Let’s just say that I heartily disagree with Glenn’s latest post about the WH and the Chamber of Commerce. Glenn apparently is still fighting the Dean battles of years gone by, and seems incapable of separating Robert Gibbs, the man, and Robert Gibbs, the official spokesperson for the administration, who, in his current role, isn’t hypocritical at all for advancing this line of attack. That’s his job description, for chrissakes.
But overall, I remain surprised how ingrained it is that the White House and Democrats are just supposed to sit around and get beat on, and if they fight back, they are out of bounds. When they point out that Rush Limbaugh is the spokesman of the GOP and they are all insane like him, Peter Daou and numerous others lose their shit. When they point out that it would be horrible if Democrats listened to the non-stop drumbeat of negativity of the “Professional Left” and sit out the election, people freak out. When they point out that there were actually a lot of positive pieces of legislation passed the past year, the same crowd freaks out and says “Yeah, but what about…” When they point out that Fox News isn’t a news organization but the PR wing of the GOP, the beltway boys freak out. When they point out that the Matthew Shepard Act as well as any number of other positive gay friendly legislation was passed, they are met with screaming about DADT (which, btw, near every Democrat supported). And now, when they point out that the Chamber of Commerce and Republicans are hiding who is funding them, they are accused of “McCarthyite innuendo.”
I have no idea why anyone would want to be President, and I have no clue why anyone would want to be a Democratic President. It isn’t just the GOP and the media making up special rules for the Democrats, it is everyone. At this point, if Obama were to come to a podium in 2011 and say “Fuck you all, Hillary can have this job, figure 2012 out on your own, you ass clowns” my only response would be “Right on” and then to offer him a beer.
But it would have to be a faggy microbrew, because that’s how us Kenyan Muslim Socialists (who aren’t allowed to engage in politics while the other people beat the fuck out of us) like to roll these days.
eemom
no hat tip? : (
John Cole
@eemom: Hunh?
eemom
@John Cole:
nothin’
Crusty Dem
WTF Cole?
steviez314
Being a Democrat is just hurting too much.
I think I’m just going to slip into that cilice and flagellate myself with a good cat-o-nine-tails for some relief.
John Cole
@Crusty Dem: Real Americans drink Bud Lite Lime. Only us limp-wristed elites drink microbrews.
taylormattd
Amen. Well, for the most part.
Cue the following: (1) snide, angry FDL/Greenwalders complaining about hippy-punching, being thrown under the bus, being put in a veal pen, being slapped in the face, having the football pulled away, being sick of cultist Obamabots; and (2) “concerned” people from, let’s say Talk Left, expressing detached confusion as to why you feel the need to start a flame war.
Redshirt
Because the grounds are being lain for a one party system – the Oligarchs just need enough people on board. I’d say they’ve made spectacular progress in the past 30 years in redefining what it means to be an American – that is, a person willing to defend fascism in the name of freedom.
Earl Butz
When Joe Wilson screams “you lie” during the SOTU speech and meets with overwhelming support, and then Alan Grayson says, quite correctly, that the GOP’s health plan amounts to “die quickly” and the nation clutches their pearls until they are crushed to dust, you know that the playing field isn’t level.
Forget the presidency. I don’t know why anyone would want to be a Democratic politician anymore. Look at Pelosi. Probably the best Speaker of the House since Rayburn, and she whips the caucus into vote after successful vote, only to get no credit and most of the blame when it dies in that chamber of comity, goodwill, and blind Republican obstructionism, the Senate.
Bruce (formerly Steve S.)
You and Glenn aren’t necessarily in disagreement, you’re approaching the same facts from different angles. You say that Dems need to fight back. Glenn says fine but don’t be surprised when someone points out the hypocrisy. I don’t think either approach can be easily pigeonholed as the “right” or “wrong” one in isolation from the bigger picture, it’s more a statement about where each of you are coming from.
Berto
I agree a little bit with John. The problem isn’t Obama, it’s Democrats. The question John leaves unanswered, is why should we support Democrats if they are the problem–not the solution?
Also, checkout the Democrats Obama is supporting. John doesn’t do a very good job explaining why Obama would support Dems who don’t support his own agenda. Because John doesn’t do so, voters are left wondering what Obama’s real agenda is. I can see why someone looking at these circumstances gets the impression Obama is not part of the solution.
Kerry Reid
I think Obama should just say “You guys are right. I suck. So I’m not running for re-election. I’m going to move to Switzerland, make mountains of money off my books and speaking engagements, and enjoy living someplace beautiful and devoid of grievance-mongering idiots with the attention spans of mayflies who slept through U.S. history and civics but are still butt-hurt that I don’t pay enough attention to the surefire formulas for success they keep pounding out on their shitty little blogs. Call me in four to six years and let me know how the ponies are doing in your New Progressive Wonderland.”
Violet
@Redshirt:
Yep. We’ve always been at war with Eastasia.
morzer
Strictly speaking, it would have to be an arugula-based microbrew, accompanied by a summit with whoever the right-wing victim of the week may be. Doubtless Sharia Soup would be the opening gambit for the meal to follow.
david mizner
Nowhere does he say Dems shouldn’t use this. He says they shouldn’t use this w/o evidence and that Gibbs is a hypocritcal pig. Hard to disagree on both counts.
Of course it’s easy for you to put the Dean-Kerry battle behind you. You were supporting W at the time.
Citizen Alan
BTW, to my very great surprise, Bill Clinton is coming to Oxford, Mississippi, tomorrow to stump with Travis Childers, who, I am informed, is ambivalent about whether he will vote for Nancy Pelosi as House Democratic Leader should he be reelected next month. Make of that what you will.
The Grand Panjandrum
Simple Answer: Four years of never being stuck in a traffic jam. At least that seems to be the only benefit I can discern.
soonergrunt
Tell it, Brother Cole! I am so sick and tired of that shit.
CB
I have no idea why anyone would want to be President, and I have no clue why anyone would want to be a Democratic President. It isn’t just the GOP and the media making up special rules for the Democrats, it is everyone. At this point, if Obama were to come to a podium in 2011 and say “Fuck you all, Hillary can have this job, figure 2012 out on your own, you ass clowns” my only response would be “Right on” and then to offer him a beer.
—
john cole FTW
Remember November
@John Cole:
Like Sam Adams Black Lager?
or izzat ray-cyst?
lol.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Did Peter Daou really take up the defense of Rush Limbaugh? Good lord. I like the Clintons, Hillary more than Bill, but I will never understand what he/they ever did to earn such blind, passionate loyalty.
soonergrunt
@Citizen Alan: I make that Mr. Childers apparently can’t tell the difference between Nancy Pelosi, who has been one of the more effective Democratic Leaders and Speakers of my lifetime with Harry Reid, one of the most dithering, ineffective Democratic Leaders/Majority Leaders of the Senate of my lifetime.
david mizner
Apparently proof has now emerged courtesy of Think Progress, so that’s good. Gibbs is still a hypcritical pig, though.
John Cole
Since they won’t release their donor lists, I guess we’ll just ignore it then! Thanks for the rules!
J.W. Hamner
I think we need to start a seven degrees of Howard Dean. It seems like 99% of progressive arguments about how much Obama sucks relates to something mean somebody did to Howard Dean once.
Cacti
@david mizner:
There was no battle.
When the votes were cast, Dean got squashed like a gnat, and it pissed the Deaniacs off something terrible.
jl
I think that the foreign funding issue is worth bringing up if it is used as an opening to discuss problem of secret funding generally, whether from domestic or foreign sources.
If the foreign funding is used as a cheap partisan ‘gotcha’, then I don’t think it will be very effective, and won’t last beyond a news cycle or too.
As for endless and petty intra Democratic sniping, well, Taibbi didn’t mention that the Tea Peoples do not have a monopoly on self righteous narcissism.
Self righteous narcissism and its twin, helpless cynical nihilism, are a long standing US, and perhaps popular democratic system (since Athens), tradition. Cole needs to get used to it.
Compared to the Democratic version, hard headed goal motivated narcissism and ‘git er done’ cynicism are more effective at getting something done, as the GOP and corporations have demonstrated.
There are probably other approaches to politics, but I can’t think of them right now.
Hunter Gathers
I wonder how many Dems will throw a shit-fit when the WH fights back against the impeachment charges that will be filed in January? Greenwald will probably lead the charge, claiming that that mean old Obama deserves to get booted out of office, for not delivering single-payer health care pooping unicorns.
Perhaps the the left won’t be satisfied until President Palin decides to nuke Russia. And Obama will get blamed for that, too, for not being ‘progressive’ enough.
White people on BOTH sides have gone completely ape-shit.
John Cole
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Not defend, just went on an epic concern troll bender.
sherifffruitfly
Always remember – criticizing “true progressives” means you’re a “hippie puncher”.
