I tend to agree with Jon Chait’s answer to WHY DOES THE LEFT HATE OBAMA:
The interesting thing here is that the administration is paying attention to the left at all. During the Clinton administration, liberal complaints were almost totally off the national radar. The internet has given the left a stronger voice, and while that voice is often unreasonable, it’s valuable to have a political dialogue that doesn’t range from the unhinged right to the very moderate center-left, as we did in the 1990s and early Bush years.
Within establishment media, the dialogue still does range from the unhinged right to the very moderate center-left, but there is a slightly broader range within the blogosphere, and that should be seen as progress, not as further evidence of “Dems in disarray”.
Punchy
Fixed. There’s simply no “left” or “center-left” in the establishment media (e.g., the big 3 networks). Counting Maddow and Schultz’s shows with their tiny audiences doesn’t count, IMO.
cervantes
“. . . and while that voice is often unreasonable. . . ”
Don’t be casting your nasturtiums on me!
Gus
Who is “the left” who hates Obama? I consider myself quite a bit to the left of most Democrats, but I voted for Obama, and I’ll vote for him again. I’m disappointed in some things he hasn’t done and some of his accomplishments don’t go as far as I’d like, but I understand in the current political climate he wouldn’t get what I would want anyway. After eight years of Bush, he’s a breath of fresh air.
PeakVT
The internet has given the left a stronger voice, and while that voice is often unreasonable
Unreasonable is supporting an entirely unnecessary war, like Chait did.
Jackass.
Chat Noir
@Gus: Same here, Gus.
And slightly O/T, excellent segment on Rachel Maddow’s show last night, re: the new Republican nonsense about the Bush tax cuts and how they really did create revenue! And even though I don’t live in Ohio, I really like Sherrod Brown.
Corner Stone
Does he mean their secret sessions where they figure out how to fail the left today?
taylormattd
“The left” doesn’t hate Obama.
The lefty bloggers do, however, hate Obama.
And the answer to the question why they hate Obama is because they have always hated Obama. They were obsessed with John Edwards and Hillary Clinton. It’s the same cast of characters saying the same things.
Bulworth
But why does The Left actually hate Obama? I suppose he answers it in his post, but I don’t see anything here in what you excerpted.
eemom
I actually have a new theory about why the Greenwalds and Hamshers of the world (aka “pond scum,” for which I am eternally indebted to Al Giordano) hate Obama. It’s because having a smart, reasonable, reality-oriented Democrat running the country reveals them for the unhinged, useless tea-partiers of the left that they actually are.
During the Bush years, for obvious reaons, they came across as fucking heros.
And so I think we’ve all been off the mark, the many times we have fumed “WTF! Do they think things will be BETTER for a progressive agenda with the republicans back in power?!”
No, but things WILL be better for Jane and Glenn and their ilk with the republicans back in power.
Kiril
Yep, I’m pretty far to the left, too, and I don’t have anything resembling hatred for Obama. Would vote for him again in a heartbeat.
cleek
@Gus:
ditto.
but, it’s easier to self-righteously lament the divisions on the left if you inflate disagreement into “hate”.
kdaug
What, exactly, is The Left? Who’s in it? Are they card-carrying members?
These labels are so amorphous as to be meaningless.
vtr
What Gus said. Also, I am 66 and believe that the Bush 43 administration was without question the worst in my lifetime. Not even close. You can despise Johnson for Viet Nam, but he passed civil rights and Medicare. Hate Nixon, but he passed the Clean Air Act. The utter mendacity and destructiveness of the Bush Administration and the current GOP ought to be crystal clear to everybody, but it isn’t. I find that very scary. I, like Gus, consider myself to the left of most of the leftists, so despite the rapid changes in Washington that we have hoped for, consider the alternatives.
blackwaterdog
@Gus:
The Left blogosphere is a bubble, often removed from reality, obsessed over the smallest things and can’t see the wood for the trees. Not only they refuse to acknowledging that this president moved the Liberal ball forward more than anyone in decades – they really really hates him. It would be funny if it wasn’t so sad.
Jody
Yay, we’ve gone from completely ignored to being dismissed as unreasonable!
Having said that, Rachel Maddow has done much towards shoring up the disparity between left and right representation in the media. Still a long way to go, obviously, but she absolutely rocks.
Daddy-O
I don’t hate Obama, but I’m disappointed.
I’ll get over it. But these watered-down versions of ‘change’ are not enough of a reason to celebrate. And his continuation of the policies of Bush, and his refusal to even investigate Bush are the main reasons I’m REALLY pissed at him.
But I’ll vote like a good soldier.
some other guy
Like I said in another thread, the continuing obsession with the “unreasonable leftists hate Obama unreasonably” griping seems a bit pointless since, by and large (that is, by a margin of something like 6:1), the left, such as it is, still sees Obama in a pretty favorable light.
It’s the bleeding of his “independent” support that people should be paying attention to, and that loss is due almost entirely to the so-called “liberal” medias’ taking seriously any and all teabagger complaints. By comparison, the only place you hear complaints about Obama from the left is on blogs or on MSNBC, a station viewed by less than 0.5% of the population.
I’m not saying that hippies don’t deserve to be punched for being unrealistic whiners, but the “traitors in our midst” excuse for Obama’s unpopularity doesn’t add up. Despite what you might think from the daily half-dozen “stoopid liberals” posts on Balloon Juice, the reason Clinton and (for the most part) Obama feel free to ignore the hippies is because in the grand scheme of things the hippies don’t really matter much, electorally speaking.
kdaug
So is this site part of The Left Blogosphere?
AuldBlackJack
*Yawn*
Yeah, yeah, yeah we know, all those D.F.Hs are Very Un-Serious.
NonyNony
@eemom:
Jesus this is fucking stupid.
First of all, if you think that the “tea partiers” are useless then you aren’t paying attention. The tea partiers are the group who are enabling the Republicans to set their agenda. They’re pulling their party to the right – which is pretty much the job of an activist. Hamsher and folks like her are trying to pull the Democratic party to the left and that pisses a lot of people off but it’s a useful thing to have these days when our politics are so dysfunctional.
Greenwald is a completely different story from Hamsher – he’s an idealist with a civil liberties agenda. He isn’t actually political in the sense of winning races – he writes about civil liberties issues and calls out bullshit when he sees it. Again this is a useful thing for a functioning democracy to have, and if we had more bloggers like Greenwald out there criticizing all sides when they deserve it we would be much better off. I put Krugman in this slot as well – he’s political in the sense that he writes about a hot-button political issue but he’s not about winning races. He’s about calling out bullshit. Matt Taibbi is another one. When they aren’t supportive of everything that the White House or the Dems in the Congress do that’s their fucking job – they’re supposed to be alerting us to when our political leaders are acting stupid or amorally.
This is more bullshit. They are not about sabotaging, they’re about advancing what they think is right. For Hamsher that means political activism to pull the party to the left. For Greenwald that means staying honest about what the government is doing. You may not agree about what they think is right, but thinking they want to sabotage the Democrats to advance themselves is bullshit. It’s especially bullshit about Greenwald, who is performing a valuable public service and gets nothing but shit for it from everyone on every single side of the political spectrum.
cat48
When the left is really slamming Obama, I have to say that Chait may agree in theory with them; but does not take it as an attack against him personally nor does he attack Obama personally. He criticizes the action. I appreciate that.
OT Looks like we really are leaving Iraq:
Turgidson
I don’t get why it’s so very hard for some people to be disappointed with Obama for any number of things without immediately jumping into the crazy pool of “He’s no better than Bush! He sold us out! He’s a corporatist! He is a miserable failures!”
Having an activist base that is further to the left than the president ought to be a great thing. Pressure him, push him, constructively criticize him, get angry with him when called for. But don’t go full metal WATB at the first hint that we aren’t going to get our ponies and unicorns, and huff and puff and make common cause with Grover fucking Norquist. I’m not saying all liberal activists do this, but some of the loudest ones are doing it, it seems.
Calling yourself a liberal and hating President Obama is basically just revealing yourself as a fucking idiot, IMO. Being disappointed – fine. Being disillusioned – meh, I can see why people would be. Being so angry you’re incoherent -> lunacy.
kdaug
@some other guy:
And because some of their ideas are, simply put, politically impossible. Take the public option. Would have been great. Works fine in other countries. It would have been cheaper with the Fed negotiating lower bulk prices.
It would also have been a direct competitor to for-profit insurance companies that employ tens of thousands of people, and would have likely shut down the smaller ones that couldn’t compete. In the midst of the Great Recession. And some of those employees actually vote.
Let’s not make the perfect the enemy of the good.
Cacti
Some of the netroots hate Obama, but the netroots are a subset of the left, not the whole enchilada.
The netroots also hate Blue Dogs, but they love Howard Dean, the DNC chair whose 50-state strategy got most of the Blue Dogs elected.
The reasoning for their various loves/hates is difficult to follow.
Joshua
@eemom: Greenwald is upset with Obama because Obama has fully embraced the things Greenwald found most upsetting about the Bush era – the national security state and illegal actions taken under a veil of secrecy.
Greenwald got famous by criticizing these things when Bush did them, so if he was just silent as Obama did THE EXACT SAME THINGS (and worse, in some instances), he’d be revealed as the same sort of hypocrite and political hack he derides. Of course, he’s not.
ciotog
Like Greenwald, I’m a civil liberties absolutist, and I think Obama’s been most disappointing on that issue. But otherwise I think he’s done a pretty good job with what he’s faced. What’s disappointing to me is that the most pressing problems of 2010 are problems that self-evidently require liberal solutions. Health care, in my view, can only be fixed with a single-payer system. The environment requires a carbon tax and direct government investment in green jobs and industries. The recession can only be dealt with through Keynesian methods. The political climate is not one in which these solutions seem to be considered seriously, and I think those on the Left who are disappointed with Obama are disappointed that he hasn’t more strongly made the case for them. Which, as I say, have plenty of evidence for their being the only effective solutions. It’s not like, say, education, or how to win a war, where there might be other possible answers.
Bill E Pilgrim
I completely agree.
The idea that it’s somehow a disaster to have anyone in the Democratic party criticizing from the left is the point of view that continually baffles me.
It’s healthy to have criticism.
Anyone who thinks that criticism of a Democratic President, even harsh criticism, automatically translates to “I’m going to vote for Sarah Palin” is just being purposely obtuse.
aimai
Can eemom and others stop harping on the imaginary “left” and grasp that there are many, many, many people on the left who support Obama and the Dems–certainly as many, or more, than those on the center/right of the Democratic coalition who do? I mean, fuck–Nelson, Landrieu, Lincoln and plenty of house dems too have run as far and as fast away from Obama and his policies as any dem on the left. That’s a far, far, bigger problem for Obama and for actual Democratic/liberal policies than any disaffection among a small subset of leftist bloggers.
This continued accusation, as well, that you can gloss “left” with “former Edwards supporter” and “Puma” is just incredibly tedious. During the primaries people were legitimately trying to figure out who they thought could win, and who they thought would fight the hardest for progressive causes. People came up with *three different answers* and then, for the most part, coalesced around Obama as the nominee. No Democrat in my memory has come in with more goodwill, or more high hopes, than Obama. I personally adore the guy.
But by the same token the party in power, and the person in power, is the only one who can satisfy the electorate or disappoint them. This has nothing to do with the (extremely small and largely meaningless) ex Pumas, or edwards supporters. This has to do with the fact that Obama and the dems have failed to market their own successes to swing voters. The left, such as it is in this country, supports the *policies* that Obama and the Dems are managing to put into place, and would support much more agressively liberal policies than Obama and the Dems can manage. This has nothing to do with personalities or personal likes and dislikes. People who care about policies, like Greenwald, are upset that Obama and his team have betrayed (as they see it) Policy promises, and the promise of Policy change. They aren’t hungover hillaryites and they aren’t under some kind of childish illusion. They look at the administration and they see some wasted moments, some stupid decisions, some failures to carry through on national security/privacy/civil rights issues.
