I think this all comes back to Democrats surrendering on the economic argument since, really, day one of the Obama presidency.
I agree, and when Obama says things like this he’s full of shit:
“At a time when so many families are tightening their belts, he’s going to make sure that the government continues to tighten its own,” Obama said.
It’s stupid, it’s nuts, it’s unreconstructed Hooverism, and it’s also the conventional wisdom. Republicans can spew nonsense about balancing the budget by cutting taxes and only a partisan liberal would disagree. Meanwhile, even the liberal Charles Lane writes nasty, multipart rebuttals to Paul Krugman.
When Democrats lost the House in 1994, it was because they were feckless idiots. And then Clinton subsequently moved to the V-Chips/school uniform portion of his presidency it was because he was a Blue Dog sell-out.
MTiffany
It’s stupid, it’s nuts, it’s unreconstructed Hooverism,
It’s also Clintonian ‘third-way’ triangulation bullshit.
Also, too, it’s blatant cowardice.
FlipYrWhig
You know, this never bothers me as much as it’s supposed to. It’s not an across-the-board policy prescription. Don’t the polls say that people want the government to do something about jobs and also to cut spending? Statements about belt-tightening to me are about bloat and waste; the image is of body fat. They don’t rule out _necessary_ spending.
Restrung
Get buzzed and scritch the kitty. All I can do. I thought I was cool to give up TV, but now this Internet is pissing me off too. Even the mostly pleasant balloon-juice is giving me info I don’t want! up yours Barack. Take it back! Get a clue and be a winner again. fuck.
beltane
This situation is the direct consequence of a thoroughly eviscerated left-wing in this country. We do have liberals, but we no longer have a political movement devoted to remedying income inequality, etc. In the 1930’s there was a vibrant s-word movement in the US, along with robust, red-blooded unions. Now we have Hooverism, Reaganism, and silence.
We are not the same country we were in the 1930s. We are fragmented, isolated, frightened, and propagandized. Even our land-use patterns are not conducive to the pitchfork solution. The wealthy behave only when they are afraid of the consequences of not behaving. As it stands now, the American public will meekly accept the belt tightening for the sake of preserving the wealth of the few because submission is what they have been trained for.
Restrung
@FlipYrWhig:
Hey, thanks. Kittty says thanks too, because I loosened the death grip.
Jody
Flip: The problem is they never cut the programs that are out-of-control porkfests, like defense. They always go after the ones least able to defend themselves, like Social Security.
When he says the government needs to tighten it’s belt, he means around the neck of the little guy.
RareSanity
Good to know that if you wait long enough, styles always come back!
I have to laugh to keep from either crying or killing someone…
Lolis
If Obama had surrendered the economic argument from day one, there would either have been no stimulus or if there was still a stimulus it would have been about 100 million of tax cuts. I think Weigel makes good points overall, but I disagree with this. The stimulus was too small but it had very liberal priorities, including schools and medical research. The stimulus was not a surrender. We must call our victories, well, victories.
El Cid
You know, in tough times like these, when families and businesses have to learn to watch what they use more, we need to start tightening up how much water is available, and that sort of austerity will help the economy grow.
beltane
@El Cid: Yeah, just like starving your kids of protein and calcium in order to make them grow better. That’ll do the trick.
It all sounds so Victorian.
mistermix
Weigel nailed this one and he also had a good piece on the New Black Panthers:
http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily_dish/2010/07/megyn-kellys-minstrel-show.html
So I guess he was just having a bad day yesterday.
cleek
i find your lack of faith disturbing.
Harper’s, 7/09:
etc.
read the whole thing. it’s fucking impressive how he nails it. even more impressive that he wrote this over a year ago.
Rock
I’d be more upset with the Obama presidency if the alternative wasn’t the incompetent delusional kleptocracy of the Republcan party. Faced with that I’ll take the semi-competent semi-kleptocracy of Obama.
I think we need to distinguish between words and deeds. GW Bush said a bunch of junk about compassion, emissions, and deficits that were crap just to appease the populace. His policy ran contrary to all that spoken junk. It’s possible Obama is saying stuff like this in an effort to generate positive PR among the proletariat and the villagers. Certainly his jawboning of the EU runs contrary to that and his legislative efforts have not been contractionary to this point, even if they were short of what Krugman wanted.
If Obama uses the deficit-hawk-fever to enact defense cuts, well that wouldn’t be so bad…we’ll have to see.
jl
I agree with Lolis, Obama did not surrender from day one.
I also think Obama got bad advice from Summers (and Rubin too, if he was part of informal economic kitchen caginet). Summers did have some very good ideas about the stimulus, and things would be better if Summers’ advice regarding the design were more closely followed in the final bill.
However, I think Summers was very wrong in assuming there was a high probability that quick stimulus that came and went quickly would be sufficient.
I don’t think there is much point in accusing Obama of ‘surrendering from day one’ under those situations.
I do not think I have a record of being an Obot in my comments, but we should not go overboard in criticism.
Ruckus
I keep thinking, ahhh, another shitty day in paradise. And it’s not even fun being right any more.
The Truffle
@FlipYrWhig: Exactly. Obama SAID during the campaign that he would go through and eliminate unnecessary spending.
Bah. This Beltway nonsense. Double bah.
Lev
I just don’t know. Actually, I think that Clintonomics is an entirely coherent economic philosophy, and a good one in certain times, only it’s one that’s really hard to convey in a line or two. The GOP has really simple solutions that nobody really believes work that well for what they say they will, but they’re really easy to say.
Tax Cuts. TAX CUTS!
Simple.