Just like any criticism of Israel means you’re anti-Semitic.
socraticsilence
@Bruce (formerly Steve S.):
The problem is that Glenn seems to spend far, far more time pointing out that “hypocrisy” than in anyway actually pointing out good stuff Obama’s done- which is his choice but to pretend as some do that Greenwald is anything other than a malcontent whose ideals while high minded are way, way out of touch with the vast majority of Americans- that if Obama did what Greenwald wants him to do it wouldn’t basically result in impeachment is a bit much.
Mnemosyne
As we all found out during Gatesgate, Obama has unfortunately developed the terrible taste in beer that’s natural to Chicagoans and would ask you for a Budweiser. Possibly even a Bud Light.
Cat
troll be trollin’.
pretty good execution too!
1) Link to divisive ‘professional left’ pundit/whatever.
2) Rail about how your favorite politician/cause is victimized by the “Other”.
3) A little speculative fiction showing how noble/self sacrificing said politician/followers are because they don’t behave that way.
4) Closed off with a little self caricature to try and distance OP from said caricature.
Nicely done. Even the Russian judges would give it a 9.8.
gene108
I’d amend the fuck you, let Hillary have job to: Fuck you, let Sarah Palin and her pack of Mama Grizzlies Git ‘r’ Dun…
socraticsilence
@Cacti:
Which you know I don’t get- I mean was Dean a good canidate- yeah I thought so- but he lost and lost badly in the primaries so why exactly is that not on Dean himself. Remember even before the “scream” thing the media blew out of control Dean had basically burned himself out in Iowa.
norbizness
I still maintain that the GOP strategy in the aughts was to shit the bed so aggressively that any level of unshitting in the short-term would be nearly impossible.
Of course, about 60% of this is the intensity of the bed-shitting, and another 40% is premised on the fragility of the coalition, such as it is, that seeks to keep the GOP from further bed-shitting escapades.
MikeJ
@Kerry Reid:
Haven’t actually been to Switzerland, huh?
Steve
I am outraged that Democrats are complaining about the Chamber of Commerce instead of focusing on the real scandal, the fact that the White House Press Secretary does nothing but spout the administration line.
Trinity
Amen Cole!
I lift my Dogfish Head Palo Santo Marron in your general direction.
Martin
@The Grand Panjandrum: Clinton got his wang mouth-afied by the intern. That was a benefit for a few weeks at least.
He can go on Colbert pretty much whenever he wants. Not so shabby.
That’s about all I have. Imagine that Meg Whitman so far has paid $141M of her own money to try and be governor, and she’ll probably fail to do so. There’s got to be something in it that we’re not seeing.
Chyron HR
@david mizner:
HOLY SHIT! John Cole used to be a Republican?! Has the professional left been notified of this shocking discovery?!
BR
I was thinking the same thing this morning.
And next up is Banking Meltdown, Part 2: The Revenge of the Squid.
With all the crap on Obama’s plate and a wholly uncooperative senate and a childish media, I really do wonder why he’d want to run for re-election.
morzer
Bugger Dean and bugger Kerry, and bugger the fools who want to keep going on with this particular circle-jerk. Both would have been bad candidates, although only one got the chance to prove it. As for the good doctor, his recent forays into placating the teabaggers don’t show much spine or savvy. Right now we have a president doing his best, despite being handed a pile of crap to work with a Democratic party that seems in permanent self-castrating internal bitch-fight mode. No, Obama isn’t perfect – but he’s a damn sight better than any alternative among the Dems or the GOP. And no, Clinton is NOT an alternative, unless you are a) a PUMA b) blinded by years of O’Donnelling c) determined to ignore the facts jumping up and down in front of you and shouting in your ear.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
The Dean/Kerry battle? Jesus H. Christ on a jumped up sidecar.
I’ve noticed that there’s a high correlation between Deaniacs and PUMAs. Did any of them notice that the Clintons tried to throw Dean under the bus (used more advisedly than I can tell you) and replace him with Harold Ford?
Crusty Dem
@John Cole:
Yeah, I know that’s what all the wingers were trying to say about the “beer summit” (I hate myself for remembering that, along with the beers selected by all participants), just not exactly the wording I’d use, particularly in a post starting with the Glennster.
FWIW, I wonder if any of Glenn’s concerns might be related to previous criticism tossed his way for being an ex-pat discussing American politics (don’t know if he’s still an ex-pat, just wondering if he might be more sensitive to xeno-fearmongering than most)..
Nick
Clearly, Obama should use the bully pulpit. If he did, his base would back him up for sure!
david mizner
@John Cole:
Ignore it? No. Attack them for not releasing their donor lists–for their lack of transparency.
Personally, I’m not all that opposed to the White House throwing out unsubstantiated allegations — politics ain’t beanbag — but it’s hardly kooky for GG to think otherwise. Anyway, it’d be good if you represented your friend Glenn’s arguments accurately.
comrade scott's agenda of rage
@soonergrunt:
Fixed.
Agreed on Pelosi, he and Obama have made a great team, too bad the Senate’s FUBRed.
John Cole
Apparently I am public enemy number one for using the word “faggy.” Apparently that is an attack on homosexuals, rather than pointing out that the GOP has spent the last decade (and more) verbally assaulting and attempting to smear Democrats as being effete French ivory tower east coast liberals. Because the attacks over Obama’s choice in mustard, beer, and lettuce never happened, and no one ever made fun of John Kerry for windsurfing and on and on.
Bruce (formerly Steve S.)
Carter and Clinton have done pretty much everything they wanted to do in life post-presidency. They are elder statesmen, they’re doing work in all corners of the globe that they say is important to them, and they’re rolling in dough (at least Clinton is, not sure how much Carter is worth). That’s probably what they had in mind when they first entered politics.
meh
sometimes I really wish you would sack up and run for office – if for no other reason than it would be refreshing to give money to a candidate that I didn’t feel was looking at me like I was a fucking sucker.
Nick
@david mizner:
oh please, now the resident firebagger is going to tell us there’s no “evidence?”
Cacti
@Steve:
I mean sure, in our first post-Citizens United election, corporate front groups might be hiding unlawful foreign donations that fund their issue advocacy, but on the other hand…
Robert Gibbs is a big meanie.
Does the professional left realize how infantile they sound?
Phoenix Woman
@david mizner:
And Mister Greenwald has seen that proof and admits that it’s real, as I mentioned back in the last thread before it got shut down by a religious debate: https://balloon-juice.com/2010/10/13/a-curious-cocktail-of-inbreeding-and-type-ii-diabetes/#comment-2112605
Phoenix Woman
@david mizner:
Yup, and Mister Greenwald has seen that proof and admits that it’s real, as I mentioned back in the last thread before it got shut down by a religious debate: https://balloon-juice.com/2010/10/13/a-curious-cocktail-of-inbreeding-and-type-ii-diabetes/#comment-2112605@morzer:
General Stuck
No, you are wrong. per usual with GG. What he is fighting is Obama. full stop. period. The larger sense, he is fighting with government authority when you get past the personal, and it would likely be the same for any presnit, dem or repub, black or white. But has been willing to sell out whatever integrity he gained under Bush, to prove by polemics that obama is just as bad or worse. Using the worst kind of misinformation, exageration as his weapon. Because he is a libertarian oriented left, and the mission is to be rid of whatever dem doesn’t kow tow to his utopian vision of powerless leadership. So Obama must go, and so will the next dem presnit that doesn’t measure up.
He is a core libertarian, fooled by the prospect of having a stable country without centralized power to a significant degree and now has conflated and confused the obvious lawlessness of Bush, onto Obama for purely ideological reasons. This is a good example of the feeding frenzy his bullshit is designed for from the left, with this ignorant bashing the WH over the CoC.. He does not at this point in time care so much about civil liberties, than doing what he can to run Obama out of the WH, via scorched earth criticism from Obama’s own side. Facts and perspective be damned. It is a shame for someone so talented and smart.
I like Taibbi though, even if I disagree with him at times. He does not carry the hidden ideological baggage that GG does.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Bruce (formerly Steve S.): (at least Clinton is, not sure how much Carter is worth)
I like Clinton, and I see Carter’s flaws, but Bubba likes him some high life, I think money is more important to him than to Carter who, it should be noted, was a millionaire in 1976, when a million dollars could buy ya something.
Kerry Reid
@MikeJ: Heh. Good one! Maybe Italy, then. I’m sure Clooney could give the Obamas some leads on lovely Lake Como villas.
jc
Obama is a constitutional law professor, not some Bush/Cheney hack.
When he argues that he can kill an American Citizen without a trial and that it’s so secret a court can’t know, the only fucking person you can blame is the president.
It’s beyond the pale and this ludicrous fallacy that everyone attacks him for shit he can’t control explains exactly why you think the first George Bush was honorable.
Your an admitted former conservative fucking tool with a brain you only opened up to outside ideas as an old man.
