at least half wrong. Progressives also expected him to do the best that he can. The fact that he hasn’t seemed to through inaction or ineffectiveness is really really irritating, though.

    Obama called this incredibly important, a cornerstone of his first term. If he can now essentially kill it on his own because one Senate seat switched, why SHOULD progressives or anyone else believe he’s willing to work hard for Democratic principles?

  55. 55.

    Mnemosyne

    @FormerSwingVoter:

    Thanks, let’s-send-a-message-to-the-Democrats-by-not-voting proponents! Looks like the president got your message loud and clear: Democrats won’t turn out to vote for the things they want, so he’s going to have to compromise with the Republicans.

    Funny how that’s the exact opposite of the message you kept claiming you were sending. It’s almost like you weren’t sending the right message at all, isn’t it?

  56. 56.

    Joshua Norton

    I find it hard to believe Sirota was chosen to replace the late progressive columnist Molly Ivins. Molly had a way with words and ideas that was almost magical. David has all the carefree whimsy of a computer manual. Reading his stuff is a weary slog through a dreary swamp. I gave up on it a long time ago.

  57. 57.

    scav

    Oh bother, here. Seems tangetially related and you might as well have more fodder. Probably overlong extract fromNaomi Klein on how corporate branding has taken over America Not a clue how the formatting will look.

    Yet rereading No Logo after 10 years provides many reminders that success in branding can be fleeting, and that nothing is more fleeting than the quality of being cool. Many of the superbrands and branded celebrities that looked untouchable not so long ago have either faded or are in deep crisis today. The Obama brand could well suffer a similar fate. Of course many people supported Obama for straightforward strategic reasons: they rightly wanted the Republicans out and he was the best candidate. But what will happen when the throngs of Obama faithful realise that they gave their hearts not to a movement that shared their deepest values but to a devoutly corporatist political party, one that puts the profits of drug companies before the need for affordable health care, and Wall Street’s addiction to financial bubbles before the needs of millions of people whose homes and jobs could have been saved with a better bailout?…Personally, none of this makes me feel betrayed by Barack Obama. Rather I have a familiar ambivalence, the way I used to feel when brands like Nike and Apple started using revolutionary imagery in their transcendental branding campaigns. All of their high-priced market research had found a longing in people for something more than shopping – for social change, for public space, for greater equality and diversity. Of course the brands tried to exploit that longing to sell lattes and laptops. Yet it seemed to me that we on the left owed the marketers a debt of gratitude for all this: our ideas weren’t as passé as we had been told. And since the brands couldn’t fulfill the deep desires they were awakening, social movements had a new impetus to try.Perhaps Obama should be viewed in much the same way. Once again, the market research has been done for us. What the election and the global embrace of Obama’s brand proved decisively is that there is a tremendous appetite for progressive change – that many, many people do not want markets opened at gunpoint, are repelled by torture, believe passionately in civil liberties, want corporations out of politics, see global warming as the fight of our time, and very much want to be part of a political project larger than themselves..Those kinds of transformative goals are only ever achieved when independent social movements build the numbers and the organisational power to make muscular demands of their elites. Obama won office by ­capitalising on our profound nostalgia for those kinds of social movements. But it was only an echo, a memory. The task ahead is to build movements that are – to borrow an old Coke slogan – the real thing. As Studs Terkel, the great oral historian, used to say: “Hope has never trickled down. It has always sprung up.”.

  58. 58.

    Tom Hilton

    I’d rather read Kathleen Parker every day, and Cal Thomas twice on Sundays, than David Sirota.

    Tangentially, Parker has been inching her way toward sanity over the last year. Ever since she noticed that right-wing lunatics are, in fact lunatics. She’s not in Cole territory yet, but moving in the right direction.

  59. 59.

    Corner Stone

    @Mnemosyne:

    Thanks, let’s-send-a-message-to-the-Democrats-by-not-voting proponents! Looks like the president got your message loud and clear: Democrats won’t turn out to vote for the things they want, so he’s going to have to compromise with the Republicans.

    This is a truly baffling interpretation.

  61. 61.

    Mnemosyne

    @Corner Stone:

    This is a truly baffling interpretation.

