This kills me:
On the Left, a False Choice Fuels the Growing Civil War Over Obama
There is a civil war on the left over Barack Obama. The fault lines are jagged, and depending on the issue, porous, but broadly, the split is along two fronts:
1.) Those who believe that critiquing — and occasionally opposing — the president on issues such as gay rights, civil liberties and national security is healthy and necessary and those who believe that Obama’s progressive critics are going too far, reinforcing rightwing attacks and undermining his presidency.
When talking about false choices, it is probably best not to start with a false dichotomy. There are lots of us out there who think healthy critiques and opposing the President are good things yet who also believe some progressive critics are going too far and not helping at all.
Of course, I’ll have to ask what Grover Norquist thinks to be sure. Also, Rahm is the suxor!
4tehlulz
Stopped reading right there.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@4tehlulz: Yup. Didn’t even need to click after I saw that. Though it is kind of interesting to look over the wall into the PUMA-Bagger fantasyland.
CalD
THANK YOU!
geg6
@4tehlulz:
Oh, lord. Yes. Anything Daou has to say isn’t worth listening to. Nothing would make him happier than a “civil war” over Obama. The king of the PUMAs loves him some Obama bashing and if he can piss off people like me and Cole, that’s a bonus for him.
Fuck this shit. I’m so tired of it. Yes, Obama does and says things with which I disagree. And yes, Obama does and says things with which I wholeheartedly agree. But there’s no “civil war” unless it’s the assholes like Daou and Jane and their ilk who are having it.
burnspbesq
Kuttner admits what the problem is: progressives’ projection. They expected Obama to be something he was never going to be. All of the disillusionment and anger flow from that error.
El Cid
Daou may be a dick, but this isn’t a new debate — just yesterday I was reading a bit of W. E. B. DuBois’ criticisms of Booker T. Washington’s ‘Atlanta Compromise’ approach to African American development in American society, politics, and economics.
It may be a lot easier to say what those aiming to push Democratic policymaking and rhetoric (including the administration) in some particular direction shouldn’t do, but I don’t think here or elsewhere liberals and Democrats have a clear idea what it was any of them should do. And sometimes whether or not any serious efforts are deleterious. Or if they do have positive guidelines in mind, to articulate it very well.
mike in dc
I expected Obama to be slightly to the left of Clinton and (hopefully) more effective than him at advancing a progressive agenda. Mixed results so far, but the health care reform thing, plus the other stuff that’s likely to get done soon, tends to confirm that expectation. A “real” progressive capable of advancing an “undiluted” agenda cannot win the nomination or get things done…yet. It’ll probably take until around 2024 to get to that point.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
So Daou’s evidence of this “civil war” is a mis-read Kuttner column, a comment from DU, and Keith Olbermann’s GBCW post from the GOS? This is the PUMA-Bagger equivalent of a Broder or DIckie Cohen column on “Democratic discontent” that quotes Evan Bayh, Carville, Lanny Davis and “Hill staffers” (Blanche Lincoln’s or Jim Webb’s).
kommrade reproductive vigor
Is this anything like the Obama-sparked civil war that caused every female voter to flock to John McCain?
What 4thelulz says also2 times infinity.
cleek
huh.
i kindof liked the article. and there was nothing PUMA about it.
“different lefty groups feel differently about Obama” isn’t really a shocking premise, but it was a decent survey of the lefty landscape.
mcd410x
If we’re going to have World Cup threads, we need Tour de France threads, don’t we?
Don’t we?
El Cid
I didn’t ‘project’ anything on Obama, though I know a lot of people did. I did expect, however, that there would still be vehement debates among liberals and Democrats on what policies and rhetoric should be. How could it be otherwise?
Hunter Gathers
Why does the left love to eat its own so much?
Like Clinton would’ve gotten HCR passed. You know, like she did last time.
Ash Can
Peter Daou gets a point from me for having the stones to show up here and (try to) defend himself for whining about how everyone being mean to Sarah Palin was just a misogynist, or some such drivel. As I recall, though, it didn’t go all that well, it was a half-assed article to begin with, and I didn’t see anything in the process that made me want to care about anything else Daou wrote or would write. I suspect that this “civil war” nonsense is no more than wishful thinking on the part of these yahoos.
MattF
I’m puzzled how anyone who actually paid attention in 2008 could think that Obama was anything but a standard-issue, slightly left-of-center Democrat. He’s smart, and eloquent, and all that… But, y’know, Harvard Law, U. of Chicago, and the US Senate are, in fact, not bastions of progressive politics.
And add to that the fact that Bill Richardson, who can make a reasonable claim to being the actual progressive candidate in 2008, sank into oblivion more or less without a trace. Democrats won because they picked the best candidate, and the candidate that best reflects the views of the electorate. That’s just reality.
sparky
hmmm…bad editing or bad writing or huffington post trolling for eyeballs. not sure which, as the piece itself goes on to decry a false dichotomy. read down a couple of paragraphs and you find this:
on its face this doesn’t seem so bad but someone can no doubt explain why it sux. thx.
edit:@MattF: my complaint about Obama isn’t that he’s a center-left Democrat–it’s that in his “leftish” moments he’s about as far left as Nelson Rockefeller. the rest of the time he’s way to the right of Richard Nixon. you can call that being leftish if you wish, but to me that’s like calling Obama a socialist–they are equally untrue.
sparky
o highest gods of the blog i am in moderation–porque?
sparky
@sparky: now THERE i used some hyperbole that i couldn’t edit out–Obama is not “way to the right of Nixon”, but he is perhaps somewhat to the right of Nixon–certainly on national domestic policy, and probably about the same on foreign policy except without the stones to do the equivalent of going to China. a timid righty? i dunno.
sparky
to the blog gods: no doubt many others have suggested this, but could you consider lengthening the edit window to ten minutes? i find that it often closes (or refuses edit permission) before the five minutes have actually elapsed. thankye!
Hunter Gathers
@sparky:
Remember when Obama didn’t ban torture? Or decided to keep 100,000 + troops in Iraq forever? Or when Obama decided not to get rid of un-needed or un-wanted weapons systems? Or when Obama said ‘fuck those faggots’ and decided to not persue an overturn of DADT? Or when he told the women of the country to ‘suck my dick, bitches’ and vetoed the fair pay act?
I don’t know who I hate more at the moment – ‘movement conservatives’, or ‘movement progressives’. Wankers, all.
QuaintIrene
@geg6: This is the latest rightwing assertion- ‘even’ Democrats are becoming disenchanted with Obama.
geg6
@Hunter Gathers:
This. This a thousand times a thousand.
Redshirt
I’d like my sparkle pony NOW!!!! Please.
Ivan Ivanovich Renko
@MattF: This, this right here.
Also– agree with him or disagree with him on any given issue, there’s ABSOLUTELY NO DOUBT that the man is competent, has thought through his positions, and is capable of defending those positions as needed.
Baggers, whether tea- or fire-, simply cannot wrap their minds around the fact that the man knows what the fuck he is about. A really smart, capable black guy? Gotta be a scam somehow.
BC
If the Republican party disappeared tomorrow, the Democrats would do well representing the entire country. They are the government and the opposition at the same time. Maybe that’s one reason for the Republican abdication of responsibility – they can’t do as well as an opposition party as the Democrats do.
Redshirt
@BC: Agreed with this, and that’s part of the big problem we have right now. The Repugs are really a small, regional, extremist party. The true opposition is the Blue Dogs; however, based on our current dynamic, this ends badly, as there’s no one group big enough to counteract both the Repugs and the Blue Dogs whenever they align.
Brien Jackson
@Ivan Ivanovich Renko:
I think that the fact that so much of the Netroots was organized around pushing back against Bush for so long that it’s really warped their sense of what the Presidency is/can do, at least in the domestic policy realm. You certainly see this is Greenwald’s commentary, and the occasional “OMGZ Bush got everything he wanted!111!!!”
Zifnab
@Hunter Gathers:
I’ve yet to find a serious progressive (not one of Sarah Palin’s faux-PUMAs, mind you) that had a serious problem with the Lily Ledbetter Act. What’s more, I don’t see gays complaining about Obama’s effort to overturn DADT. I see them complaining about what they perceive to be a lack of effort. If Obama’s way works, and DADT gets repealed, I’m confident you’ll see the vast majority of gay rights activists embrace him with open arms.
As for torture and troop deployments… we’ve still got Gitmo and we’ve still got troops abroad in both Iraq and Afghanistan. Again, the President talks a good game. And he’s certainly made moves on both fronts. But until he can seal the deal, I don’t see why progressives should be lauding Obama for shuffling troops between countries or shuffling generals or allowing his DoJ to fiddle while the Constitution burns. Until the last troop comes home and until the gates finally shut on Torture Island, I’m going to have a hard time defending the President on any of it.