Much as I support Obama and the Dems, and always have–I’m a yellow dog dem, and I donate and work for the Dems in every election–I’m disappointed. Where the Dems have done amazing work they have dropped the ball on publicizing it, and on trying to create a new alliance of the dissaffected. As usual they are hoping that voters show up and support them, but they aren’t doing the hard work of talking in a language the voters can understand. Maybe they’ll be lucky and the Republicans will blow themselves up. But I don’t think so. The Republicans, stupid as they are, know how to talk to the voters and sing them the song they want to hear.
aimai
cleek
@cat48:
i am very happily surprised.
good for O.
@aimai:
this
eemom
@NonyNony:
I disagree with your assessment of what Greenwald’s and Hamsher’s real agendas are, for reasons which have been pointed out many times on this blog by myself and others.
Oh, and name-calling “stupid” and “bullshit” really advances your argument. Also too.
jl
On economic matters, and civil liberties in national security, I would be classified as far ‘to the left’ of Obama. But I do not hate him.
I doubt that this is true even of the official ‘left’ For example, I don’t think Greenwald hates Obama. He provides good analysis, sometimes spoiled by an overlay of supposition. For example today Greenwald asserted (again) that Obama did not want a public plan for health care reform, ever. I don’t think Greenwald has ever provided solid evidence for that assertion.
But why take anything Politico says seriously? They are lost in the current debased framework of discussion that reduces everything to a WWF grudge match or a celebrity reality show. We have ‘hate’ and ‘wuv’ and grudges and spite, and nothing else. They have no sense that there might be an objective reality that might be a guide to good policy and politics. It is all show.
If I ever (God forbid!) were subject to their attention, I would be classified as a ‘lefty’ on economics. But I do not see it that way. I think I know good economic analysis that has some empirical content, and common sense welfare implications when I see it. So what if some corporate flacks, who I think serve more as entertainters and corporate social opinion engineers deem positions I hold as ‘lefty’?
Krugman is a good example, a far better economist than I am. As any economist interested in international trade and finance, and economic geography would have done, I have read his stuff for decades. I do not see any major ideological shift in his work, and I do not see him changing positions to fit the political climate or the wants of his FDL and blog fanbase (eg, he still asserts NAFTA passage was a good thing). And remember how he was a representative of cold very unliberal globalization during the 1990s.
But Krugman called out Bush Jr. and the GOP for spouting nonsense on taxes in 2000, and Krugman was correct. In the Kabuki theater of the national affairs press, he became a liberal hack. Had nothing to do with reality, and everything to do with the nonsense that the political press pumps out, and silly narratives they invent in order to do… not sure what they want to do. But whatever it is, it is something other than talking about anything of substance.
Step away from Politico, DougJ. You are peering into the abyss, and someday it might peer into you!
Mnemosyne
@Turgidson:
Exactly. I understand why people are upset with Obama about some things. There are some things I’m pretty pissed about myself. But I just don’t get how that translates into “everything Obama’s ever done is a failure and everything sucks and all of you losers are just mindless Obots if you won’t admit Obama is WORSE THAN BUSH!1!”
eemom
Look dearie, I am not, and never have, “harped” on anything as amorphous as “the left.” I’m talking here, and have talked before, about a very specific subset of people that I have always identified clearly.
I am really getting sick of people misrepresenting what I say. I thought better of you, frankly.
Kevin Phillips Bong
I don’t get why there’s so much animosity toward Greenwald. Nearly every post of his I’ve read is a clearly stated takedown of some fairly complex legal or civil rights transgression. Just because he wants both sides of the political spectrum to obey the law that makes him shrill?
oliver's Neck
@ciotog: @aimai:
hear, hear
And DougJ, I second the call to stay away from Politico. John Harris was a vapid asshole when I knew him in undergrad and a vaid asshole he remains.
Mnemosyne
@aimai:
I have to disagree with you there, aimai — I’ve seen plenty of people on the left say that they actively hate the healthcare reforms and the financial reforms and want them repealed because they don’t go far enough.
They support the idea of reform, but they hate the reforms that were actually able to be passed and they hate Obama and the Dems for passing them.
cat48
Cat Lady
@Gus:
Absolutely agree with this statement. If the activist left (the real ones, not the internet ones) wants Obama to have more progressive legislation to pass, where are the street demonstrations, the town hall takeovers, the buttonholing of politicians, federal and state, and the coordinated media events (no giant puppets, mmkay)? Where are the high profile Dem politicians other than Obama who should be camping out on that hack Gregory’s show every week – it used to be Joe Biden.
The teatards may be stupid racist crackers, but they got off their fat white asses and started showing up en masse. Does the left really think that Obama wouldn’t sign more progressive legislation if it came to him? If so, that’s just fucking retarded.
Hugin & Munin
aimai: Well, DougJ is just trolling (old habits somethin’ somethin’), but as for the rest, some people need a group to hate to feel better about themselves.
jl
Also, I do not see anywhere in this latest screed from Politico that they came to grips with the fact that this failure Obama polls better than anyone, and that he is doing somewhat better in terms of popular support than would be expected given the lousy job situation (using Reagan as the Holy Gold Standard for universal love and acclaim).
Also, too, regarding journalistic standards, from Steven Benen:
* Yes, Politico managed to spell both Gen. McChrystal’s and Gen. Petraeus’s names wrong. Sure, I have more than my share of typos, but if I’m writing a piece for publication, I’m inclined to check the names of those with stars on their shoulders.
http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2010_07/024737.php
jl
Didn’t mean to put that quote in bold, but now that I see it that way, I like it.
That's Master of Accountancy to You, Pal
I’m just going to repost a comment I made over at Mark Kleiman’s joint this morning:
No, he is not capable of it. That’s simply not the person he is. It’s not just that this was perfectly apparent back during the campaign, but it’s an absolutely essential part of his character. Otherwise, he’d never have gotten elected.
The first black man elected to the Presidency had to be one that avoided confrontation at a pathological level. That’s the only way he could escape the “angry black man” label, which would have killed his viability. The funny thing is that lots of people commented on this facet of Obama’s personality during the campaign, but most of them didn’t take the next step and realize the implications of what they were saying. I think a hell of a lot of people voted for a politician that they never took the time to understand.
I voted for Obama, and have gotten pretty much what I expected. There are some very frustrating aspects of his character, but they haven’t surprised me. I also think that many of those things that are frustrating have some very positive aspects that go hand in hand with them. I’m not at all sure that a more forceful, confrontational Barack Obama would have gotten as much done as the real one. It’s easy to project additional virtues onto a person with the false assumption that they could be added without reducing the virtues he actually possesses. It’s fun to play the ceteris parabis game, but it doesn’t work that way.
Mnemosyne
@ciotog:
In the long run, yes. Can you please point to any country that went directly from a for-profit healthcare system to a single-payer one? It took Canada over 30 years to make the full transition. South Korea is considered an amazing success story because it only took them 15 years to do it.
This is kind of what drives me nuts about the “Obama FAIL!” complaints when it comes to healthcare reform. You are saying he’s a failure for not doing something that literally no other healthcare system in the world has ever managed to do, which is to transition directly from a for-profit system to a single-payer system.
Long-term thinking, folks. Long-term.
Tom Q
Just to prove that MSNBC is “the liberal version of Fox”…their current headline, connected to the passage of the FinReg bill: “Real reform or not?” Way to celebrate a victory.
some other guy
@Kevin Phillips Bong:
Greenwald is shrill in his tone. In fact, he’s kind of an asshole. That doesn’t necessarily make him wrong, but it can make him awfully hard to like and respect, especially if you find yourself a target of his belligerence, as Balloon Juice has once or twice.
Midnight Marauder
@aimai:
Surely, you are not talking about this Republican Party:
I agree with a lot of what you’re saying, but let’s not go overboard here. People still don’t like Republicans and they are not more inclined to be swayed by their “message” now. If anything, approval of the Republican Party and its “ideology” remain at astonishingly dismal levels, especially considering they “have their groove back” in Mitch McConnell’s world.
And that is not a fact that is going to change in their favor anytime soon because they are literally crazy people. I don’t understand why people keep giving these loons the benefit of the doubt.
Bruce (formerly Steve S.)
Yes indeed, I’m glad to see someone recognizing the utility of left criticism. Now, if only we could get Politico to report honestly on what those criticisms are.
arguingwithsignposts
Why doesn’t Rachel Maddow host Meet the Press? She’s a damned sight better than David “How may I fluff you, President McCain?” Gregory. Liberal or no, she asks real questions and deals with respect, even to those she disagrees with.
I hate NBC.
David in NY
@Kevin Phillips Bong:
I think if he (Greenwald) were a better writer, he wouldn’t get under people’s skin so. Not that he’s not clear, but it’s the clarity of being hit in the head with a hammer, repeatedly.
Triassic Sands
The range is much broader, not slightly. Of course, the Right characterizes even moderately conservative Democrats as “far left,” while bloggers like those at BP frequently demonize anyone left of Obama, especially if they criticize the president from the Left.
JG
@eemom:
That’s just ridiculous. No wonder the left in this country is such a mess when smearing progressives who don’t toe the party line is our favorite past time.
Midnight Marauder
@Cat Lady:
Contrary to aimai’s position, there are a great number who do believe such a thing.
I’m looking dead at you on this one, David Sirota.
Cacti
The single greatest barrier to the passing of more progressive legislation is the United States Senate and its arcane 59-seat minority rules.
Absent a change to the filibuster rule, any good legislation coming out of the House will always be held hostage by the Liebermans, Nelsons, Snowes, etc. of the Senate.
It wouldn’t matter if Obama was to the left of Che Guevara. It’s that whole Separation of Powers thingy, and the U.S. Senate, by design, is set up to thwart popular will.
sparky
@NonyNony: thank you.
incidentally, i don’t hate Obama (and yes i rang doorbells, etc.). but i do think many Obama supporters here have a bad habit of conflating passage of legislation with passage of good legislation.
what does drive people like me up the wall is simple–forget about perfect legislation, this isn’t even good legislation. why? because all it does is extend and protect the very structures that got the Empire into the fix that it’s in. yes, there are a few tweaks and a few extensions, most notably in health insurance. but seriously, there’s nothing in any of this erzatz reform to actually reform the existing broken systems. zip. if anything, something like health care insurance just makes it worse by cementing private carriers into the government. now, if you want to call propping up a dysfunctional and destructive system change, or a good idea feel free. just don’t expect everyone else to agree with you.
i understand there are any number of D party faithful here, but until this becomes a D-party blog you’ll just have to cope with people who don’t agree with your rosy interpretations of your party’s leader. sorry.
*this leaves aside Obama’s adoption of the National Security State, sufficient ground on its own to disappoint anyone concerned with civil liberties.
Sentient Puddle
WALL STREET IS REFORMED!
OK, maybe not entirely. But I like TPM’s irrational exuberance on this one.
Mnemosyne
@jl:
That’s what drives me nuts with Greenwald and why I can’t read him. He’s very good at marshaling facts into a coherent story, but then he takes that step too far and insists on building a narrative full of villains and heroes where the only possible explanation for the failure of the public option is that Obama never really wanted one at all and was lying the whole time.
Because it’s not possible that Obama originally wanted a public option but dropped it when it became politically unfeasible. Nope, the only possible answer for Greenwald is that Obama dangled the public option in front of the left and then yanked it away at the last minute just to be an asshole.
Cat Lady
@some other guy:
Yeah. It usually takes one critical comment before he reverts to calling us all mindless cultists of Dear Leader. He’s a smart guy, but like kay here always says, he’s got just one lawyer’s opinion.
Mark
@aimai
20 ‘thises’ for your comment.
I’m a liberal, well to the left of Obama and about 95% of the country. I have a friend who’s wedded to some ideal of split-the-difference centrism. But I ask her to tell me where her beliefs differ from mine, and she can’t come up with a single example.
She believes the democrats are big borrowers and spenders. I note the fully-funded ACA, PAYGO, Clinton’s surplus…Doesn’t register. She thinks the Democrats are bad for small business (like her dad’s janitorial supply company.) I said well, health care costs are some ridiculous percentage of your dad’s costs, and the ACA goes after that. And let’s not forget financial regulation, which will somehow not turn out to be a political winner for the Democrats…
The current crop of Democrats is better for working people, for small businesses…That message got stuck in the machine somewhere.