Your fucking old habits die hard.
comrade scott's agenda of rage
@norbizness:
That would be Norquist’s drowning analogy. The fact they did it by looting the Treasury was simply a fringe benefit as far as they were concerned.
It’s gonna take decades to clean up this mess, assuming we even get that amount of time. This demographic tsunamai we Dems are supposed to expect better wash ashore pretty quick.
And John, I got the context of “faggy”. Sheesh people, ,how many times do we use phrases from the right about “persons of color” and correctly understand how it’s being used without taking umbrage at its usage?
cleek
@Berto:
more Dems = control of the legislature
QED
taylormattd
@Chyron HR: Diehard supporter of Iraq War co-sponsor John Edwards, david mizner, is deeply offended by people who supported the invasion of Iraq.
Ben
Greenwald suffers from the same syndrome as too many Democrats: the belief that progress can only be made by political virgins through steps which are unalloyed by political calculation and horse-trading. It’s naivete masquerading as high-mindedness.
Am I outraged that Robert Gibbs played a role in some nefarious primary attack ad? Actually, it makes me respect Obama more for choosing him.
As the first Mayor Daley remarked: Politics ain’t tiddlywinks.
And to quote a fictional Chicagoan, Jimmy Malone in The Untouchables, “They pull a knife, you pull a gun. He sends one of yours to the hospital, you send one of his to the morgue.”
JoePo
@socraticsilence: You’re going to have to unpack the impeachment claim a bit. What prescriptive advice that Greenwald has written would result in impeachment? And frankly, the people who want to impeach Obama don’t need an excuse, they just need a Republican majority.
John Cole
@jc: It’s almost as if you have missed every post I’ve made screaming about that.
david mizner
@Chyron HR:
There’s nothing wrong with Republicans becoming Dems — that’s what we want them to do. Even better, Cole has gone from a war-mongerer to a critic of American imperialism. At this rate, he’ll be to the left of Chomsky by next year, and I mean that as a complement.
Still, it’s funny to see him chastise a long-time progressive for being pissed about the way Kerry trashed Dean. If his views were then what they are now, he’d understand.
Martin
@John Cole: Yes, you’re a bigot and have been secretly leading on gays with your fake positions on gay rights in order to drive up pageviews. How many gays did you out while you were in the military, Cole? If you really cared, you would have forced the end to DADT from the inside. I bet you even listen to country music at home.
For shame.
Tom Hilton
The Onion had it exactly right nearly two years ago.
And @david mizner: If Glenn Greenwald ever correctly represented someone else’s arguments, even once, then and only then would I worry at all about whether somebody else was misrepresenting Greenwald’s.
JimF
No he lives in Rochester, it would have to be a Rohrbachs.
http://www.rohrbachs.com/rohrbachs_menu.asp
I’d recommend the Scotch Ale.
You can even pick it up at the bigger Wegmans.
lol
@Cacti:
And then the people that helped Kerry win Iowa (and helped Edwards surprise in second) went to work for Obama four years later and pretty much executed the same game plan against Clinton and Edwards.
Tax Analyst
@Kerry Reid:
Pamela F
@david mizner: OMG
avid mizner. You always show up like the proverbial bad penny. Is there no lows to where you won’t go in your pursuit of ideology?
BR
@comrade scott’s agenda of rage:
Which really makes me wonder if in the bigger picture we’d be better off if TARP hadn’t passed. Some big banks would have gone under, we’d have seen a sharper recession, but it would have enabled more substantive, real reform and cleaned out a lot of crap from the system. Plus instead of the job losses taking a long time to happen so that they’re still trickling, we would have seen a massive hit around the very end of Bush’s term.
Midnight Marauder
@david mizner:
Fine. Gibbs is a hypocrite. Does that makes this statement by him any less accurate in diagnosing this particular situation?
Because we only just discovered who some of these foreign companies are thanks to Think Progress shrugging off the collective disinterest and outrage of the Village and Republicans (and clowns like david mizner) and continuing to fight this battle. We don’t, in fact, know the full extent of what foreign companies are funding the Chamber. We definitely know they have a pro-plutocratic/pro-corporate agenda, but do we specifically know the areas they are looking to receive favorable treatment in thanks to their contributions? We know the Chamber says they have “a system” to prevent foreign funds from being mixed up with domestic funds, but they literally refuse to shed any more light or provide any further information on this system, most likely because it does not exist in any meaningful way.
@Bruce (formerly Steve S.):
Except, of course, that the potential hypocrisy on Gibbs’ part does nothing to mitigate the truth of his statements regarding who is financing the Chambers glut of attack ads. There is no hypocrisy in stating the fact that the Chamber is outright lying about having a system to distinguish from domestic and international funds. They have provided not an ounce of proof of this claim, and somehow, that puts the onus on Think Progress to illustrate that the Chamber is lying.
Fucking outrageous.
sherifffruitfly
“Apparently I am public enemy number one for using the word “faggy.””
@John Cole:
It’s just “true progressives” doing their usual perma-victim, perma-outrage thing. They care little (or not at all) if it’s reality based (that was nothing more than a PR line).
The fact that you were not speaking propia persona, but rather were being satirical was completely, perfectly, 100% clear.
Bruce (formerly Steve S.)
@socraticsilence:
Glenn’s job is to write about things that are important to him, ditto for John and every other writer. Any “problem” that exists is entirely in your own head.
jaleh
John,
I totally agree with you. It pisses me off that no matter what Obama does everyone beats the hell out of him. Howard Fineman, the supposed liberal pundit wrote yesterday for Hoffpost that Obama is no longer popular because he sent Clinton to Kentucky rather going himself. Well, Kentucky voted for Clinton and did not vote for Obama, they don’t appreciate having a Black President. Doesn’t Howard Fineman know that Kentucky is in the South?
lol
@david mizner:
Dean didn’t lose because of some commercial Gibbs helped with. Dean lost because he ran a shitty overhyped campaign that thought blogging was the same thing as organizing.
cleek
@JimF:
aw hell yeah.
Cacti
@Crusty Dem:
Nothing wrong with being an expat, but when you’re going to lob grenades about the lack of progressive politics in the US, it rings a little hollow when you voluntarily spend half your year in a country with a 5 million strong child labor force.
Michael D.
@John Cole:
Only by people who didn’t understand what you meant – that when Obama eats arugula and uses Grey Poupon, he’s a fag in the eyes of people who would even bother to make an issue of something so asinine in the first place.
In Republican/Tea bagger eyes, anyone who’s not drinking Bud Light Lime and eating collards and black eye peas is an “other.” And these days (as in the past), other often means fag.
This fag got your point and agrees with it. :-)
Anyone else is just feigning concern.
taylormattd
@Michael D.: What Mike D. said. This fag also understood.
MikeJ
@BR: Heighten the contradictions! There’s no way *that* could turn out badly!
david mizner
@Midnight Marauder:
I don’t disagree with a thing you said.
Bruce (formerly Steve S.)
@Midnight Marauder:
WHOOOOSH…….
Michael D.
@John Cole:
Oh WAIT!! Now I get it. This is what “concern trolling” means!
Cat
@Crusty Dem:
Based on occasional reading of GG, I believe he’s not an expat by choice. He can’t get married in the US so his partner can’t get citizenship or a fiance VISA so they can’t live in the US.
MikeJ
@Michael D.: What’s wrong with collards and black eyed peas? I’d guess that more people who eat soul food vote Democratic than republican.
Nick
@BR:
What system? There wouldn’t even be a system.
Phoenix Woman
@morzer:
Howard Dean, in addition to keeping Joe Lieberman and Dick Gephardt (the two biggest Democratic roundheels for Bush’s warmongering) away from the 2004 presidential nomination (that alone was worth his run), gave us the fifty-state strategy, which is the idea that the DNC, instead of being starved and essentially subordinate to the corporate-dominated DSCC and D-Trip, should be strong enough to have working organizations in every state in every year, not just in battleground states in election years.
It’s this strategy that enabled the Dems to take advantage of various special-election opportunities. Unfortunately, it was abandoned once the former head of the DCCC was able to install his buddy to replace Dean as DNC Chair.
Michael D.
@MikeJ:
Hmmm, as a Canadian who lives in Atlanta, I guess I hang out with mostly white people and I only ever eat this stuff on New Year’s Eve because it’s supposedly “lucky.” I didn’t know it was soul food. I just thought it was crap every white southerner ate and, therefore, not faggy.
Maybe I should have thrown in something like “Golden Corral” or something. That, I know is mostly white people. At least here.
Sorry. :-)
Cacti
@Phoenix Woman:
Howard Dean, in addition to keeping Joe Lieberman and
And the end result of that strategy was the election of numerous Blue Dogs that the Deanies endlessly carp about.
Bruce (formerly Steve S.)
@John Cole:
OK, so “faggy” is acceptable on BJ. How about “retarded”?