Lolis
@MattF:
Exactly, Obama is a mainstream Democrat who if still in the Senate, would be among the most liberal 15 Senators easily. What people in the MSM don’t seem to realize is all these same people griping about Obama despise most of the other Democrats as well. But Obama is far more liberal than what can actually pass through the Senate. So I’m not even sure it would matter if he were more liberal, except on some national security issues.
This bully-pulpit stuff is kind of crap. The bully-pulpit has been greatly diminished in America by multiple news networks, cable and all the other forms of entertainment Americans can be doing instead of watching the president.
Lolis
@Zifnab:
Okay, but you realize Congress is the hold up for Guantanamo? They have denied funding multiple times and forced the administration to rework their plans to close it. Obama is not a dictator.
joe from Lowell
Zinfab,
Not lauding Obama is one thing.
Declaring that he sold out on Gitmo (blocked by Congress), or on Iraq (troop drawdown going exactly as scheduled) or DADT (bill passed, elimination scheduled) is quite another.
If they were even just complaining that things weren’t going as fast as they’d like, I could respect the firebaggers, but they’re not. They assured us that Obama was a regressive enemy of gay rights, and they had absolutely nothing to base that on. Now, when they’ve been proven completely effing wrong, they just move onto the next item that’s not checked off on his list, and when that gets checked off, they’ll just move onto the next one, without ever acknowledging that he is actually accomplishing the things they told us he opposed, and without altering their outlook one whit.
Remember when the financial reform bill was a sellout because it didn’t include the Volker Rule? Now it contains the Volker Rule, but suddenly, that doesn’t matter. It used to be the central principle on which the entire bill should be judged, but as soon as it happened, it suddenly become completely irrelevant to judging the merits of the bill.
All of which is a long-winded way of saying:
The most important thing to Protest People is their self-image as Protest People. If they don’t protest something, they don’t get to see themselves as Protest People, and other Protest People might cut ahead of them in the line.
Ivan Ivanovich Renko
@Zifnab:
I can dig that, Zif– but considering the shit-sub-sandwich that got handed him in January of Ought Nine, and the dickwad ‘baggers he’s had to deal with… I’m willing to give the guy a chance to get it done.
But hey, I’m black; and everyone knows we love the dude.
joe from Lowell
@Zifnab:
Okay, but you realize Congress is the hold up for Guantanamo? They have denied funding multiple times and forced the administration to rework their plans to close it. Obama is not a dictator.
I can’t think of the last time I saw a firebagger call out Congress for this. It’s always Obama who failed to close Gitmo.
Since Congress is the block here, and since none of the effort they put into this issue seems to go towards pushing Congress, I can only conclude that they don’t give a flying fig about Gitmo except as a cudgel to beat Obama.
Hunter Gathers
@Zifnab:
GITMO is still open because of Congress. Do you know what would happen if Obama decided to withdraw every soldier from Iraq and Afghanistan? The measure would die in Congress. No amount of podium pounding would make the Crackers who populate Congress any less afraid of their own shadows than they already are. Do you have some sort of magic formula that will make Congress less shitty?
Do you know what would happen if Holder opened investigations into torture at GITMO? Obama’s own party would crucify him for it. There are too many Dems that had their hands in that for it to get anywhere. And I hate to break this to you, but the vast majority of this country doesn’t give a rat’s ass if Muslims were tortured. They are nothing but sand niggers to the general populace. Of course Bush/Cheney is going to get away with it. Whitey always gets away with it.
Brien Jackson
@joe from Lowell:
I think that’s a good explanation of why I can’t endorse the Overton window stuff. The White House isn’t the impediment, the conservadems in the Senate are. So even if you accept the premise of Cenk or whoever else, they’re still aiming their fire at the wrong place.
Brien Jackson
@Brien Jackson:
Actually, that rather refutes the Overton window premise doesn’t it? After all, progressives certainly train plenty of fire on Landrieu, Nelson, Bayh, etc., but it doesn’t move them markedly to the left, does it?
Brien Jackson
@Hunter Gathers:
As far as I know, if Obama ordered a full withdrawal from Afghanistan and Iraq, there’s nothing Congress could do about it, short of impeaching him.
Waynski
I understand progressive frustration, but who are you going to primary Obama with from the left? Kucinich? Good luck. There is no Ted Kennedy waiting in the wings to challenge the black Jimmy Carter. And as many have pointed out upthread, the Congress and the blue dogs are the real problem. We all need to keep our eye on the real prize which is keeping the Republicans out of power long enough for us to fix things as best we can and give them time to come to their senses, if that’s even possible. What won’t be possible is any progressive initiatives AT ALL if those asshat maniac fucking teabaggers get their feet back in the door.
ErikaF
@joe from Lowell:
This is part of the problem. We’re in the middle of a huge Protest Party on both sides (with differing amounts of logic and intelligence), and there’s not much of an effort to tamp this down. We’ve got the Obama’s not going far enough left protesters, the Obama’s not crucifying Bush et al protesters, the Obama’s not solving all our problems quickly enough protesters — and we all know what’s happening with the protesters on the right. We’ve got right-wing protesters that have pretty much declared civil war, and heaven forbid left-wing protesters feel left out.
Common sense would dictate seeing what Obama has to work with – a cowardly Democratic Congress, a openly hostile and irrational Republican Congress, and an openly lunatic right-wing media smear operation.
realprogressive
At least Daou isn’t an arrogant, sexist, dickhead who used to be a fucking republican, you shitbag. We could use a whole lot less of pricks like you on “our” side.
The Golux
OT, but speaking of Rahm, I was within a couple of feet of him a few times on Sunday. (My band was playing a 4th of July celebration he was attending with his family.) We made a bit of small talk with one of the Secret Service agents.
It was tough, but I managed to avoid buttonholing him and suggesting he tell Obama to remind Bernanke that inflation is not a concern in the near future.
apnea
Talk about his competence, his even-handedness, his calm demeanor, his clear pronunciation, or whatever else the president is inspiring you this week, but please, for the love of god, don’t call him “left-of-center”. The current president is not “left-of-center” by any meaningful metric. He is right-wing. Clear, unadulterated, mainstream Democratic right-wing. And that’s just his socioeconomic policies. Regarding anything to do with National Security, he’s joined with the Republican far-right-wing at the hip.
I know it’s really, really hard to perceive, with all the straw flying everywhere, but try to imagine that some unserious ‘firebaggers’ are actually criticizing the president for his affirmative, unequivocal support for Bush policies regarding the surveillance, detainment and torture (edit : and now assassination) security state. Not for his lack of effort at overturning this or that, but his proactive, willful effort at consolidating and protecting some of the worst systemic abuses and human rights denials this country has known in the last few decades. He hasn’t failed to act, he’s protected each and every perpetrator of these crimes, and maintained the Justice Department shift toward neutering the rule of law for anything to do with the government.
No one is projecting anything on this front. There are facts, and they paint a very grim picture of the Washington establishment at the start of this century. Any administration claiming the power to evade laws and bypass basic human rights must be opposed robustly. Democratic or Republican.
geg6
@apnea:
And here we have exactly the kind of assholery that has been making me crazy. That you can actually say this, with seriousness and a straight face, tells me you have nothing to say that I would find in the least worthwhile. You obviously wouldn’t know “right wing” if it hit you in the face.
Gawd, the idiocy.
Sheila
As far as I can tell, the frustrati are limited to the blogosphere. Out in the real world, real progressives are critical but hopeful and continue to believe that gradual improvement is not only possible, but likely if the gops can be held at bay. In the long run, they will be held at bay because the hardcore rightwingers are a dying breed, which probably accounts for their terrified ferocity. Their children and grandchildren are listening to hiphop and watching Stewart and Colbert, which does not bode well for the continuation of their narrow world. As for the frustrati’s frustration with President Obama, I am curious to know in which political milieu they have been living, as there has never been an American politician in my lifetime who could begin to deliver the goods they crave, especially in a year-and-a-half’s time.
Socraticsilence
@apnea:
So true- I mean sure he pushed through Healthcare Reform the most signifcant piece of socially progressive legislation in nearly half a century- but it wasn’t exactly what we wanted so we’re filled with poutrage.
John S.
More commonly known around these parts as myiq2xu.
Hunter Gathers
@Brien Jackson:
They could hold back the funding to do so, which they so fucking would.
Brien Jackson
@Hunter Gathers:
Unless they withheld funding altogether, I’m pretty sure the President could mount a compelling argument that his C-in-C authority gives him the power to order a withdrawal, and while Congress can in theory put strings on appropriations, there obviously has to be some limit to that.
cleek
@Socraticsilence:
it’s probably worth noting that the health care plan Obama signed bears a lot of resemblance to proposals (and plans) that were supported by the GOP until recently.
in a world only slightly different than the one we’re living in, President Romney could have enacted a national version of what he signed in MA. and it would be ‘to the left’ of what Obama signed.
i’m not complaining about what he did sign. but it’s really not any more liberal than things the GOP previously considered quite acceptable.