    And yet it’s the exact interpretation that I’ve been telling people for weeks the Democratic establishment would put on the election if Brown won. It’s how they always interpret things when Republicans beat Democrats.

    I hate to be fucking Cassandra here, but this is exactly what I told you people would happen if Coakley lost and Brown won.

  62. 62.

    ThatLeftTurnInABQ

    @DougJ:

    They live for getting thrown under the bus. Isn’t that obvious by now?

    I think they were really hoping for something a little bit more dramatic and romantic than that. A sort of Progeragnarök or Twilight of the Progressive Gods, where they get to huddle on top of a hill forming a Rawlsian shield-wall while clutching their broken spears and chanting

    “Heart shall be bolder, harder be purpose,
    more proud the spirit as our power lessens,
    Mind shall not falter nor mood waver,
    though doom shall come and dark conquer.”

    while waiting for night to fall when the trolls come and eat everyone for dinner.

  63. 63.

    Rottenchester

    @NobodySpecial:

    Reid, Durbin, even Emanuel and Obama have roles to play in advancing legislation. To pretend that the failure of the legislation is all the fault of Conservadems is to ignore the very real role all of the above could have played in convincing them not to stray.

    Pretend? Pray tell the form of encouragement that would have gotten Lieberman and Nelson (not to mention Bayh and Lincoln) to support single-payer. There is nothing Obama can do to move those people and work with them afterwards.

    Obama called this incredibly important, a cornerstone of his first term. If he can now essentially kill it on his own because one Senate seat switched, why SHOULD progressives or anyone else believe he’s willing to work hard for Democratic principles?

    How did Obama kill the bill again? Walk me through that logic for a minute. I think he called Nancy Pelosi and found out what Barney Frank said earlier — there aren’t enough votes to ram the Senate bill through the house. There was no need to call Harry Reid, because the count in the Senate is now 59-41.

    But there I go again, pretending Obama needs Congressional approval, when all he needs to do is wave a magic wand. Silly of me.

  64. 64.

    John Cole

    @Just Some Fuckhead: Dude? What happened? You are so off your game no one is even responding to you anymore?

    Are you busy at work and distracted? Is that why you can’t bring your A-game anymore, and instead we get the weak shit you are throwing up the last week?

    This is depressing. This is like watching Larry Legend miss 100 free throws in a row. This is like watching Ali try to punch a wino in the alley and miss and fall on his ass.

    I know you have better than that in you.

  65. 65.

    socraticsilence

    I don’t know if anyone else has seen it (or seen it within the past few years) but I watched Danton again last year, and it strikes me just how similar at this point the attitudes of Robespierre et al and The “tru progessives” are- and I can totally see Obama in the Danton role, just a shame none of them have the intellect or the eloquence of the Incorruptible (and will unlike their role model will duck the proverbial blade).

  66. 66.

    Molly

    @Joshua Norton:

    I find it hard to believe Sirota was chosen to replace the late progressive columnist Molly Ivins.

    Even when she was disgusted, she kept her tongue firmly in cheek. She didn’t whine, ever, and if she did, she’d point it out. “I know I’m whining, ya’all, but I’m pissed as a Penecostal at an Athiest convention.” Stuff like that. Sirota? Whiny titty baby.

    My moniker is a tribute to that fine lady, who’s voice I miss in the midst of all this. Cancer is a flaming bitch that took her too early.

  67. 67.

    jl

    I may have missed other commenters suggesting this, but…

    What use is Lieberman now? The Democrats need some discipline.

  68. 68.

    Davis X. Machina

    “Orahma’s killing the bill! This is pissing all over the true leftists who demanded that the bill be killed!”

    Had a girlfriend like that.

    Do you like my haircut?
    Me: No.
    Tears.

    Do you like my haircut?
    Me: Yes.
    You’re just saying that. Tears.

  69. 69.

    Dennis-SGMM

    The worst part of this whole thing is that it’s likely to lead to a centerfold by Joe Lieberman.