ChrisS
@eemom:
Oh, and name-calling “stupid” and “bullshit” really advances your argument. Also too.
Just sayin’.
Obviously, Glenn Greenwald wants republicans back in power because it’s good for his career.
cat48
Third Eye Open
@aimai:
Yeah, pretty much this.
Democrats will eventually disabuse themselves of the position that they can find a strain of truth that a majority of the country can agree with.
If I were to pontificate, I would say that in twenty years, after the demographics bomb blows up in the GOPs face, that we will be having these same discussions just prior to the splintering of the Dem caucus into Conservative, Moderate, and Liberal camps (whatever those titles will mean, I don’t think I can say).
IMHO, the discussions of today are the end of the beginning, rather than the beginning of the end when it comes to liberal/progressive policy.
Corner Stone
@Hugin & Munin:
No shit. Who couldn’t tell this is a straight up troll post, just FP’d?
James in WA
@eemom:
On that note, I don’t agree with everything that Greenwald and Hamsher write, but when I see someone saying things like “I actually have a new theory about why the Greenwalds and Hamshers of the world (aka “pond scum,” for which I am eternally indebted to Al Giordano)” then I tune right out of the rest of the post.
Cacti
@Mnemosyne:
He’s got trial lawyer’s disease.
some other guy
@Midnight Marauder:
I’ve always assumed the Tea Party charade was aimed, first and foremost, at disillusioned Republicans. After 8 years of Bush completely fucking over the GOP brand of small government, national defense competency, and fiscal responsibility, conservatives needed some fresh new way to be suckered into voting for fools and liars.
Brien Jackson
@David in NY:
I think he’d do much better if he could better deal with nuance and/or refrain from misrepresenting counterarguments more often.
Hal
I don’t think the left actually hates Obama. They hate many of the policies he’s signed off on, and they are making their voices heard.
I am a huge Obama supporter, and think he is infinitely better than what’s coming out of the right, but I’m not thrilled with everything he’s done, and with some things, I’m down right disappointed.
But, I’m also acutely aware of what utter failures Dems seem to be at obtaining and maintaining majorities in Congress, and how many decent Presidential candidates we have actually had over the past many years.
Point in fact, I was watching a re-run of the Golden Girls of all shows, and their was a dog on the show that Sophia was told could fetch anything. Her request? “Go fetch a viable Democrat for President!”
And this was back in the late 80’s/early 90’s.
So at the end of the day, we can pat ourselves on the back for our individuality and be proud that we don’t just fall in line behind a President and obey, but we also have to face the fact that Dems do this every election season, and they, and the country, seem worse off because of it.
I’m don’t know what the solution is, but it’s getting damned annoying to be in this scenario election after election.
Tonal Crow
You agree with this bullshit? I didn’t realize I’d blundered into DLCJuice.
chris
O/T but–Via the GOS via Thinkprogress from Time Magazine
“– 71 percent blame the Bush for the “balky economy,” while 27 percent blame Obama.”
(ain’t even tryin to blockquote y’all)
That percentage just keeps showing up..I am beginning to think it has cosmic significance, like 42.
cleek
@Cacti:
the B-side to Dire Straits’ “Industrial Disease” ?
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
@Punchy:
I’m not sure even Rachel Maddow is particularly “left”. Consider her on-location in Afghanistan shows broadcast last week. By Vietnam War era standards, her tone was decidedly centrist. A real left wing journalist would have been photographed with the Taliban asking them what they plan to do after they take over the country instead of hobnobbing with American generals and trying out her shooting skills on a NATO firing range.
That’s not a knock on Rachel – I love her show – but to pretend that she is something other than a middle of the road centrist just goes to show how debased and impoverished our political vocabulary is these days.
Corner Stone
@Turgidson:
Did you even read this before you posted it?
Corner Stone
@ThatLeftTurnInABQ:
I thought she could’ve proven her leftie cred by finding a Taliban tank and sitting on its cannon and waving.
Chrisd
I agree. The problem is that I don’t think that assertion can be disproved, either.
I’m not claiming that Obama would have been be content to sign a bill with “Health Care Reform” at the top, irrespective of its content. I just cannot see how one could refute this assertion based on his actions.
FlipYrWhig
@sparky:
What if that’s all that’s possible? Here’s my metaphor for today: you’re moving and you decide to have a garage sale. You have a nice couch that you think you can get a good price for. But it’s a really hot day, and people just aren’t showing up. It gets later and later. Somebody shows up and lowballs you on the couch. What do you do? Do you tell him to fuck off, knowing that you might run out of time to sell the couch? Or do you mutter something under your breath and haggle out a price? I think you have to take the best offer, because at a certain point you can’t wait any longer. You never know; someone _might_ show up 15 minutes later who would have bought it for a better price. But maybe not.
Mark S.
@Corner Stone:
I was starting to go into withdrawal since the last Obots vs. Firebaggers thread thirty minutes ago. Ah, this is the stuff.
Corner Stone
@Tonal Crow:
DougJ is FP trolling.
Punchy
If Chait and his ilk think the mild disparagement he sees from the left towards Obama is worth reporting, he’s in for huge, huge, enormous surprise when we all get to see the insanity that will rage from the teabaggers the first time they neglect to impeach Obama for eating arugula.
The tealiban’s rage at “their” Congress will make Greenwald look like Obama’s spooning buddy.
eemom
@James in WA:
oh nooooes! break my fuckin heart, why dontcha.
Cacti
@Tonal Crow:
Can you please show us on the doll where Rahm touched you?
Corner Stone
@Mark S.:
What I find hilarious is the amount of people here who can’t wait to declare how much they Love Obama, “but”…
“I love me some Obama! I’m voting for him! Please believe me!”
“But I just want someone to validate my criticisms without calling me names!”
That's Master of Accountancy to You, Pal
@Bruce (formerly Steve S.):
Most of us have recognized the value of criticism from the left all along. It’s the form that the criticism takes that drives us crazy. Take sparky’s comment above. Characterizing the health reform bill as useless, as he does, is wrong, and ignores a lot of things in it. It is also destructive of any chances to get better reform. Presenting the efforts and accomplishments that have occurred as without value doesn’t help build a coalition that will get something better through Congress; the louder it’s shouted, it just reinforces a narrative that there’s no point in voting for Democrats, so people won’t do it. They’ll either vote for Republicans, or stay home. How that advances The Cause eludes me.
Of course, if that’s what sparky really believes, fine, shout it as loud as you want. Just don’t pretend that doing so is going to move the Overton Window or some other bullshit that will lead to better bills. It won’t. That leaves those of us who disagree with him to point out that sparky is wrong on the merits as well as the optics. He’s passing along a narrative that is simultaneously false and destructive. No amount of telling us that he likes Obama and worked for him changes this. I’m not sure why we shouldn’t use harsh language to call him out on it.
Greenwald is a bit different. His obsession is the area where Obama has been most frustrating. Combine that with the fact that Greenwald is, by nature, an indiscriminate bomb thrower who has yet to learn how to use language with any subtlety, and you get the things he writes. None of that excuses the sort of ridiculous things he writes pointed out above, but he’s not the sort of pathetic figure that Jane Hamsher is.
(Note that I put Matt Taibbi in a third category: he’s an indiscriminate bomb thrower who does know how to use language subtly, but usually chooses not to, who, unlike Greenwald for the most part, insists on screeching on subjects he knows nothing about. I actually enjoy reading Taibbi’s work, unlike Greenwald, because he is a fabulous writer. He’s stone cold ignorant about any technical subject, such as how finance actually works. You have to put him in the same category as the erudite but completely innumerate Andrew Sullivan.)
Mnemosyne
@Chrisd:
I’m not sure how you can make that assertion based on his actions, either. Greenwald isn’t saying that Obama didn’t support the public option enough — he’s claiming that Obama flat-out lied throughout his campaign and through a lot of the process by saying he wanted a public option while secretly working against it behind the scenes the entire time.
Please present Greenwald’s proofs that Obama actively lied about ever wanting a public option, because that’s what you’re defending.
slag
@James in WA:
Hehe. And sadly, the irony is lost.
wasabi gasp
If I fix Obama’s burger, he’s getting yellow.
liberal
@cat48:
How so? Last I heard (and I might hear incorrectly), we’re going to have 50K troops there for quite a while.
eemom
@That’s Master of Accountancy to You, Pal:
yes, this this this!
And I will agree that Greenwald and Hamsher are conceptually distinguishable from each other. They sure do suck each other’s dicks a lot, though.
There are plenty of people on the left blogosphere who do offer credible CONSTRUCTIVE criticism of Obama. G&H are just not two of them.
Bill E Pilgrim
Oh I thought DougJ was agreeing only that it’s good to have a progressive voice in the mix at all, and that the rest of it about how “unreasonable” that voice is was just more typical Politico conservative Villager nonsense.
I can’t tell where anyone stands anymore.
By the way, the idea that Greenwald is more “shrill” or assholish than the rest of the blogosphere is comic. Despite the uniformly sweet and reasonable posts here, it’s really not that way everywhere.
cleek
@liberal:
we will.
“non-combat” troops are still scheduled to be there until December 2011.
but, not running their prisons anymore is a very good thing.
FlipYrWhig
@Mnemosyne: I always feel like, which is more likely, (1) a substantial bloc from the large number of ConservaDem Senators decided they wouldn’t accept the public option, regardless of its merits or polling popularity, causing it to have to be pulled from the final package; or (2) Obama was only ever talking about the public option as part of a bait-and-switch scheme cooked up by Rahm Emanuel to satisfy his corporate paymasters? Personally, I feel like you can find _so many_ expressions of misgivings and trepidation by Senate Democrats, at various points of the process, that the former is much more likely.
Tonal Crow
@Turgidson: Oh for the love of the FSM. “Firebaggers” — for all the obsession with them here — are a tiny, stupid sliver of America’s left. Far, far more people on the left feel quite mixed about Obama: overjoyed that Palin didn’t get to Hoover the economy into something resembling Somalia, encouraged by much of the HCR bill, unhappy with some of the compromises, and more so with the attitude toward pre-compromising, and disgusted with the numerous failures on civil liberties and on holding Bush/Cheney accountable. Most will still vote for, contribute to, and work for Democrats rather than let that orange guy get control.
Now go take your “ponies” and shove them where the sun don’t shine.
arguingwithsignposts
@sparky:
It is hard for me to take folks seriously when they write overly simplistic crap like this. In this instance, I’m heartily in agreement with That’s Master of Accountancy to You, Pal.
liberal
@aimai:
That’s me. I consider myself pretty left in many but not all ways. Gave a lot of money to Obama in the primary and general and voted for him in both. Why? I knew unlike some people that he wasn’t all that liberal—I actually bothered to look up his ADA score (and found he was roughly like Hillary)—but he seemed like the best candidate who had a reasonable chance of winning. Not that that’s not setting the bar pretty low.
As president? What’s the competition, Clinton?
DougJ
@Triassic Sands:
You’re right, I should not have said “slightly”.
eemom
just fwiw, there was a very specific reason Al Giordano called those two “pond scum,” which is that they do, in fact, purport to speak for all of us on “The Left.” And they don’t.
stuckinred
@eemom: Hamsher ain’t go no dick.
liberal
@That’s Master of Accountancy to You, Pal:
And who is acquainted with “how finance actually works”? The commenters at this blog who apparently think that the finreg reforms go even a tenth of the way towards fixing the financial sector?
stuckinred
@eemom: And if he was better it would have been “bottom feeding pond scum”!
slag
Also, this is a good point. Something I, for one, will consider further.
But I will say that the liberals in the House and the Senate have done the vast majority of the legislative compromising so far. (Of course I would think that because I’m a liberal, but it’s hard not to see things that way even from a more critical angle.) And with that in mind, it seems to me that Democrats could avoid appearing to be “in disarray” if the compromising seemed a little more balanced, in general. With a little less preening from the blue dogs to be sure.