I’m telling you, if the Democrats had just one guy who could come up with punchy taglines, we’d be in so much better shape. Instead it’s an endless series of politicians who want to elevate the discussion. I sympathize, but let’s try to win the battle now is all.
beltane
@cleek: That Harper’s piece really gets to the point I was making in my still awaiting moderation comment about the lack of any real ideology from the left. There appears to be a total and complete intellectual paralysis in this country, a situation made worse by the media’s ability to enforce a suffocating conformity to failed conventional wisdom. Unless a way is found to break through the bubble, the situation will rapidly deteriorate.
The Truffle
When Democrats lost the House in 1994, it was because they were feckless idiots. And then Clinton subsequently moved to the V-Chips/school uniform portion of his presidency it was because he was a Blue Dog sell-out.
Unpopular opinion: The Dems are NOT feckless idiots this time around. Health reform and financial reform? Big fucking deals.
El Cid
@cleek: Another good line:
DonkeyKong
Good to see the President is taking economic advice from the underpants gnomes.
Phase 1: Contract Spending
Phase 2: ?
Phase 3: Budget Surplus
strandedvandal
Yeah, fuck this guy. What has he done for us lately?
General Stuck
It’s also what Americans want to hear. They don’t want to live it in their personal lives, and they don’t want to know or hear that all the stuff they depend on from the government costs money and for that money to be real and worth something it has to come from them.
But frugality sounds good. Even better it sounds Christian, It is the American disconnect and it is a lie. Mainly perpetrated and exploited by the wingnuts and the media that doesn’t dare correct the record in any sustained sense.
Obama is no hero. I didn’t vote for him to change the prevailing winds of ignorance this country has slopped around in since WW2, of wanting their cake and eat it too. Living on plastic and safety nets where the spoilt citizens of this country think the the bill to which are paid by government money trees tended by faceless GS gnomes. I voted for him to be a rational smart and largely honest technocrat that keeps plugging along trying to fix this mess one clusterfuck at a time. And if mouthing the correct watchwords along the way keeps the jackals off his ass, that is okay by me. One person can’t wash away 70 years of stoopid.
He says this shit, because to not say it is political suicide. Look at what he does. Not hesitating to pass a 800 billion discretionary spending bill the largest prog bill in history of it’s kind. He has had to bail out wingnut led private industry from their lying and cheating and stealing, and get dumped on by tea parties and leftists alike. And if he hadn’t, we would be checking the soup line schedules instead of handwringing over only 90,000 jobs created last month instead of none. He took over the auto industry so it wouldn’t crash and burn and gets labeled a soshulist by the right and a corporatist by the left.
He passes HC reform that will cover everyone and the right wing hollers soshulist some more and death panels and the left hollers even louder that he shoulda done more.
Fuckit ! Obama ought to resign and leave this idiot country to it’s own devices. That is my recommendation.
And still, the idiot voters want to put the wingnuts back in charge who tell them more pretty lies while they pick the few nickels left in their pockets
Quiddity
Obama echoes a Republican talking point virtually word for word.
Last year Mark Sanford (yes, him) said:
This week from Obama (as DougJ notes):
Big mistake. Unforced error.
angler
Et tu DougJ?
Sigh . . . we are all firebaggers now.
beltane
@General Stuck: That is a beautiful rant. Thank you.
While unpleasant to live through, there is something mesmerizing about watching the sun setting on the Empire of the Plastic Jesus and the All You Can Eat Buffet.
Restrung
@General Stuck:
I’m with ya.
DougJ
@angler:
I may have laid the snark on too thick.
Cat Lady
I think Obama is lucky, and smart, but really, I’ve decided that George Bush is the luckiest son of a bitch in the known universe. He got lucky with his birth parents, with his birth order, with his timing re running after Clinton (if Bill had only kept his fly zipped), with Dick Cheney and minions ready to burrow into the bureaucracy, with the rise of Fox, with 9/11, with the credulous castrated press, with K Street buying Congresspeople at wholesale prices, with the bubble economy, and especially that he was given 8 fucking years of fucking things up before Obama. It amazes me that that fucking drunk druggy ne’er do well sociopathic sorry excuse for a human being was able to crater this country and the only price he’s paid is consistently low poll numbers – let me guess, around 27% – and it’s accepted discourse now that it’s all Obama’s fault. We are experiencing mass psychosis, and this is going to get exponentially crazier until 2012. I don’t think, I know, the Mayans are right.
+4
jl
I do agree that the quote by Obama is not ‘ept’, to put it politely. If he is such a great communicator, and if he does have a grasp of the macro concepts (which I guess he cannot get from his buddy Geithner, who I have read has more influence than Summers), he should be able to explain things on at least a sixth grade level.
Also too. One thing I owe this lefty food/sports/gardening/pet/boozing blog is a far greater awareness of the pundits who write awful commentary that debauches the popular opinion. Like this Charles Lane of the Washington Post. I did not know who this guy was a year ago. Thnx B-J! May this blog get all the wonderful things it deserves for making me aware of this crowd.
What an awful pair of columns by Lane attacking Krugman. One good thing about Lane is that he has no self discipline and cannot resist going overboard, and contradicting himself, and presenting evidence against himself in one short column. Brooks is far better at self control.
Lane says that Krugman (and one supposes DeLong, and Stiglitz, and Galbraith, and other Keynesians) are saying to spend recklessly and not worry at all about the long term deficit until the economy is all find and dandy again. This is absolutely not true. They are all worried about the long run deficit and that has shaped their advice. That is why Krugman is very worried about the effectiveness of health care reform in controlling costs, starting right now, because that is the main long run threat to government finances.
That is why Stiglitz emphasized the importance of stimulus that focused on investment in public goods to increase productivity, and warned against a stimulus that resulted in a return to a borrow and consume mentality. It is also why Stigltiz warned about watching the relative rates of recovery in the rest of the world versus the US in order to gauge the possible medium run inflationary effect of Fed operations during the financial panic.
