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This post is in: Black Jimmy Carter, Assholes, Blatant Liars and the Lies They Tell
So basically, the Republicans have reacted to Obama’s latest attempt to reach out to them by issuing a ransom note- give them tax cuts for the rich, or the entire legislative agenda gets whacked.
Well played, Obama. Well played.
How will this play out? Obama will give them what they want, and then they will block everything anyway. Whee! Can’t you just feel the bipartisanship?
At some point, the Obama administration is going to have to give his supporters some reason to, you know, support him.
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[…] As John Cole implies, watching the President play this "If I reach out in a sufficiently bipartisany manner, surely the GOP will work with me in good faith" game is beyond old. It's getting embarrassing to watch him play Charlie Brown in the Lucy and the Football skit. Obama organizes feel-good meeting and kisses John Boehner / Mitch McConnell's ass. Obama promises concessions in return for GOP cooperation. GOP takes concession and then refuses to cooperate anyway. Rinse, repeat. And repeat. And repeat. It's humiliating enough to watch him trade $200 billion in upper class tax cuts for a $25 billion extension in unemployment benefits. I lack the adjective to describe watching him fail to get even the meager concession. […]
[…] that Sullivan has finally found something to like about the GOP). John Cole is on about "first priorities being millionaires", Charles Johnson hits it with "GOP totally committed to obstructionism", and the […]
[…] that Sullivan has finally found something to like about the GOP). John Cole is on about “first priorities being millionaires“, Charles Johnson hits it with “GOP totally committed to obstructionism“, and the […]
Joseph Nobles
There we go, back on third base again.
You Don't Say
Call their fucking bluff.
Dennis SGMM
Oh you firebagger. Not to worry though, the Obamapologists will be along soon enough to explain how this is all a part of his clever plan to…to…to… Just shut up and clap harder, damn it!
Ajay
Obama comes out much weaker in all this(not the first time). Republicans in minority have more power than the majority; all thanks to fillibuster and those pesky conservaBluedems.
GregB
Hopefully President Obama will bring in Pat Cadell to do some polling and then hire Dick Morris as a consultant and Joe Lieberman as a special envoy to the GOP.
That’ll fix things.
NR
Looks like the deal is all but done.
Honestly, did anyone expect anything different at this point?
Also, too, the Republicans will need appeasement again when the debt limit is reached. What’s next to go? Social Security?
Culture of Truth
by issuing a ransom note- give them tax cuts for the rich,
or the entire legislative agenda gets whacked.
They would never have done that if Obama hadn’t reached out!
Joe Beese
“At some point” ?
Give the guy a break. He’s only been in office for 22 months.
Butch
I know it’s not an original line, but I think we should move him to the Philippines and call him the Manila Folder.
Trinity
@You Don’t Say: This.
I am so sick and fucking tired of this shit.
Although I feel confident that the Dems will cave as usual, I wish like hell that they would just call their bluff. Hell, let the “Bush tax-cuts” expire and then let Obama write his own tax-cut bill!
MikeTheZ
I quit on Obama when he froze the federal workers pay. If they fold on this, I quit on the entire government, since clearly I have no one representing my interests anyway.
Edit: Just in the time I’m writing that they apparently folded. Fuck this country.
celticdragonchick
@NR:
The deal, I’m sure, does not include an extension of unemployment benefits, right?
The deal is: We cave on everything.
fasteddie9318
@You Don’t Say:
This, because unlike the search for the ever-elusive compromise, this might actually work.
J.W. Hamner
I refuse to believe they will cave on this… if they get a DADT repeal and START then I can grudgingly support temporary extensions, but I would much prefer saying “OK, fine” and letting all the tax cuts expire.
donnah
My sis and I are staunch supporters of Obama and the majority of Dems, but he’s really testing our loyalty. This latest government employee wage freeze is not sitting well with us. Her husband won’t be eligible now for a raise for three years. And I live in the community of Wright Patt AFB, and cuts/freezes will affect not only our military residents, but the overall economy in general.
WTF, Obama?
NR
@J.W. Hamner: What’s going to happen in two or three years?
Temporary extension is the same thing as permanent extension.
Ross Hershberger
Someone recently pointed out that if the positions were swapped, the Dems had the veto wielding minority and the GOP had a lame duck majority the GOP would get what it wanted.
So I guess the point is the GOP gets what it wants.
I’d break this down but I already have a headache from DADT.
General Stuck
Cole – HCR reform is over, done, Obama fail
lol, stop comforting me you big lug.
Maude
@Dennis SGMM:
Duncan says that all the time.
I’ll wait and see if START and DADT pass the Senate.
The Repubs came out with this right away. Maybe they are trying to cover their bases. It is a public declaration of blocking Obama. That’s par for the course and not new.
They did this during the times that major legislation did pass.
celticdragonchick
Huffpo seems to be saying this may be the end of any chance to pass DADT at this point.
Fuck it.
We get President Palin or Huckabee in two years and I pack my family up and leave the country. We are already discussing getting our visas in order.
Paul W.
It seems to me that NOW is the time to measure the man, rather than when he is doing his typical above-partisanship spiel. He has never deviated from that rhetoric, yet he has insisted and pushed forward on HIS agenda none-the-less (I won’t even bother to list the things crossed off my own personal list).
If he does indeed cave on the tax cuts to the top 2%… then hell yes I’ll jump into the bleachers to cat call as well, otherwise it is quite useless to make it a foregone conclusion that Obama will cave. I seem to remember that for all the hubbub about removing libel suits against doctors all it ever got was a few million pet dollars.
The trend I have seen is that: yes, teapartiers CAN get specifics removed (“death panel”, public option, etc) however the big thing happens anyways (be it health care, fin reg, belated food safety, reining in mountain top removal, consumer protections, etc). My hope is that he pulls a “well, I tried to reason with them” and then lets them shut down the government.
If he doesn’t, then yeah… he’s the sop everyone has been calling him.
Cris
Time for WyldPirate to come by and whine that when he says things like this, everybody calls him an asshole.
Dennis SGMM
@J.W. Hamner:
They may get START, good luck on DADT repeal. In return we’ll get a raise in the SS retirement age and the Bush tax cuts, by then a fait accompli, will be made permanent when the Republicans take back the Senate in ’12.
Rick Taylor
Republicans will block everything for the next two years. The only worthwhile thing the Democrats can do is to make them look as bad as possible while they do it; to make it crystal clear who is preventing anything from getting done.
lacp
So, John, you and Jane finally hooked up, yes?
J.W. Hamner
@NR:
Probably, but at least we get something for it. I’m perfectly willing to believe that the GOP is being completely honest when they say they will shut down the government over the tax cuts. I’d love to see all the tax cuts expire, but I’m willing to bargain as long as we actually get something. Which seems to be the key step that has been missing from Dem strategy lately.
Rick Taylor
I shouldn’t be surprised anymore, but I was a little to discover that even Mr. Principled Dick Lugar vowed to kill the oh so important Start treaty if Democrats don’t cave to their demands on a completely unrelated issue.
Corner Stone
Stay strong people! Stay strong!
Can I at least ask that you wait until final details are released before you start your inevitable whine?
This may turn out to be a good result in the end!
Ross Hershberger
@Rick Taylor:
Let it burn and publish the arsonist’s picture. Not the kind of outcome I voted for this party for.