  70. 70.

    liberty60

    Let’s compare the various constituencies of the Dems to those of the GOP;
    For example, abortion opponents have spent every election since 1974 hoping for a Republican President/ Congress/ Senate to outlaw abortion, and what have they got? A few SCOTUS appointments here, a lot of lip service there, but abortion is still legal.
    Do they publish teh hate on St. Ronnie? Do they sit at home and sulk on election day?

    Fuck no.

    The solution to being betrayed by quislings in the party is to primary them with better folks.

    Until we get that chance, grit your teeth and quit giving FNC the sound bites.

  71. 71.

    Tom Q

    Is it me or if Josh Marshall and his gang wildly over-interpreting what Obama said today? It seemed like boilerplate to me, with the real action to be done backstage. Saying “The Senate shouldn’t rush the bill through” is simple reality, since without Webb it can’t happen anyway.

  72. 72.

    socraticsilence

    @BTD-

    Nader is wondering if you’ll help him in Florida next time around (obviously, neither the Davis nor the Nader comparisons are perfect, but I imagine its how each faction views the other).

  73. 73.

    Molly

    @flukebucket:

    Reading “The Family” has given me a whole new perspective on that National Prayer Breakfast thing.

    Just finished that myself. Protocols of the Elders of Zion, except not a hoax, and translated through a religious prism they don’t call Christian, but “Christ-focused.” Disgusting.

  75. 75.

    Corner Stone

    @Mnemosyne:

    And yet it’s the exact interpretation that I’ve been telling people for weeks the Democratic establishment would put on the election if Brown won. It’s how they always interpret things when Republicans beat Democrats.

    First I’d like to clear something up. In your opinion is the Coakley loss a result of 1) bad candidate behaving badly 2) arrogant and sloppy state party 3) non-responsive national party 4) the R candidate tricked his way in with stealth campaigning 5) some effective mix pulled from this

  77. 77.

    NobodySpecial

    Pretend? Pray tell the form of encouragement that would have gotten Lieberman and Nelson (not to mention Bayh and Lincoln) to support single-payer. There is nothing Obama can do to move those people and work with them afterwards.

    If Obama knew he couldn’t move Senators, then why would he offer any health care legislation? Progressives were fine with incrementalism provided you start at a place of your choosing that you’re happy with. So single-payer would be off the table – can you guarantee that he wouldn’t get any further concessions had he not started halfway toward their position and kept moving?

    No, you couldn’t, and to argue so is as dumb as claiming that these mythical progressives could argue that single payer could be had for nothing.

    How did Obama kill the bill again? Walk me through that logic for a minute. I think he called Nancy Pelosi and found out what Barney Frank said earlier—there aren’t enough votes to ram the Senate bill through the house. There was no need to call Harry Reid, because the count in the Senate is now 59-41.

    Part of being President is USING that bully pulpit, you know. Or is it made of dry powder?

    Do you seriously expect that there’s been ANY more than a token effort to count votes in the last 24 hours? And do you think any more votes can be moved by Obama being unwilling to fight for his signature issue as he claimed it?

    If he won’t fight for it, why should anyone else?

  79. 79.

    Elie

    @Mnemosyne:

    Yep ( I say with great tiredness – sigh)

    I am depressed but will not give this up…have called and had others/friends call the Congress too..

    I am hurting even more after reading these comments but its not about me and somehow, I have to believe and will work to make this HCR a reality —

  80. 80.

    Comrade Dread

    I think they were really hoping for something a little bit more dramatic and romantic than that.

    Maybe a trip to Palin’s Death Panels?

  82. 82.

    Jody

    I was initially inclined to agree with the pic. Obama was supposed to be attending a breakfast with the author of the Ugandan “Kill the Gays” bill.

    Then I went ahead and read the article. It’s updated to say the guy won’t be attending.

    Then I blacked out for about five minutes from banging my head against my desk.

    We needs us some discipline.

  83. 83.

    BTD

    @socraticsilence:

    Pretty funny.

    Obama won’t be primaried by anyone.

    I must say I am not sure why you are whining at me.

    Trumka et al are your problem. Not me. I am assuming you want the Stand Alone Senate bill passed with no fix.

    Sorry that that is not the winning position right now. Tell me how you get to 218?

  84. 84.