Hunter Gathers
@Brien Jackson: I hear ya, but I’m of the opinion that Congress will take any chance they can to say, ‘up yours, nigger’. And there are enough GOPers and Blue Dogs to do just that.
apnea
You people really believe a truly left-of-center alternative could reap any number of vote in North America? In our media environment? Laughable.
Just for those still listening, left-of-center is at least formally social democratic. Social democracy is materialized through social programs, State initiatives, numerous market regulations, and finds its political base in unions and community groups. Does that sound like anything that could reasonably perform in America’s contemporary political culture? Glenn Beck’s head would probably explode just reading the last few sentences.
Sure, HCR was a prima facie progressive move, but apart from the obvious criticisms one could have toward the actual result of the reform, it’s not transcendentally transmogrifying the Democratic Party in a social democratic movement in any meaningful sense, just as universalizing healthcare coverage doesn’t entail a left-of-center government. Welcome to the standard Western world paradigm, folks, where right-wing political formations subsist even where healthcare coverage is nominally recognized as a right.
And of course my main point of contention was to do with abuses in the name of National Security. But I get that’s not an easy point to debate for Democrats. Due-process-free assassination doesn’t exactly roll off the tongue.
rootless_e
The best and most balanced essay on this was here
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2010/6/21/878183/-So,-Progressives,-Made-Any-Progress-Lately
Brien Jackson
@Hunter Gathers:
Maybe, but that strikes me as being so obviously outside their power that no one with a D after their name would go along with it.
Brien Jackson
@apnea:
It seems to me that you’re missing a fairly important concept; that “left-of-center” is defined more by “center” than “left.”
rootless_e
@apnea:
The total and comprehensive ignorance about US history required to write something like that is outstanding!
No wonder we have discussions were people who say exactly the same things as Mitch McConnell call themselves “leftists”.
colby
@Socraticsilence:
Yeah, and the stimulus was only the biggest investment in science, education, infrastructure, and poverty reduction in generations. That’s not good enough for anyone but the Republicans. The fair pay act? New regulations on tobacco and credit cards, a government takeover of student loans, rescuing Detroit? Hell, wasn’t that all in the RNC’s platform?
And don’t even get me started on the high court! He might as well have cloned Scalia and Thomas, given they was his confirmed nominee votes AGAINST them all the time, and how both his nominees question corporate personhood and take an expanded view of the Commerce Clause.
geg6
@rootless_e:
Word.
I swear the far right and far left are the same people.
John Bird
Civil war? Please. I think that’s a little hysterical for the correct critiques of Obama for continuing authoritarian, anti-Constitutional policies regarding prisoners, as well as prolonging two pointless wars.
Democrats just intend to place the party back in the hands of the Democrats. Not a civil war, just an inevitable correction in the structure of the party as we grow and learn from our mistakes in trusting the wrong people.
Todd
You did realize he eventually acknowledges it, right? The point is that everyone having the debate out there is framing it the way he describes?
colby
“President Romney could have enacted a national version of what he signed in MA. and it would be ‘to the left’ of what Obama signed.”
Not honestly. The MA HCR was a good start, but it had very few of the price-control mechanisms the national bill had (nor could it, operating at only a statewide level). It also didn’t go nearly as far in adding people to Medicare/Medicaid (Again, it couldn’t).
John Bird
@rootless_e:
Regarding the diary you quote: why is it that kneejerk pro-establishment Democrats have such a penchant for combining disdain for actual organizing and activism with the pretense that active progressives AREN’T the ones actually engaging in these activities?
I mean, generally, we are. I am, for sure, every day, at my job, in my free time, and so on. One of those crazy loony firebagger hippie communists out there providing the human right of health care, for instance, or working to provide proper legal representation in civil cases, both of which we continue to be ludicrously denied in this country.
To Obama’s credit, he did sign some of the money that LSC needs into law – albeit without any serious partisan opposition this year other than the same few loud Republicans from out West. Those of us dedicated to liberalism over party name are glad to continue chugging along and forcing those sorts of bills and votes, making sure that the Democrats don’t utterly collapse.
General Egali Tarian Stuck
@John Bird: May I touch your halo?
John Bird
@General Egali Tarian Stuck:
That’s an awfully sarcastic point of view. Why don’t you become involved and live your principles? It once was that that was considered the proper role of a human, not an angel.
Nor does it keep you from living a middle class existence, buying an HDTV, or voting straight ticket Democratic. It’s the damndest thing.
colby
Social democracy is materialized through social programs”
What, like Social Security and Medicare?
“State initiatives”
As in MA’s health care law, or the broader meaning of “State”, things like Obama’s numerous programs to help mortgagors?
“numerous market regulations”
Like banning recission, forcing banks to carry so much capital, and limiting credit card fees, right?
“and finds its political base in unions and community groups.”
So, say, if a community organizer kept in close contact with Andy Stern, saved an industry that the unions thrive in, and coordinated his legislative outreach with union activists, that would be social democracy?
Yeah, that sounds NOTHING like what we have now.
Of course, I think that is a fault of definitions. I don’t actually think we HAVE a social democracy here (not in the way the European SD parties use the term, at least), but that’s because it goes much further than you’re saying.
apnea
@rootless_e:
Your definition of ‘best and most balanced’ seems to mean giving priority to baseless mockery rather than engaging any single point of debate. Your own post is getting there.
How does limiting my view to this century signals ignorance, exactly? Why get all excited if your charge doesn’t stick?
John Bird
Political quietism is pathetic.
Are we better off with the Democrats than the Republicans? Sure, I think so, because the Reagan-era Republicans generally want me in jail and to defund where I work. Are we better off now that kids under 26 can stay on their parents’ insurance? Sure, except when their parents don’t have insurance, or they don’t have parents, or their parents aren’t about to talk to them, or all the real-world examples I work with on a daily basis where these kids continue to be denied their basic human rights. But yeah, that first one is a victory for the people whose parents are well-off or employed in the old school, and the Republicans would never have passed it.
The day that extending credit where credit is due turns into the end of principle is the ossification of the party and of progressivism in general.
General Egali Tarian Stuck
@John Bird:
LOL, That’s an awfully arrogant point of view. How do you know what I live? We get bright progressive flowers coming by every so often, with platitudes of superiority and preaching idealism devoid of the pragmatic when it comes to governance. But carry on. I love the pageantry of “real” progressive as they fly by.
edit- either that, or you are a spoof. Too early to tell.
geg6
@John Bird:
Hey, dipshit. Why do airy fairy people like you think that people like me, a proud Democrat from a long line of liberal Democrats, don’t do organizing and protesting and volunteering our time? That somehow only you pure as the driven snow, too pure for anything as distasteful as a political party lefties are the ones out there on the front lines?
I’m sure all my union friends will be thrilled to hear that they don’t need to do any more that stuff. And all my fellow grassroots local party friends, too. We can just leave it up to you all, since you already are and do it soooooo much better than we do.
CalD
Funny thing: I just remembered that back in late 2003/early 2004, I got a look at a paper that Peter Daou sent John Kerry’s campaign, that started the dialog that got him his job there.* Daou’s position then — based on his unique perspective as a trustafarian who stayed up all night every night flogging his dog on the Democratic Underground board — was that there was a civil war brewing on the left (that Kerry was losing of course, b/c everyone on the DU liked Wesley Clark better or something). He’s like having a jukebox that only plays one song.
(* I was in no way affiliated with the campaign myself, I had just become acquainted with a couple of people who were and basically got asked for my opinion because I knew what the word “internet” meant.)
Corner Stone
@joe from Lowell:
This gets more obnoxiously stupid every time you repeat it here.
AxelFoley
@geg6:
This.
Corner Stone
@Ivan Ivanovich Renko:
Mmmmm…Black Russian…that sounds good.
Ash Can
Mayday! Mayday! I wandered into this thread and got caught in a purity-troll circle jerk. Send towels, over.
AxelFoley
@Hunter Gathers:
I think leftist cannibalism has been a bigger problem than GOP obstruction.
Corner Stone
@Hunter Gathers:
The last time she was President and had majorities in both houses of Congress? That time?
John Bird
@geg6:
I don’t know which union organizer you’re arguing with, but it’s not this one. Perhaps Local Strawmen 142?
apnea
The level of discussion in this place is really something to see. Except for Colby (who showed my hasty definition for what it was) EDIT: and a few others, everybody else is entangled in cultural rivalries and mudslinging. All while your rights to a trial, to privacy or to free speech are being dismantled by one or the other group of flag-waving blowhards.
Not a pretty sight.
John Bird
@General Egali Tarian Stuck:
Oh, so you are actively living your principles? That’s great. Please continue to do so, and don’t sink into the mud of the “party”.
Brien Jackson
@John Bird:
If you’re under 26 and aren’t on your parents insurance, you’ll qualify for Medicaid or subsidies. Unless your parents are wealthy anyway.
AxelFoley
@Hunter Gathers:
Co-signeth.
General Egali Tarian Stuck
@John Bird: I have no principles, just rubber mallets and a dog.