General Stuck
@Joe Beese:
congrats! Beese. All your work here has paid off, Cole is in your pocket now. Be gentle with his emofu.
freelancer
@You Don’t Say:
They’re not bluffing. They’re Christopher Walken in the Deer Hunter at this point. They’ll blow their own head off to spite Obama. And knowing the Beltway Narrative, the Cavuto Marked chyrons, even on CNN, would be “Why did the President let this happen?”
cleek
@Paul W.:
ftfy
simonee
Heads I win, tails you lose!
Maxwel
The conundrum re: Obama’s actions:
Does he believe that there’s no way he’ll lose in ’12, or
Does he want to lose – the sooner to be a very rich man with no obligations.
celticdragonchick
@Rick Taylor:
For that to work, it would be necessary to presume that Democrats…who have been wildly incompetent in messaging and getting information to voters over the past 4 years…will somehow have a drastic improvement in all the areas that they have been losing badly in.
I don’t see that happening. Especially with a full time and well financed propaganda machine working for the GOP.
funluvn
Sarah Palin 2012!!! Prove the Mayan’s Right!!!!
WyldPirate
Cole sez…
Let’s see. You just had something negative to say about Obama. Does this mean that this is a cue for me to reflexively criticize him about the same sort of things I’ve been raging about for months?
Will it be cool if I say, “Damn, but President Obama has surely played a role in painting himself into a corner that he has no way out of?”
Maybe General Stuck won’t yell at me for being a hater. He did wake up on the wrong side of the bed this morning and someone DID take a shit in his Cornflakes as well.
I will say it again. The Rethugs completely get their way on tax cuts. Best deal the Dems get is two year extension for all brackets at current rates in trade for UI benefits extension. I won’t be surprised if the dems lose the latter as well. The cuts will then be hung around the Dems and Obama’s neck in 2012. They and he get screwed both coming and going by the Rethugs.
Lucy. Charlie Brown. Football. Wash. Rinse Repeat.
Matt
I’m this close to giving up. I really am. I’m past being disappointed and headed toward embarrassed.
NR
@celticdragonchick: Looks that way. The unemployment extension was a crappy deal to begin with; three months of benefits in exchange for three years of tax cuts for the rich. $25B for the unemployed in exchange for $200B for the rich.
But now, it looks like we won’t even get that. Brilliant strategy, Obama. Brilliant.
Kryptik
How fucking sad, this is really the best we can get.
No, seriously, I honestly believe that Obama and the Congress we have (or had) is honestly the best any liberal or reasonably can expect. Considering this country supports liberal policies but will immediately fucking balk on them the moment a (gasp) LIBERAL dares suggest they like it, we’re obvious fucking living in a country that has prioritized hippie punching over actually fixing itself. Obama is fucking living proof of that now, and he is quite literally the best we can expect.
Fuck it, this country fucking hates me for daring to be a fucking liberal, so fuck the country as well. I give up.
WyldPirate
@freelancer:
Not only are they not bluffing, they will get away with it and derive political benefit from the bluff.
Hal
Republicans shutting down Government and blocking everything over extending tax cuts to the rich is about the best thing that could ever happen to the Dems.
Let them do it.
Rick Taylor
__
The trouble is that much of what we “get” for it is stuff that should be bipartisan, hardly part of a liberal wish-list the way that tax cuts for the very is for the right. Start is something that in prior years both parties would support, and that Republicans would still support a Republican president had negotiated it.
__
Plus, if we cave on this, the Republicans will use the tactic again, holding America hostage. Sign on to wish list, or we cannot in good conscience raise the debt ceiling. It has to stop somewhere; might as well be here.
fasteddie9318
@J.W. Hamner:
What do we get out of it? Not shutting the government down? Wow, that’s not really much of a compromise.
cleek
the incompetence is simply mind-blowing.
and, how do people as dumb as this manage to get elected to high office ? do they lose their minds once they get to DC ?
i wish WikiLeaks could show us whatever communications the Dems are having amongst themselves.
WyldPirate
@Dennis SGMM:
Damn you! )))))shakes fist((((((( Beverage on my screen.
MobiusKlein
It still boggles me that the Congress didn’t do this before the election.
If Obama is such a bad negotiator w/ the Republicans, can we expect him to be any better in negotiating anything else in the world?
celticdragonchick
@NR:
Un-fucking-believable.
I have argued against it in other forums, but Obama is begging for a primary challenge at this point.
I am truly wondering what the fuck I accomplished when I went door knocking and canvassing for this guy 2 years ago.
This is nothing at all like the president I thought I was going to get.
General Stuck
No he doesn’t, but you are free to find another to support.
NR
I will again point out that this is the easiest possible fight in the world, and Obama and the Dems completely caved. All they had to do was put up a bill extending the tax cuts for the middle class and vote for it. If the Republicans blocked it, bash the hell out of them for raising taxes on the middle class. Simple as that. Do it before the election and we might have seen a different outcome.
Obama and the Dems won’t even fight on the easy stuff. They’re useless. In fact, they’re worse than useless, because when the GOP policy they implement has negative consequences, they are ensuring that the left will get blamed for them.
funluvn
@Matt:
Embarrassment set in for me about the time of the Beer Summit. I’m at the point of being mortified by this latest round of pin the cost on the middle class.
stormhit
@Culture of Truth:
No shit. Cole’s post was completely nonsensical.
celticdragonchick
@Kryptik:
I read somewhere that systemic corruption can be defined as the ability of competent people to see the problems, but the utter inability of anybody to effect any repairs in any fashion.
Sue
I am finally beginning to think we might have a one-term president on our hands. After two years of hearing ‘just wait, he’s got something up his sleeve’, it appears the only thing there is the bloody stump left from extending his hand across the aisle.
He needs to get his act together and fast. It may be too late to do anything other than take back the message, but that in itself is a step forward.
celticdragonchick
@NR:
Yep.
And the Dems will absolutely get blamed.
General Stuck
@stormhit:
I tried to find some tell of parody, but couldn’t come up with one. Maybe it is that, wouldn’t be the first time, nor the first time I was fooled by spoofery.
NR
Furthermore, what does this do to the Dems campaign message for 2012? “Elect us so that we can repeal the tax cuts for the rich that we just extended!”
Yeah, I’m sure that’ll work wonders with the voters.
You Don't Say
@freelancer: That’s what got the Dems in this mess in the first place: worrying about what they can’t control anyway.
celticdragonchick
@Sue:
I have not seen any aggressive messaging from him since his campaign.
Whatever the hell is going on with his leadership style, I would hazard that something real fucking vital is missing.
Like…leadership.
Baud
I no longer think it’s possible. Even if Obama does the “right” thing on taxes (whatever that is), there will always be some other decision that he will have to make that will confirm to those who want to believe it that his administration has been a failure.
Midnight Marauder
It never ceases to amaze me the heights of ineptitude the Democratic Party can achieve. As much as the Obama Administration deserves criticism for their horrid negotiating tactics, this situation didn’t just happen in a vacuum. I haven’t really seen too many Democrats willing to get out there and fight on this issue to give President Obama some room to maneuver.
It feels like the effort to close Gitmo all over again.
jacy
I got nothin’.
(I’m building a fantasy land inside my head where everything doesn’t suck. I expect to move there soon. On the upside, virtual furniture weighs next to nothing.)
Comrade Dread
Huh… I thought it would take longer, but I think I’m almost back to hating the D’s as much as the R’s.
At least in this, the current group of spineless weasels have surpassed my expectations.
Maybe it’s getting to be time to just get a nice cabin somewhere far off the grid, stock up on jerkey and beer, sit on the porch and watch the comic tragedy of American politics unfold.
Linda Featheringill
@Corner Stone:
I agree. I might be wrong. It’s happened before.
But some of the comments sound like extracting revenge before the offending action has even taken place.