But Lane gives himself away. He starts out saying he just wants balance in apportioning the blame for the housing bust and financial panic, and asserts that is what Rajan is saying too. Then a few lines latter quotes Rajan saying the opposite (Fannie and Freddie was in some vague sense more to blame than anything else). Then Lane goes full berserker and damns all government housing programs, many of which have existed since the Great Depression and WWII (and produced no bubbles or crashes or panics until unwise deregulation of private markets in the late 1990s)
For any interested, Mark Thoma posted a series of sound analyses to counter Lane’s screed on the horrors of the GSEs. Here are links to two that most directly answer Lane’s superficial analysis.
http://economistsview.typepad.com/economistsview/2010/02/did-fanniemae-cause-the-financial-crisis.html
http://economistsview.typepad.com/economistsview/2008/09/once-again-it-w.html
Lane also confuses ‘defending’ the current organization and operation of the mortgage GSEs and a desire to have a correct understanding their role in the panic.
DonkeyKong
“Now, I got no fight… with any man who does what he’s told. But when he don’t, the machine breaks down. And when the machine breaks down, we break down. And I ain’t gonna allow that… in any of you. Not one.”-Shorter General Stuck.
jl
@DougJ: Yeah, way to much snark for rubes like me. You may need to write a translation into earnest rubnik language so I properly understand it.
Some nuances escape me, like were you damning Wiegel or agreeing with him.
Hunter Gathers
@General Stuck:
Ding ding ding ding ding! We have a winner! Deficits matter because the Village says they matter. And unfortunately, what the Village says is gospel. It sucks, but it’s the truth.
That would be the shiznit. He could be like “Fuck all you stupid fucking crackers, I quit. Enjoy President Palin you stupid morons. Why the fuck should I even try anymore, no matter what I do, you’re going to bitch. You want this fucking job? Here, take it. I’m going home with my hot wife and I’m going to hang out at Comiskey the rest of the summer, then Soldier Field in the fall, and the United Center in the winter. And don’t come to me crying when POTUS Dipshit McBoobage accidentally starts a war with Russia because one of her dumbass kids pressed the wrong button. Fuck it, I’m out.”
DougJ
@jl:
I agree with Weigel, but what the hell were the options. I don’t know. I’m sorry if this doesn’t make much sense, I don’t know what other way to express it.
Hunter Gathers
@DougJ:
“Even the liberal Charles Lane” was the give away.
Quiddity
@General Stuck:
I don’t think that’s true in this case. Obama didn’t have to adopt the false analogy between a household budget and the federal budget (which is a Republican talking point – see my comment above). Krugman and a lot of other economists spend much of their time explicitly pointing out that such an understanding makes it hard to implement good policy. If it isn’t challenged by the president then it continues to affect the public discussion about what to do.
General Stuck
@Hunter Gathers: I was only jesting from exasperation, that Obama should quit.
Hunter Gathers
@General Stuck: I figured, but would that not be the most hilarious thing ever? Well, until Western Civilization collapsed, but still, it would be really, really fucking funny. And if the country is going to eat itself alive, I would rather be laughing than crying.
Honus
@The Truffle: When Democrats lost the House in 1994, it was because the voters were feckless idiots.
I’m through giving the “American People” a pass.
jc
The Nation article by Eric Alterman is what resonated for me (too lazy to look up the link.
The issue is not Barack Obama. Barack Obama, passed a health care plan, that people have been trying to pass since, basically Theodore Roosevelt.
Is a compromised health plan? Yes. But the problem is structural and social.
Same with the stimulus program. Obama is touting this every week, from what I can see. Jobs created. Roads improved. Etc, etc.
Does it seem to get through?
Not to the Beltway press. They don’t give an eff.
And regular people, well, they see that jobs aren’t coming back.
a. Held hostage by the rules of the Senate.
b. Amoral, corporate leaning press that prioritizes gossip and drama.
c. Well funded conservative press that makes mountains out of less than molehills – out of fantasy, actually.
d. The politician corporate lobbying gravy train, that is the both necessary to play politics, and then the retire from politics get rich quick gravy train.
e. The social and conservative, libertarian ‘leaning’, passiveness of the american populace. So that outrage only generates tea parties, but not people motivated by progressive values and goals.
Obama was the hope, that things would not have to get much worse, before they get better.
1. The hope that infrastructure, rotting for decades, would finally get attended to.
2. The hope that the the widening gap, between rich and poor, deeply dangerous to any democracy, would finally be put on the path to being fixed.
3. The hope that the obvious looming, hard, and thorny worldwide problem of the climate crisis, would actually get addressed.
4. The obvious hope, that the stupity of the u.s. health system, creating so much waste and unnecessary suffering would get corrected.
5. The hope that real attention would be paid, to the care and nurturing of the jobs of the 21st century, so that everyone isn’t simply a waiter, a custodian, or an insurance agent, with everything else outsourced.
This hope is failing.
And it isn’t Obama’s fault.
Lionel Messi – best soccer player in the world. Undone by a bad plan, bad coaching, and the wrong elements in his team.
I’m not ready to weep yet, but it is beginning to look like it has to get worse, before it gets better.
Allison W.
Okay, I’m not sure what I should be upset about. We all have heard Obama saying that we need to spend to help the recovery. His advisers echoed the same argument during the G-20 while other nations objected. I know he understands it and I know he knows his history. I also know that this is not the first time that he has brought up belt tightening. I think its pandering. Yes, Obama panders also, too. And no its not to the Right because regular folks think this way.
He surrendered the economy on Day one? Really? WTF? I call bullshit. but lets continue to absolve the GOP of their role in this.