Mnemosyne
@Corner Stone:
Yes, dumbass, Bill Clinton did have a Democratic majority in both houses of Congress when he crashed and burned on healthcare in 1993. Jesus, do you know anything about recent history at all?
John Bird
I don’t know; so much of the anti-leftism among wannabe establishment members is strange and divorced from the reality on the ground to me. It’s not reflective of the pragmatic reality on the ground – the airy fairy bit is where you believe I Can Trust The Party.
Of course you can’t. What political party could anyone ever trust? None of them. You back a party as a vehicle for political activity.
People who are pushing their principles over and above party affiliation ARE the Democratic Party, by and large. We’re the ones getting the vote out, we’re the ones making sure the issues are at the forefront of the debate, and by “we” I think I’m including more people here than are willing to state their views in such a direct fashion.
I don’t know who you score points with by pledging fealty to politicians, or donors, or organizations, even if they’re “your people”. Support and criticize at the same time, or lose your soul.
The abandonment of true pragmatism to this goofy Democrats-Know-Best mentality is something pretty new in my long experience within the Democratic Party and its various constituencies. Unions know not to trust the party; black activists know not to trust the party; LGBT folks know not to trust the party. The party is there to work for us, not the other way around, and we have to force it to do so.
colby
@apnea:
“The level of discussion in this place is really something to see. Except for Colby”
No, actually, I’m the worst of ’em.
Sly
According to Gallup, Obama went from about 91% approval among Democrats a year a half ago to about 81% approval among Democrats as of this month, with oscillations between.
Some fucking civil war. At this rate, the WATB Caucus will convince the rest of the Democratic Party that Obama is a corporate sellout and Bush clone around the same time that Malia Obama has her first great-grandchild.
AxelFoley
@joe from Lowell:
Sounds like all the goalpost moving we saw during the primaries/general election. Sad, but I think we should be used to it by now. Obama’s always been held to a different standard from other candidates/presidents, by both conservatives and so-called progressives.
Corner Stone
@Sheila:
I think that’s mainly due to the fact that people online, the majority anyway, are employed and have the free time to read, post and debate.
The people without a job or access to the online community are the actual frustrati I do not believe you are properly taking into account.
Telling them that unemployment is at 9.6% but “Hey! At least it’s not 12, 13 or 15! Amirite?” just isn’t going to help them much.
John Bird
@Brien Jackson:
I’m sorry to say that this just isn’t the case, especially in most Southern states. Qualifying for Medicaid is HARD if you’re an adult, and the organizations I work for are pretty pessimistic about the proposed subsidy structure actually covering health care for the young working poor. PPAC was a step forward, and no one’s denying that, but it doesn’t address the problems that I work to address.
So we keep going, right, guys? And don’t rest on our laurels. That’s the spirit.
General Egali Tarian Stuck
@apnea: You need to get some sleep apnea.
Corner Stone
@rootless_e:
Which part of US history?
Mnemosyne
I have to admit, though, I have to laugh at the people who whine about how Nixon was so much further to the left than Obama and don’t bother to mention that the whole damn country was further to the left in those days. Republican Party platform of 1956, anyone?
After 30 years of Republican rule, the country has been moved to the far right. We are not going to wake up tomorrow living in a socialist paradise, because we have 30 more years of work ahead of us just to get us back to where we were in 1980.
Obama wasn’t going to be able to magically fix the damage of 30 years in his first 18 months. Sorry, he just wasn’t. He’s not even going to be able to fix all of the damage of the Bush years in that span of time. Whining and moaning because he let you down is childish.
No one’s saying you should stop fighting for civil liberties. Hell, most of us here will back you. But the fact that the Obama administration sucks on civil liberties does not mean that every single policy that they propose or pass automatically sucks.
colby
@apnea:
“The level of discussion in this place is really something to see. Except for Colby”
Yeah, I’m the worst of ’em. ;)
Although honestly, I have little patience for the “Obama’s not a lefty, Obama’s not a righty” debate. I think the definitions on each side are too fluid* and Obama- as with a lot of politicians, especially ones with serious governing responsibility- does too much from BOTH sides and I don’t know what should outweigh the other. So I just leave it at he’s a politician that’s done some stuff I love, some things that bug the shit out of me. He’s also a politician with a demeanor I like and a decision making process that I think is logical, so on balance, I like him. But he’s doesn’t take as many classically liberal positions as I do, and doesn’t people to choke on their own dicks as much as I think necessary. So there’s that, he needs to work on that.
Corner Stone
@Mnemosyne:
I’m sorry. That was when Hillary Clinton was President?
Waynski
@General Egali Tarian Stuck: FTW
Mnemosyne
@John Bird:
I think you’re seriously misreading people here. No one here is saying that the Democratic Party knows best and we just need to follow along. What we may be saying is that we don’t think that you’re always right, or that your strategies are always right, any more than we think the Democratic Party or its strategies are always right.
And yet, somehow, for a lot of activists, saying that we disagree with you automatically means we must be following in lockstep with the national party because of course there’s no way that right-thinking people could possibly disagree with you.
Socraticsilence
@realprogressive:
Um, what- Daou’s an extraordinarily arrogant douchebag, and while I hesitate to label him sexist (or racist) if we look back to 2008 there’s something more than a bit patronizing about his “we know better than the voters, and besides Blacks are used to taking a seat at the back of bus so Obama can wait his turn” spiel.
AxelFoley
@Corner Stone:
Wasn’t she co-president?
“We are the President.”
Those were her words, right? LOL
John Bird
I’d just urge those here who have gotten bitter over those proposing goofy solutions like third-party runs or presidential primary challenges to step back and realize that criticizing your party and your president isn’t just a good thing, it’s the only way to get what you want, EVEN IF THINGS ARE HEADED IN THAT DIRECTION ANYWAY.
Certainly, you need to accompany this by acknowledging the victories your party’s won for you. It looks like there’s a chance DADT might get repealed at some point in the future; that’s good. Kids under 26 whose parents have insurance can stay on it, and many poor people will have help through subsidies to buy insurance; that’s good. There’s some level of regulation going on regarding risky assets handled by banks, which is good. There’s at least the idea floating around Washington that Afghanistan is not a good use of resources, even if the policy is still working that way, but there’s a change in the discourse that might translate into withdrawal eventually. There hasn’t been really much progress on civil liberties issues regarding detainees, but at least we can say it’s authoritarian and poisonous to democracy without the White House calling us traitors (usually). All of these are victories of the Democrats and of President Obama.
Still, the right thing to do is provide health care as a human right, eliminate discrimination against LGBT folks by the federal government at least, close all the loopholes allowing those sorts of risky investments, end the war in Iraq in Afghanistan, and turn the country back toward the rule of law in our courts and treatment of prisoners.
These aren’t unrealistic goals, and they’re the proper goals of progressives, and I honestly don’t think many here would disagree. The next step is to push those goals as the correct, pragmatic choices they are, and yes, that will involve prodding, poking, criticizing, and calling out our leaders, including the Democrats, and including President Obama. We also have to pull double duty to make sure that this criticism isn’t misused by his right-wing critics, that’s for sure.
So it is hard work. I think we are all up to it.
Brien Jackson
@John Bird:
The bill expanded Medicaid nationwide.
Socraticsilence
@cleek:
A lot of Republicans supported the Civil Rights Act of 1964 that didn’t make it any less progressive when LBJ signed it into law.
apnea
@General Egali Tarian Stuck:
I’ll say. It’s noon around here, but I’ll take my leave anyway.
Mnemosyne
@Corner Stone:
I guess Hillary Clinton is magic and if she had been president, that Congressional majority of Bill Clinton’s would have bowed down to her and done her bidding. I didn’t realize you were heading into the PUMA camp where all our problems would be solved and everyone would have their own flying unicorn pony if only Hillary had won the primary.
Point being: despite your claim, Bill Clinton did have a Congressional majority and he failed to get healthcare reform passed. Turns out that a Congressional majority was not actually sufficient to get healthcare reform.
colby
*- numerous examples of what I mean, from every Republican turning his back on Cap-and-trade (and most Democrats turning TOWARD it, instead of flat EPA regulations), to Howard Dean not even HAVING a public option in his HC plan to demanding one in Obama’s (not that he was wrong to do so) to, well, The West Wing, pop culture’s supposition of a nearly idealized liberal President in the early 2000s, whos biggest legislative initiatives seemed to be a tax cut, Patient’s Bill of Rights, and funding a tobacco lawsuit, all of which would (probably rightly) be seen as rather small bore nowadays.
Socraticsilence
@John Bird:
Um- you do realize that the War in Afghanistan is far more in line with Democratic Party Principles than the “anti-all wars ever” people right- that the Democratic Party led the nation into WW1, WW2 and Vietnam and that of those only the last is viewed as a mistake- you may be more at home with the Paleoconservative isolationists like Pat Buchannon.
