If this happens, they might as well all resign en masse:
Perhaps that will be true for health reform, though no one has any real clarity yet about what the path forward is. But for the larger progressive agenda, including initiatives like immigration reform, cap and trade, and LGBT issues, the aftershocks of Brown’s win may be far more detrimental.
One Capitol Hill veteran I spoke with on Friday was particularly pessimistic, for instance, about the prospects that the White House will push for the repeal of “don’t ask, don’t tell” this year.
“I’m getting the sense they will try to ignore this as long as possible and then they will maybe trot out some commission to delay it another year if they are forced to do anything,” said the person. “It will be fascinating to see what the LGBT community does if they do this.”
You thought things were volatile now- wait for this to go down and Obama might as well just resign. It won’t matter that the last couple of weeks it has been the progressives trying to scuttle HCR, the attitude will be “first they failed on health care, gitmo is still open, now they screwed us on DADT.”
Things will get ugly, particularly for bloggers given the loud voice gay rights advocates have in the liberal blogosphere.
And don’t get me wrong- things should burn. Obama and his team and our Congress critters really do seem intent on staying in the fetal position until the Republicans have the House and Senate under their control.
Very Reverend Crimson Fire of Compassion
Perhaps that’s what it will take.
Short Bus Bully
As if there wasn’t already enough bitching in the liberal blogosphere.
I think we should fuck this whole system and rename the President an “Emperor” instead so that with the wave of his hand he can do anything he wants whenever he wants.
It seems to be the direction the country is going… And shouldn’t we listen to the will of the people?
Mouse Tolliver
Gee, I thought we were supposed to STFU and wait on LGBT issues because Obama had a full plate. Well, it looks like President-elect Brown just cleared the table before anyone had time to eat anything.
Punchy
There must be an echo in this place.
Pessimists think alike.
jayackroyd
There also a couple wars pointlessly burning a billion dollars a day.
They have to realize they can’t run the same campaign with this record. Don’t they? Bueller?
They are setting this up for Palin’s outsider common sense campaign.
Napoleon
The DNC might as well send out a mailer to every registered Democratic voter titled: “10 reasons you should not vote for us in the next election.”
Silver
Things should get ugly.
If Democrats are only willing to govern by principles that the GOP finds acceptable, why not just cut out the middleman?
General Winfield Stuck
A Hurricane can only spin so fast and still hold itself together. I am sorry that Obama has failed us so miserably in his first year. My plastic unicorn weeps for un-named democratic staffers who hold the truth. I give up trying to comfort forlorn progs. They can go fuck themselves cause they won’t take me down with them. Obot out.
Tim F.
If Democrats feel strong and confident then gay Americans will get constituent service. If Democrats feel weak and defensive then Evan Bayh will set the agenda and without a doubt gay issues will go first. I don’t just mean ignoring DADT either; I mean some new atrocity like DOMA.
gwangung
It might have made sense when Obama was managing things. But the impression now is that he’s lost control of events (which is a very real criticism). If he can’t get it back, all bets are off.
ed
I’ve screamed for quite a while that Obama should get out ahead of repealing DADT. It’s probably too late now. Had he listened and done it early in his administration (on or about 21 January of last year), it would have opened up tons of possibilities. People wouldn’t care that gay people were treated as equals in the military (the few who did would be openly ridiculed, correctly, as jackasses) and other agenda items would have been easier to pass (“see, it’s not so bad to be decent…”). Oh, and it’s good policy too. But awesome politics. Ah, what might have been.
Jackasses.
Lynn Sutherland
Mr. Cole, I always read with interest anything you write, even when you were a Republican (with the exception of the Steelers posts.) I have not called my congressman to ask him to vote for the Senate bill because I truly don’t know if this is the right way to go. Just read an article by Jeff Strabone, Post-shame, on 3quarksdaily and it seems to me that this is where we are now, we are so horribly screwed by the corporations that any stop gap measure (which the Senate HCR bill is) will only make the problem worse. Or maybe, that’s what we need to have happen to make some fundamental change happen.
Lavocat
But, HEY, at least he’s better than Bush, right?
Way to set the bar, dude!
LFMAO!
Napoleon
@ed:
That would have been the biggest possible mistake he could have made. Thank God he is not that stupid.
Yossarian
So one unnamed Hill staffer spouts off on DADT and we’re all supposed to hurl ourselves off the cliff? Don’t get me wrong, if the administration does abandon this I’ll be yelling as loud as anybody, but one maybe-plugged in, maybe-not plugged in Hill aide does not convincing evidence make.
fasteddie9318
OOO! OOO!! You know what he should work on? School uniforms. Everybody can get behind that.
Jules
The thing is that this “quote”, like so many others that lead to melt-downs, is based on gossip and what some anymouse staffer says.
Look at all the hand-wringing and diaper wetting over Aravosis’s tweet that the Dems must be abandoning the pre-existing condition ban since only the one for children was mentioned.
I am beginning to think that maybe the internet is not so good for Dems out there who have a high chance of throwing hissy fits over every tweet or blog post out there.
Democrats seem to be unable to step up and make the tough decisions no matter what the consequences in November. Boldness is a greatly admired trait I’ve found.
Mike E
Geez O’Pete–I can’t wait until you hit your first ‘plateau’ in phys therapy…
Jim
I am still struggling to wrap my head around that fact that all this panic and hysteria is due to the MA election which, as someone here points out, means there is one more Democratic Senator than there was a year ago. I was out of the country when Specter switched parties, but my impression is that it caused far fewere ZOMG!! stories in the media than this.
Mike S
Republicans suck at governing. Democrats don’t even try.
Keith G
I didn’t vote for a god, I didn’t vote for a companion. I voted for problem solver who could think on his feet and get things done.
If he can not do these things, he is dead to me. Simple.
Zandar
Do or do not.
Everything else is Village bullshit.
Face
Not a hippie’s chance in Waco that Obama gets his repeal of DADT. New Senate majority and all that.
GregB
He who please all pleases none.
Apparently Mitch McConnell thinks President Obama is a swell guy.
If only the President was half the man that the campaigner was.
I am sad to say that President Obama used up all his audacity early on.
-G
jibeaux
I am interested in knowing what Boies and Olsen think about the strategy to take gay marriage up to the SCOTUS at this point in time. I mean, it’s a go-for-broke strategery that if it works, really changes the game all around. Very big payoff if it works. And the Prop 8 people’s “arguments”, such as they are, flat out suck.
On the other hand, having an decisive SCOTUS case that is unfavorable to you is a lot worse than having scattered and inconsistent law all over the place. I realize that corporate personhood vis a vis the First Amendment is a pretty distinct issue from the Equal Protection Clause and gay marriage, but personally I wouldn’t putting a lot of hopes in the basket of “impartial, non-ideological umpire of the law” ideal these day. It’s a wingnut court, and I’m not optimistic.
As for Lynn’s point, I have a friend whose situation basically demonstrates every single point as to why we need health care reform, and although it sounds like a Lifetime daytime special it is 100% true. I have been trying to figure out how to write it up as an anecdote to illustrate the need for reform and distribute it to those who might want to read it, without compromising her privacy, i.e. I’m not going to post it as a note to facebook and the whole story is too long for your average blog comment. I’m going to keep working on those logistics.
ed
I hear you. I was there a in the Pre-Post-Brown Freakout. But we’ve reached the Point of No Deposit, No Return. If Dems don’t pass this piece of shit bill now–which one would think even they could, at least in theory–then any hope for reform gets shelved for another generation. We have a choice: A quarter teaspoon of weak, watered down, cut rate gruel, or nothing. But actually, the alternative is really less than nothing because of Teh Politics. Should the Dems pass nothing, more will fail come November, and 2012 looks shakier to boot. And that affects everything else as noted.
It sucks. Rhinos. I can dig it, but that’s where we’re at. Please pick up the phone.
ed
AngusTheGodOfMeat
Ooh, scary.
Should we raise the Terror Threat Level?
I don’t know about the rest of you, but I am headed to Safeway to lay in supplies for the big blowup.
( rolls eyes )
The Grand Panjandrum
Last I heard the repeal of DADT would be in the Defense authorization bill. But things change. Repeal may not be dead, but it wouldn’t surprise me if they wuss out on this one.
OT: Sorry if this has been posted in another thread, but this morning someone noted that bonddad no longer writes at the GOS. He put up his first front page post over at 538 a couple hours ago.
WereBear
Did anyone see the town hall speech from Ohio?
It was a heckuva speech. And there was a fantastic bit about how he’s not giving up… “I know my popularity numbers are going down. I’m trying to do something… that is always going to make someone unhappy.”
Anyway, watching it cheered me up. He’s not done yet. Which is what I voted for.
eastriver
We’re all firebaggers now, eh, JC? Obama is suddenly a failure if he doesn’t repeal DADT? That’s the straw? Okay.
Lost Left Coaster
Wait, what? One day John Cole is demonizing the GLBT activist community for criticizing Obama, and the next day he is essentially on board with one of their primary complaints about the Obama administration? What gives? What magic line did Obama cross for you to suddenly see the LGBT activist’s point of view?
Bruce (formerly Steve S.)
This is an interesting perspective, John, you’re basically saying that left disaffection over health care, the permanent war state, and so on is one thing, but if the LGBT community gets screwed over then its time for a revolution. Don’t get me wrong, LGBT rights are important, but why do you think the line gets drawn there of all places?
Zifnab
So wait, if they append repeal of DADT to the Defense Bill, remind me again what the hell the Senate is going to do about it?
Are you honestly telling me that a bill that is literally overflowing with military pork every single year, gets passed with huge majorities every single year, and never fails to piss off all the dirty little hippies is going to go down in flames because no one will be able to stop a GOP filibuster on De-freak’n-fense?
Get real. If the Democrats yank the cord on repeal of DADT, it’s because they have willfully chosen to throw in the towel. A good Senate fight where Republicans are forced to knuckle under is exactly what this Congress needs. And Defense is the perfect bill to put the screws to the GOP, since its so damn hard to vote against.
Making the defense bill about gay marriage will wake up all the moderate conservatives that thought the GOP was sane. It’ll bring out the torch swinging fundies en mass (can’t wait to hear Pat Robertson’s take). And it’ll leave “moderate” Republicans – particularly stealth bigots like MA’s newest Senator – fumbling for which way to break.
Jim
@WereBear:
A good speech, and the Plouffe op-ed was a good sign, but as much as I want to see more of that from the White House, the White House isn’t the whole problem (yeah, yeah, Obotism never dies). Bill Nelson got jealous of all the attention his brother Ben was getting today.
rootless_e
OMG! An anonymouse aide sez Dems CAVING! Let me change into my wetting pants.
General Winfield Stuck
@Face: Doesn’t matter, somebody has to take the fall for unrequited wont. Who else but the president. Hope you precious progressive flowers love you some President Palin. I am done here. You want to flame me click my name to my blog that I will be doing my own whistling past political graveyards, yours. idiots.
Chyron HR
I’m pretty sure that means that if DADT isn’t repealed, GBLT activists will raise shitstorms on blogs (like here). He’s making a prediction, not an endorsement.
moe99
I blame the pain. And the meds.
I really don’t want to descend into FDL territory. It’s why I came here from there.
Keith G
@General Winfield Stuck:
I don’t think it needs to be all or nothing, but the dude and his people need to start doing all the little things right that traditionally have help past presidents accomplish hard tasks.
Almost all men who served as President that I can remember (10) got better at this stuff. I am sure Obama can, I am just not seeing the increase in ability that I would have expected, or that I deem is plainly necessary.
I can deal with failure of result. Its a repeatedly anemic attempts that scare me.