Brien Jackson
@liberal:
Out of curiosity, what exactly is the litany of things you want the FinReg bill to do that it doesn’t?
arguingwithsignposts
@liberal:
Um, the guy with the Masters of Accountancy might have a clue. Just sayin’.
eemom
@stuckinred:
she has balls though. At least according to the besotted lovesick clown-brigade that slatheringly second her every utterance.
cuz she’s soooooo pretty and she’s the oooooonly one who…..well, you know.
angler
@NonyNony:
I applaud trying to inject reason into a food fight but this a food fight. Still, lets depart from hunting for those %$$&**##!! fifth columnist firebaggers who are so %$%$###$$%^& weak and deluded and still hold all the #!$%& power we’d be at the top of polls right now if not for their meddling.
Yeah it’s a big joke, this dialog over Obama and the Left, a big freakin’ joke. There’s a very old way of talking about politics that says there must be a Left, an irresponsible cell somewhere out there. And that Left is known for two things: high-minded idealism and disloyalty to the nation. Slot “USA” in for Obama in the scold posts and maybe go back two years and slot “USA” in for Bush on another blog and you’d have the same story being told over and over again.
Having an enraged pants poop over Jane Hamsher is a useful way to retell the tale of how our nation is not going to be held hostage to some imaginary ideals, few of which are really touted by Hamsher or Greenwald, but that worm their way into this discussion (we’re not going to stop driving cars jes’ cuz some ding danged firebagger wants to save a little birdie!! We’re not gonna back off this dern daddled war just so’s some glenn greenergreener can read some terrorist his rights!!)
Usually, especially when we’ve got a nasty ogre like the Taliban we can make that argument about the external world. We’re for good, they’re for evil. When we get the good and evil plot lines mixed up we need a backup script–good is really, if you think about carefully, evil.
Short memories abound. These were the kinds of things the Hillary supporters said about Obama in the primaries and the same as levelled by McCainiacs against Obama in the general. Now they are the charges made against who? Two bloggers a handful of Senators and Reps and some random thread posters? It’s about as proportional to the problems Dems face as putting PETA on the terrorist watch list.
In 2010, lefty bloggers and their readers will have a far higher voter turnout rate for Dems than do people who voted for Obama but have never heard of Glenn Greenwald or Jane Hamsher, and the former will give more money to candidates and do more GOTV and generally be active Democrats than the latter. Also no matter what within the party it will be their fault and between the parties it will be the Dems fault.
Now back to gittin them lowdown snakes in the grass. If you ask me there’s one hope for 2012, and one hope only:
Kerry Reid
I have to quote what Tom Hilton said in that Daou thread a couple days back:
Tom is absolutely right. I didn’t volunteer and vote for Obama because I thought he was the vanguard of a new progressive golden age. (I don’t think it’s actually possible for any president to be that now – and in fact, it was never really possible in the past either, but why should historical reality get in the way of anyone’s misty watercolored-memories of The Way We Never Were under FDR or LBJ?) I got behind him because he was serious about using government apparatus to make real policy — not just tax cuts and war and token sops to the Christianists (the Terri Schiavo bill, anyone?)
The fight isn’t really in the (relatively) small-beer stakes of public option/no public option, or one FinReg bill vs. another. It’s between those who believe that government has some salutary role to play in the life of its citizens and that it SHOULD play that role, and those who believe government’s only role is to be shrunk down to the size where it can be drowned in a bathtub (i.e., destroying Medicare, Social Security, and unemployment benefits — but leaving behind enough of a standing army and prison-industrial complex to protect the oligarchs from the angry mobs and to keep Blackwater-esque consulting jobs open and Halliburton stock soaring).
So to the extent that there are an awful lot of vocal folks on the left who don’t seem to get that it isn’t about one policy vs. another, but about the very definition of government “for the people,” I’m mystified. I thought that Katrina, even more than 9/11, would be the signature event that would turn the tide (pun not intended, I swear) within my lifetime. Finally, people would see that when you put people who don’t think government matters — who are actively hostile to and disdainful of government — in charge of that government, and when you constantly tell people “the government can’t help you,” you end up with a government that literally lets its own citizens drown. Because it just can’t figure out a way to see past ideology to the pragmatic and moral need to take care of people in a crisis. Or rather, not only CAN’T it figure it out — it doesn’t believe that it has any reason to take care of “those people.” They don’t vote for you, they don’t look like you, they’re not rich like you, so why should you help them?
To quote the wonderful, if cynical, Joyce Cary, “The only good government is a bad one in the hell of a fright.”
So no, Obama isn’t perfect. He’s been mostly AWOL on civil liberties (though anyone who says he’s worse than Bush is a liar, and anyone who says he should be more like FDR in that arena is an idiot — not even Bush/Cheney opened internment camps for Muslims in the wake of 9/11). I appreciated that he tried to move terror trials to NYC and that he tried to close Gitmo last spring and got shot down by Congress. I wish DADT was already gone, but it’s made progress legislatively, and there are good arguments for not doing it by executive order (as a pro-choice activist who has seen the Mexico City policy reinstated and overturned with regularity, I get that). But there are certainly ways in which he could be more vocal on the issue, knowing how important it is to a large number of folks who voted for him.
I also understand people who are civil liberties absolutists — provided THEY understand that civil liberties have always been highly fungible, to put it charitably, in this country. (And pretty much every country, at some point or another.) In other words — Obama is not UNIQUELY disengaged on those issues. Far from it.
So yeah: governing well — as well as this dysfunctional asylum of a nation will allow – is probably the best option.
That said, I think there has got to be better messaging about what the administration has accomplished, and I agree with Aimai that there has been a glaring lack of coordination on that front. Which you’d think is something more of the leftosphere could address. But no. And that’s where I have nothing but contempt for those members of the professional internet left who either make common cause with the enemy (Grover Norquist) or who cynically and dishonestly dismiss everything Obama has done as a “sellout” and “worse than Bush.”
There is a serious choice between whether you keep the government in the hands of deeply flawed people who still want to get shit done, or if you think turning it back over to the crowd that doesn’t care if the whole thing goes down in flames (as long as they get to rule the ash-heap and maintain their off-shore accounts and private armies) would “heighten the contradictions” and bring about some nebulous Progressive Heaven on Earth.
Wow, this was long-ass. Sorry.
DougJ
@Bill E Pilgrim:
That is exactly what I was saying. Don’t get me wrong, I think that the “Obama is worse than Bush” stuff is very stupid, but I am glad that people to the left of Cokie Roberts now have some representation in the discussion.
Punchy
OT:
Talk about blantant: Yes, we dislike all these n#ggerz in our town
And yes, I know LA pretty well, so I’m not surprised. But damn, talk about beggars cannot be choosers and all that shit….
stuckinred
@eemom: I don’t get how we get hammered for this line of conversation and they keep bringing it up here?
Joseph Nobles
Just saw a tweet that BP feels it’s within hours of having the oil well capped (one month early). Could Obama be lucky enough to get FinReg past the Senate and the oil well capped on the same damn day? Champagne, bitches!
Bill E Pilgrim
BTW speaking of spewing toxic sludge, it appears that they’ve stopped the oil leak entirely, at least for the moment. Checking for more but that’s what they’re saying at theoildrum.com, and the ROV images are showing no spew.
beltane
@Bill E Pilgrim: Here’s the BBC’s link: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-10654584
Gozer
I voted for Obama and would gladly do it again. There have been some disappointments, but I’m not in the pony market at the moment so I’m generally OK with his performance thus far.
Pelosi on the other hand has been a fucking legislative titan and has been kicking ass up and down the beltway IMO.
liberal
@eemom:
[emphasis added]
As someone on the left, I wish you wouldn’t pretend to be so. I’d like to think folks of my ilk aren’t stupid enough to write things like
Not to mention your despicable and ignorant comments on display here.
Kryptik
I still think the whole narrative is bullshit, even if you grant that there are some people to the left of Obama that are really pissed off. Why? Making them into the reason why Obama is in trouble is absolutely stunningly teatarded on its face, and all signs point to it being purposely so. I mean…a press that transparently revels in Obama’s and Democrats’ failures? They’re not even hiding the fact that they’re fixed, and yet no. It’s not that everything is being colored by an absolutely tilted media and political landscape that paints only the GOP and Tea Party as the ‘seriuz peeple’, and Obama, Dems, the NAACP, ACORN, and whatever the boogieman du jour is, as unhinged partisan psychos that are racist against those fine white folk that are the Reel ‘Mericunz.
The Manic Progressives just don’t have the power to be an albatross around ‘The Left’s’ neck like is being suggested. They’re talking about a splinter in Obama’s eye while they ignore the stones they’re actively flinging toward his other eye. It’s not even on the same scale.
Egilsson
Just want to add that I love #20, NonyNony. In fact, I’ll marry her. If NonyNony is a guy, I will become gay, so we can be together.
Nony, call me!
I don’t love everything Obama has done (particularly his DOJ). but I’m itching to vote for him over whatever neanderthal the republicans nominate.
liberal
@Brien Jackson:
You’re kidding, right?
The important abstract goals of reform should be to
(1) decrease moral hazard, so as to drive down the possibility of a similar crisis happening again, and
(2) decrease the complexity and interconnectedness of the system, which in the past crisis amplified instability.
I don’t see the current reforms as doing much in those directions.
Only thing that seems promising is the consumer protection stuff.
FlipYrWhig
@slag: The compromise is doing anything in the first place. Conservative Democrats don’t really want to do anything that counts as “spending,” with the exception of strong-on-defense stuff. So every program starts out in their eyes as a tough sell to their voters and/or funders. That’s why everything gets whittled down in cost and pushed ideologically to the right. For a policy to get pushed to the left, it would have to emerge from the conservative Dems in the first place. Like if they would want to repeal the estate tax entirely, it could get pushed leftwards so that only estates under $5 mil would be exempt or something. Not too exciting, because conservative Dems don’t have a lot of imagination and don’t really seem to like to “address” what we would consider “problems.”
liberal
@Bill E Pilgrim:
Question isn’t whether there’s no spew. Question is whether the pressure is high. High pressure, good. Low pressure, well is compromised somewhere below the sea floor.
Kerry Reid
@Gozer: Abso-fucking-lutely! And you know who hated her guts, based on my seven years in San Francisco? The far left. It must really chap their hides that she is now held up by the right as the sine qua non of “San Francisco leftists.”
Tom Q
And now Dylan Rattigan on MSNBC has this “Breaking News” headline: Financial “Reform” Passes, Not Fooling U.S.
Someone explain how that criticism from the left helps us.
Brien Jackson
@liberal:
Too vague. Specifics please.
Bill E Pilgrim
@liberal: Or compromised above the sea floor, or at the sea floor where it all connects. It can start leaking anywhere, or be leaking far below.
I know, just saying that the visible spew out of the BOP into the gulf is stopped for the first time in 86 days since the explosion. Pretty big deal.
That's Master of Accountancy to You, Pal
@liberal:
Pretty much, yes. To understand how the bill is going to work, you have to have some idea of how bank capital is defined and employed. One of the complaints that a lot of people make is that the bill does nothing to curb the size of banks.
This is a completely inaccurate description of the bill, but have to know some finance in order to realize that. Nowhere does the bill explicitly limit the size of banks. However, the restrictions on bank capital actually do a significant amount of leg work in that direction. One critical element is that, when designing the new regulations, executive agencies are specifically told to make them counter-cyclical. That’s significant.
Another example is that most people don’t really understand the implications of requiring derivatives to be traded on exchanges. There are three major benefits of this:
1) Since you technically make the trade with the exchange rather than someone else, there is much less counter-party risk. The exchange will make good on the trade even if someone else defaults. Among other things, that means that you have a middleman who has an extreme interest in making folks post collateral on a regular basis. This differs from what happened in 2008, which is that, as things went sour, parties began asking for collateral, only to discover that the counter-parties were already so far in the hole that they couldn’t pay up.
2) Exchange trading increases transparency. Everyone knows exactly how much open interest there is on any given position. It’s much easier to realize that someone is betting heavily against something. It is also possible to get an approximate idea of who the big players are, and know how deep in the shit someone is. That’s not perfect, but it’s not going on in the complete darkness that is the over-the-counter market.