How can that be good?
Sasha
Easiest solution: Let the House pass the extension for taxpayers under $250,000 and dare the Senate GOP to not vote on it.
Why the hell they didn’t do that before the elections is beyond me . . .
WyldPirate
@Cris:
Well, just judging from the comments in this thread, it appears that there is a mass mutiny going on WRT Obama support in BJ land.
We’re all firebaggers now. Who knew Sarah Palin and the Rethugs had enough money to pay nearly everyone to say negative stuff about Obama and the Dem’s ineptitude on this issue on this thread?
The Republic of Stupidity
Well shite shite shite…
They’re just not intent on blocking all and any Dem legislative initiatives, some of ’em are actually ‘declaring war‘…
Jeeeeeeeeeeeesus Xmas… how does one even begin to reply to such insanity? Can you imagine the shrieks of indignation… the soiling of the undergarments… the flowing of the tears… should a Dem Congressperson make the parallel comments?
I, for one, especially liked Barton’s comment about ‘shooting it’…
Tractarian
@Dennis SGMM:
Here’s one Obamapologist’s take:
Extending the Bush-era tax cuts, while not an ideal form of economic stimulus, will help the economy somewhat in the next two years. It will increase inequality, sure, but it won’t hurt the economy. Anything that helps grow the economy (even a little bit) also helps prospects for future debt reduction. It also helps us avoid the potential of a President Palin in 2013.
So this is hardly the worst outcome, policy-wise, even from a progressive’s perspective.
Now, I can’t vouch for Obama’s negotiation style. Giving ground pre-emptively, without demanding concessions, would be an odd tactic if you’re, say, a divorce lawyer looking to get the best deal for your client. But then, Obama campaigned on civility and unity, not on throwing red meat to the base.
NR
@Baud:
Please enlighten us as to how completely capitulating to the Republicans on the tax cuts is actually a brilliant decision that is worthy of our support.
General Stuck
To everyone who no longer supports their dem in the WH
Goodbye
and good riddance
Judas Escargot
@You Don’t Say:
Call their fucking bluff.
Yep.
I’ve said before, going Crazy Ivan on at least one of the three big looming issues (Bush tax cut extension, START, or the debt ceiling when that comes up) is IMO the only way Obama can ‘save’ his Presidency at this point. He’s already failed on two.
I’m neither an O-bot nor an O-skeptic, but you’re the fecking President. You can get an hour on TV anytime you want. You’re smarter, more eloquent, and more reality-based than your opponents. And you have stronger Executive powers than ever, thanks to your predecessor. Do… something.
Two years ago he was being compared to Lincoln. Now it’s getting harder and harder not to compare him to McClellan.
Comrade Dread
@Sue: I agree. If this is what the nation can expect over the next two years, it’s awful hard to imagine him winning another term.
WyldPirate
@celticdragonchick:
You and me both, celticdragonchick.
cleek
@General Stuck:
don’t say it if you don’t mean it
Chyron HR
@WyldPirate:
Yup, that’s it. It couldn’t be that the hordes of Obotomized Obots who mindlessly worship Blackity Black Black Jesus were just a strawman all along.
The Dangerman
If they extend the top 2% for 2 years in exchange for permanent on the first $250K, that’s a fair trade. Let’s have 2012 be over tax cuts for rich people.
If they extend the top 2% for 2 years in exchange for DADT, I could live with it.
If they extend the top 2% for 2 years in exchange unemployment benefits, I’d be upset.
If they extend the top 2% for 2 years in exchange for nothing, well, I give up.
WyldPirate
@General Stuck:
Is this a GBCW, Stuck?
Don’t go. we love you, you big lug.
celticdragonchick
@Midnight Marau
We all knew what the deal was after the GOP leaders actually insulted the POTUS with that unprecedented snub regarding the dinner invite.
Obama was roundly condemned here and elsewhere for his performance yesterday that looked weak and ineffectual, especially following the humiliating dinner debacle.
The GOP smells blood in the water, and they are willing to wreck this country at this point to kill this presidency.
They have to be stopped, and that means we have to recognize that there will be collateral damage to the country when they blow something up (literally or figuratively), but the alternative is being held hostage for decades.
This President is not that kind of person willing to fight this kind of battle, and that seems crystal clear at this point.
MobiusKlein
@Tractarian: What’s missing is an actual strategy for getting stuff done. No messaging, no unity, no plan. It’s all running around, duck and cover.
We might look back at the Emanuel time with wistfulness, not bitterness.
Linda Featheringill
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/11/30/AR2010113003494.html?hpid=topnews
Describes the meeting between Obama and the Republicans.
Do you think that maybe Obama give the tax cuts in exchange for extension of unemployment benefits?
Sasha
@NR:
Please wait until he actually capitulates (if he does) before bitching about his capitulation.
J.W. Hamner
@NR:
You do realize that nobody has actually capitulated yet, right?
I know these preemptive freak outs are cathartic, but people need to keep some perspective here.
Tractarian
By the way, this isn’t what you want to hear, but you already have a very solid reason to support Obama.
President Palin.
I’m sorry if this doesn’t get your loins all tingly, but hey, we take the country we have, not the country we wish to have.
SlyFox
Ok. If he doesn’t pass the tax extension, then Republicans would block all votes on legislation including DADT and START and blame him for it not passing because of the tax extension. If he does, they still will block all votes on legislation including DADT and START, citing problems with stuff they agreed to before. How can he win?
Peter
@Culture of Truth: My thoughts exactly. I have no idea how this is supposed to reflect badly on Obama.
celticdragonchick
@MobiusKlein:
*shudder*
Damn.
FlipYrWhig
I’m sorry, what was it that Obama did wrong? The Republicans have been being dicks. He reached out to them, and they continued to be dicks. If he didn’t reach out to them, they would also continue to be dicks. Because they’re dicks. You don’t have to like it, but you don’t have to pretend like there’s a solution, either.
Yes, the better course of action _for Obama_ would be to say, if you’re going to act like dicks, it’s on you, and we’ll make sure that it’s on you. Do you really think that _Democrats as a group_ can pull that off?
What I imagine is this. Obama says, “Fine, douchebags, do your worst.” Stories hit the media about how Obama is calling the Republicans’ bluff. Everyone wonders what will happen next. And then “Democratic strategists” and “senior staffers” squirm out from under their rocks and start talking about how it’s a very risky game and Obama had better be careful and Senate centrists are very concerned about how this all looks.
Democrats aren’t united. They don’t hang together. They anticipate the worst and act accordingly. It sucks. It always sucks. Obama didn’t create that problem, and IMHO doesn’t even deepen that problem, and the worst that can be said about him is that he hasn’t tried to solve that problem, but it’s not clear how anyone can.
And that’s why this is what it looks like when Democrats have a numerical advantage. The same exact thing happened time and again under Clinton. But actually it’s worse than ever because these Republicans have backed out of the “gentleman’s agreement” that used to govern governing, where you, you know, have some fear that you’ll get bad publicity for acting like a dick. They don’t fear that anymore. Democrats still do. Training Republicans to have a conscience, or Democrats to suspend theirs, is going to take _years_, probably generations.
Carnacki
A conversation I’ve had with a friend several times goes something like this: All of his life Barack Obama worked to not be seen as an angry black man when at this moment in time what we need is a righteously angry black man.
john b
@donnah:
we are neighbors apparently! ?luckily? i am a contractor so i’m not directly affected, but i could definitely see it affecting the economy of the area overall.