Michael
Given the whininess of progressive activists, I’m considering that as a former conservative white guy who has retained some continuing and not inconsiderable connections within Wingnutopia, I may have options. Once progressives (once again) abandon the cause and help the nutcases swing back into power, I can go full on teabagging wingnut, deliberately targeting everything that progressives claim to love.
I’m picturing myself marching for criminal penalties for Teh Gayness, protesting NOW offices to end all abortion and contraception, demanding greater military spending and advocating more military solutions, and demanding repeal of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 in the name of Freedom.
I mean hell – it isn’t as if progressives must care all that much about those things, if they’re willing to fold up and collapse like a cheap chair when the going gets rough. I might as well help restore my personal street cred with my conservative overlords, and teabagging at that level will do it.
Erik Vanderhoff
I once had one of my grad-school professors tell me, “The problem with you kids these days [I was 25 at the time!] is that you don’t know how to riot. You think Watts would have the services they do today if they hadn’t torched the fucking place? You want change, then you kids need to set some shit on fire.”
Maybe Obama should have taken lessons from her on how to be a community organizer. How can a supposed Alinskyite be such a goddamn wuss?!
TWP
As a gay man, I certainly would like to see DADT repealed. This first year has been a tough one for Obama and so I’ve tried to be understanding and sympathetic to the “after HCR, we’ll get to DADT” line of thinking. I was pretty cynical in thinking that DADT would be repealed during an election year. Just don’t believe Democrats on the Hill want to go near that issue.
But I’m really getting the feeling that it will never happen during Obama’s tenure. I’m open to be wrong on this, but based on his lack of leadership on HCR (especially now, when it’s needed most) and the lack of spine by Senate leadership and members, I just don’t see any reason to believe they will tackle any gay rights issues. This President, WH and Senate leadership is the most risk-averse I’ve ever seen.
I voted for Democrats to represent the Democratic wing of the Democratic Party. I’m all for compromises and realize that all my liberal wishes will not be granted. But there are certain things (gay rights, civil rights, tough financial regulation, social safety nets, etc.) that are the backbone of the party. And to ignore those issues…over and over again…causes me to question what the party represents (especially the current leaders of our party).
It’s sad. It’s depressing. And when it comes to me or my friends wanting to serve in the military for my country, openly: it’s devastating.
geg6
@WereBear:
Did we watch the same speech? Cuz I thought it was weak as all hell. Maybe his worst speech ever. But I’m thoroughly done with speechifying by him or anyone else. I want actions. Until I see some, they can all STFU.
soonergrunt
@Keith G:
That’s exactly the problem.
And for some of us, when we say Rahm Emanuel and Harry Reed need to go away, this is what we mean. I don’t think that Obama’s administration or the man himself is about screwing progressives and progressive goals at all. It’s about the weak-assed incompetence that won’t lead.
geg6
@Chyron HR:
This.
WereBear
@geg6: I want action too. I have always wondered why a President doesn’t make a speech that ends, “Now call your Congressperson and tell them what you want!”
@Jim: Oh, yeah, the mythical center, beloved of Bobo, delight of pundits, Grail of Blue Dogs.
It is now a completely meaningless term; hell, when progressive principles are explained, between 2/3rds and 3/4ths of the country love them.
Get with it, Democrats. They are so stuck in the past, and don’t see the change that actually is happening right in front of them. The electorate has new priorities; the legislature should reflect that.
Face
@General Winfield Stuck: I have no idea what this means. You’re GBCWing this blog because of the rapant snark, faux pessimism, or cuz Cole’s the biggest Steelers homer on the nets?
rootless_e
http://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/2010/January/10-enrd-076.html
I want action. No not that kind of action. Action that Chuck Todd tells me is action. I’m a progressive, dagnabit, and real progressives learn what is happening from Politico. So if Politico does not report it – it didn’t happen, it’s not action, just pretty words which I’ve had enough of because Frank Luntz has been saying that Obama is all pretty words for 2 years now and, as a real-progressive, I have to repeat what Frank say. Fuck yeah!
Michael
What she said.
Of course, if anybody is advising kids about where to riot, I’d suggest rioting and burning where it could do some good – upscale neighborhoods, upscale malls, upscale office complexes. None of this “burning out your own poor neighborhood” crap.
Somehow, I like the idea of gated neighborhood security teams trying to figure out how to deal with enraged mobs. I enjoy the idea of pasty, doughy white guys with golfer tans having to run while their spoiled rotten women scream.
Napoleon
@ed:
I have made it a million times on these pages but the short version is that a Dem coming into office has to move first on the major pieces of their agenda that satisfies the largest part of the voting population that could be expected to vote for them to cement their position as the protector of the average guy. They do that and it buys them all kinds of creed to move for much more of the agenda parts of which may have a narrow appeal.
Clinton failed to do that and instead moved on things first that actually screwed the Dem base.
At this point you already see stories (as in Charlie Cooks peice from the last week) already saying that Obama shouldn’t have moved on something the vast majority of people want in theory, changes in the health care system, and instead moved on employment/economic issues and if they had not moved on HCR as their first primary push and instead DADT and similar issues the MSM would be running nothing but stories from now to election day 2012 about how Obama moved to satisfy gays but could do nothing for the average person. Not only would the Dems be out in both houses this fall and Obama would be creamed in 2012 even if he ran against Palin but the Dems would not sniff at a running any of the 3 branches of government for the next 8 to 15 year period.
4tehlulz
>One Capitol Hill veteran
Wow, that has to be the most meaningless anonymous source in the history of journalism.
Keith G
@eastriver: I would think that is not that simple. It not the defeat of any one issue but the impact of a cascading lack of accomplishments.
That said, this is what the Repugs want. The division part is going well, so the conquering stuff will soon be attempted.
I along with many other (but not all) guy folk I know were more than happy to see other issues postponed so the greater social good of getting health care to millions (including many of my gay brothers and sisters) could be the focus. Inept strategy and effort in both these areas are maddening
geg6
@4tehlulz:
Seriously. I mean, that could mean anyone. Hell, it could mean Tweety, who spent half his show the other night telling Alan Grayson that he, Tweety, knew more about how Congress works than the good representative does based on the fact that Tweety worked in the Capitol for four years as a Capitol police officer and a staffer for various congress critters back in 1970-1974.
Tweety told Grayson that you can’t pass any of the health care reforms through reconciliation. It’s only for taxes and such, according to Tweety. Bless Alan Grayson’s heart, he was flabbergasted to be told that he and his own leadership don’t the rules as well as Tweety.
eemom
sadly, this.
Y’all know I’ve been a hard core Obot since day one — but I have to say the bottom dropped out for me with Obama’s, you should pardon the expression, shit sandwich response to the HCR crisis. If that goes down I’m seriously turning in my Obot card.
I’m also the first to acknowledge that he’s not an emperor — but he can do better than THIS.
And please, let’s not talk bullshit about how “it will take” a return to republican control and all hell breaking loose again to get people motivated enough to make shit happen — that’s just ridiculous. If ’01-’08 weren’t enough for our moronic mess of an electorate to get a fucking clue what the republicans are really about, nothing ever will be.
Things will just get worse, and stay worse. Again.
aimai
Someone really pissed in John’s wheaties this morning, he’s sounding like the rest of us DFH’s.
But look, all joking aside, there’s a huge difference between expecting Obama to live up to some of his campaign promises in the first five minutes of his presidency (the “wave his wand” accusation) and expecting the dude to step it up and fight for some of his campaign pledges when they are so seriously and obviously endangered by the political system and the administration’s own choices. I mean for christ sake Obama and his team are responsible for a lot of the choices that have led us to the situation we are in now:
major legislation choking in the house and senate
extreme public anxiety and confusion about the content of the non-existent legislation.
loss of a major seat in the senate due to an extreme failure of timing of the legislation and the selling of the legislation.
failure to get to other bits of the legislative program because of fuckups in the senate (both timing and personell)
A year isn’t a long time in the course of human history, or even in a presidency. But its enough time to get a sense of Obama and his team, how they think and how they strategize. Up until now we’ve had to project forward from looking at his campaign which was instructive but not really that good a comparison set. Now we’ve had not only a year but a crashing, crisis of a year in which we ought to have seen the man’s mettle and his style. And we have. There are zero places during this year when Obama’s team have met a massive crisis point, legislatively or politically speaking, and stepped up to the plate vigorously and turned things around. I wish it were so, but no. We have seen no indication that they think this way about politics. Its always about withdrawing, retrenching, calming down, renegotiating away key issues–it has never been about reaching out to the dissafected base, increasing voter interest and support in democratic initiatives, pressuring the center/right to accomodate majority rule, moves to change the structure of the legislation (break the filibuster, remove joe lieberman from chairmanship). WE can now say for certain that the Obama we hoped we knew– mr. fierce audacity of hope is a very centrist, milquetoast, accomodationist kind of guy.
And that just won’t bring home the bacon to the party or the people in this environment. Maybe it would in some other political environment, if the republicans were really leprechauns or something. But this is not a case of theorizing ahead of our data: this is the guy we’ve got and unless he and his team make some screamingly radical course corrections the democrats are doomed to lose their majority and then any hope of doing anything other than what the republicans want for the next four years. As someone said upthread the voters will “cut out the middleman” and just hire the guy with R after his name.
aimai
Brachiator
Progressives sure do live in a fantasy land. If the economy doesn’t improve — and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan don’t move closer to a positive resolution — then progressives don’t have an agenda that anyone will give a crap about.
It’s the economy, stupid.
And cap and trade is a non-starter. Nobody cares. Absolutely nobody.
Which will of which people? Progressives act as though they are the only people in the room. In this respect, they much resemble evangelicals, who love to whine about how they are the “base” that must be obeyed.
Keith G
@Keith G:
“Guy folk.” Sometimes, I kill me.
AngusTheGodOfMeat
@WereBear:
When the dogs are barking, and the blogs are popping their faux veins, why would we listen to Obama on these matters?
Clearly, he doesn’t know what is going on as well as the people at ABC News and on the blogs know, right?
From a guy who was an apologist for the Bush Administration only a few short years ago. Yes, I know there is redemption, but for fuck’s sake, “things should burn?”
Yeah, maybe this blog should burn, if this is the best we can do.
America is the land of opportunity for citizens working together to make change. Instead, they sit around and bitch like a bunch of old ladies waiting for their prescriptions to be ready.
Napoleon
@Keith G:
I actually had to read what you wrote 3 times to figure out what you were saying.
Mike E
@Brachiator:
Evangelicals demand obeyance; progressives savor a fine whine.
blahblahblah
Just fuck off with the ‘it’s the Progressive’s fault’ bullshit. He was given an electoral Supermajority based on campaign promises he failed to meet. He and his staff must have expected his base to roll over. But we didn’t. Instead, we left.
Fuck him and the Democratic Party. I’m done with party politics. It’s broken. No amount of whining on blogs will fix this shit.
rootless_e
@blahblahblah:
It’s an open question whether opinions like that are paid propaganda or just answers to the question “how stupid can you get?”.
GregB
By the way, I was no Puma and I worked hard as hell to get President Obama elected, but sweet Jesus…..
From Political Wire:
A quote from retiring Democratic Congressman Berry from Arkansas on his conversations with the White House.
Said Berry: “They just don’t seem to give it any credibility at all. They just kept telling us how good it was going to be. The president himself, when that was brought up in one group, said, ‘Well, the big difference here and in ’94 was you’ve got me.‘ We’re going to see how much difference that makes now.”
-G
FlipYrWhig
“One Capitol Hill veteran” says he’s “getting the sense” of this. Cue the meltdown. Sounds like someone wanted to make sure a nice crisis didn’t go to waste. Wasn’t John Aravosis himself a Congressional staffer?