3) If you want something that will shrink the profits for an outfit like Goldman, you should love exchange trading. One of the ways they managed such outrageous profit margins is because the people they were trading with had no way to figure out what the bid/ask spread on a product was. Market makers are a key part of a functional market, and they make their money by buying something at one price and selling the same thing at a slightly higher price. (Ideally. As a former market maker I can assure you, it almost never works out that way, and you end up with a plate full of risk.) The advantage of exchanges is that the market makers have to publicly post their bids and asks. The rest of the market can see them and can shop around. (Actually, the exchange does the shopping around for them, but it works out the same.) No longer can Goldman keep the spread private and make it really wide. (Well, even wider than it will be. My prediction is that trading on most of these products is going to be so thin that they’ll be horribly illiquid, and that leads to wide spreads. But not as wide.)
There are other things like this in the bill, but you have to know what they mean, because most of them don’t lay out the effects explcitly.
FlipYrWhig
@liberal:
IMHO it’s odd to evaluate a law against an enumerated list of “abstract goals” for the purposes of finding it failing to meet them. Of course it’s going to fail to meet them, because Congress is full of boneheads. The test is, is the new law better than what used to be in place. Or, to borrow your framework, is this area of policy _closer_ to the “abstract goals” than it used to be?
FormerSwingVoter
@Sentient Puddle:
Does anyone know if Franken’s rating agency reforms made it into the final bill? I haven’t seen them mentioned anywhere, and it seems like it should be a big fucking deal if they had.
eemom
@liberal:
look dude, I’ve already explained that you’re a self-righteous, ignorant little twerp. I’m not gonna go back and rehash it all every time you stick your grubby little finger in my face.
Now go out and play “liberal” some more, sweetie. The grown ups are talking.
liberal
@Kerry Reid:
I don’t see how that’s not a fancy way of saying “at this point, our choices are between Obama, who in the broad scheme of things is at best a centrist, and the Republicans, who are hell-bent on reversing the liberal project of the last few centuries.”
Not that I agree with the Naderite project of “it’s gotta collapse before we rebuild it,” but I think you’re overselling here.
aimai
I want to agree with Kryptik, in the post right above mine. This is why I find all the hysteria and the back and forth about the evils of the left just weird. Hamsher is not “on the left”–she’s not politically left at all. The left isn’t everything that doesn’t agree with Obama on specific policies that isn’t on the right–its more complex than that. But in any event Obama has/will have many different constituencies to please and will please, or displease, each of them in their own time and way. Its not because those constituencies are stupid, childish, venal, or impatient. Its not because they don’t “get” that Obama has lots of constituencies to satisfy and demands on his time. Its because that is in the nature of constituencies in a democracy. People want their own issues dealt with, and their own groups taken care of. They trade their votes for that. Its a straight up quid pro quo. The left, again–such as it is–is no different from any other such group. Except that they don’t have much power because they are a tiny slice of America’s largely indifferent voters. To blow Greenwald and Hamsher up into representative of anything, much less a “problem” Obama has with “the left” is absurd. But we must always have enemies.
More to the point, I think, we might want to admit what Yglesias is talking about here is among Obama and the Dems biggest problems:
Demagoguery is easy–hell, its politics One-Oh-One. You could look it up. So why are the Dems so terribly bad at demagoguing the hell out of their own bills, and making the Republicans eat shit publicly? I hate the Republicans with the hatred of a thousand white hot suns and it seems as though their policies are so horrific that even they won’t admit to them publicly. And yet we are still talking about losing seats–lots of seats–to them in this election? How do you fuck that up? Something is wrong with the Obama/Dem machine. Its not just the magnitude of the problems they (and we) face. Its not just that Obama is a centrist, or a nice guy, or whatever. They just don’t seem to grasp how to get their accomplishments over on the public. How to make the case, show their work, and trumpet the results.
aimai
Chris Lepore
@chris:
It absolutely does.
gmknobl
Sorry but I’m a liberal. I was a moderate liberal back in the day when I supported the civil rights and welfare and such but now I’m considered far left even by some friends.
I’m here to say that if it isn’t my liberal old old center left or further to my left, it isn’t really progress as such.
The only thing we can do is press Obama ALL THE TIME to move further to the left to get back to that day when I will be considered at least center left if not entirely CENTER.
To complain that complaining isn’t doing any good isn’t truth. It in itself is bad politics. Look at what the corrupt right got through a combination of complaining and bribes, legal or otherwise! If we complain and push and complain and push to inch our way back, well then that’s all right by me. Criticism of this then, when not truly constructive but rather superficial like this seeming hit piece is simply a disguised, regressive, false politics or at worst a real hit piece constructed by neocons.
James in WA
@eemom:
Oh, FFS, who really cares?
I care neither what his intent is nor for whom he “purports to speak,” the fact is that Greenwald often makes very good, closely argued points, and he raises important issues. As does Hamsher, albeit a lot fewer than she used to. And talking about important issues is, as NonyNony pointed out, important to a functioning democracy. If you want to cover your ears because the speaker holds some opinion that you don’t like then that’s your right, but it just makes you look childish.
Allan
@liberal: Those are your choices. Pick one.
Tony J
Not to point at you in the manner of an evil monkey, just to take your question and put it up there as an example of the fundamental failure to communicate I see here.
There are a lot of people on ‘The Left’ who are disappointed with Obama for any number of things who get understandably pissed off when their expressions of disappointment get dismissed because some other people said that what they’re really saying is “He’s no better than Bush! He sold us out! He’s a corporatist! He is a miserable failures!”.
Yeah, some people are saying that, but they’re a very small minority with a big voice in a larger blogosphere that doesn’t always agree with them, even if many of the people in it are disappointed about the same things. What they’re not is ‘The Left’, they’re just not. Unless ‘The Left’ is shorthand for “People to be ignored”, in which case, that’s just MSM framing gone viral.
Sentient Puddle
@liberal: OK, so explain how the bill comes up short. Explain why resolution authority doesn’t deal with the risk of big banks failing. Explain why the clearinghouse requirement for most derivatives won’t show everybody the inner workings of these instruments. And so on and so forth. Or hell, provide alternatives. Just saying “I don’t see this bill fixing the problem” isn’t in any way, shape or form persuasive.
@Tom Q: Dylan’s beef stems mostly from the fact that he fell too far down the “break up the banks” rabbit hole. I’d give him a pass though. He knows what he’s talking about enough of the time.
liberal
@That’s Master of Accountancy to You, Pal:
Not necessarily significant at all. Depends on how much leeway is given to the regulators, and how much regulatory capture there is.
Aside from my point that it’s not size so much as complexity and interconnectedness (which you haven’t addressed) which leads to systemic instability, I’d wager that the bill does very little to cut down size. You want to take the other side of that wager?
Yes, I know that this is at least superficially a good thing, but Yves Smith over at NakedCapitalism has made a good case that in many instances, exchanges will not improve things much, or will actually make them worse.
eemom
@James in WA:
Wow. How do you know all that if you tuned out my post?
liberal
@Allan:
You totally miss the point. Of course I’d pick Obama over the Republicans. The point is that that still leaves room for me to be disappointed and unimpressed with Obama.
Comrade Dread
Well, they’ve succeeded, sort of.
While I do dislike and have little respect for many Democrats, I loathe many Republicans even more right now.
Of course, one of the reasons why I still have slightly more respect for the Democrats is because they have those ideologically consistent voices who try to hold their leadership to account when the leaders dive into the muck.
Sentient Puddle
@FormerSwingVoter:
If I remember right, there’s a ratings agency reform policy that will be under review for two(ish) years, at which point regulators (not congress) can decide to adopt or scrap ’em. I don’t know if these policies are similar to what Franken proposed.
Any case, yeah, not a big fucking deal because there’s a reasonably good chance we won’t see those reforms as a result of this bill.
liberal
@eemom:
I’m not sticking it in your face. I’m just pointing out to other readers here that you’re a pathetic puny moral monster.
LOL!
Alan in SF
1) No one on the left hates Obama. I wish Pablo Sandoval had a higher batting average. I often urge him, “Go, Pablo! Get a hit!” Do I therefore hate Pablo Sandoval?
2) In what sense is Obama “paying attention to the left,” other than to have anonymous senior White House officials call us starry-eyed idiots as often as possible?
3) Jon Chait doesn’t have the slightest idea what “the left” thinks, wants, is doing, or is.
4) So criticism of Obama from the left hurts the Democratic Party, but criticism from the centrist flank of the party– as in, ‘Change this legislation or I’ll fillibuster it’ — is perfectly cool, and results in awesomely progressive legislation? Sure; whatever.
4) There’s a legitimate difference of opinion among Democrats. Some feel that, as progressive activists, we should be urging Obama to support measures which respond to our natural crises. Others feel that everything Obama does is perfect and should not be criticized. Fine; we’re a big tent and we’ll all pull the “D” lever in the end.
MikeJ
@That’s Master of Accountancy to You, Pal: This is one of the very, very few instances where I wish I could hit a little thumbs up icon or click a little star that gets filled in to save and share a blog comment.
Tonal Crow
@Tony J: This.
eemom
Yes, and of course ALL commentary from ALL sources “about important issues” is created equal with respect to its “importance to a functioning democracy.”
By that measure, I should play close attention to what Rush and Sarah say too, right?
God you’re an idiot. And yes, I’m a name caller too. Fuck it.
Martin
Well, there’s two ‘lefts’ that are mashed together.
I would put Stuck and myself and a number of others (including Cole) in the true ‘progressive’ camp. We don’t have big ideological baselines, there’s few ‘this is absolutely how it ought to be’ points on the horizon. Instead, the progressive attitude is focused more around ‘this isn’t working, fix it’ without a whole lot of worry about where the fix is coming from. Free market answers to problems are fine so long as there is actually evidence it’ll work. Progressives don’t generally get off on the big political calculus – who is in power is only important if those in power are being effective.
Others are clearly liberals. They do have ideological baselines on large issues. They do have those points on the horizon that they think we should be at – not in terms of what people’s lives ought to be like, but the mechanism by which things work. Everyone agrees that people should be fitter, happier, more productive, comfortable, not drinking too much. Where we diverge is what are reasonable solutions to getting there – Progressives usually don’t much care, so long as it works. Liberals usually have more specific mechanisms in mind, and mechanisms they’re unwilling to consider. Liberals have a bad habit of calling themselves progressives.
Obama is a progressive, not a liberal. He’s going to push policy issues forward without being overly concerned about whether the liberal litmus test is being met – if it works, it works, and save your energy to work on the next thing. Rather than the One True HCR bill that liberals have dreamt about for the last half century, he’ll push to pass 3 HCR bills over 8 years, each one nudging us ever closer toward a system that actually works.
Normally, progressives and liberals are farther apart on party affiliation, but the GOP is such a goddamn fuckup of a group of people that we’re all Democrats now. The GOP is actually proud of being anti-progressive, of ensuring that no progress is made on any issues for the sake of partisan gain. Liberals are, admittedly, losing out. Their ideological torches aren’t being recognized by Obama, even when he’s moving the country more toward their goal. The liberals only partially care that progress is being made – they also want affirmation that their way is the right way – and Obama isn’t doing that, and that’s what has them pissed off.
FlipYrWhig
@aimai:
I think it’s simple, really. Unemployment is very high. The big-ticket legislative accomplishments have been somewhat intangible. When unemployment goes down, people will be more inclined to listen. Otherwise it’s like you’re in the ICU and the doctor comes in and says, “Good news; according to a new policy at the hospital, we’ll no longer be required to wear ties, because they spread infections.” That’s great, but you’re still in the damn hospital.
Paris
You can pretty much stop right there and go fuck yourself.
That's Master of Accountancy to You, Pal
@liberal:
It does a number of things along these lines. This includes providing resolution authority. If you think that the administration should have nationalized bankrupt financial companies, but wimped out and chose instead to bail the fuckers out, then you should support the bill for this part alone. The reason they didn’t nationalize anyone is because it would have been illegal for them to do so; that power was explicitly limited to commercial banks, and the biggest problems were in pure investment banks (Bear, Lehman) and an insurance company (AIG). Note that this is also why the belief that the repeal of Glass-Steagall was a major cause of the crisis is wrong: the major sources of the crisis were at firms that were never covered by it, so repealing it couldn’t have been the reason they were allowed to get into trouble.