He’s talked of tightening the belt before so I don’t see why this latest is so surprising;
Here in January 2009:
http://www.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/01/08/transition.wrap/index.html
And here in April 2009:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oAawr9Lo7dg
and here in February 2010:
http://www.lvrj.com/news/breaking_news/Obama-dings-Las-Vegas–again-83382047.html
Kryptik
@jc:
Sadly, I’m having a hard time even believing that the ‘gets better’ part is going to come to pass.
Allison W.
@jc:
Jeebus Christ man, he also said this wasn’t going to be easy. He said that there will be setbacks and false starts. I do believe that he mentioned things getting worse before they get better. That is exactly what’s happening now so don’t despair. There are going to be a lot of disappointments and a lot more successes, but that’s how life works in general. And in a crisis, things always get worse before they get better. We can’t give up.
PaulW
It is getting to the point that our government won’t really do anything until there is an actual Honest-to-God economic Depression on the scale of the 1930s. And even then, their primary objective will be more goddamn tax cuts for the rich, which sends the money toward the even richer.
We are led by an insane government that thinks that doing the same thing (tax cuts) over and over (tax cuts) and over (more tax cuts) will create different results. We’ve had two major tax cuts programs – Reagan’s in the 1980s and Dubya’s in the 2000’s – and both times the ONLY THINGS WE REALLY GOT FROM THOSE TAX CUTS WERE HIGHER DEFICITS AND MAJOR RECESSIONS. I have not seen any other evidence to the contrary.
Hunter Gathers
In lighter news, future POTUS Dipshit McBoobage creates a new word, refudiate. Contrary to popular belief, it is a perfectly cromulent word.
Mark S.
@jl:
My god that guy is a fucking idiot. Here’s who he blames for the deficit:
The first two don’t amount to shit, SS surplus has allowed Lane and his buddies to enjoy lower taxes, and Medicare’s problems are largely due to our idiotic health care system. But I’m sure Lane was concern trolling like hell during the HCR debate and probably thought all we needed was tort reform.
I also like how the recipients of defense contracts do not factor into his analysis.
Chris
@jc:
Words that also crystallize my despair. If I had another blog I was willing to admit I frequented I’d share your words with them. Well said.
Restrung
heh. he said boobage.
TX Expat
@beltane:
It is indeed mesmerizing.
What’s the phrase that sunk Ann Richard’s opponent Clayton Williams in ’92? Oh yeah…
Comparing rape to the weather, Williams said, “As long as it’s inevitable, you might as well lie back and enjoy it.”
I’m not sure if I’m necessarily “enjoying it” but I am transfixed.
celticdragonchick
@cleek:
Holy shit.
The article was nothing short of brilliant.
Thanks for the link.
Kryptik
@TX Expat:
Like watching a car crash from the back seat in slow mo. After the driver dove out the side to leave the sorry suckers still seat belted in to deal with the consequences.
celticdragonchick
@Hunter Gathers:
That. Too. Also.
Mnemosyne
@Jody:
Actually, there have been massive cuts to defense proposed by the Dept. of Defense, as there should be, and Republicans and Blue Dogs shrieked like it was pulling out fingernails to cancel weapons systems that the military didn’t even want. Obama even got off a pretty good quip about how he didn’t mind canceling the order for a new helicopter because the one he was already using seemed perfectly fine to him.
Corner Stone
Austerity for all!
I mean, it’s worked so well for the other 3rd world countries!
The Truffle
@General Stuck: Big old Wordy McWord, General.
Keith
It’ll continue to be this way so long as liberals run away from the term “liberal”, while conservatives proudly trumpet just how conservative they are. If they can’t accept being liberal and fight its current status as a boogeyman label, then, frankly, they deserve to get bitchslapped for it.
Corner Stone
Government has never created one job. And it should also tighten its belt.
Corner Stone
@Keith: Do you also juggle? Or maybe balance on a unicycle?
Just wondering what the parameters of your clown show were, thanks.
Quiddity
@Allison W.:
How do you change minds? I’ve gotta bring FDR in at this point. In his first fireside chat, on banking (well worth reading in its entirety), he said things like this: (emp add)
That’s educating the public. Telling them that the banking system depends on a confidence and that it’s counterproductive if everyone rushed out to get their money from the banks. And FDR succeeded in delivering that message.
Corner Stone
@Allison W.:
Can you even tell the difference in flavors of kool-aid anymore? Or do they all just taste delicious?
TX Expat
@Kryptik:
LOL! I was involved in just such a crash in Cairo a few years ago. The breaks went out in the cab I was in. I noticed the driver pushing the pedal to the floor to no effect in heavy, slow-moving traffic as we entered Zamalek. I knew how it was going to end, so I just closed my eyes and hoped for the best.
Now that I think of it, this is different how from Mr. Willliam’s advice? Oh yeah, I am in a state of helplessly hoping – IOW, somewhat optimistic!
Palin ’12, baby!
Corner Stone
I’m just scared to death that inflation is creeping back into our society. I lose sleep at night wondering if The Fed is going to implement an official policy to get us back to 3%.
This deficit.
It really scares me.*
*And yet, somehow I’m not worried about the deficit trying to break into my house at 3am and steal my shit because it’s been without employment for 24 months.
Allison W.
@Quiddity:
With all due respect, this country is not the country FDR had. FDR did not have our 24/7 drama hungry media and he didn’t have THIS congress. FDR did not have the same obstacles Obama has now. When FDR did his fireside chats he didn’t have to move them to another time slot because THE SEASON PREMIERE OF LOST WAS COMING ON!
Educate the public? sure. by himself? no. I have said this a million times all over the blogs I visit. Obama cannot be the sole voice of the party or of the Left. If the public needs to be educated, it needs to be a coordinated and consistent effort that is carried out by Dems in congress and progressive/liberal organizations in every town, city and state. His message needs to be amplified over and over and I don’t see anyone doing that. All I keep reading is that Obama needs to and Obama has to with very few if anyone asking what others could be doing.