Why do people crave disappointment like this? Why do you _want_ to be sure something terrible is happening? Calm the fuck down, all y’all.
aimai
You know, angusthteodofmeat, fuck off. People are pissed off because they already worked together as “citizens working together to make change.” We elected the guy with the weird name, and the different color, and we gave him a majority in the house and the senate *on the basis of his promising to do some shit*. Not even such hard shit: govern well, change the things you can change, get some shit done. WE didn’t elect him with the understanding that we would have to call his office everyday begging him to give a fuck about passing his own signature piece of legislation. We didn’t elect the senators and the congressmen we elected to have to remind them how to find their own asses with a flashlight. And yet. This is where we are. I can’t say I’m surprised because I’m old and have been a democrat a long time. But we are rightly pissed off because we already did the heavy lifting: the phoning, the donating, the door knocking, the working. For five fucking minutes I’d like to think that we could have trusted Obama and those put in wi th him to do their fucking jobs without weeping and wailing about how misunderstood they are or how hard governating is.
aimai
clonecone
Just put the damn thing in a defense spending bill. Done.
Repealing it is the only ethical choice. It’s also the smart political choice. 99.999% of those opposed to gay people serving their country are never going to vote for a Democrat.
Amanda in the South Bay
I thought the wise and mature conventional wisdom of the hippie bashers here was that stuff like LGBT issues will have to wait till after HCR…and we’re all supposed to be Jane Hamshers in Training now that we are complaining about a lack of leadership on this issue?
Speaking of HCR, how’s that vigourous, up front leadership from the White House going?
AngusTheGodOfMeat
That’s a slogan. A supermajority doesn’t guarantee any votes for anything, and the Executive does not control the votes in congress. It negotiates for them.
Cut the crap. Done with politics? This IS politics.
“Done with politics” is about looking at a D-R count and deciding that the game is over. That’s the equivalent of looking at the total weight of the front lines in a football game and deciding that we don’t need to play the game, just give the win to the team with the biggest linemen.
You have to play the game, that’s what politics is all about. If you don’t have the stomach for it, there is always, you know, Iran, or maybe Saudi Arabia as political alternatives.
jenniebee
I find it amusing that you think the Jane Hamshers of the Left made an ass lick’s worth of difference in this fight. Game changers, and I think I can say this without fear of contradiction, they are not.
TWP
Thank you.
Brian J
I’m not sure what to think of this–this being something to think about if it’s true, which is, as others have said, not entirely clear.
There seems to be fairly wide agreement that DADT need to be eliminated, but not that much agreement on how to do it. I’m sympathetic to the idea that it can’t necessarily come from Obama himself. Even if he has the authority to do simply get rid of it–again, not clear–it’s not always the best course of action to do something that large parts of the military may disagree with. I certainly support eliminating the program, but I’d hate to see it resurrected a few years later in some form or another. And really, if it’s not going to happen, it’s not going happen. Do we need to see it come up for a vote only to be voted down? I guess the argument is that it’s better to try and to fail, or to at least throw a bone to the the LGBT community, than to do nothing. There’s something to that, I think, but I’m not sure what the effects of a pretty big failed initiative would be.
Jim
@blahblahblah:
Just fuck off with the ‘it’s the Progressive’s fault’ bullshit. He was given an electoral Supermajority based on campaign promises he failed to meet.
Nonsense. First of all, Evan Bayh, Ben Nelson, Mary Landrieu, Blanche Lincoln, Mark Pryor, Kent Conrad and Max Baucus did not run on Obama’s platform. Secondly, there is nothign in this post that even the most-martyr-complexed Naderite or revisionist PUMA could interpret as “It’s the Progressives’ fault”.
rootless_e
@aimai
“heavy lifting” – is that some kind of joke?
AngusTheGodOfMeat
No, you fuck off, you horse’s ass.
The man is one year into a four year term.
What’s more, we said RIGHT HERE ON THIS BLOG that the moneyed interests and the congressmen in their pockets were going to pull out every stop in defeating HCR, and that it would be WW3 trying to get it passed.
Stop whining and taking up bandwidth with the stupid whining. Politics is basically war without bullets, and this war cannot be won by one guy. That’s just fucking bullshit.
bystander
Nah. I doubt DADT is the spark that will make things burn. The blogosphere might light up, but that doesn’t amount to much more than a whole lot of people yelling at each other from the safety of their own homes, secure at their keyboards behind “usernames.” All these pixels amount to a tempest in a tea cup. And, if I wanted to press Shakespeare a little further, “full of sound and fury signifying nothing” comes to mind.
What might make things really burn is the economy. Froomkin (formerly of WaPo, until he began cutting too close to the bone) has a post up; 7 Things About The Economy Everyone Should Be Worried About. The embedded links to Nieman Watchdog are worth a look, although Froomkin summarizes the major points well.
A number of folk are speculating that health insurance reform is less Obama’s Waterloo than the economy is. Limping forward will be bad enough, but if the real economy falls much further, that’s when I think all bets are off. We might see some real skin in the game for that.
eastriver
@Keith G:
My comment was snark directed specifically at JC.
FlipYrWhig
One thing I’d really like to see is fewer Democratic staffers airing their concerns anonymously in the press. They always do it. Shut the fuck up for ten minutes.
Flugelhorn
@Face:
Nice! I am stealing that.
jenniebee
What @aimai said, except for this:
begging him to give a fuck about passing his own signature piece of legislation
This is the same “signature piece of legislation” that Obama was cornered into including in his platform when Edwards and Hillary both put HCR into theirs? The same signature piece of legislation that was always weaker in Obama’s version than it was in either Clinton’s or Edwards’?
Sorry, but Obama’s obvious lack of interest in Health Care Reform was what made me reluctant to support him in the primaries in the first place. In retrospect, my preferred candidate was an asshat who was cheating on his terminally ill wife, but he was the only asshat who was making Health Care Reform the centerpiece of his campaign.
AngusTheGodOfMeat
As opposed to the gratuitous handwringing and foot stomping of people who have no idea how hard governing is or is not, but more importantly, have given no thought to how hard being an effective citizen might actually be or how to do it.
Hint, you do it by getting up every day and putting one foot in front of the other and plugging away, because that is what your adversaries are doing, hoping that you will get discouraged and quit and run off crying like a schoolgirl.
You elected a guy to take over a train wreck that was years in the making, and one year later, you want ponies? F_ck you, seriously. Just f_ck you.
moja31
sounds like today the lefty blogsphere will once more completely meltdown and lose its mind, based on…”one aide’s growing sense.”
like clockwork.
AngusTheGodOfMeat
@jenniebee:
This is the same blog where we spend days at a time howling like dogs because Obama spent too much time on HCR and is ignoring things like DADT. Or whatever else is the favorite issue of the whiners that particular day.
You guys were better off with Bush. He was more your speed.
blahblahblah
AgnesGodofMeat:
No, I didn’t say I was done with politics. I said I am done with the political parties. With the US party duopoly. I was never a Republican. Their values are not mine. But so too – have I learned – that the Democrats don’t value me or my vote either.
So fuck them. They won’t get it. I’ll find someone else to vote for. Someone who is NOT a Republican nor a Democrat. And hopefully, in time, other citizens like me will realize the folly of their political choices and choose CHANGE over campaign rhetoric about change. But if not, at least I can live with my votes. I’ll never apologize for voting Nader in 2000 again.
Fuck the Democratic Party.
rootless_e
MA showed the difference between “progressives” and “teabaggers”. The “teabaggers” came though for their candidate in the primary and in the general. The “progressives” snoozed through the primary and began wailing when things looked bad and delivered nothing.
Difference between a serious political movement and a bunch of jerkoffs.
Amanda in the South Bay
@moja31:
Or, maybe to counteract these anonymous staffers, the White House and Congressional leadership can offer some strong, public statements? You know, like leadership, perhaps? If these anonymous statements are the only thing we (i.e. stab in the back little Jane Hamshers) have going for us, how are we supposed to make any decisions?
Kryptik
@moja31:
I’d rather see us meltdown and scream at our Dem leaders to do some shit rather than let this anonymous comment come to pass, instead of Dem leaders taking this anonymous comment as truth and curling fetal even further.
MobiusKlein
@Brachiator:
WTF? I know at least one out of 300 Million Americans do. I think even a few folks in Congress. And for Cap’n Trade vs Carbon Tax, I could take either.
But in today’s politics, it’s worse to be caught in bed with a tax increase than a dead hooker.
AngusTheGodOfMeat
Jesus wept, you crybaby.
If people are pissed, they can take that energy and do something useful with it. Hammering away at Barack Obama is not that useful thing.
Maybe you should get involved in your state’s Democratic Party and try to elect congresspeople who will push back against the moneyed interests and lobbyists who actually run the country. And if your state doesn’t need them, another state nearby certainly does. Asking one guy to do that against 500+ adversaries is a little ridiculous.
soonergrunt
FUCK OFF AND DIE IN A PILE OF PUTRID HORSE SHIT!!
That’s not really directed at anyone. I just saw that the thread was headed in that direction and I wanted to get in on the fun before I missed it.
FlipYrWhig
I have a growing sense that I’m going to have to stop reading every blog. If the Doom Brigade settles in here I’m not going to have anywhere else to turn.
aimai
No, I don’t think “heavy lifting” is a joke. I also presume that is what Angusthegodof meat meant when he tutttutted us all about how “this is what politics is” and we should “get together as citizens and…” what? what? what is it that we should have done that we didn’t and that we can do now that we didn’t already do? We had an election that put Obama in power, with a majority in the house and the senate. Not a supermajority, sure, but there were lots of ways to deal with that problem that the dems didn’t attempt because they thought, apparently, that they could use the “rising tide” of public expectations to lure the republicans on board. That was a reasonable theory or strategy on January 20th of last year. By the middle of last year it was clearly not going to work. Obama and his people failed to have a fall back strategy to work at that point. Instead they began to point fingers at “the public” and at polls to explain that it was getting harder to keep their own caucus in line. Instead of taking their argument to the people, or working more closely with their front line congressmen and senators to get their message out, they continued to fuck up the legislation writing piece of things (letting too much of the sausage making get seen), and fuck up the messaging (not getting out ahead of the right wing noise machine) and now they’ve lose a two week long poll called the Senate seat in MA and they are overreacting to that. If you live by the polls, you’d better have a plan for moving hte polls in your direction if you hope to get anything done since apparently merely having the courage of your convictions or the will to honor your campaign promises isn’t enough. Me, I hoped it would be enough. When I make up my mind that something needs to be done for my family, or my community, I make up my mind based on rational considerations: research, information, science, morality, possibility and then I fight to implement my goals. I don’t wait around and keep taking another poll to see if its going to get harder to do so. Take health care, for example: if my child breaks her leg in the morning and I determine its necessary to take her to a doctor do I wait until the afternoon and keep polling my kid on whether she does, or does not, think she needs to see the doctor? No, of course not. Good legislation has nothing to do with the whims of the public. It may serve the public, I hope it does, but absent a continued flood of good propaganda from the democrats the public is never going to support radical legislation until after its passed and the benefits are seen. The fact that that the democrats haven’t grasped that yet just goes to show what rank amateurs they are.
aimai
ed
Way to step up. Maybe HST oughn’t have integrated the military for the same reason. Jeezus you are soft and soft-minded.
Thanks for your Concern.
Whatever, Softie Concern Boy. I prefer leadership.
Keith G
@eastriver: Cool. Hopefully my comments stands on its own, regardless of your intent or the fact that when I went to edit a typo, I got sucked into a worm hole.
FYWP
AngusTheGodOfMeat
Very constructive. Much more so than, say, getting involved and changing the Democratic party.
Look at it this way: People who think the earth is 6000 years old managed to figure out a way to take over one party.
Are you saying that we can’t do better than them?