General Stuck
@cleek:
What? you thought I was talking about me leaving bj?
oh no, I’m talking about those that no longer support their dem president, leaving that realm. While the 90 percent of us dems who do, can get about fighting the wingnuts, without a poutrage pity party every 10 minutes.
I will never leave BJ, ever. Though I may well take a break from it now and then, or return as a clown eating troll. but not leave. obi wan
ed drone
Once you pay the Danegelt, you never get rid of the Dane. Make them pay.
And for God’s sake, make any extension of the rich-man’s tax-cut be ONE or THREE years, so the renewal doesn’t come up again IN AN ELECTION YEAR!! We had too many fucking pantywaists among the Dems who so feared the “Democrats = Taxes” sloganeering of the Republicans that they refused to vote BEFORE the election, when it would have had an effect!
Put important issues into the odd years, you bloody idiots! Don’t make it easy for the fucking demagogues to, you know, demagogue you! Are you daft?(Yes, I know that’s a SATSQ question, but I had to say it.)
Ed
Midnight Marauder
@celticdragonchick:
I will accept that, but it overlooks the main thrust of what my previous comment was about: this can’t all be the responsibility of President Obama. Where is the rest of the Democratic Party on this issue? Why haven’t there been Democratic surrogates viciously attacking Republicans on this issue for weeks, so President Obama doesn’t have to take on the entire burden himself? Where are his elected allies doing the dirty work so that he can do his “I’m doing my best to respectfully disagree with you” routine?
I think this interview with outgoing Ohio Governor Ted Strickland is incredibly apt for this thread:
GregB
Does this mean I can introduce the term Balloon-baggers into the digital lexicon?
Rhoda
Tomorrow the house is holding a vote on the middle class tax cuts alone.
Zifnab
@The Republic of Stupidity:
I can’t even imagine it because I haven’t seen a Democrat try that shit in my lifetime.
Get Dukakis in the fucking tank again. At least he was trying to look tough.
Baud
@NR:
Unless Obama has agreed to a permanent tax cut for the wealthy, he hasn’t “completely capitulated” to Republicans (who, as much as it pains me to say this, did handily win the last election). And since I don’t know exactly what the deal is, I can’t say whether its “worthy of our support.”
But my original point was not about the deal, but about my skepticism about whether, at this point, Obama can realistically win over people on the left who think he has been a failure.
General Stuck
@FlipYrWhig:
You are talking to the wind my friend
celticdragonchick
@Tractarian:
I find the idea terrifying, but a leader has to fucking lead at some point…and Obama seems utterly unable to actually do that.
Congressional dems have been complaining for the past year that they get little or no guidance from the White House…and the American people get even less.
At some point, his failure to engage with his supporters and the congressional dem caucus would have to have consequences.
And so we have seen.
I think we are genuine danger of having a one term presidency, and Obama will have to take his share of the blame.
NR
@Tractarian: I fail to see how having Obama implement GOP policy is any better than having Sarah Palin do it.
MikeTheZ
@Tractarian:
Oh, yes, because we’ll get a president who gives the Republicans everything they want instead of one who merely gives them ALMOST everything they want. Woo.
FlipYrWhig
@Tractarian: Frankly, I think the idea of giving rich people even more money is vile, but I also want people who oppose that idea not to talk about how extending tax cuts for the wealthy “increases the deficit.” Fuck the deficit. Worry about it another time. Don’t spread _that_ “Republican meme” either.
(Yes, I know, Obama talks about the deficit too. He shouldn’t. It’s stupid, given the shambles of the economy.)
chopper
@Linda Featheringill:
we’re democrats. we walk off the field after the first quarter.
NR
@J.W. Hamner: If Obama stands firm on the tax cuts, I will gladly admit that I was wrong in this instance.
At this point, there’s about as much chance of that happening as there is of “Going Rogue” winning the Nobel Prize for Literature.
ruemara
I got to be frank. What do you expect? This isn’t a fracas between friends, this is an undeclared war within a household. One side is determined to govern, no matter what happens, and the other side will destroy them either way. All you ‘he should fight’ people throw in the towel on the issue before anything is even decided. There’s no upside, ever. It’s all doomed and even when there’s nothing in the articles you submit, it means that you’re right because the vagueness of it all fits your narrative. Whatever, you have a right to your opinions, your views and your interpretations.
This whole issue had the WH telling congress to vote on the tax cuts before the election and the blue dogs whining about sitting it out. This is Obama’s fault and somehow he should have forced a vote of a legislative body that he doesn’t control. Now, he has to try to get other things done before this session ends.
But somehow, this is all because he’s a. a pussy. b. weak. c. “reaching out”. d. corporate.
The amazing failure to hold Republicans accountable for being fucking evil and being the party you have to deal with because they hold enough of a majority to be effective, completely boggles me. This whole situation has been a case of damned if you do, damned if you don’t.
cleek
if Reid had any balls at all, he’d threaten to use the “nuclear option” at this point.
BombIranForChrist
Just close down the blog. We all know that everyone here will vote for Obama no matter what, so why bother. Cuz, like, Palin is wacky.
valdivia
@General Stuck:
this. and i love this is all pre-emptive to anything being done.
I have not seen anything here in this thread about the idiocy of the Senate Dems with 20 proposals on the tax cuts instead of a unified voice which Obama has been pushing for fuckign 4 years.
Thank Schumer, Bayh, etc.
ETA: except for you and a couple of others. but hey I guess that makes us all blind to expect the Dems will support their president.
celticdragonchick
@Midnight Marauder:
I hear ya…but that is where leadership from the top comes in.
I recall hearing a lot of carping from the lower ranks during HCR that dems had little of no clue wtf the White House wanted and no guidance on how to get to any desired result.
The hands off thing may work in some situations, but it is not working now. We need a fighter…not a facilitator.
That goes for Harry Reid as well.
SlyFox
@FlipYrWhig:
THIS!
This is the reality, folks. I live in Georgia. It’s fucked up here. I would give anything to have bluedog Dems in the state legislature and especially the governorship. I lived in hell for so long, you all have just stopped in purgatory.
Zifnab
Why oh why couldn’t the Republicans have won the Senate and left us the House? At least in the Senate shit never got done anyway. The House is where you throw up your wish list and the Senate squashes it down.
But at least a Pelosi lead House could keep feeding the Senate Republicans bills to choke on, rather than leaving Boehner and Cantor at the helm to pass their crazy bullshit legislation.
Corner Stone
@Midnight Marauder: There have been a ton of elected Democrats mouthing a lot of very tough and dedicated verbiage the past couple months. Jim McDermott for one, as I saw him yesterday and today make the same case.
But IMO, what’s the point of D people come out and say Hell No when their nominal party leader is saying Well…Maybe. ?
arguingwithsignposts
The GOP is the party of brownshirts. There, I said it. They are top-down, authoritarian lock-step fascists. Whether Obama negotiated with them or not, they would do what they were going to do. Until they pay a price at the polls for their fascism, they will do what they do.
And
maybe*that* wouldn’t change anything.BombIranForChrist
I’m sorry, I know this is basically the only thing I bitch about on here now, but it’s beyond ridiculous to me that we sit around and moan and complain about how wimpy and spineless the Democrats are, but when it comes time to vote, we, well, we vote for them. Why? BECAUSE WE ARE ALSO WIMPY AND SPINELESS.
The Democratic leadership aren’t mutants. They are us. If you want them to toughen up, then you should toughen up.
Just sayin’. Look in the mirror, folks.
burnspbesq
@WyldPirate:
No. You’ll still be an ass, but you’ll be an ass with something useful to say for the first (and probably only) time.