Allison W.
@Corner Stone:
Fuck you and find one thing wrong with my statement? Your life’s been one orgasmic success after another?
Nick
@Corner Stone: Did you oversleep the morning they handed out maturity?
Joseph Nobles
OT: Latest Glenn Beck atrocity — “If Jesus was a victim he would have come back from the dead and made the Jews pay for what they did.”
That is word-for-word.
Lev
@Quiddity: FDR comparisons are a cliche at this point. Like Republicans comparing everyone to Reagan. Let’s move on.
Corner Stone
@Nick: How bout you keep telling us all there’s nothing to be done because it’s a fait accompli in the media and we’re all doomed so there’s no point in even trying.
And if that doesn’t work, you can blame The Jews again.
wonkie
I want to move to Canada.
Corner Stone
@Allison W.: Your statement(s)?
You mean, “Rah rah, sis boom bah!”
mclaren
Not only that, Obama is lying. When Obama says
That’s a lie.
An increase of 8% in America’s military expenditures, one of the single largest outlays of the federal government, is not “the government…[continuing] to tighten.”
An increase of 8% in already out-of-control military spending is not “tightening.” It has nothing to do with “tightening.”
Obama is lying. There’s no other way to put it.
PanAmerican
The correct historical analogy is Grover Cleveland & 1886.
Resident Firebagger
Yes. And welcome to the second Clinton Administration. Now blow job-free (but still dismantling what’s left of the safety net).
Nick
@Corner Stone: I know, I know, reality is hard to accept. We’ve all been there.
Nick
@Quiddity:
I’m pretty sure 60% of the country would have no fucking idea what this means, nor care.
Allison W.
@Corner Stone:
Rah Rah kiss my ass!
FlipYrWhig
@Quiddity:
It may be a “Republican talking point” but it also has the advantage of being instantly comprehensible. We don’t need a educational campaign about the nature of economics. Well, we _do_, but it’s not going to work in time.
_We_ need analogies to common economic experiences. For example: “Nobody likes carrying a balance on her credit card, but sometimes when you hit a rough patch you have to pay the minimum instead, maybe even for a couple of months or more. But when things turn around, you do whatever you can to catch back up again, and little by little, you pay it off. That’s what we’re trying to do in Washington.” Or “When you have a child going to college, you wonder about how you’re going to pay for it all. It’s expensive, but you know it’s important, so you take out an educational loan. And when she graduates, she’s ready to get a better job, and with that better job, little by little, she’s going to help you pay off that loan. That’s what we’re trying to do in Washington.”
(Both of those examples also have the advantage of being able to be turned into further comments on policy: “And, by the way, those credit card companies can’t gouge you anymore, thanks to Democrats in Congress”; “And, by the way, those loans for college are more affordable than ever, thanks to Democrats in Congress.”)
@Jody:
Maybe _they_ don’t. Obama isn’t saying that his view of belt-tightening is the same as the Republicans’ way. He isn’t saying “contract all spending.” He’s making a routine political statement that the government shouldn’t be wasteful. Which is true.
Mnemosyne
@mclaren:
Only half of that increase is Obama’s, at least according to those notorious Obama apologists at the Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation. The rest was added in by Congress.
But, hey, why let actual facts get in the way of a good screech, right?
LeaveBarakAlone
The apologists really can’t broker any criticism of their idol can they. Jesus fucking christ, the excuses and mental gymnastics in this thread would be hilarious if they weren’t so pathetic.
Criticize his highness = “We are all firebaggers now”. Bushian.
Angry Space Cadet
Obot: Remember, every time you criticize the president from the left a Democratic kitten joins the green party!
Puma: Obama is such a fucking failure, what this country needed in its hour of need was the refreshing and innovative leadership of Hillary Clinton! A second Clinton administration would have been so different from this clusterfuck!
Leftist: Haha, foolish dumbocrats! Go ahead and waste your time with mainstream politics! I’m going to be playing hackeysack and dressing up like a sea turtle at world trade meetings. That is how real change is achieved!
NobodySpecial
@Corner Stone: That statement would hurt him if he wasn’t already a committed Blue Dog.
Dr. Morpheus
@Angry Space Cadet:
Goddammit, somebody finally had the balls to say the truth!
wengler
You know Obama is a pretty smart guy, but we should’ve known he was a little nuts when he ran for President in this climate.
His economic team is a total failure. It was fairly easy to see they would be at the start, but he picked Summers and Geithner understanding they had the full confidence of the ruling oligarchy. The stimulus bill was huge but all it really did was fill up much of the shortfall caused by dropping state and municipal level revenues. So it looks like the economy stagnated rather than the McCain alternative of 15-20 percent unemployment without the stimulus. The Obama team’s projections underestimated the destruction of the economy caused by the banksters by at least 50 percent.
HAMP failed and instead of cramdown we have federal housing loans backing even more new houses while people mull walking away from their underwater properties. What is the response from Fannie Mae? We will not only destroy your ability to ever get a loan again, but we will attempt to take all the stuff you actually own. Real estate is still an absolute mess.
On jobs, Obama and the Democrats appear to be more concerned with appearing to do something rather than actually doing something. They want something cheap to appease their Wall Street backers, but the Republicans are blocking even the most modest bill.
I mean its not Obama’s fault. He didn’t own DC when he got the big job and won’t own DC when he leaves. The city survives on corruption and the protection of wealth, prestige and power. Obama may be nibbling on the edges of that but even a President can’t take the plutocrats on without getting taken out.
This is simply the state of our country in 2010. The people that have amassed great wealth by screwing over most of the world have brought those policies home. You just gotta look at BP in the Gulf to realize that we are subject to Nigeria rules now. Don’t act so surprised when not only our social programs are gone but the schools, parks, and most importantly water rights are being sold to the highest bidder.
cat48
@Mnemosyne:
This is why I love Gates. He & O took out the F-22 last yr & a few other feckless Defense boondoggles. They have another list this yr.