    Mnemosyne

    @Corner Stone:

    First I’d like to clear something up. In your opinion is the Coakley loss a result of 1) bad candidate behaving badly 2) arrogant and sloppy state party 3) non-responsive national party 4) the R candidate tricked his way in with stealth campaigning 5) some effective mix pulled from this

    It was a mix, but I would probably blame the Massachusetts Democrats and the candidate first, especially now that we’re hearing that she may have been undermined in Boston by their machine. Stealth campaigning would come next after those two — apparently the only time it was pointed out that Brown was actually a Republican and not an independent was when Coakley finally ran her too-little, too-late ads.

    The national party also fucked up, which is why I think Tim Kaine should be fired (he’s 1-for-4), but I think the lion’s share of the blame is on Massachusetts.

  85. 85.

    Nellcote

    Not sure about the perspective on that illustration. It looks at first like the “progressive coalition” is overturning the bus rather than being thrown under it.

  86. 86.

    Paula

    Hahahahahaha, are OpenLeft’s feelings hurt?

    Why the fuck would they care? Didn’t they want the goddam health care bill to fail anyway? And I notice the people linking to that TPM article: WEREN’T YOU THE SAME PEOPLE WHO WANTED THE BILL TO FAIL TOO?

    So rejoice, aren’t you supposed to lead everyone into some progressive utopia now?

    See, what I really find annoying about ya’ll is that you’re supposed to be the wonks or idealists or some shit but you can’t even be intellectually consistent about what you WHINE about. At which point I’m not surprised that you’re pretty much what you’ve always been since Lamont: a bunch of feckless losers with broadband. I’d tell you to start hanging out on livejournal and argue about Avatar, but I think those people are too cool for you.

    No, I’m not being nice. I’m a lurker so I may not deserve Cole’s allowances, but I’m tired of so-called progressives who claim to be part of some kind of movement and yet can’t find it in themselves to accept any kind of responsibility for failure or even the possibility that they’re doing something wrong. Jesus Christ, people are ill-informed about progressive issues because, somehow, you have failed in making it clear to them. It’s not Obama’s job, it’s not Pelosi’s job, it’s not even Bernie Sanders’ or Anthony Weiner’s job. It’s their job to deal w/ bs in DC — it’s YOUR job to build public support for clear policy goals. It’s what union leaders do, it’s what progressive lobbies do. It’s not a closed loop wherein the netroots calls Barney Frank’s office all day to express strong but vague displeasure at some momentary thing happening — you are not, in and of yourselves “the public”, so stop assuming that just because a poll said x percentage of people supported the “public option” that those people knew exactly what it was and what it would take to get it passed and in working order.

  87. 87.

    maus

    Re: Huffington, I’m confused. I recall Al Franken thinking the world of her in a book of his. Was this him being a poor judge of character, or is it a recent break with reality from her? Considering the abysmal people she hires on as regular contributors, I can’t imagine that this is an isolated character flaw, seems far too ingrained. I also doubt it’s a “money going to her head” situation, as she didn’t really want for it before. Perhaps simple narcissism is the answer.

  89. 89.

    Rottenchester

    @NobodySpecial:

    If Obama knew he couldn’t move Senators, then why would he offer any health care legislation?

    Because he’s dealing with reality as it exists in the US Congress. That reality includes Joe Lieberman and Ben Nelson, who had to be courted and have their royal asses kissed just to get the crap bill that barely passed the Senate. Reality is ugly. It’s much easier to imagine scenarios where not-very-clever negotiating tactics move intransigent, entrenched assholes like Lieberman, as you did.

    Part of being President is USING that bully pulpit, you know.

    And knowing when to use it. We’ll see how he does in the next few days and weeks. Nobody’s excited about an even shittier bill. But I’m not going to look into the mirror in shame, like Sirota, just because Democrats lost one seat in the Senate.

  91. 91.

    cat48

    @DougJ

    The Boston Mayor said yesterday he didn’t like Coakley so he didn’t turn out the machine votes. Since you live in MA do you know what this is about? I read this at a blog from someone whose mother worked for the machine and Matthews and Lawrence O’Donnell both said on TV last night they had talked to the Mayor and he confirmed this fact. This just seems odd but of course I just volunteer for OFA which is beanbag. I guess machine politics is not. Mayor said Brown was seat warmer until 2012. Wish I had known this before 8pm last nite.