This is where I draw the line. The Republican Party has openly declared war on the American people. If Obama surrenders, it’s time to sit shiva for him.
ruemara
@Judas Escargot:
uh, no, no you can’t. You don’t get an hour of tv time when you want because you’re president.You negotiate and ask for a block. They grumble and complain, some don’t even carry you, or cut away for something else more important, like soaps. And if this president pulled an I’m President Bitch GIVE ME AIR TIME- there’d be even more fuel to the “socia1ist” fires.
General Stuck
@valdivia:
The senate doesn’t matter in this. Only the House can initiate any revenue changing legislation, (tax collection) via the constitution. So until Pelosi caves, no one else says, not Obama, nor the Senate means diddly squat.
celticdragonchick
@Midnight Marauder:
BTW…your blockquote from Strickland was on the money.
Corner Stone
@Tractarian:
This is quite possibly the single worst reason to in fact extend the tax cuts for the wealthy.
Holy Jeebuscracker.
The Republic of Stupidity
@Zifnab:
I really am at a loss to understand the Dems’ behavior at this time…
There was a movie in the late 80’s, w/ Andrew McCarthy and Kevin Dillon in it, about teenagers in a Catholic high school in the 60’s…
In one scene, Dillon is talking about Elvis Presley and how he was a better performer before getting into flicks like Blue Hawaii and Kevin ends up saying ‘they must have cut his nuts off or something…’
What happened here… did someone/s secretly neuter the entire Democratic Party?
To quote Casey Stengel… ‘Can’t ANYONE here play this game?’
General Stuck
@burnspbesq:
I agree with this, but until it like happens, then it has not happened. I think Obama knows this as well.
chopper
@Rhoda:
this is interesting. i understand the GOP are the masters of squirming out of responsibility for stuff, but i’m not sure exactly how they’d manage to block that one.
and it goes to the senate and then what? they filibuster a tax cut?
Hal
@celticdragonchick
Congress is as much to blame as the WH. They sit around worried about their jobs and the minute something comes up that might lose them votes from their constituents, they turn and run.
donnah
Hey, neighbor john b!
I’ve lived in the Dayton area all my life and seen some of our biggest and best businesses fold up their tents and leave. NCR, Mead, GM, and countless others are gone, and we have struggled as the tax base has all but vanished. What we have always had as an anchor is the Base.
The locals are not happy. It’s ammunition against Obama, and in this highly Republican area, the last thing they need is more ammo. I don’t know how it will affect the economy overall, but it won’t be a plus, that’s for darn sure.
Good luck with the construction biz. I have a twenty-one-year-old son coming out of Americorps in Feb and he could use a job…
Tractarian
@NR:
GOP policy is extending the Bush tax cuts forever, privatizing Social Security, eliminating federal education spending, invading Iran, nuking North Korea, and a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage.
When Obama inevitably implements all of these policies, I will still prefer him to Sarah Palin because he will nominate better federal judges.
The Republic of Stupidity
@Corner Stone:
I was just about to ask about that…
We’ve HAD those tax cuts for a decade…
And HOW did they, uh, ‘stimulate’ the economy?
jacy
@SlyFox:
I propose that Georgia is only the anteroom to hell. Louisiana is hell. Sure, people around here say, “At least we’re not Mississippi,” but they say it without any real conviction.
Martin
@NR: In 2-3 years, the economy will be moving again, the focus will be more on the deficit, the 2012 election will be past and in the meantime the CBO scoring will look pretty much the same as if the cuts weren’t extended for the wealthy. That $700B number bandied about was over 10 years (ignoring the >$1.3 cost of extending them for the middle class), so instead of buying back 33% of the cost of the cuts in the CBOs numbers, they’re actually buying back 70%-80% this way.
Long term it looks like more has been done to improve the deficit, even though nothing has been done. Short term it looks like less has been done. And everyone has a way to spin this to their advantage.
That said, I don’t buy it yet, not until I see Nancy’s name next to the deal.
Maude
@FlipYrWhig:
Did Congress go out for the holidays? Did I miss something?
It’s over?
The Repubs do this all the time. So what?
This is the 24 hour news cycle.
If the Repubs get the extension on the Bush Tax Cuts, it may give them cover to vote for important legislation.
Corner Stone
@Culture of Truth:
This doesn’t even make sense. We all knew what the R’s were going to do. They’ve told us in interview after interview.
Putting a Pollyana face on the situation does not mitigate the effect when the inevitable slapping starts. It makes you look out of touch, weak and confused.
Like Recovery Summer messaging when actual people are looking around saying, “Recovery my ass! WTF?”
Zifnab
@BombIranForChrist: Yes. But it’s not us you have to worry about. It’s our friends and family.
Because when they all ask who we’re voting for and we let out a sigh and say, “Obama I guess”. They’re not going to race us to the polls to offer their support.
celticdragonchick
@Hal:
True, dat. No need to let them off the hook.
Midnight Marauder
@MikeTheZ:
I guess that is why Republicans are gearing up to repeal every single major legislative initiative passed by Democrats in the past two years?
valdivia
I am going to add that for the past week TPM has been yelling about how the Court was going to repeal the mandate. Kurtz predicted it and was trolling about it. And today it did not happen and there is barely ONE mention of this on that blog. The same thing happens every fucking time–the yells about capitulation and dire shit go on and on and then when things go differently the yellers simply yell about something else.
I am going back to taking a break. Can’t take the outrage du jour.
cleek
@chopper:
yes.
freelancer
As long as we’re going full metal despair, no one here is gonna top this post by “The Editors” at Esquire:
Joseph Nobles
@General Stuck: The House passes all extensions but top bracket. The Senate adds the top bracket extensions and sends it to House. House passes Senate amendment and sends to Obama. Obama signs it.
There we go, back on third base again.
Rhoda
@celticdragonchick: That’s bullshit IMO. They didn’t WANT what the White House was pushing and they pushed back and used the Republicans for cover; and then when they realized no Republican votes would materialize they came to see how fucked they were.
Obama hasn’t changed his platform and he’s systematically gone through trying to fulfill his campaign pledges which anyone can see if they just go to Poltifact and check those out. He’s failed because he hasn’t unified his party behind him; Congressional Democrats aren’t fighting the fight on his behalf and for his agenda and progressives want to push everything to the left and are beyond pissed at what the final result becomes when compared to what it could have been if the Democrats had hung together.
General Stuck
@chopper:
They can and have announced a cloture vote to prevent the any such House bill from even being brought to the senate floor. It is a filibuster of sorts, but only to consider a bill, not after it’s debated and up for final vote.
Tractarian
@BombIranForChrist:
Again, you may not like it, but it’s the truth. You don’t live in a Scandinavian social democratic paradise. Obama may very well be the best we could possibly hope for. And I, for one, am not willing to sit out an election or risk giving the nuclear football to a apocalyptic religious nutjob, just to make a point.
celticdragonchick
@Corner Stone:
Yes.
We knew what the hell was going on after the dinner invite snub…and Obama looked weak and undignified at having to nearly beg for them to come have cookies and tea in his private executive dining room.
They set him up for this today…and he let them set him up.
I am actually in awe of the utter naivete and political incompetence displayed this week.
LT
But they didn’t have the votes!
SlyFox
@chopper:
Yep. They would filibuster a tax cut. Didn’t they do that with the recovery act?
suzanne
”People always say that I didn’t give up my seat because I was tired, but that isn’t true. I was not tired physically… I was not old, although some people have an image of me as being old then. I was forty-two. No, the only tired I was, was tired of giving in.”