Oh, I should have known. You are one of those Nose-Spite-Face types. The blog world is surely a blessing to you. You can get more people listening to you here than you could at twenty Nader rallies.
FlipYrWhig
@Amanda in the South Bay:
Yes, if only there were to be some sort of high-profile speech soon… But, no, you’re right, it’s better to play Rotisserie Kremlinology with the “growing sense” of anonymous sources.
aimai
Hey soonergrunt, I’m glad to see you here! I remember your posts from way back when at Kos. Glad you are safe and still have your sense of humor. I think the thing to remember is that angusthegodofmeat gets off lecturing everybody else about how juvenile they are, and how they don’t understand politics, and how they didn’t do whatever they in fact did just finish doing. He’s always at the center of a pie fight, here.
aimai
blahblahblah
Jim:
But they are members of Obama’s party, right? The Republicans have shown themselves more than able to pass difficult legislation with a much smaller majority. Right?
When one looks at this clusterfuck objectively, one sees only that the Democrats have sold out their electoral base for the policies of elite campaign donors. Why the fuck should I ever give either money or votes to a party that sells lies to cover fucking over their supporters? I won’t do it for Republicans. Why do it for Democrats?
You people are more concerned with brand identity and party loyalty than any individual policy choice. Pathetic.
FlipYrWhig
@aimai:
When did this happen?
AngusTheGodOfMeat
Stop whining like little girls and keep working. Did you think the Republicans would admire your efforts and lay down?
The HMO and Pharma lobbies would see how sincere you were and give up?
The religious right would be impressed with your faith in yourself and throw up a white flag?
The punditocracy would forsake its luxury meal tickets and start supporting the Dems, you know, like John Cole did?
What the fuck did you think would happen?
rootless_e
@aimai:
Really? One election with a 54% majority of, what, 60% turnout, and that’s the heavy lifting? We sent a moderate into office and gave him Blanche Lincoln and Ben Nelson and Chuckles Stupak to manage? We filled the streets with – oh, sorry. We took over lower offices like – oh sorry. We built alternative media organizations that could support a reform agenda by explaining how the people we elected were gutless whores? Is that the heavy fucking lifting we did?
Jeez. I’m shocked we don’t have total power.
cmorenc
@Lynn Sutherland:
I remember hearing eerily similar arguments just before, and just after, the 2000 elections by folks who voted for Nader because Al Gore represented a grossly inadequate stopgap when we needed fundamental change, and there weren’t sufficient differences between him and Bush to make any worthwhile difference, and even if the result of electing Bush turned out badly – just maybe what we needed was for problems to get bad enough to make it possible for fundamental change to happen.
How’d that work out?
Hint: if you let irresponsible madmen run government into the ground, what you get is dissipative destruction, not creative destruction. Disintegration and despair and fear, not creation and hope and courage. Maybe you do have a magic pony waiting in the wings to ride out at the opportune time to save the day, but the rest of us would rather not bet the house or the country on it.
Midnight Marauder
@FlipYrWhig:
I see we’re getting “State of the Union Week” started out on the right note here at Balloon Juice.
AngusTheGodOfMeat
So, you think it is about “making up you mind?”
Well, you have apparently made up your mind to throw in the towel after the first quarter.
Note to self, don’t pick this loser for your street football team.
eastriver
@Keith G:
No worries. Thanks for the response.
licensed to kill time
@FlipYrWhig:
Heh. Rotisserie Kremlinology, I nominate for new tag!
FlipYrWhig
@blahblahblah:
There is one reason for that. Democratic politicians still worry that blocking the agenda of a Republican president will make them look bad and cause them to lose elections. Republican politicians don’t worry about that. They’re gleefully obstructionist and spectacularly unconcerned with how it makes them look. It’s entirely a problem with a Senate filled with scaredycats, many of whom owe their seats to the notion that they’re Not That Kind Of Democrat. Good luck.
soonergrunt
@aimai: I’ve been here a while now. I still post comments over at GOS from time to time, but the place has changed. A LOT more groupthink and balkanization over there, and they’ve lost the site’s mission.
So now I’m here, where there is no mission, except that I get this strange feeling every now and again that this fat white cat might kill some crippled guy in his sleep…
Brian J
@ed:
I don’t think I am being soft-minded. I’m trying to be realistic. I prefer leadership, too, and part of leading is knowing when to pick battles. As I said earlier, if the votes aren’t there, they aren’t there. What’s the use in bringing up the elimination of DADT if they are certain it’s going to fail? Pretty much nothing.
There are, unfortunately, a lot of people who would be particularly animated by this stuff. Giving them yet another reason to mobilize and vote against us isn’t going to help us. Yes, it’s possible that trying could motivate our side as well, but that’s far from certain. But it will motivate the other side, regardless of whether we have a victory.
It’s much better if they focus on passing some sort of economic relief package or further stimulus measures, health care reform, or financial regulation reform.
Besides, what’s your plan for getting it passed? I certainly wouldn’t know how to do it, but unlike trying to reform health care, the path to success doesn’t seem as obvious. Since it’s so clear to you but not to me, perhaps you can clue me in.
Fwiffo
I really don’t understand the cowardice on DADT. Polling shows that the public is pretty solidly behind that one. And it’s not like health care reform where perhaps a majority of the public likes HCR in the abstract, and maybe respond positively to specific policy ideas, but the current HCR bill polls quite poorly. Repealing DADT is simple. People understand it. It will only affect a small percentage of the population (gays who want to serve openly in the military), and it polls well. It’s not like repealing DOMA which probably doesn’t have majority support.
I don’t know who they’re trying to not offend by not getting it fucking done.
Hal
Is there a candidate who would fulfill the progressive lefts agenda and still appeal to enough people on a mass level to be elected? We keep talking about third parties and “other” candidates, and being done with Obama, or the Dems, or whoever, but I just don’t see a better option out there.
Personally, I think we are far better off building up from where we are, than throwing it all away and going right back to square one and waiting another 15 or 20 years.
Kryptik
Times like these, I kinda wonder if mass protest or riot is called for.
Then I remember the Iraq War Protests, compared to the Tea Baggers, and the coverage/reaction each got.
Iraq War protests worldwide, gaining millions alone in specific American metro areas = Only a few ten thousand hippies, who cares, WAR!!!!
Tea Baggers get under 100,000 in DC = There must be nearly 2 million there, SEE, America does hate Obamacare! STOP HIM NOW!!
It takes the piss out of me, because it tells me that we’re institutionally fucked.
And crap like this only seems to prove that point. I just have no fight left in me. Just a whole lotta rage and depression.
rootless_e
“I don’t know who they’re trying to not offend by not getting it fucking done.”
Well, some anonymous person has a feeling about it, so we have nothing better to do than weep about betrayal. Good thing we’re not easily played.
AngusTheGodOfMeat
Sorry, I have things to do today. For all you “take my ball and go home” types, you know what? Get out. Go away. Quit.
Take your ball and go home. I think our team can do better without the chorus of whiners and losers and their crying towels.
Go out and rally support for your man, your hope for the future, and good F_CKING luck.
Barack will be resigning Wednesday night, and make a speech that ends with “You won’t have Barack Obama to kick around any more.”
Jim
@blahblahblah:
You mean when I deluded myself with “brand identity and party loyalty” by voting for Al Gore even though smart people like you were telling me there was no difference between Gore and Bush? Just the other day, Alito and Roberts sent you a big thank you note for your efforts to break up the duopoply and minimize corporate influence in politics. So you see, besides giving you a mirror full of self-righteous purity to jerk off too, what you imagine are your principles actually had some real world effect!! Congratulations to you and Ralph.
Brian J
@Fwiffo:
Assuming your information about the polling is true, that doesn’t mean it’s necessarily true for certain states or certain congressional districts. Until it’s safe enough to vote for, a lot of Democrats aren’t going to make a priority.
I’m not saying I agree with it, only that this is probably the reason that goes into the decision to make it a big issue or not.
Also, it’s not clear that any of this is true.
Tsulagi
You must be a PUMA.
Sorry, couldn’t resist.
Yeah, it’d be one thing if they’d shown some competence and fight. If on a signature issue like HCR it was evident they’d done advance planning then adjusted where necessary while fighting to deliver something close to what campaigned on. If then they came up short, could have full respect for that.
Instead the battle plan on HCR and other legislation seems to be to start at a point they think the R-baggers will let them have. Then when inevitably told that’s not good enough, capitulate. Then that followed by rinse and repeat cycles in some insane hope it will ever be good enough.
You could point out the obvious stupidity in that, but I think they know that. Now it just seems they’re incapable of doing otherwise.
Michael
OT – Apparently, America’s most wonderfulest ever narcissist that had HCR as the centerpiece of his platform actually made a sex tape with Hunter.
http://www.nydailynews.com/gossip/2009/06/28/2009-06-28_aides_tale_of_john_edwards_sex_tape.html
How could one man be that fucking dumb? It amazes and embarrasses me for extent of the cluelessness and hubris involved.
Keep this in mind every time you see some hard-core progressive whining – these were his supporters.
aimai
Oh, fuck off Angus, you are the only one you impress with your fake tough guy attitude. “Cry like a little girl?” oh for christ’s sake. Aside from the naderite poster the rest of us are all stone democrats: we walk our wards, we run our local elections, we caucus with the local democrats, we phone people, we raise money, etc…etc…etc… At least I know that’s true of me. I’m not asking for miracles–it is the rest of you who are wasting time excusing Obama for *not being able to handle his own party* and do what we elected him to do. Bush ran this country without as big a vote as Obama got. He ran it into the ground, sure, but not because his *voting base* supported him but because the elected republican officials and the democrats supported him. You have it exactly backwards: you think if we all keep our mouths shut and never complain and never ask Obama and the dems to act like a god damned party and get something done that they promised to do then–what happens? what again?
I think that if Obama and the dems want to capture the enthusiasm of their voters, and expand the party, and get more people to walk the precincts for them and turn out for them and fundraise for them they’d better come home with some victories. That’s not because I am a whiner or unrealistic. That’s because that’s the way politics works. People vote for people who promise to do shit they like. They stay home and don’t bother to vote, or vote for the other guy, when they see the first guy they voted for can’t do what he promised.
I’m here in MA and I fully understand the message of that botched election. Progressives turned out and voted. Weak, new voters and young voters didn’t turn out to vote for Coakley because they were unimpressed with her and they didn’t feel that electing her would improve their lives. Obama and the national dems stepped in too late, and coakely was a piss poor candidate. Lots of people voted for scott brown not because they thought he would kill obama’s initiatives but because, in a funny way, they thought he’d work to bring about the good bits and leave behind what they erroneously thought were the bad bits. The fact that brown could lie about his own intentions and his goals is totally down to in competent democratic message handling.
My point, and the point of other people complaining about Obama’s lack of serious victories for his own program is that you can sell people on hope and change once. After that, no more beta testing vaporware. People want to see results. Or they want a damned good explanation for why they aren’t seeing results. Obama can run as a populist against his own party if he wants. I’d recommend it in fact. But all your pouting and shouting at “progressives” and “the base” and voters in general isn’t going to help him get over the hump. And he’s who we are running in 2012. I have a vested interest in seeing Obama do well. I don’t think he’s well served by the people, like you on blogs, who think that by shouting and hectoring other blog commenters you are doing anything at all but pissing people off. Its actually the people who are mad at Obama for doing nothing who are more likely to build the party. Being mad that nothing is done is a prerequisite for getting something done. I dont think Obama would thank you for shitting on his voters or telling them they have to keep clapping and cheering for Obama’s failures or else the teabaggers win. Its not true and its not useful.
aimai
gex
@Tim F.: This. When Democrats are weak, compromise goes like this:
Dems: We think 1 is right.
Reps: We think 9 is right.