Michael D.
@Bruce (formerly Steve S.):
One more time: Only if you’re describing how Republicans think about anyone who’d be so lame as to eat arugula and Grey Poupon. Are you seriously this retarded? ;-)
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Phoenix Woman:
So the war supporters who would have voted for LIeberman voted for Dean? Or the war opponents would have voted for Lieberman if it weren’t for Dean?
rreay
@JimF:
I’d recomend the Scotch Ale.
And you would be very right to do so.
john b
@Mnemosyne:
i heard his favorite beer was goose island’s 312 — which is a pretty good wheat beer out of chicago.
Linda Featheringill
@John Cole:
“faggy”
You didn’t know?
Wannabe Speechwriter
The problem with Glenn has been the same problem with Glenn from the beginning-he’s obsessed with hypocrisy. Look what his last book was called-Great American Hypocrites. When Republicans were in his cross-hairs, we loved it. Now that it’s Democrats, we don’t like it so much.
However, here is the problem with proving hypocrisy as your main objective. Everyone in politics isn’t consistent. No one has a view they always held regardless of how situations change. There are times when calling someone’s hypocrisy is right-opponents of gay marriage who cheat on their spouses, for example. However, when you’re just obsessed with proving someone a hypocrite, you fail to address the problems with their argument. A “small government” Congressman who pumps tons of federal money into their district doesn’t mean government is good. In fact, those glibritarian types can say “See, that proves how horrible Big Government is! It corrupts even the most honorable of people!” To win an argument, you have to prove you’re correct, not merely the other side is incorrect.
This is my biggest beef with Glenn-not that he has said mean things about Obama and Democrats but because he puts proving his opponents to be liars and hypocrites above advancing a policy agenda. The simple reality is you have to make compromises and back track on campaign promises if you want to govern. Lincoln did it, FDR did it, every leader does it. I think the world is a better place that Lincoln backtracked on his 1860 pledge not to free slaves in slave states and FDR reversed his 1932 pledge to balance the budget. I’d love to see Greenwald attack these Presidents for not fulfilling their campaign promises.
What matters more than proving the right is engaging in hypocrisy is advancing an agenda that proves government policies are beneficial to the public and not detrimental. This cannot be done with a Republican House. People don’t like the influence of money in politics and especially don’t like the influence of foreign money. Pointing out the other side benefits from this could prevent Republicans from taking the House. So, the question has to be asked is it more important to prove Robert Gibbs a hypocrite or to point this out to prevent Republicans from taking the House?
Polar Bear Squares
This type of $#!ttalkin’ (I don’t like the word snark. Sounds full of teh gay) is why I read this site.
I’m over here laughing my oversensitive, entitled, socialist, communist, ACORN-supportive black ass off.
Pretty much that’s the only thing I can do to stop from crying these days.
I never thought the “blame the black guy who just got here” strategy would work so well. But it clearly has. I’m on my second 24-pack of beer. Time to finish the rest, I guess.
joe from Lowell
Whenever there’s an actual fight between the left and the right – an actual fight, not some dorm-room wank-a-thon – Glenn Greenwald can be counted on to open up another front against the left, aka, stab them in the back.
Whether we’re talking about torture, or withdrawing from Iraq, or keeping corporate money out of politics, when the issue moves beyond the stage of talking and there is actually a meaningful contest over what the government will do, Glenn Greenwald can be counted on to attack those leading the left side of the argument as not being good enough to make the case.
This is because Glenn Greenwald is a Protest Person, and the most important thing to Protest People is to confirm their self image as Protest People.
Actually accomplishing anything on the issues they talk about is a distant second, if it comes up at all.
lol
@Phoenix Woman:
Feel free to name 5 things the DNC did under Dean that they’re not doing now because it’s pretty clear that, like most bloggers, you don’t know what you’re talking about.
In fact, you probably don’t even know what the 50 State Strategy actually did in practice let alone what’s not being done now.
I’ll help you get started:
1. The DNC is no longer blindly throwing money at the state parties to hire random party hacks.
Your turn.
NR
@cleek:
Then Obama should have supported Bill Halter in Arkansas, who had a better chance to beat the Republican than Blanche Lincoln does.
valdivia
Amen brother. That is all.
Why can’t the left ONCE get behind a message?
Mike from Philly
“I have no objection at all to the questions Think Progress is raising. I think those are valuable. As I said, nondisclosure is a serious threat. But it’s a different issue entirely for the president to be tossing accusations and innuendo at private actors that he doesn’t know are true and then demanding that they disclose evidence to disprove it, and it’s another thing entirely for Robert Gibbs, who did exactly the same thing on behalf of a Democratic Party advocacy group, to be righteously condemning this behavior.”
I’m sorry, what is it about this statement that is incorrect again?
One could easily turn your logic on its head. DFH’s have to basically just sit there and take it while pathetic worms like Gibbs tell them they need to be drug tested for thinking that anything that Obama said to get elected would actually take place, but they can’t point out when the same little smirking asshole gets caught in a hypocritical lie.
But then I guess we’re not benefitting the party machine, so punch away.
bayville
Sniff. Sniff.
Poor guy. Why o’ why has everyone let Mr. Obama down?
Kyle
To contradict what someone said earlier, I don’t necessarily think the Democrats are the problem either. As much as everyone wants to dump on Dems for a number of reasons, some good and some bad, I think the Democratic party is largely acting the way one would hope and expect a major political party in a nation of over three hundred million people to act. That is, they seem to do the best they can at representing their constituents responsibly while at the same time at least trying to adhere to an admittedly loose set of governing principles.
Okay, everyone snigger and accuse me of water carrying or shilling or what have you, but when you take the whole lump sum of the past two years, that’s really the best description I have for it. In general the Democratically controlled government has attempted to foment a governing philosophy that believes government can and should play an active role in bettering people’s lives. From providing affordable healthcare to thirty million previously uncovered people, to increasing the role that government plays as a referee in the increasingly loose and perilous financial markets. But Democrats have not unleashed a liberal paradise partly because of political realities such as the restrictive rules of the Senate, and partially because they do have their own constituents to answer to, and something that more activists would do well to note is that an Alabama Democrat is a very different animal compared to a New York Democrat.
Despite all the craziness of the past two years, I’m fairly unique in that I’m generally satisfied with what the Democrats have done. I don’t need riders on my praise of their accomplishments because I don’t think they are warranted. The Healthcare Bill does a lot of good, so I don’t see the necessity to say, “Yeah, it’s an improvement, but…” or the oft repeated, “It’s not perfect but…” Considering all of the obstacles that have been in the way, and the fact that each Democratic congressperson has to represent all of their constituents and not just the really really liberal ones, I think they have done well to represent their constituents responsibly while at the same time pushing through some really good legislation against often times terrible odds.
Republicans, on the other hand, have been representing the angriest of their constituents irresponsibly, feeding off of the anger that anyone would expect with the economy struggling as it has continued to do so. Had the past two years been about a great debate trying to tackle major issues from different angles, we would, I think be in a different and better place, but instead it has been about Democrats trying their hardest to fix problems with the tools and restrictions they have, while Republicans have been throwing eggs, and sabotaging the work while pointing fingers the whole time.
But the real problem, I think, is ideology. It’s what’s getting in the way. We’re clutching onto our ideology so much that it blinds us to political realities, or, just reality in general. It’s this mentality that has taken hold in too many people that anything outside one’s ideological boundaries is inherently evil and wrong, and you see it in the frantic cheetoh dusted keyboard banging of birthers and the unintentionally ironic medicare enlisted Tea Partiers. But you also see it in the Firebaggers and everyone that nodded their head when Ed Schultz righteously declared he’s not voting during the midterms. And perhaps the worst thing about ideology is that I don’t think most of the people in this country are particularly ideological at all. But I do think that in times of unrest they get caught up in the ugliest and most destructive aspects of ideological fervor (GZM, Arizona’s “Paper’s Please”, or if those aren’t good enough examples for you, how about the fact that way too many people are way too eager to put in charge the same people and same governing philosophy that almost broke this country, only now expect them to fix it).
I don’t know. The ideological purity on the left really doesn’t sit well with me. Which I find particularly funny seeing as how a lot of these more liberal than thou commentators are the same folks who mocked the GOPs many official and unofficial purity tests. Look, I’m generally a liberal guy, but I’m an idiot, and I don’t trust that what I believe or even know to be true can’t in the long run be proven wrong. I really don’t trust anyone that DOESN’T have at least that most basic level of modesty and self doubt. In the end, I think ideological purity is doing more harm than good on any side of the aisle. For the liberal blogosphere, I think they blew it pretty big over the past two years. Liberals love to prove how anti-establishment they are and how much more liberal they are than anyone else, but the truth is, while most of these people aren’t significant enough to be considered even minor factors in the disaster that is coming, many of them from AmericaBlog to FDL have lost their chance to make a positive impact this election in favor of feeding the angriest, darkest aspects of the left’s base for their own gain.