  92. 92.

    Bobby Thomson

    An “excellent takedown”? Not that there aren’t criticisms to be made of the Sirota piece, but the linked post claims that Reid is going to lose because Obama tasked him with getting the last few Senate votes for 60, and not because he’s been a terrible majority leader ever since January 2007. It also claims that Obama actually gave health care reform his all in 2009, when he let Baucus sabotage the process and made at least two overseas trips during critical periods.

    And that’s about all there is in that piece. Hell, the comments to this post are better.

  93. 93.

    Grumpy Code Monkey

    @NobodySpecial:

    Obama expected Congress to DO ITS GOD DAMNED JOB; Reid promised that he had the votes to deliver. This is an idictment against Reid more than it is against Obama.

    I said it in a previous thread; after Bush/Cheney, too many people on both sides of the aisle have a distorted view of exactly how much power a President really has. The President has only so much influence over Congress; they do not answer to him, and he cannot force them to do anything. It is up to the Congressional leadership to get shit done in the House and Senate. Obama can stand up and preach from the bully pulpit all he wants, but at the end of the day there’s not a lot he can do to move someone who won’t be moved.

    And Mnemosyne is right; if all the progressives stay home in 2010, then all that will accomplish is to push the Democratic party further to the right, because that’s where the votes will be. Staying home won’t teach the party anything except that it’s safe to ignore the progressives.

  94. 94.

    El Tiburon

    Sorry, that was a big piece of steaming dog-doo-doo.

    That guy is the one whining.

    WAAAAA!!!!! Lieberman won’t play fair!! Go tell Daddy!

    If you are a leader, then you make Lieberman/Nelson follow. If they won’t, then you shove them out of the way. You get it done or you go down trying. All Harry Reid and the Obama administration did was to court Lieberman and Snowe and the Pharmaceutical industry. Nada for the progressives. So yeah, Sirota is pissed. Jeez, what a douche, huh?

    Not sure who that dude is, but I’ll take Sirota anyday. Yeah, he ain’t no Molly Ivins (please, she is once in a lifetime) but he is a serious progressive who does his homework.

    I found nothing whiny in Sirota’s piece. He is voicing the humiliation that many progressive’s feel.

    Pathetic.

  95. 95.

    maus

    It’s not Obama’s job, it’s not Pelosi’s job, it’s not even Bernie Sanders’ or Anthony Weiner’s job. It’s their job to deal w/ bs in DC —it’s YOUR job to build public support for clear policy goals

    Uh, while I agree with much of what you’re saying here, the Democratic leadership has been working to destroy public support for policy. They’ve been weak as hell and allow the GOP and GOP-controlled media to stop all over them (and by extension us.)

    It’s wrong to expect them to do everything, but it’s not at all wrong to be angry with them for a lack of leadership.

  96. 96.

    ThatLeftTurnInABQ

    @Rottenchester:

    But I’m not going to look into the mirror in shame

    “Looking in The Mirror of Shame” really belongs in the BJ lexicon and/or as a category tag.

  97. 97.

    Chuck Butcher

    While all you so-called (self-defined) political realists are running around kicking the left you are being complete ignoramouses electorally. Coakley got slaughtered in the independent catagory. The left is the most reliable turn out in mid-terms, specials, and primaries and they also are the door knockers and callers. The left vote won’t win you an election by itself and won’t lose you one – virtually ever.

    It takes a hell of a lot for them to decide you’re hopeless enough to not vote and to not vote (D). You actually can get there, but hardly ever. Take a look at the % turn out and then take a real close look at your “realistic” selves for who didn’t show up.

    Knock yourselves out and have your fun, I’ve had 40yrs of your shit and I’ll still vote and bitch but that’s all you’ll get from me.

  98. 98.

    Paula

    Politicians are doing what I expect them to do, so it’s not a surprise that they willfully ignore the public. But that’s the whole point isn’t it? Power concedes nothing without a demand. And the “people” as it stands, are disorganized, and angry without a proper context or channeling. Why, if so many internet people claimed that “progressivism” was ascendant after 2008?