Dems: Let’s split the difference at 13.
DOMA didn’t just prevent states from having to recognize SSM. It prevented the federal government from recognizing it, ironically depriving MA and IA the power to define marriage at the state level.
Skippy-san
You have to pick your fights-and to put it bluntly, Don’t ask Don’t tell is not a fight that the Obama adminstration should pick-especially when health care is hanging in the balance.
Two reasons:
1) DADT is a tertiary issue to most Americans and many of the folks whose support they need are uncomfortable with this issue. It drags everything else down. You may not like it-but that is what it is.
2) Second, it undermines in a BIG WAY Obama’s efforts to build trust and confidence with a military that is deeply distrustful of him having their best interests at heart. Again a fight you don’t need to pick because Obama is starting to experience success on that front. You want him to trash all that out of a fit of pique?
You have to pick your fights and this is a non starter. It is what it is.
Joe Beese
Fwiffo (110) sez: “I really don’t understand the cowardice on DADT.”
If a Republican politician justified his opposition to gay marriage by saying it makes the baby Jesus cry, you wouldn’t hesitate to identify him as a bigot.
It’s supposed to be completely different in Obama’s case because he has the trusted “D” trademark after his name.
I suggest that it’s no different at all.
ed
In the words of Wendy Leach, why on earth not?
How realistic is it to consider picking a battle which is one’s signature cause, on the brink of passing. Regarding DADT, Will and Grace ran its last episode in 2006. It’s over. Nobody cares. Fish in a barrel. Only a bedwetting chickenshit would think thats’ a loser. Or maybe HST oughtn’t have integrated the military because “large parts of the military may disagree with” that policy. Again, I’ll stick with leadership rather than being afraid to succeed. Please call your Congressperson either way. Thanks in advance.
rootless_e
“it is the rest of you who are wasting time excusing Obama for not being able to handle his own party and do what we elected him to do. ”
I can’t tell you how angry this type of ignorant wailing makes me. Neither Clinton nor Carter were able to “handle his own party”. Nobody with more brains than God gave a dead armadillo is surprised by the balky nature of the Democratic “majority”. LBJ passed civil rights after a massive victory – with Republican votes. So take your ignorant self pity and shove it where the sun don’t shine.
Corner Stone
@Midnight Marauder:
I’m looking forward to it pantywaist!
Amanda in the South Bay
@Skippy-san:
Yeah, because the military is a democracy where the views of individual servicemembers trump what the Commander in Chief (for once, an accurate usage) has to say?
The military is distrustful of Obama? Did you live under the Bush Administration? Yeah, they really loved and cared for the rank and file!
Corner Stone
@soonergrunt:
That cat is a hell of a lot smarter than Cole and isn’t going to waste his energy. Tunch knows it’s only a matter of time before Cole does himself in. Probably choke himself to death with the strings on his window blinds when he loses his balance while featherdusting in nothing but a French Maid’s outfit.
Comrade Kevin
That is a phrase that needs to be drummed out of the English language posthaste. For starters, I think it should be added to the list of things that trigger the moderation or spam filters on blogs.
Brian J
@Skippy-san:
This, with the caveat that this is not idea by any stretch.
But to sum the thinking of a lot people–perhaps a lot of people in the White House–up, I think it was Mark Kleiman who said that if the end to DADT ends up taking an extra year because it came from within the military rather than from outside of it, it’ll be worth it. Not because ending it sooner isn’t the smart thing to do, but ensuring that it stays dead is smarter.
Mark S.
@Skippy-san:
I doubt it.
(That’s actually way higher than I expected)
Ending DADT is less popular in the military, but attitudes are changing there too. Maybe soonergrunt knows more about this, but I don’t think the military is deeply distrustful of Obama.
TWP
@Skippy-san: Oh, let’s have a little fun with your comments…I’m gonna take you back in a time machine and see if it resonates….
This attitude is what keeps progress from happening in this country. It’s never the wrong time to do the right thing.
FlipYrWhig
@Tsulagi: OK, let’s say the full-bore liberal bill, with the public option, no Stupak, whatever, is the do-or-die bill. They fight for it–twist arms behind the scenes, call out obstructionists in public–but it doesn’t pass the House because of the pro-life Democrats, who are riled up by the challenge. It gets 48 or something in the Senate because of the spending skeptics, who are riled up by the challenge. How does that play? Sure as fuck not as a _win_. And where are we left? With a bunch of people complaining that Democrats can’t get anything done, and if only they had compromised instead of trying to shoot the moon, etc., etc., etc. The “activists” _might_ be happier, on account of the “fighting”… but they might _not_ be happier, because they’d have seen yet once more that Democrats don’t hang together; and they’d be turned off by politics, though perhaps less with Obama in particular. But the non-activists would be _drastically_ less happy, and the whole tenor of political discussion would be the need to bring those partisan Democrats back in touch with Real America.
In other words, same shit, different day. But the blogs would be slightly more cheerful. Yay.
Brian J
@ed:
I don’t think I’m being soft-minded because I imagine a lot of Democrats are looking at data that shows this far from being a sure thing in their districts. It may be close one way or another, but in a tough environment, it’s best not to hang yourself when there’s no guarantee the vote will mean much in the end. Perhaps they have the votes but don’t have the balls to move forward, but that’s not clear. And while the scenario I just suggested is far from clear as well, it’s probably likely. It sucks, of course, but that doesn’t change anything. Then again, I’d be happy to be proven wrong.
And this is far from being his signature issue. This isn’t to say he made it a big part of his campaign, but I doubt that most people would claim this in the top five of all things they associate with Obama, unless they are the sort that is bothered by the end of DADT. Health care expansion, on the other hand, is a signature issue, if not the signature issue that he campaigned on. That partially explains why he’s trying to get it done.
Michael
OT – The nutbaggers at Newsmax opine that the Citizens United case may be Roberts’ signal that he’s ready to undo Roe. This is the one analysis they’ve done that I agree with.
http://newsmax.com/InsideCover/johnroberts-supremecourt-abortion-roev-wade/2010/01/24/id/347808
Another legacy we have Ralph and his progressives to thank for.
Mike E
@aimai:
Please speak for yourself — I haven’t been registered ‘D’ in 12 years, do the math. While Clinton was/is the smartest man in any room, this DLC self-love movement was my cue to butt out.
Nothing gets done unless somebody is willing to do the ‘dirty’ deeds. If Queer Nation really wants their equal civil rights, and they fight hard, loudly, and with their wallets, then it’ll happen. Wildcat strikes, whatever it takes. Bring the pain!
I was on line at the unemployment line, where I heard a couple of African Americans laugh out loud over the notion that queers are fighting for their civil rights. Wanna disparage them for feeling this way? Go ahead. It told me that when change happens, it sure is messy. Outrage ain’t enough.
patroclus
DADT repeal will be added to the Defense Appropriations bill later this Spring. It seems certain to pass the House, but the Senate is in question. Obama will sign it if it reaches his desk. I’m unsure as to why I should be hand-wringing about this or blaming its lack of progress so far on the President.
Brachiator
@MobiusKlein:
RE: And cap and trade is a non-starter. Nobody cares. Absolutely nobody.
In my book, “at least one” is the quantitative equivalent of nobody.
This is kind of fun, though. Millions have either lost jobs, are in fear of losing jobs, or are under-employed, but cap and trade or a carbon tax is supposed to be one of the paramount issues of Obama’s presidency.
Really? Let’s try this presidential speech. “Unemployment continues to rage at 15%. But I have just signed Cap and Trade legislation. This is the signature event of my presidency.”
It just doesn’t work.
By the way, health care reform is tied to the economy and jobs. This is not to say that other issues aren’t important, but that they can’t be sold if the economy continues to decay.
FlipYrWhig
@aimai:
Coming home with some victories _means_, by definition, sacrificing some of what they would ideally want. You can either stand up for what you ideally want OR you can come home with victories. Not both. (The real PR problem arises from compromising and _not_ getting a victory. That’s where things stand now.)
geg6
@AngusTheGodOfMeat:
You are being a real dickhead here. You are talking to aimai and others here who feel the same as she does as if you know us and what we do IRL. You don’t have a fucking clue and still you get up on your high horse and act like you are the only one who understands politics and such. You are the worst sort of wanker.
FTR, I agree with everything aimai is saying. And just so you know that I’m not some stupid child, I’ve been a Democrat since 1976 when I first volunteered for and contributed to a political campaign, that of one Jimmy Carter. I have volunteered, contributed, and voted in every election, primary or general, ever since. I have attended numerous rallies, protests, and town halls over those same years. I even have a degree in political science, with two specialties (the only one relevant to this conversation being “the American political process.”) and I really hate bringing that up. But you’re such a bloviating ass on this thread that I felt it needed to be said. So what, exactly, other than what I have done over the course of over 30 years of party activism would you suggest I’ve left out that gives you a right to criticize me or aimai (who I suspect may have even more impressive liberal credentials than I do)?
Don
When the poor try to set the rich folks’ shit on fire they send the cops out to shoot them in the head. Burning your own shit to send a message may not be the most effective way but all the shock troops do then is try to keep the brown folk in their own area.
Face
You spelled “week” wrong. Think there’s supposed to be an “a” in there.
Da Bomb
@patroclus: I am just as confused as you are on this as well.
That’s the same exact information that I got too. Wasn’t it Barney Frank who said that it was going to be placed in the Denfense Appropriations bill?
soonergrunt
@Don:
This.
Chad S
We’re all Larry Craig now…
Face
Nader told those wrinklies down in SoFla how to fuck up a butterfly ballot? Really? He hung all those chads?
FlipYrWhig
@gex:
No, it goes like this:
Majority of Dems: We think 2 is right.
Minority of Dems: We think 4 is right.
Reps: We think “fuck you” is right.
Majority of Dems: OK, how about 3?
Minority of Dems: No, 4.
Reps: Again, fuck you.
Majority of Dems: OK, fine, 4.
Minority of Dems: We’re concerned about 4, so maybe, um, 5.
Majority of Dems: OK, fine, 5.
Reps: Refer to our previous statement.
All Dems: After a long and difficult effort, we’re pleased to say we’ve come to a historic agreement at 5.
Democratic blogosphere: 1! It should have been 1! Oh my God I’m so upset! 5? 5? Are they serious? I’m never voting again! Oh that bunch of bastards! Why did we elect them! Where’s my inhaler? Everyone, quick, call the Dems and demand 1! nowNowNOW!
Majority of Dems: Did you hear something?
Minority of Dems: No.
Democratic blogosphere: I don’t understand, why don’t they listen to us?
Ruckus
Only slightly off topic
I received an email from the California Human Rights Amendment group.
These assholes are trying to get another amendment on the ballet in CA that human rights start at conception. Right now they need 1.2 million signatures on their petition.
They note that they are very glad that a majority of people voted for prop 8 to “save marrage”
The email is long so I don’t want to post it here. I will probably do this at kos and on my blog.
Human rights my ass.
FlipYrWhig
@Da Bomb:
Sure, but that’s Barney Frank. What does he know? He hardly has the standing of the “growing sense” of a “Capitol Hill veteran.”
Xantar
Can we please stop saying that Bush ruled the government with an iron fist and rammed stuff through Congress? Because, you know, he didn’t. Privatization of Social Security, anyone?
Brachiator
@aimai:
Well said.
I can’t figure out what the Democrats’ problem is. Are they afraid to govern or are they just incompetent?
Bill Clinton was accused of living and dying by polls, but at least he had some policy ideas which appeared to be shaped by poll results. The present Congress, and the president, seem to want to use polls to tell them what to do.