Socraticsilence
@John Bird:
Yeah too bad Obama didn’t expand SCHIP- oh wait what’s that he did it within a few months of stepping into the Oval Office.
Allison W.
@Corner Stone:
Uhm, what? The EMPLOYED have the free time to post, argue and debate?
and I think maybe you watch Jon Stewart too much. If unemployment was at 12, 13 or 14%, we’d be damn happy to see it at 9.6%. That line you quoted? its what many people do when they take a step back to appreciate what they have instead of slitting their wrists over what they don’t.
Hunter Gathers
@AxelFoley:
The reason for that is simple and obvious – he’s black.
Black people are held to completely different standards in our society. Whatever a white man accomplishes, a black man had to accomplish that +50% to be held in the same standing as said white man. HCR? Big government overreach/didn’t contain the public option, therefore he’s a sellout/sociamalist. The stim? It wasn’t big enough/hand out to minorities, therefore he’s a sellout/marxist. Financial reform? It doesn’t break up the big banks/does too much, therefore he’s a corporate lackey/Maoist. DADT? He didn’t end it by executive order, therefore he hates gays. Unemployment at 9.5% ,as opposed to the well over 10% that Reagan had at the same point in his first term? He gets hammered for it, while Reagan is God. Immigration reform? The votes aren’t there, and while the DOJ files suit to fight that bigoted law in Arizona, ‘progressives’ like KO state that Holder should let Hispanics be arrested and discriminated against so Dems can win a political argument. ‘Progressives’ want people in jail to win arguments. Can you believe that shit? Whatever Obama accomplishes, the far left and the far right will still bitch, whine, and moan about it. Because he’s black, and can never do right by them. Or do you think it’s coincidence that the majority of the far left/far right who do nothing but bitch day and night are as white as the pure driven snow? That’s right, I called the far left racist. And I don’t care. Flame away.
John Bird
@Mnemosyne:
Well, I don’t find that to be an accurate description of me, or the people I work with. I do find it accurate that many people consider criticism of Obama and the Democrats based in progressive ideals to be counterproductive. This leaves me speechless in how divorced it seems from the people I know who work within the Party but outside of the capitol buildings, state or federal – including government employees in benefits offices, for that matter.
Mnemosyne
@John Bird:
I don’t think anyone here disagrees with you. I think the majority of the disagreement is over tactics.
I’ve seen people here (not you) run around screaming about how we’re going to be in Iraq forever and why isn’t the administration doing anything?!? Then, when you point out that the Iraq withdrawal is current and ongoing, they start blustering about how it’s not going fast enough so therefore it’s like it’s not happening at all.
That’s what drives me insane, personally. The pretending that something not moving forward at your preferred pace means that it’s not happening so therefore you can keep screaming about how horrible and awful Obama is for not doing what you want even when you’re getting what you want.
Continuing to push to keep the momentum going is one thing. Pretending that zero progress has been made just makes you look like you’re not keeping up on current events.
John Bird
Also, the “far left” stuff is fantasy. There is a far left in America, I’ve met them, and they have no influence on the discourse outside of a few pockets in academia. The left in America, on the other hand, is strong and growing stronger. Its ideals are in line with those of the rest of the civilized world some 50 years ago: health care as a right, a ban on aggressive war as a crime against humanity, equality of opportunity for all.
The Democratic Party, as an establishment, has a dual nature I’ve been hinting at. The “left”, as described here, makes up its base. The institution, on the other hand, sees these ideals as dangerous to their current hold on power, which is based in financial support from existing power structures that don’t want to see these changes made.
When has it ever NOT been like that? That’s why Democrats need to criticize their party.
Socraticsilence
@John Bird:
Did you actually read the Healthcare Bill- you know the one drastically expanded the Medicare qualification criteria.
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
The next time we have one of these debates I’m going to start printing up T-shirts that say “We had a Civil War on teh Left and all I got was this lousy EmoPantsification Proclamation”
Baby needs a new pair of shoos.
joe from Lowell
Corner Stone,
Good. I wouldn’t want it to lose its punch.
And thanks for proving me right, btw, with your little oopsie about Bill Clinton not having Congressional majorities when HillaryCare failed.
Did you change your outlook even the slightest bit when the central support for your thesis vanished? Of course not.
Corner Stone
@Mnemosyne:
No, you fucking moron that IS NOT my claim.
Hunter Gathers said “Like Clinton would’ve gotten HCR passed. You know, like she did last time.”
Which is a clear statement that if HRC had been elected President in 2008 she would not have gotten HCR passed. Fine, maybe not.
But to say the attempt in 1993 holds some equivalency to 2010 is just incorrect and not accurate.
So I responded when SHE was President last time?
You can not then start saying I am making an argument about Bill Clinton’s Presidency. I am CLEARLY dismissing it as an inaccurate analogy, not talking about WJC in the slightest.
John Bird
@Mnemosyne:
My particular issue with Iraq is that of permanent bases, which were considered conspiracy theory lunacy but look non-negotiable at this point, as well as the constantly shifting timetable. Like it or not, we are going to have to accept that our goals in Iraq, if they preserve continuity with the previous administration, are probably not possible. Keeping Gates in office is not a good decision; neither was keeping McChrystal, as we discovered. The holdovers have a strategy to pursue that will not work, and a bitter contempt for those who disagree about it (most Americans), but they have invested their careers in it. The solution is to honorably end those careers.
Corner Stone
@joe from Lowell: Hey, how are those conversations with Pinochet coming along?
John Bird
@Socraticsilence:
You are mixing up Medicaid and Medicare. You definitely don’t want to do that.
Corner Stone
@joe from Lowell:
Just as stupid as always I see.
CalD
@Brien Jackson: Actually the Overton window strikes me as a perfectly useful, if widely misunderstood concept that in fact argues for incrementalism. The mistake I think a lot of people make is in believing that you can move an idea all the way from “Radical” or even “Unthinkable” to Policy in one leap, without passing through the Acceptable, “Sensible” and Popular stages somewhere along the way, and also that you can somehow move the Window without actually achieving a little actual policy here and there.
Policy is both the anchor point and the only objective measure of actual movement of the window. Any achievement of policy, no matter how small represents progress and automatically slides all other positions on the scale a tad in its direction — i.e., some measure of the previously Unthinkable becomes merely Radical, the Radical starts sounding a little more Acceptable, a few things you might have been willing to consider grudgingly Acceptable start to sound downright Sensible and so on, setting you up for the next round. But until something representing some measure of progress actually gets signed into law or otherwise implemented as policy, nobody’s moved shit, no matter how much truth they spoke to power or how big a tantrum they threw insisting on more.
FlipYrWhig
@John Bird:
But this is anodyne and lofty at the same time. Is “prodding, poking, criticizing, and calling out our leaders” something other than getting on blogs and bewailing our many disappointments? For you it seems to be, based on what you say you do. For a wide swath of people, including some of the most vocal online presences, it seems instead to be a bunch of venting and finger-pointing that substitutes for concrete action.
joe from Lowell
John Bird, if you are as you present yourself, then you are what the firebaggers should be.
You recognize progress, even if it’s incomplete.
You recognize the important differences between the parties, even if the Democrats are suboptimal.
You protest and organize around issues, challenging the Democrats to move left by making the case for your issues, not waging personal attacks on Obama.
And most importantly, when you are dissatisfied with how the politics are going, you work to change them, rather than taking your ball and going home.
Good on you, Mr. Bird. If more of the dissatisfied progressives were like you, I’d be on the other side of this civil war, because I’ve got my complaints about Obama as well…but, then, if more of the dissatisfied progressives were like you, this wouldn’t be a civiil war. It would be a dispute among friends.
Mnemosyne
@John Bird:
Christian conservatives saw the same dynamic in the 1970s — they gave their support to the party, but the party just paid them lip service.
So what did they do? They took over the party. They started at the bottom and worked their way up. They became the party.
I really think you’ve gotten hold of the wrong end of the stick here, and it’s the same error that liberals have made over and over and over again. Keeping yourself aloof from the party’s machinations and criticizing them as part of the “base” (ie from the voting end) means they can ignore you as just another interest group. You need to infiltrate the party and rebuild it from the ground up to actually make serious changes.
And yet most liberals are reluctant to do that and prefer to criticize the party from the outside. I still can’t figure that out. As someone said above, it’s like they don’t want to dirty themselves with actual party politics, so they’d rather criticize the party from the outside than dive into it and change it from the inside.
Socraticsilence
@John Bird:
You’re right my bad but HCR removed the ability of states to choose their qualification criteria ala carte and still recieve federal funding- replacing that with clear floors for qualification- thus states in the Deep South (and Wisconsin interestingly enough- I would assume a legacy of Thompson) can no longer deny virtually every claim from able-bodied but impoverished adults.
Hal
Does the Progressive/Liberal champion even really exist? I mean, is there someone who can be elected who would encompass the Progressive Left’s criteria? I would vote for such a person in a heart beat (sit down Dennis Kucinich), but I just don’t think there is an electable person who fits the mold.