Yutsano
@cat48: The gnashing of teeth when Gates proposed reducing the carrier fleet was truly a sight to behold. Not to mention I bet he had a hand in slapping down the overpriced C-130 tanker project that EADS won even though they overbid (nice loyalty you got there Mr Shelby!) massively. The big deal now is suddenly defense spending is no longer a sacred cow. I think that we could cut a bunch of the big ticket shit and boost the bottom military salaries and still cut the budget in half.
By the way: I have zero issue with Obama letting Gates lead the way on all this. I think that having the calming old white man from Texas lead the charge on this will make it a touch more palatable.
cat48
@Yutsano:
Absolutely, “the calming old white man” with all the experience is the one to send out to lobby for the cuts. He has been very helpful to Obama in many ways. Unfortunately I read at FP he really wants to leave at the end of the year. The author said he had been offered everything by O plus the kitchensink & he hasn’t changed his mind yet. He & his wife have a new home in Washington state, I think, meant for retirement they both want to go to. Hopefully, he can be convinced to stay another yr. To be fair, he only planned to stay one yr in the beginning.
Yutsano
@cat48: I can see him staying for one good reason: if Petraeus convinces him it’s the right thing to do. That happens and Gates may just stick around. Plus with the new strategy after McChrystal getting canned it would be even better if Gates stayed until at least the wind down. But it’s possible Gates waits until after the 2012 election. I guess we’ll see, after all Washington isn’t going anywhere.
kay
@mistermix:
Oh, I couldn’t disagree more.
The FOX news 24/7 coverage of the alleged voter intimidation case isn’t the problem, and it isn’t the story.
Weigel waits until the 5th or 6th paragraph to slip a single name in there : J. Christian Adams:
This is a from a news story in the Washington Post:
A former Bush DOJ lawyer is accusing the Holder Justice Department of not prosecuting minorities.
Just let that sink in a minute. That’s a serious goddamn charge. They have nothing to merit that charge, yet conservatives keep making it.
“Were interested in protecting only minorities”
It’s been going on for months. This story wasn’t created and sold by Megan Kelly, or FOX. It was created and sold by a former Justice Department lawyer, who is taken seriously.
Weigel didn’t tell people that, and it’s a simple factual matter.
I have to tell you, when I was reading that, I thought “I couldn’t do a better job throwing up dust to distract from the real issue if I were working to defend J. Christian Adams”.
That’s what I’d do, if I were defending Adams. I’d portray the deliberate lies Adams is telling about the Holder DOJ as a “rumor” that started at FOX News. It’s not a “rumor”, mistermix. It’s a deliberate tactic. FOX is simply promoting the lie created by a Bush DOJ lawyer.
The lie is the story. What’s behind it? Why did this lawyer single-handedly create it, and when is one or another reporter going to substantively and factually debunk it?
Is Weigel a reporter or a commenter on media?
I guess I’m confused.
kay
@mistermix:
You let me know when an Obama DOJ official accuses the Tea Party of race-baiting.
Weigel makes this ridiculous comparison: Maybe FOX is heavily promoting the voter intimidation case because ‘liberals’ keep calling Tea Partiers bigots.
Yeah. That’s an apt comparison.
How is ‘liberals’ (I guess Weigel means those arrogant members of the NAACP who, um, defended black people) calling Tea Partiers bigots the same as a former Bush DOJ official telling the Washington Post that the top law enforcement officer in the U.S., Eric Holder, won’t protect white people?
Is that an honest comparison? Come on. It’s bullshit.
bob h
When Democrats lost the House in 1994, it was because they were feckless idiots.
Or it may be that the electorate doesn’t know what it is doing, and we are just undergoing a random, drunkard’s walk thru history, at the mercy of contingent events.
TJ
Obama’s unforced errors are more than a little troubling. Like appointing Fowler to implement HIR. WTF is up with putting a WellPoint exec in that position? I thought the idea was to make HIR more popular, not less.
PaulW
@Corner Stone:
Civil Works Administration: 4 million employed between 1933-34
Civilian Conservation Corps: 3 million employed between 1933-1942
Public Works Administration: No direct employment figures, but there were hundreds of thousands hired to work on utilities, bridges and roads projects from 1933 to 1939.
Works Progess Administration: over 3 million employed from 1935 to 1943.
So yeah, in a way you’re right, Corner Stone. Government has never created ONE job. Government has created MILLIONS OF JOBS!
You see, the biggest problem with idiots like Corner Stone? They claim to be Pro-America but THEY’VE NEVER STUDIED AMERICAN HISTORY.
Oh, and for Government tightening its belt? Where the hell were you when the Republican-led Congress wasted BILLIONS on a Pharma payout on that crappy Medicare-D bill they passed during the Dubya years? And now that this nation is facing a massive jobless era in dire need of a job relief program, YOU want the government to “tighten its belt?”
Bulworth
Is Charles Lane the new Mickey Kaus? I’m expecting his bid for the U.S. Senate in Maryland where he’ll run on a platform of anti-immigration and anti-welfare spending anytime now.
Hugin & Munin
[email protected]: Your snark detector? Needs repair.
Svensker
@mistermix:
That was excellent. I’ve been boycotting Sully since he has Frum posting, so thanks for the link.
Svensker
@cleek:
Wow, great article. Wow.
mclaren
@wengler:
Where’s the evidence of that?
Obama got stellar grades, but we should know by now that getting good grades doesn’t mean shit. Idiots like Instapundit got fabulous grades in law school. Condoleeza Rice had academic awards up to the wazoo, and she couldn’t find her own ass in a hall of mirrors. Paul Wolfowitz had all sorts of prestigious awards and degrees and he was as dumb as a rock.