It does this, too. One of the number of ways is through putting most derivatives onto exchanges. As I said above, this accomplishes exactly the thing you’re advocating.
The finreg bill is far, far from perfect, but it actually makes significant advances in exactly the things you say you want, but you don’t realize that, because you don’t know enough about the subject to understand what it does.
Calvin Jones and the 13th Apostle
@NonyNony: Thank you!!
It reminds me of what Chomsky said last month when Israel refused him admittance to the occupied territories:
I can only say what was conveyed to me in the discussion with the official who was carrying out the interrogation — he was receiving instructions from the [Israeli] ministry of interior and relaying them. There were two basic points. One was that the government of Israel does not like the kinds of things I say — which puts them into the category of I suppose every other government in the world.
AxelFoley
@taylormattd:
Straight up.
Joseph Nobles
I’m not happy with everything Obama has done. In fact, in the arenas of gay rights and privacy issues, I’m fairly well steamed in just the way Glenn Greenwald wants me to be.
But Dear God, at this point in a John McCain presidency I would have given serious thought to self immolation in front of the White House gates! There’s got to be some perspective in all of this. And I’m supposed to seriously consider giving any assistance whatsoever to the next unreconstructed nightmare that manages to tame the Republican base? Oh, hell, no.
liberal
@Sentient Puddle:
Giving the government nominal resolution authority doesn’t mean that the government will either prefer to use that authority, or will be able to use it even if it wanted to.
Why do you think that transparency is the only issue?
For example, take CDS (which some people claim are not “truly” derivatives, but that’s just nomenclature). AFAICT from what I’ve read, CDSs serve no socially useful function—like many of the creations of the financial sector—and make the system less stable by acting as risk conveyors (in a bad sense).
You could make them much less dangerous by forcing the posting of large amounts of collateral, but the amount you’d need to do that would turn them into something like ordinary insurance instruments. So you might as well ban them.
Look, I don’t know about you, but I don’t earn a living writing blog comments. I think, given the history of the finance sector and the attendent regulatory agencies in the past few decades (basically, post-1980), the onus in any argument is on those who think that proposed reforms are effective. I can just as well challenge every assertion in the comments above (e.g.).
cybrestrike
@NonyNony:
This.
You win the thread.
liberal
@That’s Master of Accountancy to You, Pal:
No it doesn’t. It might take baby steps in that direction, but that’s it.
burnspbesq
@Gozer:
Re Pelosi, I’m waiting for some fire bagger to assert that if they hadn’t sent Cindy Sheehan out to SF to primary Pelosi, she would never have come to her senses.
Kryptik
@aimai:
The answer is simple: the “narrative” won’t allow it. The narrative that prioritizes process an sausage making over actual substance and results. It doesn’t matter what was done, if it was ‘done the wrong way’. It doesn’t matter what good the substance is if there was ‘arm-twisting’ behind the scenes. And guess what? Even under these standards, IOKIYAR.
Dems haven’t exactly been doing a knock-out job, but they’re playing poker with a deck that only gives them 8 high at best. They can’t crow about their accomplishments because no one understands the significance, because it’s too complex. What’s not complex is ‘SOSHULISMS!’ and ‘GUBMENT WANTS TO TAX YOU TO DEATH!’ Trying to talk substance is always gonna be inherently more complex than rattling off gut-appeal crap, and our discourse continues to operate under that old axiom: If you’re explaining, you’re losing.
James in WA
@eemom:
Strawman.
There’s nothing fundamentally wrong with being foul-mouthed. I call people cock-gobbling shits-for-brains all the time, myself, and I find it to be immensely satisfying. The difference between us here is that when I get my ad hominems thrown right back at me, I don’t petulantly declare that such things don’t “advance the argument.”
Oh, yeah — “Also, too.”
FlipYrWhig
@Alan in SF:
Hey, I love Pablo Sandoval, but he’s killing my fantasy team this year. So is Derrek Lee.
To the matter at hand: if you said after Panda got a weak bouncer up the middle for a hit, “That sucks, it should have been a line drive. Swing harder, you fat fuck! You’re worse than Rich Aurilia,” your fandom might begin to be called into question.
liberal
@That’s Master of Accountancy to You, Pal:
Just because resolution authority is provided doesn’t mean it will be used, or can be used.
Futhermore, I don’t see how providing resolution authority decreases moral hazard. To do that, you’d have to have draconian exec pay clawback provisions, as well as provision for bondholder haircuts, and so on.
The intelligent commenters I read all agree that G-S was pretty much dead anyway by the time it was retired.
liberal
@Joseph Nobles:
Heh. There’s a good chance you would have been “immolated” already by nukes from Russia after McThug got us into a shooting war over Georgia.
Corner Stone
@Bill E Pilgrim: The great thing about the AP alert I saw was the BP VP’s name is Kent Wells.
I thought that seemed about right.
liberal
@Calvin Jones and the 13th Apostle:
Heh. In many ways Greenwald’s style and even content is very similar to Chomsky’s.
Brien Jackson
@liberal:
That’s too clever by half. If we accept the premise, then what’s the point of doing anything at all?
AxelFoley
@AuldBlackJack:
We’ll start taking you hippies seriously when you was your stankin’ asses.
Brien Jackson
@liberal:
Greenwald’s writing style is nothing like Chomsky’s.
Bruce (formerly Steve S.)
@That’s Master of Accountancy to You, Pal:
Stop right there. Let’s not get hung up in the passing comments of blog commenters. Moving along…
Interest.
No, I think his bombs are quite carefully targeted.
What ridiculous things specifically are we talking about?
Both of them are regularly solicited for their opinions and treated seriously by mainstream outlets. Of course, you are entitled to regard anybody you want “pathetic”.
How many categories do you have?
burnspbesq
@liberal:
“Giving the government nominal resolution authority doesn’t mean that the government will either prefer to use that authority, or will be able to use it even if it wanted to.”
OK, just stop right there. You’ve now established that there is no legislation that could have been passed that you would have found satisfactory.
What the fuck do you want?
liberal
@Brien Jackson:
You misunderstand. If accompanied by other systemic reforms, resolution authority could indeed be useful. But just slapping r.a. on these absurdly complex and interconnected institutions doesn’t really buy you very much.
Suppose, for instance, that in the past crisis the gov’t had r.a. for huge insolvent institutions like Citi and BoA. You really think they would have exercised it? IMHO, they would not have.
liberal
@burnspbesq:
In case it’s not painfully obvious, no more shadow banking system.
liberal
@Brien Jackson:
Not the style in the sense of “prose,” but the focus on hypocrisy. Look in particular at GG’s stuff on Israel.
General Stuck
@aimai:
The reason why dems are going to lose seats is because the right wing is more pissed off than the dem base, a RW that is more interested in voting in a low turn out mid term for congresscritters.
Spool back time to 1982, only two years after Reagan won nearly every state in a historic landslide, but had an approval of less than 40 percent. The reason was, he over reached his mandate, and he really did have a whopper of one, compared to Obama. His, and his supporters little jihad to unwind newly minted envrionmental laws and government authority and New Deal type programs in general brought a big backlash of anger from his moderate voters, aka Reagan dems and some moderate NE repubs. They lost big in those midterms mostly because of that and a still lingering bad economy and job market.
The same dynamic is occurring with Obama, and his initiatives like HCR, etc…. of getting put into law, that is pissing off mostly true believer wingnuts, and at least currently, other gop voters. But Obama’s voters of 2008 are still with him, compared to Reagan in 82, they just lack the fire that the tea baggers have to vote. It is a paradoxical phenom that happens in virtually every first term midterm election in our history, that suggests an inverse reaction to that new presnits activity in getting passed the reforms he campaigned on, that at once enrages the ideologues on the other side, and lends complacency to that new presnits voters.
Kerry Reid
@liberal:
I think the choice for the left has always been for a centrist, if you’re voting for a Dem, so I suppose my mystification is with those who somehow think that there is a magic formula for getting a more progressive president in office under our current terms. (Get real for-sure campaign finance reform, and maybe — maybe — things could change slightly.)
FDR was considered a moderate sell-out at best by the left of his day, remember (if you can find any old Dirty Thirties types who are still alive, talk to them — it’s fascinating to hear how different it is from the leftist discourse today, which tends to make FDR the go-to icon of what progressivism is. Only the rightward shift of the country as a whole on many issues makes him seem more left than he was in reality. And as I’ve pointed out too many times, he really couldn’t be considered any kind of hero when it came to civil liberties.
But unlike some on the left today who explicitly believe that Obama deliberately operates in bad faith (i.e., the “he never wanted a public option from the start!” line), I don’t think that FDR deliberately WANTED to let people down on civil rights. I don’t think he licked his chops at the thought of putting Japanese-Americans into camps. I don’t think he was secretly thrilled to have an excuse to back off on lynching in the south. Circumstances were such that he had some really crappy choices to make — which are generally the only choices life offers, in my experience. And unfortunately, the people who have the least power are the first to suffer when the choice is made between bad and horrendous.
Whereas I think the Rapture-Ready GOP Wingnut Brigade actually DOES want to see things tumble and burn. And though I’m far from a truther, I DO believe that the PNAC crowd was wetting itself at the “opportunity from crisis” represented by 9/11.
Really, all I’m asking for is a workable model of how a “true progressive” (however we might define that, and that’s several barrels of worms right there) actually manages to attain office AND get through meaningful policy. I maintain that Tom Hilton’s stance — hoping that success begets success — is the best long-term plan. Of course, I might be wrong. But I don’t see too many other workable ideas out there right now.
eemom
@James in WA:
There’s a difference between referring to third parties who are not present as “pond scum” and calling someone’s argument “stupid” to their face, eh? Or is that a “strawman” too?
and btw I am SO sick of that word. It’s been over-used so often it’s become a “strawman” of its own, another facile way of dismissing the substance of a point.
Oh, and it’s Jane’s absolute favorite. Also too.
ETA: oh and also three: explain to me how it’s a strawman to point out that the source of an opinion deserves to be taken into account in assessing its “importance” to “essential” dialogue.
That's Master of Accountancy to You, Pal
@liberal:
Well, sure, but this would be an issue no matter what was in the bill. Congress isn’t capable of writing a bill so specific that it would eliminate the problem of regulators writing the rules. That’s in large part because they don’t know the subject well enough; the executive branch ends up with far more, and often (depending upon the administration) far better experts on any complicated subject.
Regulatory capture is a problem completely irrelevant to the question of whether the bill is a step forward or not. I’m highly skeptical of the idea that any such regulations could have been written in a way that would have prevented the Bush administration from doing whatever the fuck they wanted.
Actually, I did address that point. That’s exactly the subject of what I said about exchange trading. All of those three bullet points were about interconnectedness and complexity. I apologize for not spelling it out with the explicit terms you wanted, but that’s what I said.
Respectfully, I disagree with her. Frankly, I think she has become captivated by the idea of being in opposition. It certainly the case that she has changed directions 180 degrees on this particular question. From a 2007 post:
There’s a reason why Yves Smith is very much in the minority on this: she making much weaker arguments now than she was then.
Brien Jackson
@liberal:
But if you want to play that game, you basically create a premise that nullifies everything. I mean, what’s the point of regulations at all? You can’t guarantee they’ll be enforced, amirite?
cat48
burnspbesq
@liberal:
“no more shadow banking system.”
Which is so vague as to be meaningless. Try harder.
Or is your default position “wutever you got, Ah’m agin’ it?”
Kerry Reid
@liberal: Also, I’m not sure I know what the “liberal project of the last few centuries” entails, inasmuch as various aspects of the liberal movement have always been willing to cast others under the wheels of the conveyance of the moment. I think it’s more accurate to say “certain stop-and-start movements, some of which might broadly be called liberal, but which have, in most cases, acquired tangible success only after many years that involved internecine struggle and flat-out betrayals of groups with less-perceived power than others.”