    It wasn’t me who was loudly proclaiming about my Very Important Role in the Political Process and how deeply independent I was from the beltway. It was all these bloggers, who presented themselves as being liaisons between public progressive will and DC pols, and who said they knew what they were doing. It wasn’t me who said that incremental change was not worth it.

    I don’t deny that all these outside forces exist to make it hard for progressives. But when all I see them do w/ their considerable resources is write fawning web posts to their fave politicians of the week, whine about GOP media without seeking public outlets to counteract it, and join in useless petitions — without seeing a comparative effort of trying to actually change minds about policy and ideology (which would probably involve sitting with the great unwashed who don’t read blogs every day), then yeah, I think those efforts are pissing in the wind.

  99. 99.

    Sleeper

    @DougJ:

    In what possible way did Obama throw unions under the bus? I’m very pro-union and even I think he’s caved to them too much.

    uh.

    Really?

    I would hesitate to use the phrase “thrown under the bus,” because I hate that phrase and because it’s still pretty hyperbolic in this case. (So far.) But there’ve been plenty of grievances and disappointments that might make rank-and-file union members lose faith in Obama. The main complaint was probably the near-consensus that card check was going to be sacrificed without a fight. Now this is something that he still has plenty of time to tackle, as they haven’t even gotten around to EFCA yet. But I can’t say that I’m filled with confidence that he’ll get them fired up for him again. Maybe he’ll surprise me, I would prefer to be wrong about this.

  102. 102.

    Chuck Butcher

    The fact that there are dumbasses like Hamsher who would hook up with a left’s Demon like Norquist doesn’t excuse your going down the same lane of stupidity. Christ on a fucking crutch, you think you’re offended? The Rahms make political bullshit statements about the left because they know the whipped curs of the left will still back them as loudly as they bitch about their treatment and it is useful to portray themselves as “not left”. You dumbasses can’t separate political double talk from reality and pile on with it. You’re fucking pathetic – politically.

    You fuckers enable the LIEbermans, you fuckers voted for him. You pay exactly no attention to voter demographics and orientation as you tout your realism and pragmatism. Do you somehow think the Senate you have is due to the left? You somehow think the Independents (NAs) are politically identifiable? You call the left children?

  104. 104.

    mey

    @Rottenchester:

    However, the truth is that a few conservative Democrats slowed down the bill, not Rahm, Harry Reid or Obama.

    Then why don’t you write a fuckload of articles about those douchebags? Why the FUCK are there a million+1 articles about the douchebags on the far-radical-ideological-progressive-liberal-DFH-stupid-pony-wishers?

  106. 106.

    Thlayli

    Y’know, I used to laugh when the wingnuts went on about “Obamessiah” and “The One”. I don’t anymore.

    There are people who genuinely believe that Obama could have snapped his fingers and made the Perfect Progressive Healthcare Act of 2009 appear on his desk. And they further believe the only reason he didn’t do that is because he didn’t want to. And they’re genuinely pissed off about that.

  107. 107.

    Nick

    @Chuck Butcher:

    You fuckers enable the LIEbermans, you fuckers voted for him.

    I’m willing to bet that no one here voted for Lieberman. I know I didn’t…either time.

  108. 108.

    Nick

    @Chuck Butcher:

    Coakley got slaughtered in the independent catagory. The left is the most reliable turn out in mid-terms, specials, and primaries and they also are the door knockers and callers. The left vote won’t win you an election by itself and won’t lose you one – virtually ever.

    and still Coakley got slaughtered in the independent category.

    So excuse me if I’m not impressed in the left’s ability to door knock and call.

  109. 109.

    jwb

    @Paula: As I’ve said before it’s all been blogging, bitching and inside politics with very little actual organizing. The teabaggers may be astroturf, but it seems to me that the progressive activists forgot about the grass completely, so they’ve been completely outclassed by what’s basically an accidental comedy troupe. Would that our side failed as badly as the teabaggers! And I’ll add Obama to this as well. He built a marvelous campaign operation with lots of grassroot support. But the administration hasn’t figured out how to deploy it from the standpoint of governing. I’m sorry but sending me eight emails a day is not effective political activism for governance.