Plus, I think Obama is as progressive as this particular congress will allow.
Sly
@John Bird:
Except none of the actions you outlined would have any impact on Washington’s current political dynamic. Even if Obama succumbs from pressure “from the left,” what gives you any idea that any of that pressure will trickle down on the heads of Senate obstructionists?
The problem with national progressive activists is that they think the Democratic Party is a national party the same way the Republicans are. They aren’t. Disabuse yourself of that notion immediately. The Democratic Party is a collection of state parties that share certain interests and goals and deviate on others, and the rules governing their House and Senate Caucuses reflect that by giving wide latitude to individual members to vote in accordance with the needs and wishes of their constituents without the threat of being penalized by the caucus leadership. The Republican caucuses are far more strict.
You want to “push the party left”? Then you need to convince the holdouts. Arguments based on the merits of policy won’t work, because most of these people are cowards who would vote for a war against the Land of Fantasia if it polled well in their states or districts. You need to convince them that you’re point of view will either benefit their electoral chances or that pissing you off will hurt them. And without a sizable network of activists within that politician’s state or district, you can expect to accomplish neither.
Corner Stone
@Allison W.:
If we took an informal poll of posters in any of the 10 most trafficd blogs, I am more than confident the number of employed people would be north of 66%.
Who do you think is commenting here, right now?
joe from Lowell
John Bird,
What are you talking about? Permanent American bases have been ruled out by the SOFA, which we are still abiding by, and the timetable remains exactly what it has always been since Obama announced it – that is, meeting the timeline in the SOFA. The only “shift” took place when Obama came into office, when he announced he would follow the SOFA timeline instead of the 16 month timeline he talked about during the campaign.
The administration confirmed quite recently that we are on schedule to have the combat troops out by August, and the total number of troops down to 50,000 by then. They already met the timeline for getting our troops back to their bases.
John Bird
@Socraticsilence:
And once again, I’m not talking about insurance for children. It’s actually far easier to get medical coverage for children, even in conservative states, than many realize, and sometimes even for pregnant women. Expanding this is a winning bipartisan issue in many cases, and in the South you’ll sometimes end up with states where qualifying for Medicaid is harder for adults than the state next door, and easier for children, just depending on who’s covered by whose pet bill.
Expanding coverage for children is good. It’s a victory. It’s not the end, but it’s a step. And frankly, it indicates progress in this country that we at least agree that CHILDREN shouldn’t die for the crime of being poor.
Trust me, I work in this field, among others. Kaiser’s website has a great comparative tool for program coverage state to state and it’s a good place to start; I’ll try to grab a link here in a second.
As for Afghanistan, don’t make facile comparisons to other wars that don’t apply. It’s not helpful to call Iraq “another Vietnam” while we’re at it. Our goals in Afghanistan have constantly shifted; none of them are clear, and how we would achieve them with diminishing American support for our presence there is an even harder question.
Honestly, halo or not, I can’t rely deny that I was right about Afghanistan, and right about Iraq, and when I read what I wrote from the “radical far left” in that era, it’s now common wisdom among the American populace. I’m not about to hide my light under a bushel basket, and I’d suggest the same to every liberal.
FlipYrWhig
@Mnemosyne:
I think it’s even worse than that. It’s not only pretending that it’s not happening; it’s pretending that Obama is _stopping it_ from happening. That’s the Greenwald and neo-Greenwald argument I like least: I want to see X, Obama could do X, so if X doesn’t happen it can only be because Obama is working against X behind the scenes in order to thwart it.
Maude
@Mnemosyne:
Obama has failed them today.
Daou worked for the HRC primary campaign and hasn’t gotten over losing, I guess.
Bill and Hillary Clinton has an ideal chance to pass a good healthcare bill. It was an epic fail.
Brien Jackson
@John Bird:
There is no “consistently changing timetable” in Iraq. Everything so far has been consistent with the existing SOFA.
joe from Lowell
Corner Stone,
It’s nice to know I loom so large in your consciousness.
When I haunt your nightmares, what does my facial hair look like?
Mnemosyne
@Corner Stone:
I completely disagree with you. A huge part of the failure of 1993 was that they were able to cast it as “Hillarycare” with her heading secret panels to create “socialized” medicine. I really do think that all of that would have been dragged up again if Hillary had become president.
So, yes, 1993 and your theoretical 2010 do hold some equivalency because they have the same players with the same opposition using the same tactics.
Brien Jackson
@CalD:
Right, given the status quo bias built into the system, you move the terms of debate by moving the status quo. My point was to ideas espoused by people like Uygur.
John Bird
@FlipYrWhig:
Well, no, I meant more in the sense of volunteering and working for nonpartisan organizations that promote those goals even when the Democrats don’t, like Legal Aid, ACLU, NAACP, unions, your local organizations for clean elections, United Way programs to provide routes to benefits, even your state’s benefit offices if you feel you can do some good there.
Dialogue is good, though; I like to poke and prod other bloggers, as well as family members, friends, etc., but that’s a limited use of political energy.
Midnight Marauder
@realprogressive:
Better drive-by movement “progressive” trolls. Please.
And maybe next time, you should post your F- level inanity under your real name: Last True Progressive Standing.
Hal
Meanwhile, Hillary is completely over it. Funny how so many of her former supporters can’t let go while she completely has moved on. So much so that they reinvent Hillary as the ultimate progressive, instead of the middle of the road moderate she was in the Senate. (Marching in Gay Pride parades not withstanding.)
John Bird
I see – there’s no shifting timetable in Iraq because the timetable we’ve shifted to is currently in effect, and will be until/unless we shift it again. There are no permanent bases because, even though we’re planning to “secure long-term strategic interests” in Iraq and are giving projections on how much that will cost, they’re not called permanent bases because the status of forces agreement doesn’t call them that.
Once again, Iraq is not Vietnam. But I heartily encourage you to check out some critical histories of the progress of the war from Kennedy to Nixon, and especially to compare them to their contemporary press reports about timetables, and strategies, and how easily they parrot the government line of the time, and how easily they change month to month.
The first step here is probably to end the system of embedding. If that Rolling Stone article showed anything, it’s that the media really still believe it’s their job to carry water for the military and the administration and it’s bad form to do otherwise.
Corner Stone
@Mnemosyne: If you want to say HRC was president in 1993 and so if she had been president again in 2010 the same things would have happened then please do so.
Mnemosyne
@John Bird:
As others have pointed out, there is no timetable shift. There have been rumors of such, but none of them have panned out. There also are no permanent bases. Bush started building them, but they are being abandoned.
Again, this is what I’m talking about — when I point you to the fact that measurable, if insufficiently speedy, progress has been made, you fall back on rumors and incorrect information to claim that no real progress has been made because of X, Y and Z so therefore it’s like nothing has been done at all.
Sly
@Midnight Marauder:
I suppose Hillary Clinton should have stuck to being a Goldwater Girl, being that these dickheads have completely ruled out the notion that a person’s politics can change.
John Bird
And P.S., you know when they start talking about “maintaining a presence for the purpose of security training,” it is time to worry.
Mnemosyne
@John Bird:
The only “shift” has been between the timetable that candidate Obama proposed and his accepting the already-existing timetable once he was in office. That’s it. The timetable has us leaving Iraq at the end of 2011 and that has not shifted.
Please at least read the links I provide you with, you know, actual facts and information in them before spouting off about how you know you’re right, will you? I know you have this fixed idea in your head that’s probably impervious to what’s actually happening in the real world, but humor me, please.
This is exactly what I’m talking about. You’ve decided that of course Obama is breaking his promises about withdrawing from Iraq and you won’t even address the evidence to the contrary because you know it must not be true.
Brien Jackson
@John Bird:
Yes. Between Obama outlining his timetable and Obama taking office, the US struck a bilateral agreement with the Iraqi state governing the withdrawal of US troops, and upon taking office Obama decided to honor that formal agreement between two nation states, since which time nothing has changed.
What’s the problem with this?
Mnemosyne
@Corner Stone:
I’m saying that healthcare reform tanked in 1993 in large part because of her involvement. If you want to say that the healthcare debate would have been completely different in 2010 if Hillary had been elected president despite that history, please present your evidence.
bemused
Conservatives and media reduce every issue into either/or, up or down, right or left talking points as if it’s impossible to walk and chew gum at the same time.
Malron
Hahahahaha (laughing and pointing at Peter Daou as I type this, the guy who was supposed to be in charge of Hillary’s internet/multimedia outreach but got his ass handed to him by BarackObama.com. The guy will never get over the way Obama hurt his fee-fees and shows up every couple of weeks concern trolling PUMA-style.)
On the plus side: he’s younger and better looking than Lanny Davis.
Midnight Marauder
@John Bird:
In what world are you living in that these are real things? Black activists don’t trust the Democratic Party?! Hell, there wouldn’t be a Democratic Party (or a President Obama) without black activists.