-Rosa Parks
I’m hoping the President remembers words like this when he makes up his mind what the hell to do.
General Stuck
@Joseph Nobles:
the wingnuts in the senate have vowed TO NOT EVEN ALLOW DEBATE on any bill from the House that comes to the senate. So there would be no final vote, nor debate on a bill with just mc tax cuts.
eric
@FlipYrWhig: as usual, you are correct. Remember, their are a number of aligned interests here: the top 2% of taxpayers, and the Corporate Complex and career officeholders. The MSM services all three of those interests, so that everything that happens will be shown through the prism of their collective values. Even when the mass of the public disagrees with this collective vision (see debt, opinions on), it does not matter because those same people can be moved by other spun tales.
I for one do not believe that real people in America are against the key tenets of the welfare state of helping the whole of the populace out of moral obligations and as a means of a sustaining a robust democracy. Instead, there is a relative sizable mobilized mass (maybe %30) that makes it appear that we are a hasher land than we really are. Yet, people are being fed a steady diet of BS from the MSM and that is where are Nation is failing.
chopper
@General Stuck:
sounds to me like the house dems are already calling the GOP’s bluff on this one. they send the senate a bill that cuts the taxes of every income-earning american and they block it because it doesn’t have extra cuts for them and their rich friends.
of course, we’ll be so busy shitting on the president that they’ll probably get away with it.
aimai
@Rick Taylor:
But since we know that the most sensible thing to do was to *at least* let all the tax cuts expire and to force the Replicans to try to repass a millionaire’s only tax cut on their own political dime after the lame duck is over. Better to have two months worth of agony without getting START, DADT, and the unemployment extensions while putting the tax code on a better footing than to cave now and offer the two year extension, still not get START and DADT and etc…, and have to continually refight the millionaire lobby to get back that 4 trillion.
aimai
Sasha
@NR:
Ray of Hope: This was exactly the attitude and sentiment when HCR appeared doomed. Everyone assumed that Obama would cave then too.
I’m sure he is perfectly aware that the stakes are as great, if not greater, now and that his effectiveness for the next two years as president is on the line.
p.a.
There’s apparently no fight in the man. But to quote Zack Mayo, “I got nowhere else to go…”
General Stuck
@chopper:
LOL. I’ve gone from pissed off, to sad, to a big belly laugh from all this nonsense on BJ this morn. Since Cole hasn’t responded to any of my baiting him, I’m leaning toward a JC spoof run to bring out the nutters on our side.
You Don't Say
@WyldPirate: All this you’re-either-an-Obamabot-or-a-firebagger is so children’s fairy tale crap for me. Why does someone have to be all in or all out? I neither love nor hate Obama, and I agree with him some issues, disagree with him on others. Like any politician I support. Why reduce it to a cult of personality?
Bruce (formerly Steve S.)
@NR:
“the two sides could reach an agreement in which all of the tax cuts are extended, but only temporarily”
Translation: they’ll be extended “temporarily” again in two or three years if the Republicans don’t hold both houses of Congress and the Presidency, and will be made permanent if they do. Pathetic. Then we’ll be lectured about the “tough choices” that we have to make. Pathetic.
SlyFox
@celticdragonchick:
So, if he didn’t set up the meeting or canceled the next one, whats to stop Republicans from blaming him for lack of bipartisanship again?
SlyFox
@celticdragonchick:
So, if he didn’t set up the meeting or canceled the next one, whats to stop Republicans from blaming him for lack of bipartisanship again?
SlyFox
@celticdragonchick:
So, if he didn’t set up the meeting or canceled the next one, whats to stop Republicans from blaming him for lack of bipartisanship again?
WyldPirate
@cleek:
He left them in his “man pants” in a seedy brothel in Vegas.
jibeaux
Okay, I’ve got to tackle the federal worker pay freeze thing again.
According to an employee of the VA who had this explained to her, it does not affect either a) their regularly scheduled annual cost-of-living increases, or b) performance bonuses, one of which she just got.
I’m a state employee. I haven’t had a raise in 3 years. Around here, we call “raises” are cost of living increases, when the legislature throws another 2% or $750 or whatever our way. Hasn’t happened for three years, and last year we were furloughed so a pay “freeze” would be a good thing. Bonuses? Don’t make me laugh. Health care gets suckier and more expensive every year. I am worse off every year I stay here. But I’m in a better position than most people, because I at least have some job security. If I could jump ship to the feds even at the very beginning of a wage freeze, I would be better off by a lot.
I’m not saying it makes sense from a deficit-reduction standpoint. It doesn’t, it’s a drop in the bucket and I know it. But it makes sense from an optics standpoint. Why would federal workers want to be the most resented employees in the whole country? Why should they be the only category of workers in the whole country with guaranteed pay raises, cost of living increases, bonuses, great benefits, and job security?
Rhoda
@Joseph Nobles: Here’s the deal.
We have three things we want to get out IMO of this lame duck:
(1) Permanent middle class tax cuts
(2)Unemployment insurance
(3)the START treaty
The way I figure it; we were fucked when the Democrats refused to have this vote before the election on the tax cuts. That was the only point, before an election, where we could have forced a vote and not a soul would vote against a middle class tax cut ALONE because they’d be killed by the ads. And if the Republicans had been insane enough to do it we’d likely have barely hung onto the majority.
But the conservadems killed that; they didn’t want to take the vote and get on the wrong side of their corporate masters.
Now, we’re sitting here with the Senate Republicans more than willing to hold the Start treaty hostage over the tax cuts issue. And we’ve got two years til the next election; they were willing to vote against the stimulus they’ll vote against this treaty. And the Republican presidential contenders will run against Obama on the diplomatic fallout; it’s win-win.
Leonahardt had a good piece today in the NYT about how fucked up the choices facing Democrats are because they actually NEED to get this shit done. TPM had a post saying this was because they’re DEMS; no shit. They don’t stand together, they don’t stand behind their Presidents, and they fuck up constantly.
It is what it is. On the plus side, they’re pushing the country in the right direction policy wise. The last election we had a huge discussion about universal health care; that is a huge part of why Romney care could get passed. Next time, it’ll get easier. In between times, stock up on the lube.
That’s my take.
Joseph Nobles
@General Stuck: It wouldn’t be a vote on a bill with just all other tax cut extension but top bracket. They would amend it and then vote on it and send it back to the House. Their vows mean crap-all when they can get their way.
ruemara
@celticdragonchick:
A leader has to tell his team to stick together as a team. Ok.
And you must have missed all the statements from the WH on what they wanted, even as the Senate sat around whining about how they weren’t clear on what the WH wanted. At what point will you concede the failure isn’t in Obama’s leadership, it’s in a very visible segment refusing to be led because it’s in their personal best interest to do so?
I’m sick of all the people who voted for Hector MountainDew. I supported the better statesman and I’m appalled at the dissolution of party unity at the Senate level. I don’t expect a man who’s worked to craft good solutions between parties to turn into this super hardball winner take all kind of guy. If that’s who you need, then don’t primary Obama with a progressive, primary him with Spitzer. If brass knuckles and games of political chicken are what we really need in America, then we need to quit messing around with any ideas about Governance and play like Republicans-All Revenge, All The Time.
El Tiburon
@J.W. Hamner:
I can’t even begin to understand this reasoning. Are we all just a bunch of two-bit whores now?
We give you billions and you let the gays serve? Not only no but FUCK NO.
Goddman does anyone have any principles left?
eemom
@General Stuck:
I’m wi’choo and Flip and Valdivia and whoever else is in the rapidly shrinking “ain’t over till the fat lady sings” minority here.