Which, again, is why you have white suffragists placating women in their coalition from the South by making black women march at the back of the parades. It’s why Dixiecrats signed on to New Deal legislation in exchange for the feds not getting on their backs about lynching. It’s never been a smooth clear line. More like a trudge over the dungheaps of human error and misery (and no, I’m not making a “pony” joke).
Sentient Puddle
All things considered, I probably should just yield to That’s Master of Accountancy to You, Pal. In any case…
@liberal:
The fuck kind of counter is this supposed to be? “I don’t think they’ll invoke it, therefore it’s useless” is supposed to prove that the bill doesn’t deal with the risk? If you can’t see why I’m rolling my eyes at such asinine assertions, it’s pretty pointless to talk financial regulation with you.
Because it was the overriding issue. Big banks who stocked up on CDSes and used them as security did so because they had no fucking clue that they were going to have to pay through the nose on them two or three years down the line (or whenever the introductory rates were pulled out from under consumers and defaults happened en mass).
I fail to see why “so you might as well ban them” flows from the logic. They end up being standard insurance swaps, and what’s wrong with that? Why do you care how traders decide to hedge? As long as they have sufficient information to know how the swaps work, I don’t see why CDSes should be banned.
Besides, banning CDSes would be a band-aid fix. You do that, and the financial world would just find new and more exciting ways to package derivatives to fuck up the economy. Which goes back to why you need the clearinghouse/exchange.
eemom
Greenwald is to Chomsky as our little “liberal” here is to Ted Kennedy.
That's Master of Accountancy to You, Pal
@liberal:
Okay, now tell me how you plan to completely eliminate the shadow banking system. That sounds great in theory, but unless you have some idea of how to do it, it doesn’t get you anywhere. HOW do you propose to prevent anyone that’s not a regulated financial company from engaging in financial transactions? HOW do you propose to do this in a way that isn’t even more harmful?
Further, as an immediate goal, with nothing less unacceptable, you’re an idiot. Are some of the reforms baby steps? Absolutely, though I think this is a lot less true than you do. By itself, forcing a public bid/ask spread on derivatives is an important step. Regardless, we have to start somewhere. If you reject all incrementalism, then I hope you’re going to be happy getting nothing at all. That’s all you would get now and for the foreseeable future.
It always strikes me as odd when the same person argues both that Congress is completely in the grip of the financial industry and that we shouldn’t accept small steps in the right direction. If the financial lobby is that powerful, what makes you think that you’ll get anywhere demanding more?
Observer
Jon Chait works for Marty Perez.
That alone, all by its itty bitty self, should disqualify him from being taken seriously.
If there’s one thing about “progressives” or “liberals” that I’ve learned is that you folks don’t know when to draw a line in the sand.
Mnemosyne
@liberal:
Because there are a lot of people on the left — including Greenwald — who are libertarians or libertarian-leaning and really don’t agree that the government can or should be doing things like regulating industries. They can maybe agree that things are out of control now and there needs to be a little regulation, but there are going to be a lot of fights over how much regulation that should be.
It’s a really basic divide on the left that is going to have to be dealt with if we can get the ship of state righted again: the divide between people who think there are things that the government should do because the government does them best and people who think that the government that governs best, governs least.
Kerry Reid
@aimai: Well, I think it would also help if we had a media that wasn’t complicit in making sure everyone is “confused.” I think I mentioned here before how enraging it was to hear Tom Brokaw smugly proclaiming that “no one knows what the healthcare bill does.” Jesus H. Christ on a Crutch, Brokaw, you’ve got the megaphone, fucking USE it and explain it to people.
I mean, without media cooperation, how does the Obama/Dem machine get out the word about its achievements if you’re not already on the “Obot” email list? He can make speeches til he’s blue in the face, but if people who are inclined toward low information won’t watch them, then what’s the reasonable alternative? Again, Bush was selling “We’re gonna get them-there terra-ists” and “tax cuts” and stuff that, while profoundly unsettling for many of us, made for pretty little soundbites. Actual governing is more complex than that, and runs counter to the “break it down for me in a sentence or two” mindset.
Not saying it CAN’T be done. But I’d love to hear some constructive ideas for HOW it gets accomplished.
That's Master of Accountancy to You, Pal
@Sentient Puddle:
Thanks. As much as anything, it’s that I’m an unemployed Master of Accountancy, which gives me a lot of time to write tedious, long-winded comments on blogs.
Mnemosyne
@aimai:
Because it’s really, really hard to demagogue positively. In fact, I think it’s impossible by its very nature, because demagoguery is a negative act. You’re trying to appeal to the worst side of human nature. You’re trying to appeal to people’s prejudices and fears and anger.
And that’s pretty much antithetical to everything Obama presents himself as. It’s antithetical to the way most Democrats present themselves these days. So it’s really hard for us to get whipped up into a frenzy of hatred against the banksters. If nothing else, we have an acute fear of where appealing to people’s prejudices and fears can lead to.
cat48
Mnemosyne
@Alan in SF:
Russ Feingold is from the centrist flank of the party? Funny, I could have sworn you guys were claiming him as a progressive hero. You know, when he decided to join with the Republicans to filibuster the financial legislation and forced Senate leaders to seek out Republican votes.
Bernie Sanders said, “Change this legislation or I’ll filibuster it” because he didn’t think the healthcare legislation provided enough funding for local clinics and you know what happened? He got what he wanted because the legislation was changed to make him happy and he got excoriated as a centrist sellout by Hamsher and her crowd.
James in WA
@eemom:
Yes, there is a difference between an ad hominem attack, which does nothing in terms of refuting an argument, and actually refuting the argument with convincing reasons. I should think that would be obvious.
Then allow me to enlighten you. A strawman is a logical fallacy in which an opponent’s position is misrepresented and that misrepresentation refuted, giving the appearance that the actual position has thereby been refuted.
I made no claim about Limbaugh or Palin. I said that Greenwald and Hamsher play a useful role in our national debate, because they say some sensible things. I didn’t even say “all the time.” For you to extend that argument to include extreme voices on the opposite side of the political spectrum who aren’t on record as having said anything sensible ever, thereby implying that the original argument is wrong, is a strawman fallacy.
I never said anything like that at all.
But on that point: for my own part, if someone says something and backs it up sensibly and convincingly, then I don’t care who they are. Hell, even O’Reilly is on record as having occasionally done so. I’m willing to listen to almost anyone–at least until they start spouting obvious nonsense or falling back upon fallacies like ad hominems and strawmen–and in that spirit I’ll even give a rightwing pundit an initial chance.
Dismissing an argument out of hand just because it comes from a source that you don’t like is a symptom of epistemic closure.
Mnemosyne
@liberal:
So, just checking, you fall on the libertarian side of the divide I was talking about where you think the government is not actually competent to do anything so laws need to be written as minutely as possible so the courts can take care of things.
I disagree. I think regulations can be written and departments can run efficiently as long as you don’t have people (usually Republicans) running the department solely to benefit themselves and their cronies. By no means do I think it’s inevitable that government office will always devolve into only serving certain people and their cronies.
As I said, this is a really big ideological divide.
Kerry Reid
@Kerry Reid:
“blue in the face” was a particularly infelicitous choice of phrase, you eejit.
eemom
I did not “dismiss” any “argument” made by Greenwald, Hamsher, or anyone else. If you look at what I actually SAID, I was speaking about their motivations, not their positions on any issues. Much as I dislike them, there certainly are things I agree with them about.
Oh, I forgot — you “tuned out” what I said. So why are we even having this argument?
General Stuck
@eemom:
this is what I loathe when debating our firebagger friends. Reading into what I say, what they wished I’d have said. Same phenom when reading MR. Greenwalds blatherings on Obama. Maybe that’s not an accident.
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
@Mnemosyne:
Another thing is that a large part of what the GOPers are selling is basically just tribalism tricked out in fancy clothes, whereas the Dems are to a greater degree trying to sell policy. Four legs good, two legs bad is both a lot easier message to sell and harder for the other side to falsify than complex policy solutions to complex problems. If the Dems were trying to sell themselves the same way the GOPers are, they’d have a very simple message to hammer home again and again and again: “Fuck the South”. But the Dems have other priorities than getting revenge for 1861, and so it goes.
Jay B.
@eemom:
So your argument isn’t that you disagree with them, per se, but that you can read minds and know they have some mysterious “motivations” for “hating” Obama?
Same phenom when reading MR. Greenwalds blatherings on Obama. Maybe that’s not an accident.
Yes, it’s a conspiracy. We thought we had you fooled, Detective Genius!
James in WA
@eemom:
Well, let’s just roll back to the earlier comments, why don’t we, and see how all this started. You wrote:
“I actually have a new theory about why the Greenwalds and Hamshers of the world (aka “pond scum,” for which I am eternally indebted to Al Giordano) hate Obama. It’s because having a smart, reasonable, reality-oriented Democrat running the country reveals them for the unhinged, useless tea-partiers of the left that they actually are.”
That doesn’t sound like a characterization of people with whom you agree, even some of the time. But okay, fine, you say you do now. You didn’t say anything of substance as to why you dislike them so much, and I think NonyNony had some good points against you that you also didn’t address, and you basically just retreated behind wounded pride when (s)he used profane language to make those points. Which, as you said to me (perhaps even somewhat proudly, I thought), is an approach that you take yourself.
As I said, it just makes you look childish. You’re quick with sarcasm and ad hominems, you can’t seem to take them in return, and you don’t seem to understand basic logic in rhetoric much less some of the underlying issues such as the effect/importance of the tea party or the importance of real criticism of the president’s action or inaction even when he’s our guy. Especially when he’s our guy.
Let’s say that I tuned back in. Because, as you so ably put it, the source of an opinion deserves to be taken into account in assessing its “importance” to “essential” dialogue, and I’ve been assessing you as a source — for the sake of future opinions you might voice.
General Stuck
@Jay B.:
Yes, it’s a conspiracy
More like a gathering of idiots.
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
@cat48:
Reminds me of an old joke from the Cold War:
An American and a Russian are arguing about whose system has more freedom.
The American says: in our country, we have freedom of speech. If I want to go down to the gates of the White House and call my President an idiot, nobody is going to stop me.
To which the Russian replies: we have exactly the same freedom in my country. If I want to go down to the gates of the American embassy in Moscow and call your President an idiot, nobody is going to stop me either.
On TV, Democrats and Rebublicans both receive equal time and treatment. They are both allowed to call the Democratic President an idiot.
lol
@eemom:
Pay no heed. A firebagger posted a diary at GOS about “ad hominem” and now they’re waving the phrase around like it’s a Jedi mind trick.
eemom
I did address those points. I said the reasons I dislike GG&JH have been discussed here many times by myself and others. Which they have, ad nauseum. I could rehash them now, but I’m tired of arguing with someone who “tunes out” what I actually, you know, SAY.
And I could add that “Nony’s” opening, um, “points”: “Jesus this is fucking stupid” and “This is more bullshit” are kind of “tune out” worthy themselves, but again, I’m tired of this. I’ve assessed you as a source too, and I’ve concluded you’re a pompous ass. No wonder you like Greenwald so much.
James in WA
@eemom:
I long since addressed your point of motivations. I asked, “who cares?” As in, why does it matter what motivations someone has, if they make a point and make a good defense of it?
You could have ignored NonyNony’s insults and addressed his/her substance, e.g. that Greenwald “writes about civil liberties issues and calls out bullshit when he sees it” and that that’s a useful thing, but instead you did all that hand-waving about “motivations,” which I will say again don’t matter.
Yeah, yeah, I get it, I’m an Elitist bastard, right? I guess this is your way of saying that you’re going to take your ball and go home now, because you’re Tuning Me Out™. That’s a shame, because I find you to be a rich source of quotes. The appropriate one here is:
oh nooooes! break my fuckin heart, why dontcha
eemom
I like that one too. Kind of sums up my overall response to the disapproval of the likes of you.
NB, however, there’s a difference between pompous and elitist, with which I suggest you acquaint yourself.