It’s a pity, too, because all I was really hoping for when I voted for Obama two years ago was that the adults would finally be in charge again. Well, maybe they were, but the children continued to draw on the walls and jump on the bed anyway.
Tax Analyst
@Martin:
Yeah, and I’ll bet his Elton John album covers don’t really have Elton John albums in them, they’re just Potemkin Window Dressing used to further obscure his deep-seeded homophobia. I’ll bet his closet is just jam-packed with Tea Party flyer’s and memorabilia.
It’s how the right-wing is going to finally destroy the Democratic party and all of it’s follower’s – by creating a reasonable, rational sounding persona to subversively spread disharmony by wantonly, viciously and with malice of forethough soiling the whining washcloths of at least 6 liberals with every politically-oriented blog post and leaving a photograph of a smiling President Obama under each urine & feces drenched rag.
Crusty Dem
@John Cole:
Don’t get all drama queen about it, I was just a little shocked to see it here..
@Cat:
That’s right, I forgot, but he still gets slagged by some for it.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@NR: There was important legislation in the Senate during that race. Blanche Lincoln had a vote on said legislation. Get it?
And while I wish Lincoln had lost that primary, the chances that Halter could have won the general are only slightly better than BL’s.
Midnight Marauder
@Bruce (formerly Steve S.):
That’s pretty moronic on your part. Hypocrisy may affect Gibbs’ credibility as the messenger, but it has no affect on the legitimacy of the message. A hypocrite can still speak the truth on a given subject, it’s just means are slightly less inclined to believe that individual person. But the credibility of the message itself remains the same; it’s either a factual message grounded in reality or it’s not.
We know you think Gibbs is a hypocrite. The question is do you disagree fundamentally with the message he’s expressing?
Or you can just offer another pithy “WOOSH” to signify that you are completely unserious on this issue.
Shade Tail
@david mizner #15:
It is insanely easy to disagree on at least the first count. Have you (or Mr. Greenwald) been following the Think Progress reports? They’re still following the money and it’s leading to a pretty obvious conclusion. And let’s not forget the USCoC’s response to all this: a combination of bland officious “deny without lie” statements, and nasty Faux “News” style character assassination, all the while blithely refusing to show off their supposed “system” that they claim is preventing this scandal from actually happening.
So there’s quite a bit of evidence, and the USCoC is quite blatantly acting like they have something to hide. In any reasonable universe, there would be no problem with the other political party taking this and running with it.
Gibbs being hypocritical? Arguable, I admit, but Mr. Cole’s take on that is reasonable, I think. The press secretary is supposed to answer for the White House, not for himself. Back in the day, I didn’t blame Tony Snow or Dana Perino for their obvious lies and contortions, I blamed Bush and Cheney. They were the brains of that outfit; Snow and Perino were just the mouth.
Bruce (formerly Steve S.)
@valdivia:
The answer to your perceived problem is simple; define Greenwald as not being of the left. Much simpler than browbeating writers into only writing what you approve of.
bayville
@joe from Lowell:
Any examples of this you care to share Joe, or are you just regurgitating BJ talking points again.
Elie
@CB:
This…
I have no idea how Obama keeps trying to work this thing…
General Stuck
Oh please. only if trite things like degree and perspective don’t matter. I despise a poseur, especially one that claims to be on my side, when they aren’t. And for such people, it should not be too much to expect, they measure their critique of what they claim to support, with benefits of doubt until proven valid. And not equating Bush’s international infrastructure of torture as US policy, with someone who dismantled that program, with now interrogations conducted according to The Army Field Manual. Perspective is critical for a self described voice of the liberal left that regularly gets themselves on teevee, talking out of both sides of the malicious concern trolls mouth.
lol
@NR:
Technically true in that Halter would’ve only lost by 10 points instead of the 20 Lincoln is going to lose by.
Not to mention, Labor was going to abandon Halter after the primary either way. It was about collecting Lincoln’s scalp and proving a point, not about trying to win the seat. Hence the comments about Labor wasting $10 million from the White House.
Nick
@NR:
Do you have any proof of this that doesn’t come from a disgraced pollster fired by the people who hired hi after his polls on the same race turned out to be crap?
Mnemosyne
@Bruce (formerly Steve S.):
I’m never quite sure why people place Greenwald on the left, except that he was anti-Bush. He’s a libertarian with a laser focus on civil liberties.
On the other hand, Greenwald presents himself as being on the left by allying himself with things like Accountability Now!, so I can’t blame people for being confused that the guy who claims to be a progressive hero is actually a libertarian who doesn’t support a lot of what progressives actually want.
joe from Lowell
OK, thought experiment time:
Let’s say there is a massive amount of money from multi-national corporations being anonymously dumped into our political system to influence elections in a manner that benefits that special interest at the expense of the public interest.
And let’s say you’re a liberal or left-winger.
And let’s say the Democrats are raising holy hell about this, working to expose this behavior, and prevent that money from influencing our elections.
And let’s say you have a fairly prominent soap box that can influence public discourse to a degree.
What do you think you would write about this issue? If you answered, “I think I’d go after the moral character of the Democrats and push the idea that their most prominent public personalities are bad people who have no business making these attacks,” you can kiss my ass.
There are more important things in this world, more important ideas to spread, than “So-and-so doesn’t pass the Glenn Greenwald Purity Test.”
Linda Featheringill
Foreign contributions to CofC:
On Think Progress:
http://www.thinkprogress.org/2010/10/13/chamber-foreign-funded-media/
They have published company names and amounts of foreign contributions that go into the account that is paying for the political ads.
That really looks to me like foreign involvement in our election process.
In this post, Think Progress said that their sources were in the public domain. If you want the original sources, they might provide them to you.
joe from Lowell
@bayville:
I mentioned THREE if the very same comment you quoted.
Not one. Not two. THREE.
ruemara
@Mnemosyne:
This is the one thing that makes me not an Obot. I would so impeach him for that. Fin Du Monde, Maudité and Arrogant Bastard Ale-or Death! Or a fine large bottle of Drambuie.
Tsulagi
Don’t forget your gay Birks!
Can see a bit of Greenwald’s point, and after seeing that Gibb’s anti-Dean commercial (way to go Team D!) can certainly agree there’s more than a little irony and hypocrisy having full disclosure demands coming out of Gibb’s mouth, but on balance Greenwald is flat wrong. The words coming out of Gibb’s mouth demanding campaign funding disclosure are, or should be, from the Obama admin, not Gibbs.
GG begins his piece with…
Yep, but then says out of bounds on saying or even implying there could be foreign money in that funding without evidence. Bullshit. The only way you’re going to have evidence is if there is full, honest, verifiable disclosure.
Given Gibb’s apparent experience, use that. I’d be good with ads displaying OBL’s face while seriously intoning something like “Some people say America’s most determined enemies are funding campaigns in our own beloved country, that could be why these shadow groups refuse to disclose. That’s not American.” Maybe even add the wolves with the scary music. Then keep hitting amping it up along the way until they do disclose. But then the baby Beck might cry so that’s a serious concern.
ruemara
@Mnemosyne:
This is the one thing that makes me not an Obot. I would so impeach him for that. Fin Du Monde, Maudité and Arrogant Bastard Ale-or Death! Or a fine large bottle of Drambuie.
morzer
@Phoenix Woman:
Sorry, but I don’t see any evidence that Dean had anything to do with magically stopping Holy Joe and Quick Trick Dick from presidential runs. They just weren’t very convincing candidates to start with. Nor do I see that recruiting lots of Blue Dogs and leaving very little infrastructure on the ground is much of an achievement. If anything, it gives us hollow majorities for which real Democrats then get blamed. Finally, I notice that you aren’t attempting to defend Dean’s recent tea-bagging shenanigans.
Bruce (formerly Steve S.)
@Midnight Marauder:
Take a few Ibuprofen because I can only conclude you are feverish.
Remember this? “a very real and important issue…The White House’s arguments about the need for more disclosure are largely correct…the White House’s legitimate arguments about disclosure…I believe in [campaign funding disclosure].” How many fucking times does he need to say it? How many times does it need to be said explicitly (as in Greenwald’s column) or implicitly (as in my words which you blockquoted) before it sinks in?
Go take a nap.
xanthippas
John, I’m normally with you on this stuff, but Glenn is right about this. What Gibbs and that group did was pretty egregious, and it was something that really pissed us off then, and reminders of it shouldn’t be so quickly dismissed.
bayville
@joe from Lowell:
So when it comes to torture (Greenwald has written extensively against the Bush/Obama policies); Iraq (wholeheartedly against it from the beginning); and Corporate Money (mixed record while exposing hypocrisy of Dems/GOP in this matter, Greenwald agreed w/qualifications with the Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision).