  110. 110.

    Nick

    @Chuck Butcher: wait a minute

    The left vote won’t win you an election by itself and won’t lose you one – virtually ever.

    The left won’t lose us one? Coakley won 90%+ of the left in one of the highest turnout special elections in modern history.

  112. 112.

    Nick

    @baxie:

    why do the hippies under the bus look like they’re having such a good time?

    Either their stoned or delusionally anticipating the progressive magic Preisdent Kucinich will bring in 2013.

    Clearly…it’s both.

  113. 113.

    daryljfontaine

    @Thlayli:

    “Franklin did this, and Franklin did that, and Franklin did some other damn thing. Franklin smote the ground and out sprang George Washington, fully grown and on his horse. Franklin then electrified him with his miraculous lightning rod, then the three of them — Franklin, Washington, and the horse — conducted the entire Revolution all by themselves.”
     
    “I like it.”

    D

  114. 114.

    Michael

    I’m glad that Beantown’s mayor was honest and admitted that this was massholism at its finest.

    What’s his excuse going to be when he finds out that it becomes more difficult to remove Brown than he thought?

  115. 115.

    Sleeper

    @Thlayli:

    There are people who genuinely believe that Obama could have snapped his fingers and made the Perfect Progressive Healthcare Act of 2009 appear on his desk. And they further believe the only reason he didn’t do that is because he didn’t want to. And they’re genuinely pissed off about that.

    No one believes that. People who shout down the critics by insisting this are deluding themselves. There’s honest disagreement as to how much or how little the president was capable of doing in advancing the case for HCR. Critics think he did too little, supporters think he did all he could. But hyperbole doesn’t serve either side well. Support what he does, or oppose it, but do it honestly. The constant whining that liberals aren’t clapping loud enough for Obama is just as tiresome as saying that Obama the grandmaster was secretly sabotaging HCR all along and that THIS outcome (this being whatever the day’s setback happens to be) is EXACTLY what he wanted all along.

    The infighting crap has to stop. Will it? Of course not. It’s too fun. Obligatory Robert E. Lee quote here.

  116. 116.

    Paula

    @ jwb

    True. To be fair, I think OFA is there to get behind the mainstream Democrats’ policy, so the fact that the party has seemed like dogs chasing their own tails this year is going to affect OFA’s ability to mobilize for something concrete.

    Well, people were warned about that too. OFA was an organization that bulked up around a candidate, so the fact that it would still have an institutional will to the candidate’s demands (or lack of them in this case) is to be expected. Part of me wanted that organization to be cut loose from the party operations and make it a genuine grassroots org, but that was probably unrealistic given the resources and connections that come with being the now-president’s volunteers. Of course, the regional leaders of OFA might be coerced into taking their considerable skills and member list away from the party …

  117. 117.

    DougJ

    The main complaint was probably the near-consensus that card check was going to be sacrificed without a fight.

    Yeah, you’re right, I forgot about that.

  118. 118.

    Chuck Butcher

    @Comrade Scrutinizer:

    Let’s try this, the NAs (oh fuck for you children Non-Affiliated) and what get called Independents are somehow considered politically identifiable by you. They are NAs because some particular ox of theirs gets gored by a Party or is perceived to be. Just for an example, some of those are just as left as you could wish and then you throw guns in their faces and no-way will they claim Democratic. The list is nearly as endless as the list of issues.

    Coakley lost them – period.

    You seem to think that a state like CT voted LIEberman in because … what? The people who think and talk just like this left bashing bunch voted for him – not the fucking left. The “realists” wanted Joe Ho back again (and the GOPers who knew GOP was a loser label). You’ve (realists) half-stepped your way into a place where the NAs have no idea what HCR is other than a fucking mess and you’ve told everybody that is fine – it’s what we can do. The fact that you can’t sell it isn’t my fault for complaining about what I don’t like, the NAs don’t listen to me as much as you fucks do – and that’s almost not at all. (they don’t much listen to Sarah, either)

    People don’t like mandates on how to spend their money even less than they do taxes. Then you mandate that without competition or govt backup programs and think that’ll work with the electorate and your sales job is “best we can do.” You don’t like that broad brush I’m painting with? Fine, get a new electorate.