Gawd. WHAT a bunch of freakin drama queens.
Martin
@You Don’t Say:
Because he’s an ideologue, so it’s all religion to him. He assumes that applies to everyone else, when it hardly applies to many voters at all.
Rhoda
@celticdragonchick: ITA. Someone needs to get fired for this shit. I don’t know if it’s Axelrod or Gibbs or who the fuck set this up; but they need to fucking get gone.
I really hope Plouffe coming into the White House ups everyone’s game.
celticdragonchick
@Rhoda:
I heard differently, to the effect that people didn’t really know what the hell the White House wanted. It was interpreted at the time as a counter strategy to the Hillary care debacle where everything was orchestrated from the WH. Instead, let congress take the lead and hope for the best. It, well, sorta worked out. Kinda.
The hands off thing isn’t working at all now.
No argument from me on that one.
Floundering and running for the hills I would say…but that is reflected in the leadership vacuum that is perceived. (and being ruthlessly exploited by the right. In a way it doesn’t matter if the vacuum is real or not. It only has to look real for the effects to be felt. Obama looks weak and rudderless, and it shows)
How about even some of the fucking moderates?
I’m not particularly liberal except on social issues, and I am beating my head into my desk at how inept some of this administration looks wrt getting their messages out, twisting arms or using political capital (when Obama had it, in any event. That expired and it will not be back any time soon)
Tony J
The most baffling thing about all of this, if you stand back and just look at the issue from a purely political perspective, is that the Republicans are doing exactly what your average Democrat in Congress would want them to do. They’re out there saying that they will block middle-class tax-cuts unless most of the money goes to the top 2%, adding billions to the national deficit, while posing as debt-haters with a populist message.
There’s not a political party in the rest of the world that wouldn’t take advantage of that to absolutely hammer their opponents every time they get near a microphone. And if the chance came to do it – before – an election, like the Democrats had dropped in their laps, they’d have fired their expensive Ad Agencies and just bought a dozen or so camcorders out of petty cash so they could make the commercials themselves and spend the rest on tight-lipped hookers for the ‘Massive Majority Beer Fest And Toucharama’ that would have started a couple of hours into Election Night. You don’t need much glitz around your message when you can run footage of the Other Guys telling the average voter to go fuck themselves over and over again.
I’m one of those foreign jonnies who has no right commenting on American politics, but for the love of Brian Blessed, how can any 21st century political party supposedly full of people who actually want to win elections for their side not be beating the shit out of the Republicans right now?
General Stuck
@Joseph Nobles:
Your missing my point. In the senate, either side can block a bill from even being considered. And Mcconnell explicitly stated his intent to use this rule. And a bill that isn’t even considered, obviously cannot be amended or anything done to it.
General Stuck
@eemom:
Yup, maybe we ought to start our own blog?
SlyFox
How the hell did a repeat post get on here. Anyway, don’t get me wrong, I understand feelings here. Mine are anger, disappointment, confusion, lividness, sensibility, rationale, sadness, hopelessness, worry, fright all rolled into one. And it has produced one hell of a headache.
You Don't Say
@You Don’t Say: My edit time ran out. Forgive me if I misunderstood you. I don’t decipher snark very well. Maybe this is meant for Chryon-guy.
Midnight Marauder
@Corner Stone:
To the italicized portion: IS THAT NOT THE VERY WAY POLITICS IS SUPPOSED TO WORK?!
I mean, come the fuck on now. You have a president who says “Well, maybe we can work something out with these guys,” and then the members of his party come out blazing to say “FUCK NO YOU CAN’T! These people don’t know what the fuck they are talking about!” Democrats, as a cohesive political party (ed. note: please, stop laughing), are incapable of making the argument about why the Bush Tax Cuts are terrible economic policy. President Obama isn’t the only person in the Democratic Party who doesn’t want to take the fight forcefully and directly to Republicans. It’s a feature of the entire Democratic Party, from elected officials to campaign strategist to everyday party activists. It’s exactly like Gov. Strickland said:
This is all it comes down to. Look how many people here are just capitulating on this issue without anything actually happening yet. The House is voting on middle-class tax cuts on Thursday. I just think it’s fucking disgusting and pathetic that the immediate reaction TIME AND TIME AGAIN is to just start lamenting how we lost an opportunity when the window isn’t even fucking closed yet. For fuck’s sake, let’s get to work whipping up some confidence in the Democrats in D.C. so they have some steel in their spines for this fight.
@celticdragonchick:
@BombIranForChrist:
celticdragonchick
@SlyFox:
Nothing, but they do that anyway.
Haven’t you noticed?
This way, he gets to look like he was groveling…and they still come out and say he didn’t go far enough.
Nice.
Bob L
You would think the logical thing would be tie a two year extension of the tax cuts “it’s a recession you know” with the unemployment, START and DADT repeal call it “Rebuilding America Act” and then see what they will do. But that’s a stupid thought, frankly it’s clear most of the Senate Dems would rather be Republicans so that would get a lot of principled objections from inside the Democratic party. Bleh.
I think the real problem is the Dems in congress have learned to just sit on their ass and do nothing. That’s who they survived ’94 and then the Bush years.
burnspbesq
@General Stuck:
“but until it like happens, then it has not happened.”
Hence the use of the word “If.”
Corner Stone
@LT: Show me how you get to 60 votes! SHOW ME!!
ruemara
@jibeaux:
I’m local government in a very liberal city. I’d love the same deal federal workers just got. We’ve been hosed for the past few years each negotiation. Where are all these champions of government employees coming from and why haven’t they been sticking up for us before? My very liberal town has new council members and old that have won running against the city’s workers, our fat pay and pension benefits. If things don’t change soon, I’ll have the pleasure of working for them while living in my car. Jumping to a federal post would increase my pay to the tune of 300% and give me a frigging bonus(!), which I haven’t had since my last private sector job.
celticdragonchick
@Midnight Marauder:
I will make some calls tonite.
Anybody else?
Mitch Guthman
We are all Firebaggers now?
Corner Stone
@suzanne: You know what I was wondering this morning? Because I honestly don’t know.
Does history remember the white man who Rosa didn’t give her seat to?
I know the bus driver is the one IIRC who called the police. Does history remember that person?
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
How do we make the Republicans pay for being this way?
SlyFox
@celticdragonchick:
As opposed to the characterization they would love as well, that he’s a socialist dictator. Either way, they are gonna fuck him up with the votes on all the stuff we want.
celticdragonchick
@Tony J:
Watch Michael Moore’s “Capitalism: A Love Story” and then watch it again.
A significant part of the voting population is wrapped in social “culture war” issues that trump any economic consideration, and many other voters are thoroughly propagandized by the very same business interests that are exploiting them.
In truth, a lot of this is still actually playing out from resentment and race issues reverberating from the Civil War. Everything gets poisoned as a result.
WyldPirate
@Corner Stone:
Tinkerbell told me to tell you that you need to get your shit together and clap harder, Corner Stone.
J.W. Hamner
@El Tiburon:
I’m all for higher taxes, but I don’t think taxing rich people is a principle in and of itself. It’s a means, not an end. I would be willing to trade tax cuts in the short term for any number of liberal priorities. I don’t see how that’s unprincipled.
celticdragonchick
@Belafon (formerly anonevent):
Have a functioning press and an educated voting public would help.
SlyFox
@Corner Stone:
Thats what I’m wondering too.