So, in your eyes all these positions Greenwald has staked on these topics are the more conservative view?
Thanx. That explains a lot.
Very Reverend Crimson Fire of Compassion
@Bruce (formerly Steve S.): fagtard
Bruce (formerly Steve S.)
@Mnemosyne:
Is the Apocalypse nigh? I largely agree with this.
Oops.
Please link to the column where Greenwald calls himself a “progressive hero”.
Elie
@Kyle:
I believe that even the left became suspicious of government in the last two or three decades. I also believe that the lefty blogs and other media are very cynical and need to generate dough to make livings. Controversy and anger are what result in hits, not intellectually honest commentary. Some of these folks would shake down their mothers for a dime, then apologize later — maybe.
I think that we have the right wing and then the self serving independents/libertarians as our two parties. Its not clear that we have any functional party system beyond the labels. Obama is in office during the time of the plague — great uncertainty, no trust and complete lost of trust in the role of the citizen and civic integrity and honesty. This was the biggest loss — much bigger than the billions, trillions, of the corporatist dominance of recent decades. We have lost, similar to the current Greek crisis, our sense of “we”, so all sense of sacrifice for the common good is virtually impossible to even agree upon, much less do.
I used to blog and listen to/read the news much more often. I find myself on the Cooking channels or watching nature shows much more. I give money for my candidates, I will vote and try to spread the word… I hope that we once again can become sane, but it may not be for a while…
joe from Lowell
@bayville:
Nope. Maybe if you hadn’t deliberately cropped the quote to change its meaning, you wouldn’t be so confused.
Here’s what you quoted:
DOT DOT DOT, Gee I wonder what was there? Why, it must have something to do with being conservative. Oh, wait, here’s what I actually wrote.
There, fixed that for you. Now it says what I actually said, instead of what you decided to pretend I said.
This wasn’t an honest mistake. The fact that you cut the sentence shows you did this on purpose, you dishonest p.o.s.
mclaren
Bill Clinton. $7.5 million in speaking fees last year.
Next question?
Nick
@bayville:
KSM trials
Wannabe Speechwriter
@General Stuck:
The point there was to point out the GG spent too much time claiming Republicans to be hypocrites instead of attacking their policies as wrong.
For example, in his post Bush Followers Are Not Conservatives, the argument is merely Bush’s supporters didn’t live up to traditional conservatism, not that traditional conservative ideas are wrong or misguided themselves. Under two Republican Presidents, the debt went up and the size of government grew. The idea electing a third will be any different is the definition of insanity. It’s better to point out how steep cuts in the government is both wrong and unfeasible, not that those calling for it are hypocrites.
We looked over the flaws of focusing on hypocrisy and not engaging in their policy ideas. However, when Glenn began to focus on the hypocrisy on Democrats instead of debating us on policy (I think all he could say about his views on health care in this blog was he “wasn’t opposed” to health care reform instead of stating what he was for in terms of health care), then we began to take issue. The thing is, we should have taken issue in the beginning.
Bob Loblaw
@General Stuck:
Except that’s not true.
Bush dismantled his own program in the years 2007-2008, if we’re just talking about the torture alone. The torture protocols had been unwound long before Obama took office, his vaunted (wank wank) executive order had no practical purpose. Of course, the Obama administration continues to use statements and intelligence collected under duress as part of their criminal justice process, which has left them highly vulnerable to individual judges throwing all sorts of witnesses and evidence out at trial.
So, from a broader perspective, by using illegally-gained evidence in prosecution, and abetting and employing alleged torture officials within his own administration, the torture state remains a crucial component of the Obama national security process.
You should get your narratives straight. I wouldn’t want you to become a poseur by accident.
Wile E. Quixote
@Bruce (formerly Steve S.):
Well it’s acceptable, but saying it makes you sound kind of faggy.
Juicebagger
I agree with John, in that lefties don’t line up and salute like his former teammates do.
They also don’t put the same snap into those straight-armed salutes!
Bnad
This country’s social programs are a big fat goose just waiting to be plundered & looted. That includes your 401k since financial controls are going to be restored to 1910 levels by President Thune.
Midnight Marauder
@Bruce (formerly Steve S.):
Yes, you’re right. I do remember the very beginning of the fucking article. I am also familiar with the rest of the article where he goes on to write comments such as this that render everything he wrote at the beginning moot:
Wow, seems like that sentence right there is a classic example of “You may be right about this, but let’s talk about something completely unrelated…” That would appear to represent a pretty substantial shift in the tone of Greenwald’s post, wouldn’t it? Moving from “The White House is largely correct and this is a very important issue” to “The White House is hypocritical for taking this stand because of particular experiences in the past for an individual who is operating not as an autonomous individual, but as the spokesperson for the Executive Branch, essentially.” You can see how the shift to supposed hypocrisy renders his window dressing of “Sure, the White House is correct about this” as essentially an irrelevant detail.
Literally, after setting up the article with the paragraphs you cite, he spends the rest of the fucking piece lambasting Gibbs for being an alleged hypocrite. That’s it. That’s all he talks about. And then when he addresses the actual substance of the issue, this is all he can muster:
That’s his fucking conclusion. It doesn’t have shit to do with wether the Democrats are right or wrong in continuing this fight. It has nothing to do with the legitimacy and credibility of the attacks on the Chamber of Commerce and its foreign investors. The sole focus on Greenwald’s conclusion is what a soulless, hypocritical shill Robert Gibbs is. He doesn’t even give a fuck about the actual issue at hand.
Breth
Maybe, just maybe if Congress had stood together and told the Republicans at the VERY START of any debate on HCR, etc, to eff off and go pound sand that they were gonna pass it no matter what, he wouldn’t have had to be strung along for months and seen his political capital wasted while the Republicans happily launched ever more false but catchy attacks on the legislation…maybe, just maybe he would have had more time and power to pull off some actual lib’ral stuff.
Juicebagger
Joe from LOL: I would go easy on the whole “misleading quote marks” issue. That’s kinda like Nick raggin on Rick Sanchez.
Wait, where was Nick on the whole Rick Sanchez issue? Usually he’s flogging his extensive experience as Ace
ReporterGofer for The Mom’s Basement Times with all his might, and yet for some reason he was absent on that one.General Stuck
@Bob Loblaw:
Utter bullshit, and is a prime example of my criticism of GG. Devoid of perspective and full of conflation. The tools of a polemic to arrive at a predetermined allegation. Building a full strawman with a few twigs, if that, at best.
Whether the dismantling of the torture infrastructure, and how much was begun under Bush is another example of fogging the issue just enough to maintain the prevailing Obama fail meme for people like you and GG seek to maintain. It doesn’t matter one iota to the central question of did, or has Obama stopped torturing people like Bush. And you nor GG has a shred of evidence he hasn’t, except for the lawful interrogation under the army field manual.
Don’t waste my time with this juvenile bullshit loblaw.
catclub
@jc:
“It’s beyond the pale ”
Um,… I think the evidence is that it is actually no longer beyond the pale for large numbers of people in both parties.
catclub
@Breth:
You do remember that at the start of the debate, with Franken not seated and Spector still in the GOP, that Joe Lieberman
and Ben Nelson were the rock solid votes holding down the tail end of the Democratic caucus of 58 votes?
Dream on.
Bob Loblaw
@General Stuck:
The point, Mr. Simpleton, is it doesn’t actually matter if you’re not the one doing the torturing if you’re still using its fruits and gains for your own purposes. Your hands aren’t clean.
You can’t say your anti-torture, and then use torture testimony in a court of law. You can’t say you’ve purged the remnants of the past and then hire John Brennan to be your top counterterror official. These distinctions matter to non-hypocrites. And that’s not a polemic to say so, a word I’m not sure you actually understand.
Bruce (formerly Steve S.)
@Midnight Marauder:
Seriously, are you feeling alright? Because what you’re writing about at egregious length is frivolous to the point of being comical. John writes about what’s important to him, Glenn writes about what’s important to him, and so on. When you complain for hundreds of words that the conversation going on in your own head is the only worthwhile one you’re not saying anything important about Glenn Greenwald but only about yourself. So for Christ’s sake please go have a lie-down or whatever it takes, because investing hours of your life berating people on points they’ve already explicitly and implicitly acknowledged is not a good use of your limited time on Earth.
bayville
@joe from Lowell:
What’s your point? How has that changed the meaning of your accusation?
When you don’t have the facts on your side, use a misdirection play. Got it Joe.
Keep on babbling. You fit right in among the Rubes.
bayville
@Nick:
What’s your point and what does your excerpt prove?
That Greenwald criticized the Obama administration’s anti-Constitutional, pro-torture stance?
This is the “new” left or Progressive position among the punditry.
I would say you – along with Joe – have proven my point.
Thanx again. That explains a lot.