  119. 119.

    Chuck Butcher

    @Nick:

    So excuse me if I’m not impressed in the left’s ability to door knock and call.

    Well how about giving them a candidate that actually campaigns…

    Fuck you dumbass

  120. 120.

    gwangung

    No one believes that. People who shout down the critics by insisting this are deluding themselves. There’s honest disagreement as to how much or how little the president was capable of doing in advancing the case for HCR. Critics think he did too little, supporters think he did all he could. But hyperbole doesn’t serve either side well. Support what he does, or oppose it, but do it honestly. The constant whining that liberals aren’t clapping loud enough for Obama is just as tiresome as saying that Obama the grandmaster was secretly sabotaging HCR all along and that THIS outcome (this being whatever the day’s setback happens to be) is EXACTLY what he wanted all along.

    Gotta support that.

    Banking down the criticism MIGHT be OK if your approach is working (and we can debate all night on the meaning of “working”), but when things hit the fan, it all kinda loses its meaning, yaknowwhatimean?

  121. 121.

    Nick

    @Chuck Butcher:

    People don’t like mandates on how to spend their money even less than they do taxes. Then you mandate that without competition or govt backup programs and think that’ll work with the electorate and your sales job is “best we can do.” You don’t like that broad brush I’m painting with? Fine, get a new electorate.

    the mandates weren’t popular when there WAS competition. People aren’t going to suddenly like the government forcing them to buy insurance even if they had government competition (your N/As don’t care much for government either)

    so…what? get rid of the mandates?

  122. 122.

    Chuck Butcher

    While you’re busy kicking the left you’re missing the problems you’re going to have with the electorate in ’10 and that will sink people it shouldn’t. You claim to care about outcomes, maybe you actually ought to.

    About half or more of the commentariate here plays in Paul Helmke’s HGI’s playground and portrays gun owners as lunatic right. They play the same security game BushCo did and don’t understand not winning. Meanwhile, the (D)s see the political poison and try to leave it alone, having learned something from their losses, but you insist on trying to make (D) the party of gun banners. Funny thing, a lefty organization like Democratic Party of Oregon (DNC) has for its second largest caucus, the Gun Owners Caucus – second to LGBT in size and with a sizable cross membership.

    But you’re the realists.

    MA highest turn out, blah, blah – 40% which means 22% of eligible voters elected Brown and the left is the fucking villain… I know, you gotta find your demons where you can…

  123. 123.

    Chuck Butcher

    @Nick:

    so…what?

    Oh, right – fix it now and try to get that through the Senate, again. You got your poison, now deal with it or shit can it.

    This thing is poisoned from so many directions that all the good in it is masked by that. The lies are the easy part, it’s the truth that’s going to cause you real problems.

    This is the problem with trying to half-step something like this, you wind up with mandates rather than a payroll tax, not that it would be popular but it isn’t quite as poisonous. When you force people to buy a private company’s product the push back is even stiffer. When that product isn’t seen as useful; you’re in worse shape.

    For god’s sake, there are enough models out there that don’t cause revolt in the citizenry of those countries but none were good enough at pissing off Americans so this had to be run out. Something a narrow slice will back as “best we could.” The Democratic Party has gotten to the point where LIEberman is the definition of Democratic legislation and that is so sick and wrong that I just will no longer be a player. If it had been a case of getting some couple R votes I might have been able to stomach it, maybe, but not inside the fucking Caucus.

  124. 124.

    Darkrose

    @Chuck Butcher:

    About half or more of the commentariate here plays in Paul Helmke’s HGI’s playground and portrays gun owners as lunatic right.

    Huh?

    No, seriously–where are you getting this? Gun ownership hardly ever comes up, and when it does, I’m pretty sure there are a number of lefties who’ve said they’re proud gun owners.

    Come to think of it, was gun control even an issue in 2008? It’s just not a hot topic anymore.

  125. 125.

    johnny walker

    I like the rorschachesque quality of this pic. Its meaning is based almost entirely on projection.

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