Sheila
How do you define “left”? Most of my friends are fairly far left and none of them hate Obama, though most of us deplore our government in general and the American mindset that enables it. Much of the African-American community is far to the left, but are savvier about what can and can’t be done within the government, probably due to the fact that they have been oppressed, with the tacit or otherwise consent of the government, through most of their history here. The frustrati that hate Obama would most likely hate anyone in his place, as no one could satisfy their demands and because their political “passion” is more about their own temperaments than it is about the issues. The blogosphere is not a microcosm of the real world. It encourages anger, narcissism, arrogance and rudeness that would be tempered in face-to-face situations. The leftists I know belong to organizations that actually do real work in the real world, in local Democratic cells, in local elections, in non-profit organizations, in jobs that deal heavily with the poor and disenfranchised in our culture. These things always involve compromise. They have no leisure to sit around behind a computer and talk about what they would do when they ruled the world, which, of course, the frustrati will never do since this would entail engaging with real people and all their nuances.
lenn23
@eemom: I’ve just seen this straw man thing pop up a lot recently. I really don’t know why. Has this become popularized in the past few years?
eemom
@Sheila:
Wow.
“We interrupt this stupid flame war to bring you the following intelligent and perfectly stated comment.”
And I luuuurv that “frustrati.”
I hope you will come around here more often.
eemom
@lenn23:
yeah, it’s one of those tired old images that might once have been clever but has been worn to rags by overuse among deep thinkers like James from WA.
Another one is “kabuki.” GOD but I am sick of that.
Bruce (formerly Steve S.)
@lol:
@lenn23:
Why yes, the ad hominem and strawman concepts were recently introduced by Firebaggers using the platform of the Great Orange Satan for the purpose of stifling the freedom of expression of Balloon Juice‘s intrepid truth-tellers. Bastards.
And thank you for updating us on the state of America’s education system.
James in WA
@eemom:
Actually, it’s a well known logical fallacy used in rhetoric by people who are often otherwise unable to debate their arguments using straightforward propositional logic, just like the ad hominem fallacy, neither of which were invented or even made popular by readers of the GOS, but both of which have been known and recognized by debaters and philosophers for, you know, centuries.
How’s that for pompous?
eemom
impressive.
To quote the drill sergeant from Full Metal Jacket, I think we’ve finally found something you’re good at, Private Pyle.
lenn23
@Bruce (formerly Steve S.): You’re welcome…. I think.
The Raven
(deleted by author)
Croak!
James in WA
@eemom: You know, given that quote, it’s easy to think of our “debate” (and I use that term very loosely) here as a metaphor for Private Pyle versus drill sergeant. Which makes you the drill sergeant. Which is a bizarre analogy to make, given how the relationship between those two ended.
Although I’ve been reading some BJ archives tonight, and I must say that your approach of personally attacking anyone who disagrees with you to be bizarre in and of itself. My day job involves constant peer review, prima donnas, and self-important assholes in the back of the room at a conference presentation who ask certain kinds of questions just to be assholes. So I’m pretty accustomed to this approach to debating. This is why I’m very familiar with fallacious arguments.
I’m very willing to be convinced. Just do it with logic, not with fallacy or appeal to authority. Nothing that you said today convinced me of anything. I went to the archives to try to find your views on Greenwald and Hamsher, and because I’m a lazy, pompous, arrogant son of a bitch who needed the time to make dinner for his absent partner who will return home soon, I didn’t get far enough to find out. So in the future, when you state that some proposition (say, “I dislike Greenwald for a reason,” for example), throw me a bone and give me a link that represents your views without you having to reiterate them.
This whole “flame war,” as you put it (I love that term and I truly miss the active days of alt.flame) unfolded because you refused to be a serious person and just do that. From what I can see, you wanted to generate some lolz with your initial post, and when that backfired you took refuge behind the siege walls and fired back.
Look, I understand you taking offense at NonyNony’s rhetorical style. Calling people stupid and saying that their arguments are bullshit are offensive approaches that are usually bound to elicit a response. But, for one, that’s your own favored approach (I’m an “idiot,” remember?) often from the get-go, and for another, your arguments never really went to the substance of why Greenwald or Hamsher are so wrong (which you implied by calling them the “useless tea-baggers of the left,” or somesuch). I know, you said that you’ve said it in the past. Ref: throw me a bone in the future.
Finally. I actually disagree with Greenwald a lot now: he has turned into a demagogue in some ways, and I cannot be convinced by that. And Hamsher’s descent into the crazy has been well documented. That does not mean that they do not both make pertinent and relevant points on occasion, however. Greenwald more than Hamsher these days, but 12 of one, dozen of the other.
None of that excuses your sloppy thinking and rhetoric. If your goal is to be an asshole and piss people off — then, well, cool, I can understand that. If you want to change minds, though, then it’s not working.
eemom
@James in WA:
I don’t have any interest in changing tiny little minds like yours, dude.
But if you want a good response to the real subject we started off with here, and not another one of your tedious intellectual pissing contests, go read Sheila’s comment above. She said it right.
Just Some Fuckhead
@Bruce (formerly Steve S.): lolz
James in WA
@eemom: With that, you’ve pretty much convinced me what your problem is.
Although I am not a medical doctor, I recommend that you seek psychological help.
That being said, despite the fact that you think that I have a “tiny mind” and that you have no desire to change it, I remain open to logical persuasion. Lay out some facts, or even give me a pointer to where you did it in the past, about why Greenwald is so bad, and I will give them real consideration. (Hint: I have my own opinions about why Greenwald is a demagogue, in my opinion. I’m willing to have yours match mine to some degree, and to say “yup, you’re right.”) Call me a “tiny mind” and accuse me of taking part in “tedious intellectual pissing contests” and I’ll shrug and write your comment off as not worth consideration beyond this kind of public dismissal.
Overall, eemom, my opinion of you is dropping. I know that your opinion of me started in the cellar, so it probably remains there, and you couldn’t give a shit what I think. But you ought to, because people like me represent the thinking middle when it comes to the political spectrum. And I have asked you several times to just make some fucking sense, and all you’ve got for me are ad hominems and kneejerk reaction. I’ve looked through the archives a bit and see that people like Phil are agreeing with you and your positions, and that the bulk of what you do is insult and denigrate. That’s not what I would call a good record.
You strike me as being very much like an undergraduate like those that I used to teach who would arrive in class with well established positions that they couldn’t defend even on the first day — the same kids who by the end of their education were shining examples to the Right of how higher education “brainwashes” them. Only in your case, you’ve espoused a set of beliefs that are more or less in conformance with liberal/progressive beliefs, but just a bit different.
Good luck to you. I won’t bother to debate you in the future, although if you make a cogent point here I will defend you — a situation that I consider to be highly unlikely at this stage.
Pompously yours,
~J
handy
I hate Obama from the left, too! Can I get my
hippie punchpony now?chaseyourtail
A lot of people on the left are vindictive babies. Many are bitter Boomers that never really grew up. Obama won’t do their bidding and that makes them really mad!!! There is also, imo, some jealousy with respect to the fact the Obama is probably younger and a lot better looking than most of the people who hate him. He won’t give into the left’s demands and that makes them feel irrelevant and powerless. Much of the angry rhetoric directed at Obama is about how they will make him pay by sitting out crucial elections. In the psyche of the loser left, it’s all about making Obama pay, imo.
eemom
@James in WA:
Oh, dear me. Ouch.
I am wounded — mortally wounded, I tell you, by your brilliant assessment of my intelligence, character, and argumentative skills. Sad to say, I’ve accomplished nothing in my 47+ years of life that would cause anyone to question the accuracy of your conclusions.
But please…….don’t waste any more of YOUR considerable talents commenting on blogs. There’s a lot of opportunity out there for those who excel in diagnosing the maladies of unknown people at great distances. Ask Bill Frist.
Now go away, and let me lapse into my vegetative stupor in peace.
James in WA
@eemom: Yup, you’re right — I have no expertise medically or psychologically, which is why I admitted as much. I still think that you need therapy. That’s just my opinion. So you can rightfully equate me with Bill Frist in that case.
I don’t believe that I said anything definitive about your character. In this debate you’ve acted like a child, but that’s not uncommon and I don’t think that it speaks to your character in general. Insofar as debate goes (or as you say, “argumentative skills”), you’re not even up to the level of a high school freshman who has taken a debate class. You don’t understand even the basics: you think that unqualified opinion is equal to principled debate. That’s about the only definitive thing that you can accuse me of saying.
So let me add to the list of what you can accuse. Here’s what I think: I think that you’re ignorant and that you react emotionally. Neither of those things are barriers to effective debate. But if that’s all that you’ve got, then they definitely are. You need to come up with some substance and some real logic to back it up, not just how you feel.
I say again: I have yet to actually see some kind of substantive argument out of you other than “go away,” “fuck off,” and “I’ve said this before so I’m no going to say it again.” To put it simply, eemom, your arguments are those of a fucking idiot. Tell me why I shouldn’t consider you to be one. I’ve asked you relatively nicely several times now, and you keep resorting to ad hominems. Now we’ve gone beyond that. Tell me why I shouldn’t treat you in the future as an ignoramus. You’ve proven that you don’t even understand the basic elements of debate, and you’ve refused to answer my reasonable requests for clarification.
So, you know, fuck whatever you think. You have no clue. You have no authority. You have no basis for argument, you have no standing. You’re just an uneducated 47+-year-old dipshit with a keyboard and a mind full of expletives for anyone who refutes your bullshit. Welcome to the Internet.
I’ve given you more than enough even chances to convince me of whatever the fuck it is that you’re trying to say. You don’t care, so I don’t care. So fuck you. In the future I am going to be predisposed to be less than amenable to your arguments, simply because you’ve shown yourself to be SUCH a doofus when it comes to debate. But you probably don’t care, you’re probably happy in your little world.
Think about this, eemom: those idiots you hate so much: you ARE them.
eemom
OMG. He just can’t quit me.
You’re the one who needs help, fella.
eemom
oh, and just one teeny tiny little clarification: I do have a keyboard, but I’m not uneducated. I have a B.A. from Yale and a J.D. from Duke. I’ve practiced law for 23 years, among people who would be very surprised to hear what a doofus I am in matters of argumentation.
Next?
General Stuck
@eemom: This has been one of the weirdest threads, in a series of weird threads that I can recall. All because of what, some snarkish theory you gave. I mean, I get into flame wars with these precious bitty’s all the time, but there is usually some substance behind it.
The butt hurt whining of “smearing good progressive” turns my stomach from people who wank daily on how Obama and other dems aren’t tough enough, or angry enough, or confrontational enough. But when somebody says boo, out come the fainting hankies. And criticism of their charges on Obama and positions in general is off limits under pain of not respecting prog heroes like GG, a nobody blogger who is by any account a glibertarian nutjob that regularly goes on teevee and announces himself a spokesman for progressives.
It is embarrassing to even consider being on “the same side” with these cupcake warriors.
eemom
@General Stuck:
yeah. It has been kind of the proverbial Seinfeld “about nothing” thread, hasn’t it?
And it has been weird, seeing this WA guy come increasingly unglued.
General Stuck
@eemom: You apparently insulted the grand poobah. Unpardonable in what increasingly seems like some kind of cult of personality that is not to be questioned, and certainly not mocked. Creepy.
James in WA
@General Stuck: You didn’t pipe up much for one of “the weirdest threads that (you) can recall.”
Eemom got called out on her bullshit and failed to defend it. That’s basically the summary, right there. She’s pretty sad for a duke JD, if in fact she really holds those credentials, which I question, given her performance in this relatively innocuous forum.
Karen
@NonyNony:
If that’s the case then why was Jane in bed with Grover Nordquist? Why did one of their own, Philip Berg, start the whole Birthder mess?
Why do the PUMAs say that they want the Republicans to take over because that will motivate the left?
Tell me why and I’ll admit I’m wrong. But right now it looks like you are.
chaseyourtail
@Karen: Precisely.
chaseyourtail
@Mnemosyne: Excellent point.
chaseyourtail
@Karen:
Precisely.
General Stuck
@James in WA: Don’t think so dude. Your comments in this thread sounds like someone having a complete nervous breakdown over nothing.
AuldBlackJack
@ AlexFoley
Welcome to America.
Your daughter like my ‘stank’ just fine.