All the evidence so far shows that Obama is book-smart and dumb as a sack of bricks. Obama got rolled by the Repubs when they claimed they’d work with him on HCR. Obama got scammed by Wall Street when they swore on a stack of Bibles that they’d play nice after he bailed ’em out. Obama got buffalo’ed by McChrystal & Petraeus when the generals leaked that report on Afghanistan showing the situation deteriorating and forced Obama to give them all the troops they demanded.
Obama has been rolled and ripped off and scammed and played by everyone in Washington, from the Republican minority in the House and Senate to the Pentagon to the banks to the health care lobbyists. This is not the career of a smart guy. This is the history of a dumb putz who walked into a room full of high rollers for a card game and left without his shirt.
sparky
@General Stuck: though it causes me great ummm pain, i largely agree with this:
but not with this:
why? two reasons: the first is about the language–to repeat the conventional wisdom is to guarantee that it remains the conventional wisdom. if you want to be President, yes the best thing to do is say what everyone else says, just better. that’s Obama. if you want to lead, change the direction, or at least attempt to do so. at this point i think it is fair to conclude that like Clinton, Obama is more interested in being President than in actually effecting change.
the second is that imo those characterizations of what Obama has done are not correct. but no need to hash those over again at the moment. one of us will be proven wrong, eventually. or who knows, maybe we both will.
incidentally, as they are by any measure, including yours, half-measures, why shouldn’t people criticize? don’t people always criticize? and shouldn’t they, if they have a point? are you seriously contending that presidents who are criticized should quit? WTF (i know it’s supposed to be snark, but it’s just childish complaining pretending to be mature–you know, the kind of inversion the GOP likes.)
it seems to me that both parties have embraced madness (that is, pure oligarchy + the notion that it is only the message that matters, not pesky facts) so that it’s only a question of how quickly the Empire dissolves. if you prefer a slower dissolve, that itself is a sufficient reason to vote D. and yes, it is ironic that the people clamoring for a return to the good old days (tp-types) are the ones who want a faster smash-up.
edit: @mclaren: i agree with your observation about intelligence and political savvy not being the same, but it seems to me you assume that Obama wanted a different outcome. not sure i buy that one–health care is exhibit A on this point: you don’t have secret meetings to buy corporations off if you actually want to challenge the status quo. imo, he’s just a professional compromiser, and since it’s worked for him for so many years he just kept doing it. but that’s just speculation.
@wengler: well-put.
El Cid
@PaulW: I’m pretty sure that was snark, repeating Schlaes/GOP holy tomespeak.
mclaren
@sparky:
That’s verging on the paranoid claim that Obama was a Manchurian Candidate. Don’t see any evidence of that.
Obama seems to have no guts and no core principles. When people hit him hard he cringes and folds and gives in. That’s not what you want in a president, IMHO.
Seems to me Obama genuinely wanted change but when formidable forces started hammering on him, he failed to man up like FDR and hit back, and instead he curled into a foetal ball and gave in to whatever the bullies demanded.
Rule of thumb: when bullies beat on you and you give in, it only gets worse. You have to fight back or it ends with the bullies beating you to death. Obama doesn’t seem to realize that and by 2012 they’ll be beating him with tire irons and axe handles and spiked bludgeons and he’ll still be curled up in a foetal ball in the corner pleading for bipartisanship.
Elie
@beltane:
THIS THIS THIS
Our educational system and media has produced and shaped a nation of obedient sheep
General Stuck
@sparky:
Bullshit. Obama has made sweeping changes to Health Care in this country. Just because it’s not quite the change you demand, doesn’t change that fact. Obama has committed the largest R and D effort into alternative energy and medical science of any president in history. Obama shut down the Bush torture policy and is getting out of Iraq and announced a withdrawal date in Afghan… And that’s just a few items of change he has accomplished. You wankers completely dismiss reality of a divided government and a POTUS not having dictatorial powers. You screech about executive power over reach, and in the next breath complain that Obama isn’t ruling by fiat. You are a wanker hypocrite sparky. I dismiss almost everything you write on this blog for that reason.
And fuck you little prissy twerp concerning my snark. If you don’t like it, don’t fucking read it. You are lost son, you need to be over at The Confluence dispensing this mindless swill with like minded pumas such as your soulmate MylowIq. Complaints are one thing, but kneejerk anti Obama is something different, and what you and some others here specialize in, and then you whine when we give you rhetorical wedgies that you so richly deserve.
It is not a GOP talking point to state the obvious. That when times are tough people need to think before spending money they don’t have. It is common fucking sense that goes to government, but mostly to spoiled Americans who get their panties in a twist when we have to borrow money to maintain their standard of living which they are not willing to pay for themselves.
Now before we go any further. You and the other puma superiors need to start coming up with names you think can replace Obama and do the things you demand. Enough of this non stop rock throwing. Who do you support as a dem president? Because if you can’t name them, you are admitting there is no one who can measure up. and your scorched earth criticism becomes just that, scorched earth and meaningless in the real world. Oh, and blow it out yer ass!!
General Stuck
@mclaren: Why don’t you and sparky get a room, and you can scream Obama Fail as you jerk each other off.
sparky
@mclaren: hmmm i don’t understand why you are saying i’m a paranoiac given this:
or this:
i don’t understand how you got your claim about me being paranoid. all i was saying was that making those kinds of deals at the outset guarantees the status quo. Obama may very well have meant to make non-trivial changes to the status quo but he sure hasn’t gone about it very well.
Corner Stone
@El Cid:
It was snark but I was actually repeating what the President and his spokespeople have said.
Geithner:
Obama:
and
Sheila
Doesn’t it depend on what is tightened? I wouldn’t mind if the government tightened its Pentagon belt to such an extreme that the body beneath it disappeared entirely.