Wile E. Quixote
@AngusTheGodOfMeat
We are the ones who are working you useless, pathetic O-bot piece of shit! We’re the ones who are calling our representatives and telling them to pass the Senate bill. We’re the ones who are calling our Senators and telling them to stand firm. We’re the ones who worked our asses off to put Obama and other Democrats in office and what the fuck do we have to show for it? A political party that collectively shits itself because they lost one Senate seat due to an incompetent lousy candidate who ran an incompetent campaign and a bunch of worthless, wanking, ass-licking O-bot fucks like you who keep telling us that we just don’t understand how hard politics is.
Da Bomb
@FlipYrWhig: I know right?
There isn’t enough palm for all of this face…
This particular post is just pure wank. I mean Barney Frank of all people said this was how DADT was going down last year during all of the muckity-muck that was HCR.
Now we are going to tar and feather the Obama Administration from some Capital Hill veteran’s “growing sense”.
WTF is going on here?
Da Bomb
@Xantar: THIS. Over and over again ad nasueam.
FlipYrWhig
@aimai: I didn’t see this before —
–but I wholeheartedly agree. My sense is that professional Democrats are very, VERY concerned about doing anything that might draw the _slightest_ negative publicity. They don’t want to do anything they’ll need to defend, or that their opponent might use in a campaign commercial. They are very adept at finding downsides, and totally impoverished when it comes to imagining upsides. They are _horrible_ at counterpunching.
I actually _don’t_ think Obama’s people are like that. I think, however, that they’re having a hell of a time getting the House and Senate to come around.
Brachiator
@Xantar:
Is this the best you got? I’ll see your “Bush couldn’t touch Social Security” with the war in Iraq, and raise you a Gitmo, wrecking the economy and Bush’s entire bonehead conservative agenda.
geg6
@Wile E. Quixote:
OMG, thank you, thank you, thank you. That is exactly right. Exactly.
Wile E. Quixote
@Michael
You know, I’ve come to the point where I’m tired of trying to explain to stupid bastards like you that Al Gore’s 2000 loss wasn’t Ralph Nader’s fault and was instead Al Gore’s and now feel that the only way to deal with people who keep repeating this stupid and ignorant meme, one designed to let Gore off the hook for running a lousy campaign and doing a lousy job as a candidate is to repeatedly hit you with something large and heavy until you shut up. It’s bullshit, stupid bullshit repeated by stupid people and even if it were true do you know what, it’s 2010, so it’s well past time for you to get the fuck over it you whining sack of crap.
FlipYrWhig
@Xantar: What’s correct, according to my recollection, is that Bush was much better able to get the Democrats to roll over. (Because, IMHO, they fear bad publicity, especially things that can be taken as “weak on defense,” “soft on crime,” or “tax-and-spend.”) So it’s not so much that Obama is weaker than Bush; it’s that both presidents dealt with a quivery jello-like bunch of Democrats. And that Republicans don’t fear bad publicity. They just reverse it into a show of strength. I can’t remember Democrats succeeding in making a show of strength, even when they win.
Skippy-san
Equating DADT to racial issues is not an apples to apples comparison.
FWIW I was in the miltary during the Carter, Reagan, Bush, Clinton and Bush years. I know a little bit about the subject. The Mark Kleiman answer is the best one-having this come from within the ranks is the best answer. There has already been movement from Chairman Mullen in discussing this.
However, don’t underestimate the opposition to DADT from within the ranks and outside the ranks. If you think the health care message got distorted-wait till tea baggers get their hands on this. They will have a field day with it-and the reason health care is in trouble to begin with is : 1) People don’t understand it and 2) what they think they understand is often wrong. But the Republicans were able to dominate the discussion because they were able to come up with a coherent theme. It was wrong but it stuck. Health Care Reform equals Socialized medicine and it will jack up your taxes.
This will get quickly morphed into a national security discusssion of ” Obama does not care about the troops”.
What should be the priority: 1) Stay the course on foreign policy while getting the US out of Iraq and Afg.
2) Get the economy under control and turned around
3) Pass health insurance reform.
I don’t know about you-but that’s a pretty full plate and it doesn’t take much to derail any of those objectives.
Xantar
@Brachiator:
Bush was the Commander in Chief. So yeah, he got the Iraq War and the prisons and the torture policies he wanted. As far as I know, health care reform isn’t enacted by the military, so Obama is out of luck there. The rest of that stuff, assuming you have specific pieces of legislation in mind, was enacted with the help of both parties in Congress.
Xantar
@FlipYrWhig:
Yeah, that sounds about right to me. Our problem is only a third of the Senate is up for election at a time, so we can only “elect more and better Democrats” so quickly. What gives me hope is we seem to have the House of Representatives that we need just as soon as they get over the five stages of grief and get back to actually doing something.
El Cid
@Wile E. Quixote: But you don’t understand — how can we possibly expect Democrats to do anything given that now they have 1 more Senator than they did 1 year ago?
Brachiator
@Xantar:
The Democrats were enablers then and are craven now.
soonergrunt
It’s heating up, so without further ado:
GO FUCK YOURSELF YOU POMPOUS WINDBAG SHIT-FOR-BRAINS WAD OF ROTTING PIG-SHIT FUCK, FUCK, FUCKITY FUCK!!
Apply that to yourselves or your opponents as you see fit. I’m an equal opportunity kind of guy.
Cris
He also got the PATRIOT act. He also got the AUMF. It’s not like he just ordered troops into Iraq without Congress giving him the nod.
Bush used the unitary executive doctrine to its hilt, but a certain side of the check-and-balance equation did little to check or balance him.
Michael
Inadequate. Not enough spittle or invective. you really need to insult some lineage, too, to get the full flavor of the thing.
TWP
@Skippy-san: <blockquoteFWIW I was in the miltary during the Carter, Reagan, Bush, Clinton and Bush years. I know a little bit about the subject.
And I know gays serving in the military right now who hate it. Their peers have no problem with them being gay, but they are forced to hide it because of DADT. So dumb.
Yes, it will be hard to change it. Yes the teabaggers will go on and on about it. Yes people will use it as a political issue to knock over the heads of Democrats. Yes. Yes. Yes.
But so what? Not sure if you’ve noticed, but the teabaggers have distorted HCR and you are still urging it to be signed into law. HCR is a political liability now, no doubt about it. But does that mean it’s wrong to do? Of course not.
And the same goes with DADT. We elect people to make hard decisions. And in some cases, they won’t get re-elected. So what. I didn’t vote for Obama, my Senators and Representative in the sole hope that they would get re-elected. I voted for them because I wanted them to govern, re-election be damned.
Either stop making excuses or stop making promises. It can’t be both.
Michael
OT – The best body modification ever!
http://www.geekologie.com/2010/01/body_modification_a_window_for.php
rootless_e
@soonergrunt:
10 troll-ratings and 50 demerits.
Please report to Ms. Hamsher’s office for further instructions.
Very Reverend Crimson Fire of Compassion
@geg6: And the brother/sister gets an “Amen”!
Michael
Firebagger!
licensed to kill time
@Michael:
I’m sorry, that is just sick. sickity sick sick sick! Also, gonna look great when s/he’s 50+, heh.
Ruckus
@TWP:
This. Exactly This.
Tsulagi
@FlipYrWhig:
First off, I’m extremely offended by your use of the word “shit.” Can’t you say anything without resorting to that word? Shit this, shit that, shit, shit, shit. ;)
Before you take to the field in a landmark battle like HCR, you better have a plan for your mission. Your objectives, how you’re going to achieve them. While with these guys you’re not going to get everyone fully on the same page, define the mission.
That followed by party discipline. For “mavericks” and other assorted egos (yeah, no shortage of that in either chamber) that seek to be noticed and stroked, let them know there will be consequences if they pull something like a Stupak or Nelson amendment or a Lieberman “I liked Medicare 55+ last week and you did too, but I’m not going to let you have it this week.”
While committee chairs can’t be pulled immediately, House or Senate leadership could tell them it would be a done deal the next time they’re set. Those chairmanships, especially the powerful ones, not only give them power but worth to lobbyists (see campaign contributions) and burnish their resume when they golden parachute out. Helps with their voters back home too. Also let them know their home pork will come under a fine microscope. There’s plenty of ways to give them incentive to work toward a common goal. And they need to follow through.
Dems need to plan before the fight, and they need discipline to get quality legislation through. What was the plan and discipline on HCR? “Olympia, are you comfy enough? Can we give you anything more? Oh, we’re going too fast? Max, if it’s not too much of an inconvenience, do you think you and Olympia could finish your tea while we’re still alive? What’s that, Ben and Bart have needs too? Give it to them.”
These guys are pathetic, it’s like trying to herd preening cats. And while that may have been funny and for some part of the Democratic charm, it’s definitely worn thin now.
TWP
@Skippy-san:
Please, take the time to explain to me why it’s different? How about women in the military? Instead of just throwing that out there like it’s understood, explain why you think it’s different. I’m really intrigued to understand why you think it’s different.
Cuz I don’t.
geg6
@Very Reverend Crimson Fire of Compassion:
It’s sister and thanks. What really boggles my mind is seeing assholes like that say stuff like that to people like me, people who absolutely HATE the Senate bill but who are willing to go balls to the wall to get it passed because if it can’t pass, then my preference for HCR never will. Ever. So I pack up my hopes and dreams, do everything in my power to get this done and come here and see some asshole calling people like me stupid and lazy and everything but a Cheetos-eater, sitting in my basement and typing away in my underwear.
Pisses me off no end.
Skippy-san
TWP,
It sounds good on paper-but in reality it doesn’t fly. I’m a Republican who voted for Obama because I had had it with Iraq, and the economy. There are a lot of people like me who can put our RINO caps on and go back to voting Republican. Obama won on a coaltion of independents who switched sides. If Massachusetts proves one thing it is that coalition is a fragile one.
And the idea of just “sneaking” it into the NDAA is dead on arrival also IMHO-the word will get out and fairly quickly.
Besides-you have to understand that my gut feeling is to be opposed to repeal of DADT just as I was opposed to its implementation back in 1992. I have to force myself to be objective on the subject-because its not one I am comfortable with. And so are a lot of other independents. Obama has to act to change that demographic quickly or November will be a blood bath. This is not the way to do it.
What’s right and what’s possible are too different things. But hey, knock your self out screaming for gay issues at a time when Obama’s numbers are sinking. Let me know how that works out.
Fair Economist
Obama should have – after starting the push for other reforms – said that DADT is suspended for the duration of same emergency that requires sending out Guardsmen to the other side of the world for five tours (if Guardsmen are called up for anything, it’s almost by definition an emergency). That would have wedged the warmongers from the homophobes. Then, as they start infighting, call for formal and permanent repeal. DADT gets stopped immediately, the push to repeal is strengthened, and nobody could accuse him of gays over economy because a) he called for other reforms first and b) the whole process would be over and done in an afternoon and he’s back on whatever is near and dear to his heart. Split opponents, popular and decisive action, delighted supporters – what could be better? Certainly not the dilly-dallying we’ve seen.
Wile E. Quixote
@FlipYrWhig
Then what good are they? Seriously, if what you say is true then these people are worthless. They’re lazy, cowardly, incapable of planning and unwilling to take a stand. But despite this we’re supposed to keep supporting them and reelecting them even though they’re unwilling to do anything that might benefit their constituents because someone on Fox News might say something mean about them.
If this is the case then we’re doomed. We might as well just tune out because what it comes down to is the choice between two political parties. One that is going to curl up in a fetal position and do nothing while the wingers burn the country down and the other that will of course burn the country down as soon as they’re elected. Thanks Democrats!
Uriel
@soonergrunt: Good call! Very prescient of you.
You truly are the master of eleventy-eleventh dimensional blog post commenting.
Michael
Ruh roh – Cole is now on the DK/CPUSA/FDL radar as being insufficiently pure and inadequately committed to revolutionary thought.