And pretty soon, you can firmly plant Latinos in that category as well.
CalD
@Sly: I think the only point you made there that I’d disagree with in some cases is the reflexive judgment that there’s necessarily something wrong with an elected representative acting in ways that reflect the sensibilities and perceived interests of their constituents. Probably there are cases where “cowardice” is a fair enough call but regardless, another term for it might be functional representative democracy.
I also don’t necessarily rule out the possibility that someone who hails from a particular region might actually tend to actually share many of the same views as people they grew up with, or reflexively assume that anyone who disagrees with me does so as result of some weakness of character. But at some point it doesn’t really matter what you call things and you’re absolutely right that if you want to change the behavior of congress in any meaningful way you have to start with the electorate.
Catsy
@realprogressive:
I find your wit striking and would like to subscribe to your magazine.
John Bird
@Midnight Marauder:
The black activists I work with are far too clever to trust the party that is currently the best way to advance their interests on election day; they know that they are a resource to the party and the party will pursue that agenda to the extent that black activists are useful for maintaining their grip on power.
It doesn’t make them anti-Democrat, anymore than I am.
John Bird
So Obama has shifted his timetable from the one he used to garner support in 2008, and he’s given as a reason that he’s deferring to his military commanders, and there’s a number of serious questions about whether deployments are reflecting this plan, and there’s no problem with that as far as many are concerned.
That’s the gist I’m getting. All I can say to that is that we are on opposite sides of the issue; we need to get out of Iraq quicker than the plan Obama pushed, and we do not need to defer to the military when we are providing them with impossible mission goals.
rootless_e
@apnea: You mean limiting your history to the last 10 years?
The US, for your information, has never prosecuted high level officials for war crimes, but has had high level officials committing war crimes on a regular basis since the state began – and wholesale since 1945.
In this, the USA is exactly the same as every other fucking country in the world. The only time war criminals get prosecuted, as Curtis LeMay told Bob Macnamera is when they lose the war.
For Obama to prosecute Yoo and perhaps Cheney would require a massive change in US culture and politics that is not there. Self-proclaimed “leftists” who don’t fucking have clue what the School of Americas did, who William Colby was, how the Shah of Iran became the Shah, but who natter on about “Rule of law” as if they were fooling anyone are a sad testament to the success of propaganda.
homerhk
it seems to me that much of this commentary totally – and I mean totally – misses the basic fact that Obama is President of the whole US not just the democratic party and certainly not of whiny progressive pundits.
The promise of Presidency was that he was NOT ideological just interested in stuff that worked – that to him was progress. Much of the commentary about disappointments is based on a seemingly uncritical view that what progressives want IS the absolute right thing and the best thing for the country when that may not actually be the case. Has it ever occurred to anyone that Obama is doing what he thinks is the right thing for the country – not necessarily for the party. Surely, that’s what a President should do.
As for specific disappointments, the prime area appears to be civil liberties and foreign policy. I think he could have sought to be bolder in this respect but I also think some of the criticism is a little bit un-nuanced. The main complaint against Bush was that he did things beyond the boundaries of the law. Obama has tried carefully to thread a needle between doing things that are in his mind necessary and keeping those things lawful. So, for example, while military commissions under Bush were ruled contrary to the Constitution Obama has tailored new military commissions that have more due process and more legal legitimacy. Would I prefer it if he did away with military commissions? yes probably but we can’t ignore the fact that what he is proposing is apparently well within the constitution. On torture, would it have been nice to have a full scale public enquiry into what transpired? Yes, but we can’t ignore that he has outlawed torture going forward and that having such an enquiry would have meant no healthcare and certainly no argument on the public option. I think Jon Cohn has it right when he makes the point that the President sets the agenda by deciding what policies to prioritise not necessarily by using the bully pulpit (although I will note here that when he does in fact use the bully pulpit the refrain from unthinking liberals is that he is just words). So, would there have been a discussion about the public option, single payer etc if Obama hadn’t decided to pursue healthcare sometimes against overwhelming odds. Would there have been a discussion now about how small the stimulus was and that deficit concerns can wait if he hadn’t decided to pursue a (by the way massive when compared to things that have gone before) the stimulus act. Would there be this free a discussion about the US’s role towards Israel if he hadn’t made the correct decision to demand a halt to settlements?
The way I see it is that Obama is changing the country in his own way and that he is a victim of his own success in a way. A lot of the things he has done would be utterly radical in past administrations (including Clinton and Carter btw) but the fact that he talks about them in such measured terms and the fact that he gets them done itself makes it feel like it’s not that much of an accomplishment and that maybe more could have been achieved. In reality, of course, he has probably achieved the maximum that he has been able to achieve.
Socraticsilence
@John Bird:
And once again- this is true until the HCR changes to the structure of Medicaid take place, after which universal qualification will apply to all adults whose incomes are less than 150% of the poverty line, furthermore for individuals between 150 and 200% of poverty generous subsidies will help in the acquistion of a far more regulated form of private insurance than previously existed.
Brien Jackson
@John Bird:
No, the reason is that he’s deferring to a formal agreement between the US and Iraq. If you want to argue that he shouldn’t do that, that the difference between the two time-tables is worth incurring the cost that would go with a new administration abrogating a weeks old agreement between the previous government and a foreign state, then by all means make that argument. But you’re not doing that, you’re just resisting accepting that reality isn’t what you think it is. The same way you’re not acnowleding that the HCR bill contained new national standards for Medicaid eligibility.
Brien Jackson
@rootless_e:
Amen. I really want to punch everyone who invokes Nuremberg in arguing for prosecutions now, as though the Allies were doing anything other than invoking victor’s justice at Nuremberg.
Socraticsilence
@Sly:
I think its more that people think its a bit much to think her politics changed from late 2007- early 2008 to Spring of 2008, I mean basically those who viewed her as a progressive champion asked others to disregard virtually every single bit of the very “experience” for which they lauded her.
ricky
Civil War? Who seceded? Which side renounced their opposition to guns first?
Socraticsilence
@Brien Jackson:
Seriously, I mean you honestly think there aren’t prosecutions for the internment of the Japanese in a just world- how about the wholesale theft of Nissei and Issei (spelling?) land during the internment- but hey Nuremburg back then we were a just and righteous people- Curtis Lemay is a fragment of our collective imagination.
Elie
Obama is a transitional figure and represents the end of the rule of “because I said so” arguments on both sides of the political divide that seek knee jerk, magical policy solutions based solely on ideology rather than the reality of what we can realistically implement.
Through his example of even handed deliberation, without a lot of placating this or that group with easy reasurrances, he provides an example of mature courage. Both the left and right want to be indulged and placated and want to coerce him to their will. Standing up to that pressure is not popular for folks who want to move him around for their own purposes. That is why there is no satisfying so many of the die hard progressives. They don’t want to be satisfied…they want to beat up and threaten to coerce as a means of power to their own ends — not necessarily to benefit the people… that is why so many wanted to crash health care reform because it was not perfect, and ignoring the real people that the “imperfect” bill would help, or the reality that it could be improved over time…
I also think, (sadly), that the 24 hour news cycle and the need to keep a lot of blogs up and running with a lot of hits, requires controversy, anger and grievance as an end in itself… many of these folks make a living on outrage — literally. The danger is that it keeps us all split into oppositional camps when we could actually reach consensus. But that is boring and no one would blog about how much we agree on… only outrage and anger.
Just my thoughts, anyway.
homerhk
Just to show that Obama can’t please anybody these days, the recess appointment of Berwick – something which to all accounts is eminently sensible and required given the health care reform – is being greeted at FDL as just another chance to bash Obama not appointing Dawn Johnsen by way of recess appointment. I say Good and I say Grief.
Corner Stone
@Mnemosyne:
I am not debating anything. I am stating HRC has never been President.
ruemara
@Corner Stone:
Hah! really? You may have those numbers wrongly assigned. People with work usually aren’t online wrangling with each other about whether or not Obama is Bush-lite or redux. People without or with, perhaps, shall we say-flexible?-work, are. Do you have some resource that accounts for why you think unemployed or under-employed are so frustrated with the president? I’m not, nor are most of the unemployed I know, but perhaps you have some snippets of info I don’t.
Mnemosyne
@John Bird:
No, I don’t have a problem with it because, frankly, one of the reasons I voted for Obama is that I thought (and still think) that he’s someone who is willing to look at all of the evidence in front of him and change his mind if it looks like his original plan isn’t going to work. Stubbornly sticking to his proposed deadline after being presented with evidence that it won’t work is the kind of thing that would make him like W.
It’s not like his military commanders said, “You want to withdraw but we want to stay indefinitely,” and Obama said, “Gee, that sounds good to me.” They said, “We don’t think your current withdrawal timetable is realistic and we’d like to move the date,” and Obama said, “Okay, but this new date is firm.”
Believe it or not, the fall of Saigon was not actually the ideal for how a country should withdraw its troops from a long commitment. Withdrawing in an orderly fashion is much preferable for everyone, even if it takes a little longer.