General Stuck
@Bob Loblaw:
You people are so full of shit high up on your petards. By your standards, any government official who so much as typed a document concerning Bush’s torture program needs to be purged from the federal government, and if Obama won’t do that he is guilty as Bush. You cling to self righteous superiority via anecdotes of perceived wrongs all equated as torture support, from all the flawed people who live below the angelic clouds you perch from. Spare me the angst.
Obama isn’t torturing people, that is good enough for me. And you have no evidence to the contrary, that would prove as bad as Bush. No president has perfectly clean hands, nor about any other human person. Please take your conceit with anecdotal strawmen, pile it in progressive jesus clown car, and go somewheres else.
Mnemosyne
@Bruce (formerly Steve S.):
Oh, dear, are we back to the claim where if Greenwald publicly allies himself with progressives, creates a progressive PAC, and claims to be on the progressive side, none of that counts as publicly presenting himself as a progressive long as he did not specifically use the words “progressive hero”?
General Stuck
@Mnemosyne:
He usually just includes, or precludes a statement by “progressives want” or progressives care about. And I’ve heard introduced as a prog spokesman.
News Reference
@ lol, October 13th, 2010 at 3:16 pm
“5 things the DNC did under Dean that they’re not doing now”
1. Dean’s 50 state strategy was extremely important, simply brilliant, and helped Obama get elected. Obama’s people at the DNC gutted it even while pretending it was their idea (see: Rahm and Kaine).
2. Dean was willing to FIGHT for Democratic positions (see: Public option). The current DNC has repeatedly sold out Democratic issues and principles (see: selling US Corporate insurance).
3. Dean, even as a moderate centrist, was smart to address liberal issues and the liberal base. The DNC smears ‘the left’ and liberal issues (see: war advertising) to show the Villagers how tough they are. (note: between 15% to 20% of Americans identify as “liberal”, making for a HUGE proportion of the Democratic Party).
4. Dean refused to comply with corporate media’s nonsense. Tim Kaine? {snort}.
5. Unlike Dean, the current DNC throws money toward right-wing Blue Dogs who don’t have a chance to win and have repeatedly crippled Democratic policies (see: Lincoln, Blanche).
Add Howard Dean’s superior messaging to his superior messages and strong Democratic policy positions.
Kaine is a poor messenger, with a poor message that far too often pushes Republican policy positions and mimics Republican ideology.
Kaine might have made a good conservative Governor, but he’s lousy as head of the DNC.
your turn
Midnight Marauder
@News Reference:
This is the part where someone notes that a large portion of those Blue Dogs exist in part because of Dean’s 50 state strategy.
General Stuck
@Midnight Marauder:
I could be wrong, but I think maybe Newsreference is some kind of spam bot, or something. We can maybe expect a slew of posts from here on out. Let’s see if he or she or it answers you.
Nick
@bayville:
It proves that even when they seek to do the right thing, often in the face of intense public pressure not to, they don’t get rewarded for it from the “base” that claims it will reward them if they do the right thing.
So there is no reason to actually do the right thing.
News Reference
Did any of you criticizing Greenwald actually watch the smarmy attack video that Robert Gibbs used secretive money to fund?
It’s Rovian Squared.
It’s malignant.
It’s sleazy.
Robert Gibbs is a lousy spokesperson for ‘transparency’.
That’s not to diminish legitimate complaints of Greenwald’s piece.
Greenwald misfired badly when he falsely stated “the group for which Robert Gibbs was the spokesman did exactly that which the Chamber of Commerce is now doing”.
False.
Gibbs was REQUIRED to reveal his donors whereas the Chamber of Commerce, under current law, is NOT required to reveal their donors.
It’s true that Robert Gibbs’s secretive smarmy attacks on Howard Dean were designed to stay secret until after the damage was done, but the post-mortem that Greenwald himself details won’t be possible with the current Chamber of Commerce attacks on Dems.
Nor does Greenwald explicitly suggest that Gibbs used foreign money for his attacks, though Greenwald engages in a curious sleight of hand when he links to the foreign-sounding “Center for Middle East Peace”. (?)
Perhaps if the US Chamber of Commerce called itself the International Chamber of Secrets then shoddy journalists and lawyers using false equivalency wouldn’t be able to dismiss the clear evidence that the Chamber of Commerce’s foreign money is funding attacks on American politicians.
Another Chris
Oh brother, Dean vs. Kerry.
I guess you never forget your first love or your first campaign. Reminds me of all those journalists who fell in love with Jack and Bobby and spent the next 25 years grousing about how Democratic primary fields were “The Seven Dwarves” for not measuring up to the cartoon superheroes they loved so much in their innocent youths.
If the country was hungry for Dean’s brand of politics and he’s such a brilliant organizer, how come he failed so badly in his own campaign?
lol
@News Reference:
Do you even know what the 50 state strategy actually did?
Here it is in its entirety: Give each state party a hundred grand to hire staff.
That’s it.
The rest is just PR. The DNC didn’t pick the people that got hired, the DNC didn’t specify what positions those people should be hired for.
There. was. no. strategy. All it did was make sure every state party had some people during the off-season.
In contrast, the DNC under Kaine has setup its own field organization in each state (“OFA 2.0”) that has clear goals and objectives. OFA 2.0 has put significantly more people on the ground and mobilized far more volunteers than the 50SS ever did.
OFA 2.0 is everything the firebaggers think the 50SS was. But since Obama came up with it and they’re incapable of giving him credit, you’re pretending it doesn’t exist.
Beyond that, Dean did initiate some more organizational improvements and those have continued under Kaine.
Your list is otherwise full of meaningless buzzwords (Dean FIGHTS) and it’s clear you don’t even understand what Dean actually did as chair let alone what Kaine is doing now.
In short, like most matters, you want a leader who kisses your ass as opposed to one who’s actually getting shit done.
General Stuck
@lol:
Looks like we have another glenbot. Oh, the internets, and the Horror.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@General Stuck: The “FIGHT” in all caps is highly significant. That’s to make O-bots like you understand that Howard (and I call him Howard ’cause we’re like close personal friends through the internet, sometimes I call him Dr Dean to remind all you sell-outs that he really knows what he’s talking about when it comes to getting difficult legislation through Congress in the middle of the worst recession in more than fifty years) that Dr Dean really really meant it when he went on MSNBC and said there should be a public option. That was some FIGHTING, you O-bot, you.
News Reference
“Dean FIGHTS.” Yes.
Have you ever watched Tim Kaine in a combative interview?
Kaine concedes too much, repeats right-wing memes like he’s a wind-up toy, and poorly articulates Democratic principles (when he’s not repeating right-wing sound bites).
If you are saying that makes Kaine a perfect fit for Obama, well, okay.
Howard Dean rarely concedes anything, consistently repeats left-wing memes that support substantive left-wing policies, and does a fantastic job articulating Democratic principles.
And Obama’s OFA2.0 supporters are against those things?
Thought that all the way through did you?
Michael57
@david mizner: Give me a break. Do you think that the White House has to wait for the DFHs at Think Progress to weigh in, for proof that the Chamber is using foreign funds to put out attack ads??
Look, I know some of you guys live your entire lives online, but there is such a thing as the real world, and in it, the White House does not need to wait for an expose by a bunch of bloggers to get to the bottom of a situation. They are the White House! They have their own sources of information and analysis!
Jeez.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@News Reference:
Wow. He REPEATS things? You didn’t SAY that, or THAT. That changes… well… nothing.
Show me a Senate vote he changed. Or even INFLUENCED.
Actually, I have no beef with Dean himself. He’s done more good than harm, as opposed to a nitwit like Harold Ford. But this pathetic, obsessive, relentless, EMPHATIC hero worship is one of the things that bugs me most about the blogosphere. Nobody’s perfect. He lost the primary six years ago. Get over it. Move on.
Michael57
@joe from Lowell: Exactly.
kay
@lol:
You and I are the only two people who know this :)
How did that happen? There were like thousands of people involved. It’s the best-kept secret in the history of the world, and it involved thousands of people.
I don’t think you’re supposed to say it, lol. It’s true, though. Every word.
lol
@News Reference:
I notice you didn’t address anything related to the 50 State Strategy itself. I’ll take that as an admission you knew pretty much nothing about it.
And Obama’s OFA2.0 supporters are against those things?
They’re utterly irrelevant to the actual job of DNC chair. Not to mention Dean actually stayed out of the limelight when he was chair, which is pretty funny given that firebaggers attack Kaine for doing the same.
Citizen Alan
@Cacti:
The problem, as I see it, is not that we ended up with too many Blue Dogs. The problem is that no one had the balls to go to the Blue Dogs early on and say: “Yes, we know you’re from a red state and on many, perhaps most issues, you must effectively be a Republican in order to get reelected. That’s fine. But there are some things that are non-negotiable if you want to play on our team. And if you refuse to work with us on this narrow range of non-negotiable items, you can fund your own reelection campaign, and don’t be too surprised if we start looking around for someone more inclined to do the bare minimum we consider necessary to be considered a Democrat.”