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2010/1/18/826443/-Canaries-in-the-coal-mine
Idiot douchenozzle TomP is agreeing with Kos, so you know for a fact that the thoughts expressed are stupid.
TWP
@Skippy-san:
Mark S.
@Skippy-san:
Again, I refer you to
That poll may be an outlier, but I doubt it’s off by 30%. This ain’t that controversial.
Uriel
@Michael:
Well, she was his videographer, so I’m going to have to setp in and defend her professionalism.
Many people less devoted to they’re job would have missed this thrilling example of American electoral politics in action. Not Rielle- She went that extra mile that really distinguishes a master of the craft.
Jay B.
@Michael:
Oh, well, if Tom P. is fer it, I’m agin’ it! Or, you could, you know, try and form your own opinion on something that seems pretty obvious and uncontroversial — by not giving Democrats and Independents anything to support, by having no message and having no seeming aim, it’s hardly “progressives” or even independents who are the problem.
FlipYrWhig
@Tsulagi: I say “shit” all the time. I just don’t care for it in sandwich form. Um, verbally.
I don’t think you can really punish strayers, though, because then the risk is that they stray forever — and you only end up creating a situation where you have to cajole them back into the fold, vote by vote. And, yes, I’m aware that that sucks. It’s like watching a basketball team with a 15-point lead, and then the other guys get a three, and then they charge through the lane and make it and get the foul, and our guy fouls out, and he makes the foul shot, and now the lead is below double digits, and, shit, what are we gonna do, it’s all falling apart! Fuckity fuck fuck TIMEOUT!
There has to be pain inflicted on the side that’s _down_. That’s the problem, I thoroughly believe it. There’s nothing to discourage Republicans from filibustering everything in sight. That’s the logjam we have to break somehow. Of course if you break it through sweet-talk, the Kos-Hamsher-Aravosis crowd throws another conniption. So find a way to break it through tough talk. Someone around here said to assign Franken and/or Grayson to it. Cool by me.
Elie
@Wile E. Quixote:
I definitely cannot fault any of your observations now Wile — and you know that I have had strong disagreements with you previously..
That said — we can’t afford to stop working — though I am bitter and very disgusted…Angus is right that we have to keep at it — even as we curse and rage..
Skippy-san
TWP and Mark S,
I have an answer for you-but you are not going to like it.
Deep down I am not in favor of gays serving-anymore than I am in favor of large numbers of women serving in the military. Not because they can’t do the job but the social costs of them serving are too high. I supported and I still supported the combat exclusion law. There are a lot of people like me who feel that way. I know you don’t like it-but its the way I feel. Single gender units were easier to lead and more fun to be in.
The issue is-that what I feel really doesn’t matter anymore, society is changing whether I like it or not. I still think you have at least another 20 years before people accept openly gay couples kissing on the pier or being socially accepted in wardrooms etc. I don’t support Gay marriage and if recent referendums on the subject are any indication I’ve still got a lot of company on the subjecy. Or was Prop 8 just a figment of my imagination? There are still a lot of people uncomfortable with the subject.
Here is the other issue about repealing DADT that sticks in military folks craw: will there be open quotas on the number of gay people recruited and promoted. Will they be sucked into the “diversity industry”? If you can answer that question in the negative-you are a lot further down the road to getting acceptance of gays in the military.
I have to reconcile my personal feelings with what can objectively quantified. I have no objective arguments to make against gays serving-but I sure as hell am glad I served before all this social experimentation became military policy. There are more “disgruntled old vets” than you think-and we vote.
Mark-take a poll inside the military. Those are the only numbers that matter really. Barely 3% of Americans have served-so to them its an abstract issue.
The positive note is time is marching on and a new generation will move in where the old folks were before.
I told you that you were not going to like the answer.
tavella
I never expected Obama to do much on gay rights beyond “probably not making it worse.” Gays were his go-to for the Sister Souljah role in the campaign, and nothing since has suggested that view has changed. However, at least he wouldn’t dare veto anything that made it through Congress, which was still an improvement over the Republicans.
eemom
@Michael:
Tee hee. Hamsher ain’t gonna like that part.
She kinda thinks that the whole reason anything “progressive” ever happens anywhere is cuzza her.
Aimai
Iphoning it in. I’m an actual dem voter. I’m older, white, progressive and educated. I always vote. A straight dem ticket. I’m pragmatic and I’d never even bother about a third party candidate except locally or if I knew they could win. When I talk about voter turnout being depressed I’m not talking about habitual loyal, base voters like me I’m talking about low information fragile, young, low income, and /or new voters. Angus is in the position of imagining that by shouting down the messenger he can prevent those voters, whobi assure you aren’t here, from losing faith that Obama is going to come through for them. This has nothing to do with DADT or any specific reg or law or campaign promise except insofar as the dem victories last time around were based on a fragile coalition of interset groups. As far as I can see Obama is going to each dem interest group individually and asking them to take a backseat to some other interest group or voting block. That may or may not work for all of them. It may not work for any of them. Worse, if he can’t deliver and sell hcr the ponzi hope scene is going to crumble. I don’t object to Obama telling each dem constuencyvthat they must defer theeir dream — that’s politics which I understand to be the art of the possible or something. But Christ on a bun even Bernie madoff paid off his dupes for a while in cold hard cash. Obama and the dens want to be in office? Let them buy our votes with som victories or they will go down electorally when good foot soldier workers like me can’t explain to low income/ low information voters just what they were fucking around doing in congress for that pivotal year on our dime.
Aiamai
Cain
@aimai:
For shits and grins, I watched “American President” and while there is a lot of b.s. in it there was this one truth, people like leaders and if one side isn’t saying anything then they are going to be listening to the guy who is shouting all the lies and crud. Check out the video fun starts at 2:30.
cain
Michael
I agree that independents aren’t the problem, because when it comes to nut cuttin’ time, progressives collapse like a cheap chair underneath a fat woman at a church social.
They refuse to contribute to the compromise on a hard decision, thereby doing nothing but sniping from the left. The act is old, and you guys have done it every single time – zero enthusiasm over progress translates to no progress.
This marks my observation of progressives over the past 40 years. Y’all fuck up every thing you touch.
In 1968, your beloved student progressives managed to toss the election to Nixon by acting like assholes at the Democratic Convention. Your selfish, spoiled brats discredited sensible objectors to the war with cartoonish antics with drugs and fashion, not to mention ill-conceived and stupid demonstrations like the sit in at Columbia.
Ted Kennedy screwed up a positive Nixon action on helath care reform, then kneecapped Carter by primarying the guy in 1980.
The list of the fail goes on and on.
General Winfield Stuck
@Face: Because the preening of self righteous crybaby prog trolls is more than I can bear. it is not about them and their spastic egos and there are just too many of them on the inter tubes. I and others have been trying for several months to bring some sense of perspective to their cryies for ponies, but to no avail/ They are inconsolable and in much greater numbers than we Obots. Can’t do it anymore.
I love the people on this blog, and it is painful to watch too many of them give up to fatalism because of the onslaught of purist wanking.
Everything that has happened recently, on HCR that has occurred for some simple reasons that too many want in the left blogsphere, and I do mean WANT to spin into something it is not– to apparently justify some great internal need to complain, about EVERYTHING.
It’s the filibuster and Joe Lieberman that is the real problem, or political reality, it’s also one election in one state with it’s own peculiar politics, and blind political demands by a tiny but loud part of the dem base to burn the motherfucker down, like pyromaniacal brats and dump it all in Obama’s lap, their dem president that only won by 5 points over John Mccain and Sarah Psycho Palin who would be only a heartbeat away from the presidency now if not for a few million votes out of a couple hundred mill cast.
I know who John Cole is and despite his newness to this side and obvious confusion as to the self immolation tendency of his new compatriots, gets it. The reason I left, is seeing several others fall to the pity party that I would not have expected to.
And now from an article on the internet by a writer I’ve never heard of that lists his source as an unidentified hill staffer, the bullshit goes up another notch or two from the usual suspects. And I just realized, it will not stop, and that these people are not reacting impulsively to perceived bad news. THEY WERE LOOKING FOR BAD NEWS, ANY BAD NEWS TO POUR A LITTLE MORE GASOLINE ON THEIR BONFIRE OF INANITY. Followed by more wanking about how people like me are so terrible for picking on their whiny asses, when the truth is, they fucking own the left side blogosphere and people like me are a tiny minority.
The good news is, that while they are the vast majority in blog land, they are a tiny speck of the dem base. Obama has a steady 52 percent approval through it all. The same, or thereabouts as his election victory. What does that tell you.
I will simply write my obot nonsense on a blog that nobody reads and just call it a daily diary. If sanity breaks out again on BJ, I may return or for open threads, or pet threads. But it doesn’t look political sanity here is on the near horizon.
Maybe a herd of ponies will wander into the internet prog camp and they will all giggle with glee, but I doubt it. Obama despite expectations of some, is not a pony wrangler, never was.
FlipYrWhig
@Wile E. Quixote:
By and large true.
If the alternative is an actively malevolent Republican–but I repeat myself–then, yes. And undertake some kind of effort to “reward them for good behavior.” If they need incentive to do the right thing, give them incentive to do the right thing. Right now there are far too many Democrats whose strategy is to chide the rest of the Democrats for going too far, which results in this triangulation game we keep seeing from the B(ob|ill) Nelsons and Mary Landrieus, because that’s how they get re-elected.
It’s not fun, it sucks. It’s frustrating and defeating. And this was the _best_ scenario for making liberal social change we’ve had in years and years. Ouch.
Michael
PS – I want to add this about the Progressive Purity Trolls:
I get the feeling that many of you live in deep blue districts of deep blue states. This GOS comment caught my eye:
I am part of the Democratic base… (2+ / 0-)
Recommended by:
Boston to Salem, soccergrandmom
… even though I’m an independent and a moderate. And I absolutely, positively plan on voting and campaigning for Democratic candidates in 2010.
And any little pissy-pants so-called-Democrat who doesn’t vote in 2010 will be just as effective as that dead canary in the coal mine… but, unfortunately, they probably won’t afford us the one benefit you get from a dead canary — the shutting-the-fuck-up part.
If you don’t vote, you shouldn’t talk. And if just voting to keep theocratic, crazy-ass Republicans out isn’t enough motivation to get you out voting for Democrats even if you’re disappointed in them, then you have no clue what the fuck is going on in this country.
I swear to fucking Zeus, I wish I could drag some of the whiners here out of their safe, comfy little blue states and have ’em hang out in the deep red South for just a month or two and meet some of this psycho-Taliban Republican trash, and learn what their plans for all of us are. You will urgently try to elect Democrats after that, even if they don’t give sufficient attention to your pet agendas. I, too, wish Democrats were better, but just the fact that they’re not Republicans is still enough to keep my enthusiasm for electing them going.
For example, my co-worker’s fucking brother is now ready to take up arms against (get this)… the ASPCA. My co-worker donated money to the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, and it pissed him off because he thinks they’re gonna “take away his guns” and “starve his kids” and put him in jail, etc., and now he wants to go to war with them. Yes… the right-wing theocratic morons are so wigged-out that they’re pissed at the ASPCA! Anything that has anything to do with any form of kindness in this country is a scary-ungodly-threat to them.
And some of ya want to sit home and let them go back into power because Obama’s been weak on your pet meh-meh-meh.
Man… if ya’ll do that, then you really don’t deserve to be in charge of anything to begin with. I don’t blame anyone for finding Democrats disappointing — they absolutely fucking are — but if you sit home and let the infinitely-worse Republicans back in power just out of spite, then you are one stupid pack of dumbfucks.
If you can’t get motivated to put Democrats in, at least be motivated to keep Republicans out. Otherwise, you’re not helping anybody.