Nick
@burnspbesq:
That’s how a Democrat gets elected. Overpromising. IMO, the only one who was realistic about his promises was Al Gore, and the left didn’t find him pure enough. And even he was ridiculous to think the Kyoto Treaty would have EVER been ratified.
Mnemosyne
@Corner Stone:
You said things would have been different in the healthcare battle if HRC had been president. I’m asking you to give us your evidence that that’s the case.
CalD
@Socraticsilence: Does it matter to anyone that Clinton’s voting record in the Senate was all but identical to Barack Obama’s, or that her scorecard scores from the ADA, ACO, AFLCIO, ACLU, LCV, NARAL (et al) for were pretty much the same before Obama got there as after? I suppose not.
Midnight Marauder
@John Bird:
So they don’t trust the party, they just maintain a functional working relationship with said party, because their interests are similar and their decades long arrangement carries on because it continues to produce results beneficial to both groups?
Yeah, sounds like a major trust issue.
@John Bird:
You’re right. It just makes your “point” an utterly ridiculous one.
ruemara
@Hunter Gathers: As black woman with a degree and excellent work history, until 2000, who’s at the point of leaving this place because at least in other countries I can find a job that, combined with some basic soci@l1sm health care, may allow me not to have a retirement plan that involves suicide, co-sign. I’d always had hope of something better, now I understand it’s just wrong to hope in america.
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
@Elie:
I’m not sure the dynamic is quite as consciously self-serving as that, but rather that our modern info saturated world tends to make people a bit crazy. Al Giordano wrote a good piece a month ago about this The Real Crisis of Our Times is What Crisis Does to Us
, riffing off of an essay by Alain de Botton titled On Distraction.
I strongly endorse the idea of a periodic “info fast”. Sometimes you have to take a mental break from it all. Also, I like to do a fair amount of reading on deep time historical subjects to help keep contemporary politics in perspective, and my own blood pressure under control.
rootless_e
@homerhk: i’m suprised. usually, although they are quick to criticize Obama for failing to do the right thing, when he does the right thing they are there for him as befits a group of important allies. Right?
ok maybe not.
Brien Jackson
@Mnemosyne:
Again, Obama didn’t shift his stance because military commanders wanted him to, at least not wholly, he did it because an agreement between the US government and the Iraqi government concerning a timetable for withdrawal was reached before he took office, and he opted to honor the agreement.
AxelFoley
@Hunter Gathers:
I didn’t want to go there, but…
Yeah, I do think that some racism, whether conscious or subconscious, plays a big part in all this. I’m not shocked by it from the right, but I saw a lot of folks on the left show their true colors since 2007.
Sly
@CalD:
Point noted and accepted, but I don’t think honest and good-faith disagreement applies to the usual suspects. I am, admittedly, a very cynical person.
@Corner Stone:
You’re arguing about a minor quibble and pretending its significant for the sake of getting under someone else’s skin. It worked well for a while, but its getting pretty dull.
@Socraticsilence:
The “Goldwater Girl” comment was in reference to a lovely little cherub who stopped by to remind us all that the bloghost used support Republicans and is apparently not worthy of sniffing Peter Daou’s jock. I am not under the impression that Cole is still, secretly, a Republican and is all set to turn on us, just as I am not under the impression that Hillary Clinton still thinks that extremism in defense of liberty is no vice.
CalD
@AxelFoley: I certainly can’t remember a president that the far left didn’t bitch and moan about and call a sell-out, going back as far as LBJ. Something really creepy about the last few decades was the seeming willingness of the far right to give Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush the benefit of the doubt, but with those two possible exceptions, the same has always been true of the far right in my recollection. They most definitely hated the hell out of Nixon, Ford and George H.W.
Mnemosyne
@ruemara:
Gotta disagree with you — I think that only people with jobs are worried about the teensy details of if Obama is exactly like Bush or just mostly like him. People without jobs are more worried about, you know, food and rent and finding another job.
John Bird
@Midnight Marauder:
Okay, but that’s what it’s like to work with those groups. They maintain a working relationship with the party; they also criticize it when it’s wrong, and they’re never sucked into Stockholm syndrome when the party neglects their issues or fails to give them the voice they need.
They don’t trust the party, because you don’t trust political parties. They’re entrenched power structures that work to maintain themselves, primarily. You have to make them do what you want – the great thing about democracy is that it’s easier than it is otherwise.
It’s what I do, and it’s really the only way to be a Democrat and not a kingfisher. I heartily recommend it.
John Bird
@Mnemosyne:
Personally, deferral to both the military and to the civilian government in Iraq is a bad idea, in my opinion, for exactly the reasons it was in Saigon. We give the military an impossible mission and also consult with an Iraqi government that has to be friendly to our administration, that depends on our military presence to avert civil war, and that is increasingly intertwined financially with our occupation.
The military and the Iraqi government will tell us that we need to stay longer. They’ll keep doing it. We have to say “no” eventually, and that’s why people voted for Obama’s 16-month plan in 2008, not for his 16-month-oh-wait-the-military-says-otherwise-let’s-rethink-this plan.
The fall of Saigon was disastrous. But let’s be frank – it would have been disastrous in 1968, had it happened then. The difference is that we pegged our foreign policy on the city, and stuck around a lot longer than made any sense given our goals.
Ivan Ivanovich Renko
@AxelFoley: Hah. I fucking live there.
Brien Jackson
@John Bird:
The SOFA’s timetable is roughly 20 months in duration, whereas Obama’s was 16 months. You really think 4 months or so is important enough to set the precedent of a new administration entering office and unilaterally abrogating an agreement between the US and a foreign government?
Ivan Ivanovich Renko
@John Bird:
As General McChrystal now understands, the military will do what they’re fucking well told. The Iraqis will have to come up with reasoning that’s in line with AMERICAN national interests.
Of course, sticking with a failing plan will win points with some folks… me, I’ll stick with the guy who clearly knows what the fuck he’s about.
geg6
@John Bird:
Your black activists and your unions may feel that way, but in my world, it’s the unions, the black organizations, and their people who fucking ARE the Democratic Party.
Perhaps you need to get out more.
Elie
@ThatLeftTurnInABQ:
Your points are well taken. That said, the dynamic that I describe remains an essential component of the tone and nature of our discussions in the media and on line. Short term gain of having interesting debate and people reading your stuff generally does not give way, at least immediately, to long term interests for the greater good. We have brought the individual and the individual’s point of view to the most absurd and dysfunctional — at least right through here..
Sapient
@homerhk:
Very thoughtful post, especially the last statement.
wenchacha
The Daou of Poo
Wile E. Quixote
@realprogressive:
Yeah, I fucking hate those people who used to be Republicans. People like that arrogant racist bitch Hillary Clinton who supported Barry Goldwater in 1964. Fucking militaristic, racist shitbag, we could use a whole lot less people like her on our side.
Corner Stone
@Sly:
Fuck you clownshoe.
I’m not arguing a minor quibble. Idiots like Mnemosyne keep lying about what I said.
Fuck off if you don’t like me correcting that.
Corner Stone
@Mnemosyne:
For the last fucking time
NO I NEVER SAID ANYTHING LIKE THAT.
CalD
@Sly: Fair enough. Like I said though, at some point it doesn’t actually matter all that much what you call it.
Something that often gets lost in these discussions is that the entire reason for having elections at regular intervals is to give voters an opportunity to force their will upon their elected representatives. So I really don’t have such of a problem with congresscritters taking positions “just to get re-elected.” To me that’s kind of how it’s supposed to work, and the genius of the system is that it works just about as well when said representatives act out of cowardice as when they actually believe in what they’re doing.
I do find it generally more productive, when undertaking anything that requires a team effort to at least try and start with the assumption that the people I have to work with are neither lazy, nor crazy, nor stupid, nor incompetent; and then revise downward from there as necessary. But I’m a pretty cynical person too. I really only do that because it seems to work better.
Sly
@Corner Stone:
You know full well what Hunter Gathers meant by his original comment, but you insist on an interpretation that exists only in your mind for the benefit of covering the flaws in your argument. Hillary Clinton lead the HCR effort in 1993. She had the backing of the President. She had Congressional majorities. And the effort, for a variety of reasons, failed. Even she admitted as much, and took at least partial responsibility for that failure.
Stop being such a useless fucking troll.
Nick
@John Bird:
I’d be surprised if 60 million or the 70 million people who voted for Obama knew exactly how long he wanted us to be out of Iraq.
And those who did probably don’t mind a few months difference.
Nevertheless, I have friend over there who has always been anti-war and the one thing that stuck in my mind was how pissed he was to see Presidential candidates give specific timetables because in his mind, they don’t know what conditions they’re going to be faced with once they’re in office. He said they should’ve waited until they’re in office to come up with a timetable, but, as he admitted “timetables in campaigns are merely ways of getting votes”
We’re leaving, that should be all that matters.