General Stuck
@Sheila: This is correct. And I fully agree with tightening the Pentagon budget. Not so much tightening it, but overhauling the entire way it spends taxpayer money. The GAO has said there is at least a trillion dollars that just went missing and can’t be accounted for. And that the Pentagon is basically auditable with it’s insane book keeping of expenditures.
frankdawg
WAIT! Wasn’t there a thread yesterday basically asking why libs were not head over heels in love with Obama?
This is what I have been saying since he took office. We are on our way back to the Republican Wilderness – I hope our masters treat us well on the.
Corner Stone
@NobodySpecial:
I do not believe he’s a Democrat of any variety.
If you believe anything he posts, which I do not, you’d feel a pretty graphic sense of malaise about any effort to push socially liberal policy.
And I think that’s his larger point.
“Nothing to be done here. Chips stacked against you. It doesn’t matter what efforts are made, they’ll be ignored. Those actions will be rewritten to show a different narrative. Don’t bother, nobody’s paying attention. Trust me, I work in media and after my bosses put lox on their bagels they tell this Goy how it’s going to be.”
FlipYrWhig
@sparky: I don’t understand why I’m supposed to be so scandalized about the scary back room deal for the scary drug companies, or any other malefactors. Yes, they suck and they’re evil. And the Clinton health care effort was completely hamstrung by all of them working together. In other words, it is quite possible for insurance companies and drug makers and other villains to rally everyday people and especially politicians to oppose something specifically designed to help them. It has worked over and over again. It almost worked _this_ time. And yet, here we are, with a law in place. It passed because of everything they did to sideline the people and forces who killed it the last time. It wasn’t pretty. But IT FUCKING HAPPENED. There’s no sense in moaning about how it didn’t “challenge” the “status quo” enough for you if what comes along with the precisely correct level of challenging the status quo is LOSING.
FlipYrWhig
@frankdawg:
In other words, you’re proud about how early you became disappointed. That’s bizarre. I don’t understand why that attitude is so prevalent on the would-be left.
ruemara
I’m sure if Obama said “Hell no! This is shitty time to cut government spending and I’ll be damned if I’m gonna keep spouting the fully debunked common wisdom that we should worry about deficits when people need us to inject cash into the economy!” this would be applauded as insightful wisdom by VSPs. In fact, the accolades would drown out 1 million Mel Gibson autotune replays on youtube. Damn him for not taking such a bold stance.
Nick
@Corner Stone: Of course you wouldn’t, it doesn’t fit yours and Nobody’s fantasy world where Obama and the Dems are ignoring the great progressives wishes of America. Otherwise, you’d have to face the reality that you’re fucking irrelevant and nobody cares what you think or shares your beliefs.
General Stuck
@General Stuck:
Crickets?
At least Angry Space Cadet upthread was willing to do this, and he has my respect for it, though not agreement.
Grump
Corner Stone
@Nick:
And if one were to listen to you and your preachings, it would be immediately obvious that President Obama and Dem leadership is fucking irrelevant and no one cares what they think or believe.
PaulW
@Hugin & Munin:
It’s like reading the Onion headlines anymore worried that their satire is going to be GOP reality the following month.
I can’t tell sarcasm anymore. I can’t AFFORD to tell what’s sarcasm or what’s serious. Because the wingnuts are so out there and so committed to their bullshit I can’t make the distinction, ok?
I am unemployed. I just got off the phone with the state office screaming at them to unblock my $250 a week benefit so I can finally pay up my electric bill (I am currently on the 5th emergency extension. Once this is done, barring the Senate nuking the damn filibuster and passing another damned extension, I am truly fucked). I am terrified I am adding too much to my credit card and don’t want to go back begging (AGAIN) to my poor parents who are trying their hardest to keep me out of foreclosing my duplex. I have been like this for 18 months now, job hunting for anybody who’ll take a librarian with computer skills and an A+ cert (only getting two job interviews over the past 2 years!) I’ve gotten way past the point of deep depression, and I am following the political state of this nation (which is in my minds flip flopped insane) with horror and disgust. This is MY LIFE here. And this is DEADLY SERIOUS.
So, heads up warning here, okay? If you’re being sarcastic, put up the /sarcasm or /facepalm flag so I’ll know. Otherwise I am going to attack you as goddamn teabagging wingnuts who need frontal lobotomies to save the collective sanity of the rest of us.
General Stuck
@PaulW: sorry you are having a hard time Paul. I do know what it’s like. Have been broke and homeless and it is deadly serious. I hope things turn around for you and soon:)
Nick
@Corner Stone: Oh no, obviously the entire country is waiting to believe every word that comes out of their mouth and the media is just sitting around waiting for them to say something so they can drop their endless coverage of Mel Gibson and the catfight on Real Housewives of New Jersey to broadcast it.
Karen
@Corner Stone:
So you have a litmus test on who is a REAL DEMOCRAT.
Closing the Democratic party to people you don’t consider to be a REAL DEMOCRAT sounds like a real winner, yesirree.
Karen
@frankdawg:
And Hilary Clinton would have been better? If you think that then you’re just a PUMA. Hilary Clinton is to the right of Obama on military defense and she’s not a liberal. FAIL.
Corner Stone
@Karen: It’s not a single item litmus test. It’s an evaluation of a consistent stream of information, viewpoints and arguments.
But what do I know? Maybe Nick’s belief set and people like yourself who go around screaming PUMA at people are the last true Democrats.
Based on a lot of the threads around this blog at least, the word Democrat has stopped having any actual meaning.
chaseyourtail
Holy crap. Is this an HP or an FDL thread? Someone here is actually suggesting that there’s no “evidence” that Obama is smart.
Ugh. I’m out.