And because no one had the balls to say this to the Blue Dogs, we had Blue Dogs going from voting with the Pukes 80% of the time to 95% or higher. And that led to Conservadems outside the Blue Dog Coalition deciding that they too could rat-fuck the Democratic Party and still be entitled to Democratic support, sabotaging every thing from HCR to Financial Reform. Which led inexorably to our current status quo, under which Mary Landrieu can singlehandedly filibuster the appointment of her own party’s nominee for an extremely important position in order to make outrageous demands that benefit her corporate backers and continue her filibuster even after her blackmail demands have been met until she is satisfied that Obama has groveled sufficiently before the oil industry. I swear, I wish that little shit James O’Keefe had been able to tap the bitch’s phone. He probably would have caught her having phone sex with Tony Hayward.
News Reference
@ Jim, Foolish Literalist October 13th, 2010 at 7:25 pm
“Show me a Senate vote he [Dean] changed. Or even INFLUENCED.”
Howard Dean’s Fifty-State-Strategy preceded and laid the groundwork for Obama’s national win in 2008.
That’s a Presidency.
Citizen Alan
Oh, and I thought Howard Dean had his good points and his bad points. I thought he was overall a very successful DNC chief, and frankly, he couldn’t have done any worse against Bush in 2004 than hopeless milquetoast Kerry did. But really, whatever your complaints about Dean, can anyone really deny what a loser Kaine is in comparison? He’s the freakin’ Alan Colmes of DNC politics. The only reason he’s not be pilloried for his astounding lameness is because he compares favorably to the two-year-long train wreck that is Michael Steele.
Woodrow "asim" Jarvis Hill
@News Reference:
BULLSHIT. Exhibit A:
But I’m sure it doesn’t matter that he’s kow-towing to Islamophobes, since the Park 51 debacle/horror-show isn’t a “substantive left-wing policy”. Being on the same side as Harry Reed is hardly being a solid progressive.
Dean’s got some good ideas, including the core of the 50-state strategy. But his head isn’t always in the game, and he’s done some really ugly stuff. He’s not a damned saint.
kay
@News Reference:
Sort of. We got an organizer from the Dean effort. He didn’t stay that long, though. I still hear from him, in emails. He works for a health care org. The organizers the state party hired under Dean just moved up or out. A lot of them work for OFA. That’s the nature of that work. It’s not like Kaine came in and fired everyone. They’re the same people.
The best thing we got in Ohio didn’t come from Dean. It came from John Kerry. Obama got his list. Kerry also did excellent young voter outreach. IMO, the Kerry campaign laid the groundwork there. I don’t think that campaign gets nearly enough credit, but that seems to be the story of John Kerry’s life.
General Stuck
I can’t help it, I still love Howard Dean, even though he has said some really stupid shit lately, and during the HC debate. But it is imprinted on my psyche in a good way, that at the time, helped keep some personal sanity, his full throated stance against the Iraq war in 2003 and 04, when other dems were parsing and double talking it. I think he helped move the party some away from DC centered election politics and broke up to a degree the gold ole boy pol adviser racket that was sucking the money out of dem politics, and giving nothing but defeat in return. I never thought him presidential material, but all and all, he has caused much more good than bad for dems imo. He does have a big fucking mouth, and I bet he is the first to admit it.
Bruce (formerly Steve S.)
@Mnemosyne:
You: “the guy who claims to be a progressive hero”
That is, a hero to progressives. That is, you say that Greenwald is making an assholish claim for himself.
Obviously you have a link to him writing this because you wouldn’t just bald-facedly lie in front of the whole world.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@kay: John Kerry, Al Gore…. Bill Clinton couldn’t get a simple majority in the middle of a peaceful economic boom, against Bob Dole, and he’s held up as a giant-killing political genius.
A FoxNews exit poll said that almost half of Bush voters thought Saddam Hussein was directly involved in 9/11. So I like to say that among people who aren’t willfully stupid, John Kerry beat Bush 2:1. Not bad for a “hopeless milquetoast”.
News Reference
“this pathetic, obsessive, relentless, EMPHATIC hero worship is one of the things that bugs me most about the blogosphere”
And the cult-like supporters of Obama?
I voted for and worked to elect Obama and will do so again in the 2012 General Election.
But Obama’s Bush-like authoritarian follower’s willingness to apologize and excuse anything he or his team does and attack any of his critics is despicable.
Again, have any of you actually watched Robert Gibbs’s smarmy attack video on a Democratic politician?
Robert Gibbs’s rovian video actually approvingly cites Republican Bush’s leadership in order to attack Democratic Presidential Candidate Howard Dean.
Obama saw that as a qualification to be his spokesperson?
Seriously? Shameful.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@News Reference: Would you like a parakeet?
Woodrow "asim" Jarvis Hill
@News Reference:
Groundwork, yes.
But “groundwork” doesn’t mean “game”. Obama did a IL-based version of the 50-state strategy during his run in ’04, parallel to Dean’s work. A strong component of his Senate run was to actually go “downstate”, working rural IL, something most folks considered useless — and was only so because his eventual opponent was so risible.
Everyone also forgets that Obama has been organizing people for much, much longer than Dean’s work. Despite the fact that Dean’s Presidential run is seen as a predecessor for Obama’s run, not only did Obama have many more years experience in that kind of work, he also had actual training in balancing the energy and ideas of committed volunteers with the need to organize and direct them in profitable ways. This is also a fault of the Paul campaign, as well.
In my too-short time working the Obama campaign, I talked to a few Dean folks. Something that came up, again and again, was that, for all that the Dean folks had the desire to change things, they didn’t get significant direction from HQ on how. Again and again, I’d get told how awesome it was that we had real backing on top of the autonomy — less autonomy than the Dean folks, sure, but seemingly far more than the other volunteers for Clinton et. al. we’d run into.
Dean might have come up with a good basic idea, but it’s not like Obama rode in on it, or hadn’t already come up with the core idea, and found a team (Axelrod and so forth) able to not just implement it, but to balance it well. And that balance — not just the act of putting a little bit everywhere, but judging where to put a bit more, where to add staff to volunteer efforts — is what really makes a 50-state-esqe strategy work. And that is not due to Dean.
Uncle Clarence Thomas
I don’t understand why firebaggers don’t realize that President Obama’s advocates for a public policy should not personally believe in that policy. That, in fact, it is better that they should not.
gwangung
Hm. This really doesn’t match up well with some of 50-state volunteers are saying.
kay
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
They worked their asses off in Ohio. They had this three-prong strategy and they were as anal about it as Obama organizers were about the Team Leader business. Kerry had this huge list.
It’s a media lie that Kerry didn’t increase the youth vote. He really did. Democrats benefited from that in 2006, because there were many more registered Democrats. Obama then doubled down on it, but the campus outreach and all of that was a big deal for the Kerry campaign. They did a good job.
There just aren’t these stark dividing lines. I think that’s an inaccurate description of how it looks from the ground.
It’s much more fluid than The Dean Era and then The Kaine Era.
I used to work for the postal service, and we’d get all these New Strategic Plans and New Managers, but really we were just rolling along, in a more or less cumulative manner. It’s more like that. That’s how big organizations operate.
Michael57
@Bruce (formerly Steve S.): If you don’t think Glenzilla puts on a Superman cape and sneaks a look in the mirror before he sits down to write every day, you haven’t been reading between his lines very carefully.
It’s obvious that he thinks of himself as a progressive hero. And most of the time he’s right, insofar as writers can be heroes. He articulates the progressive position better than almost anyone. But sometimes he loses perspective.
lol
I worked with DNC-hired folks in several different states during the Dean era. If the state party had good to great people, they hired more good to great people. If the state party was a non-entity, generally, local hacks got a paycheck.
I worked for a top-target Senate race in 2006 in a state where that was the case and the DNC hires were seen as people to be worked around, not with.
People like News Reference who go on about how “50 State Strategy laid the groundwork for Obama” generally don’t have a single clue what the 50SS actually did. They generally don’t have a clue about how campaigns are run really. But they knocked doors a couple times and they read a lot of blogs so they pretend they’re experts.
The Obama campaign laid the groundwork for Obama. It was Obama organizers in every state during the primary that did the work. It was Obama organizer during the general that did the work. It was Obama campaign folks that ran the DNC for the general election to do the work there.
Give Dean credit for getting every single state party on Votebuilder, though. But it’s not like Kaine has done anything to reverse that.
Martin Gifford
@Kerry Reid:
You mean Obama?
Martin Gifford
@socraticsilence:
Doing good stuff is the job description. Imagine you had an employee who did lots of bad stuff. You would point out the bad stuff. If the stuff is as bad as what Obama has done, then you sack him and call the cops.