“Glenn Beck ends up looking like a fat, stupid child. His face should be wearing a chef’s hat on the side of a box of eclairs. ” – Doug Stanhope
by Front Toward Enemy on Mon Jan 25, 2010 at 04:58:12 PM EST
arguingwithsignposts
@General Winfield Stuck:
Don’t mean to step on your righteous rant (most of which I agree with), but Obama’s overall job approval (per pollster.com average) is 49/47. But his job approval vis a vis health care is much lower. He’s getting his ass handed to him on this subject, which is sad.
Jim
I honestly cannot think of a single instance where Obama used gays as his “Sister Souljah”. I remember when Hillary Clinton fairly hissed “San Francisco” for emphasis when she tried to throw the bitter and clingy thing at him; I was always surprised that didn’t get more of a reaction.
El Cid
If I were lots of different people, I might focus less on the way prospective Democratic voters ought to view things and how they ought act and instead more on the way they actually appear to currently view and actually seem likely to act.
I was pretty damn sure that more people in 2004 would act in a certain way because of the clear way they ought have acted, but it turns out that’s a really bad way to run politics.
Da Bomb
@arguingwithsignposts: Actually, read this from the Gallup Poll:
http://www.gallup.com/poll/125345/Obama-Approval-Polarized-First-Year-President.aspx
Here’s another:
http://www.gallup.com/poll/125096/Obama-Averages-Approval-First-Year-Office.aspx
Tsulagi
@FlipYrWhig:
Not picking on Obama alone, but aside from lack of planning and party discipline, there was an entire Team D massive fail in creating popular support in the public for real HCR, or even for their Senate bill turd with chocolate sprinkles on top. That could have brought pressure to bear on the R-baggers in the House and Senate. Instead, not only were the Ds punked by Rs in Congress, they were punked by teabaggers out in the street.
Didn’t have to be that way. From a NYT op-ed this weekend…
Different day, different Democrats.
soonergrunt
@Michael: I live in Oklahoma, where the opposite of the Democrats is in charge now, and for the forseeable future. Ralph Nader had nothing to do with that here, but he damn sure did in Florida where the election of 2000 was decided, and to those who grandiosely state that they are through apologizing for that vote for Nader, I can only say this:
The hell you are! You are rightly going to be apologizing for that, and all that followed for the nation for a long, long time.
arguingwithsignposts
@Da Bomb:
That’s interesting info, but it’s also just one poll, which is why I linked to the Pollster average.
FlipYrWhig
@Jim:
There was the thing with that ex-gay guy Donnie McClurkin appearing at an Obama event. Then there was the Saddleback Church event, but that wasn’t gay-specific. That’s all I can think of. If anything, Jeremiah Wright had to have been the campaign’s Sister Souljah.
soonergrunt
@Uriel: And now for my next trick…
SteveinSC
@Tsulagi: Second the PUMA comment. Cole fucking deserves it. And by the way, again, fuck General Suck.
Da Bomb
@arguingwithsignposts: That’s I how I feel about polls in general.
They are only an average of one segment of the population.
He’s polling among blacks and hispanics are sky high. They haven’t really faltered.
What’s going on in the blogosphere is just interesting to put it mildily.
FlipYrWhig
@Tsulagi:
The health care town meetings thing would have worked OK for that, if it hadn’t gotten disrupted by the teabag people. But–and this is my grand unified theory of American politics–we’re still so hung over from the Cold War that huge numbers of people are easy to manipulate into genuine worry about “government control.” The attempt to assuage fears about both “government control” and “tax and spend” led to a somewhat wan bill, yes. But, here’s the thing: a better bill by our standards would have been even more susceptible to demagoguery, and IMHO wouldn’t have gotten this close to passage. In particular I think single-payer would have died in a fiery fail-cano.
soonergrunt
@Michael:
The intent was to be available for all people to use as necessary, therefore it was a little bland, kind of like mess hall cooking. You may of course season to taste.
@rootless_e: But I’m just trying to stay involved here. Nothing more.
arguingwithsignposts
@Da Bomb:
One other thing I never see mentioned in the percentage polls that talk about republican/democratic differences in approval ratings is the amount of people those percentages actually reflect. What percentage of people are repub, versus the percentage that is dem. or indy. if the totals of the amounts of people are higher, then the percentage of republican disapproval isn’t really that important. 88 percent of 25 percent is still less than 25 percent of the total. Or am I wrong about that?
Wile E. Quixote
@rootless_e
Wow, for some reason I’m flashing on the Van Halen Hot for Teacher music video, except with Jane Hamsher as the lead dressed up in a leather dominatrix outfit and wielding a riding crop. Does this mean that I need to take more drugs, different drugs or just go cold turkey?
Da Bomb
@arguingwithsignposts: I agree. I believe within the Gallup poll, it does breakdown the approval ratings along party lines. The largest drop has occurred among Republicans and Independents. Not the Democrats.
That’s why I have said over and over again, the netroots only makes up a sliver of the electorate.
There are democrats in my office right now, who don’t understand the netroots. These people don’t read blogs or even pay attention to cable television(political pundits) very much. They seem to have a completely different perception of the President.
Commenter Jarvis Hill(not for sure if I got his name right?) even echoed this same sentiment that most of the people who volunteered for Obama’s campaign didn’t read blogs. At least the ones he volunteered with. Same with my experience. I believe even Colmes’ blog has interesting polls that show approval among Democrats hasn’t drastically changed.
Wile E. Quixote
@Elie
I’m lucky, I live in Jim McDermott’s district. Until about 1996 I didn’t really like Jim and usually voted for whoever was running against him, but then Newt Gingrich sued him and I realized that anyone who was on Newt Gingrich’s shitlist deserved some respect, and since then I’ve grown to respect him even more, especially because he’s been willing to fight the good fight for single payer and because he’s willing to be pragmatic now. We also have two senators in Washington state who are OK, if not great, so I’m not as fucked as someone who say, lives in South Carolina or Dorklahoma.
Oh, and here’s a silly idea. If you’ve got a rep who’s fighting the good fight call to let them know that you’ve got their back while we’re fighting this but afterwards sit down and write a letter to them thanking them for their efforts. I have the feeling that members of Congress are, more often than not, receiving phone calls and letters from angry constituents telling them off and not too many from people saying “Thanks for fighting.”
celticdragonchick
@Mouse Tolliver:
That.
celticdragonchick
@aimai:
I couldn’t have said it better. The disappointment is bitter, and especially when I review my final paper from my African American History class on Obama where I analyze what went right for the campaign and him. I got an “A” on the paper. I can’t say that I feel as enthusiastic now, however…
Good to see you, though.
mclaren
Pardon me for not giving much of a fuck about DADT, but, look, folks…here’s the reality:
America is going broke spending 1.4 trillion dollars a year on a military that can’t win wars against barefooted 15-year-old kids who use bolt-action rifles, yet Obama has sent SecDef Gates to reassure the military contractors that the Pentagon budget will reliably increase year after year;
Our civil rights have essentially vanished and muggers with badges now feel free to tase to death and beat to death and shoot to death any innocent bystander anywhere at any time, with no accountability and no repercussions;
All our phone calls and email are being fed through a giant Orwellian 1984 surveillance network, and this information often gets used to prosecute people for trivial crimes — as, for instance, when some guy calls his buds to tell ’em he’s going bring over a doobie and smoke it at their backyard barbecue and the DEA then busts him and when his lawyers asks to see the surveillance that triggered the arrest, the DEA declares it’s a matter of “national security” and refuses;
The TSA and DHS has turned America’s borders into a totalitarian nightmare worse than the Stasi in former East Germany, with innocent people getting beaten and dragged into cells without numbers without charges or a trial for indefinite detention;
Obama has reneged on his promise to shut down Gitmo;
The war on drugs continues to expand and intensify on the local level, as local cops persist in arresting medical marijuana users and local prosecutors persist in charging them with felonies even though the federal government declines to do so;
ID card madness continues to spiral out of control, with increasing amounts of documentation being required to the point where more and more Americans have now become unpersons, unable to obtain a drivers license or any other valid form of picture ID;
…And our out-of-control financial system continues to award billions in bonuses to the thieves who raped us and stole trillions from us, with no meaningful reforms in the offing.
In the face of all these slow-motion trainwrecks coming together in one gigantic nightmare of epochal end-of-the-American-Dream fuckitude, as tragic and crazy as the ban on gay marriage may be…
…Folks, that’s getting taken care of at the state level. More and more states are legalizing gay marriage. The Pentagon will find itself slowly but surely forced to abolish DADT as the rest of society moves in a sensible direction on gay rights.
So I just don’t see the huge priority for DADT. It’s getting there. Not as fast as any of us would like, but at least we’re moving in the right direction.
By contast, every other issue I’ve mentioned is moving in the wrong direction.
Afghanistan? More troops. Insanity.
The Pentagon? More money. Lunacy.
The war on drugs? More drugs getting classified as controlled substances — not fewer. (Most recently, jimson weed has now become a controlled substance, equivalent to heroin or cocaine, in 2 states, with more coming.) Madness.
Surveillance? Expanding, not decreasing. Dementia.
Civil rights? Disappearing, not expanding. Wild rampant lunacy.
In the face of this catastrophic tidal wave of madness and reactionary dementia, I just can’t find myself all that worked up about DADT in the grand scheme of things. Maybe I’m a contemptible bigot, or maybe I’m just practical enough to worry about the really important stuff — y’know, getting kidnapped without charges and without a trial and held in a secret prison while you’re tortured — as opposed to the stuff it would be nice to have, like gay marriage and gays allowed to come out of the closet in the military, but isn’t nearly as crucial as stuff like, oh, you know, America turning into a militarized police state without civil rights where all our phone calls and email gets fed into some goon cop’s surveillance console.
Citizen Alan
@Xantar:
Every dictator eventually overreaches. IMO, the biggest reason we didn’t get SS Privatization is because the AARP mobilized against it, and not even the Congressional Repukes were crazy enough to risk the total collapse of the over 65 vote (perhaps their most reliable constituency) just so that Bush Wall Street buddies could make some extra scratch. If they had done so, we could easily be talking about President Kucinich today.
Skippy-san
https://balloon-juice.com/?p=33308#comment-1553892
Has any state that has had gay marriage on the ballot approved it? I think not-witness California and Maine. Only through legistlative fiat has it been done and in every state that has done that-the voter challenges are underway.
The rest of your points are just plain wrong-not the least of which is that you ignore the real threats from China and India who are not out to enhance the postion of the US one bit.
Citizen Alan
@FlipYrWhig:
Literally the first five minutes of the Obama administration were devoted to giving Rick “I’m opposed to Uganda executing people for being gay. They should just get life in prison” Warren an opportunity to become the new face of American Christianity.
johnny walker
So now Obama might as well resign because it’s the leftwing bloggers’ fault that anything he does is doomed hopelessly to failure? Help a brutha out, I’m just trying to keep up on the current explanation for why it’s ok that he consistently cowers.
I mean don’t get me wrong, the gay people have every right to “adopt republican frames” and I totally understand why they would think about doing that. In this post. In an hour or two I’m going to lambast John Aravosis for saying bad stuff about Obimmah, so make sure you check back.
HyperIon
Uh-oh. I guess the worm is slowly turning.
How long before JC starts hammering away everyday about how Obama screwed up DADT? IIRC the last time he posted on this it was “why is everybody expecting Obama to change everything now”.
I yearn for the days (a mere four, five years ago) when every fucking thing wasn’t debated into meaninglessness. And Cole feeds this. Go back and look at the archives; many fewer posts and massively fewer comments. People, get a life OFFLINE. Put all this energy into something useful. Nothing you write here will ever affect anything.