Rick Taylor
@Ross Hershberger:
__
Well put. It’s not my first choice, but I don’t see what strategy is left. And it’s not quite letting things burn, we should hold votes and attempt to do what we can (and the administration should make as much use of executive powers where possible to get around congress). But barring a miracle, Republicans will block us, and all we can do is make it as unambiguously clear as possible who it is who’s holding everything up.
__
Attempting to negotiate in good faith with the current Republicans doesn’t work. If compromising, negotiating, delaying introducing bills or avoiding bills that would embarrass them in the hopes of securing compromise later actually worked, I could support it. But Obama had two years to try this approach, and after working in good faith to fulfill his campaign promise and transcend division, he succeeded only in proving how impossible it was. I wish Obama had been right and I (and all of us cynical people here) had been wrong. I wish it had turned out that the old left was part of the problem, that Republicans were susceptible to reason once they met a representative Democrat who was willing not to get hung up on the past and to negotiate in good faith. Obama gave it a good effort, and while I thought and think it was wrong headed, I respect him for that. But it failed, spectacularly. Time to change course.
cleek
@Midnight Marauder:
but something did happen. the GOP just threatened to blow up the Senate unless they get everything they want. and they can do it. and there’s little doubt they will.
Bruce (formerly Steve S.)
@freelancer:
Thanks for this link, good stuff. Taibbian in its rhetorical excess.
NobodySpecial
Looking at the article, it seems that tax cuts will be the bait to finally get Kyl to approve the START treaty, since he’s mystically involved in the meeting today.
Obama looks to be taking his chances on the economy improving enough by 2012 even without the tax cuts going away that he holds serve. Of course, one could argue that things would look even better if you had a few hundred billion coming back from the wealthy to actually get shit done, but who am I to argue with 11-D chess?
Corner Stone
@Midnight Marauder: As you are well aware. my response was to your comment that you haven’t seen others out beating the bushes on where the D’s are on this issue. And I responded that they are.
Your further commentary argues a completely different theme.
danimal
I’m missing something. What is the deal that Obama has signed off on? What has he given away, and in exchange for what. I’ve seen a number of Washington insider rumors about the summit yesterday, but I haven’t seen anything with specifics. I would be very upset if the tax rates are continued without significant concessions from the GOP, so I understand the sentiment. I just haven’t seen what I’m supposed to be worked up about. I don’t have time to scream loudly about Washington rumors, so I wait until the real news hits. Is there a way to separate rumor (which I routinely ignore) from hard news (which is useful)?
brendancalling
@NR:
such a worthless fucking pussy. Ugh.
WyldPirate
@Midnight Marauder:
Ok Midnight Marauder, I’ll grant y9ou your premise. But at what point does Obama become responsible for outcomes?
He’s the leader of the Democratic Party. Leaders lead. Leaders take responsibility. He’s not getting it done in the eyes of the nation despite the accomplishments. He is seen as weak and ineffectual by the low information voters and a hell of a lot of them in his base.
And don’t give me any excuses about polls and approval ratings. That crap goes out the window come 2012. If he loses support in the Midwest–which he is–he is in big trouble.
JC
Hey guys, some clear thinking here.
First – I will need to see it, to believe that Obama will capitulate on this. I unfortunately believe it may happen, given the surrender on ‘pay freeze’.
Second – I think it is obvious, given what I’ve seen of his appearances, such as on the Daily Show, but it is clear as day that Obama KNOWS that the Republican party is intent on not giving him any accomplishments. I have to believe that, regarding Ted Strickland’s quotes above, Obama KNOWS this.
He KNOWS. All the talk of bipartisanship, of holding out a hand, is simple theater, and Obama’s theater, as well as the Republicans.
So – what can he DO? If you assume that the Republicans will oppose, oppose, oppose, and play chicken with unemployment benefits, and ANY legislation, as per the latest from the Rethuglicans – what can he do? Given the dems in the Senate can’t unify?
Option 1: Let the whole tax cut thing expire.
Consequences? Results? Next Step?
Option 2: Push through the vote on the under $250K thing.
Consequences? Results? Next Step?
Other options?
It simply isn’t the case that Obama is ‘caving’, ‘negotiating against himself’, the structural impediment is, again, the filibuster in the Senate, and the incoming – and LARGE – Republican House.
JC
Game it out.
Who looks worse, if literally no legislation is passed over the next 2 years? I mean, literally nothing?
The Republicans will then try to shut the government down.
Who wins that, given the bias in the media now?
artem1s
@The Dangerman:
paying off the rich to support an American’s constitutional rights is NOT a solution or a compromise anyone should be talking about. You repeal DADT because its right or you don’t support it at all.
I’m sick to the teeth of Obama and the Dems horse trading OUR rights and assets and health and economic welfare in the name of bi-partisanship. It has to stop now.
Midnight Marauder
@Corner Stone:
I will agree that there are a few Dems out there fighting the good fight and fighting with all they have. But I will argue that those are exceptions to the rule. As a party, Democrats are completely fractious on messaging and seemingly have no coherent plan of attack.
That is an administrative issue with the entire party.
goblue72
Shooting yourself in the head is the favored sport of Democrats, don’t you know that?
Its really gob-smacking. Democrats have a perfect opportunity to take an issue – here, pounding the snot out of the GOP over being whores for the plutocrats – that would actually resonate with the average socially conservative, older white guy living in the Midwest (swingish voters who trend Republican but are willing to vote Democrat unlike Southern white guys), and instead of seizing it like a crack junkie finding his stash, they choose the curl up in the fetal position option.
NobodySpecial
@JC: If you claim he can do nothing, then he could at least say things that motivate Dem voters. The fact that he’s NOT doing that implies that he thinks he can do something.
So which is it? Is he powerless and unwilling to lead, or does he have power and is choosing to use it in ways Dem voters don’t want him to?
Further:
@JC: How did the last government shutdown work out for Reps in the Clinton era, when the same media conditions applied?
Mike Goetz
Why is it not worth 70 billion a year in lost tax revenue to accomplish DADT repeal, START, and unemployment extension? Why is everybody driven to distraction by what the wealthy are getting? What are you willing to sacrifice to buy yourself the satisfaction of knowing the wealthy didn’t get theirs?
LGRooney
I’ve said it before. Obama is a strict Constitutionalist and he understands what the original intent of the Republic was in having the three branches. He wants to pull power back from the executive and put more into the hands of the legislative, i.e., less rule by fiat than we have seen in almost 200 years. He doesn’t believe in the bully pulpit, he believes the president’s job is to do what the legislative tells him to do. He wants to lead the executive branch, not the nation.
It’s a sweet notion that was relevant at the signing but went out the window soon after the ink dried. He doesn’t get it.
He may be right in believing, accepting my premise, that a less powerful executive is better for democracy but he fails to realize that times have changed.
IOW, Obama does not understand that when a plane is nosediving into the ground, it is time to pull out of the nosedive instead of reading the rulebook about who has authority in the cockpit.
A. Lurker
At some point, the Obama administration is going to have to give his supporters some reason to, you know, support him.
Oh I’m sorry, do you want President Sarah Palin in 2012 to come in and make things eleventy-billion times WORSE? Can’t you see this is part of Obama’s grand strategy to take away whatever leverage the teapartiers have by giving them everything they want so they can’t take anything else? Dammit Jane, you and FDL need to stop hacking into John’s blog account!
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
To build on what JC said, what happens in the next Congress when 6 Democrats vote against changing the rules that require 60 votes to go to cloture?
cleek
@JC:
but Obama isn’t getting anything out of “his theater”. if his goal is to get the GOP to look bad in the eyes of the general public, he’s failing. that message is not getting out.
Midnight Marauder
@WyldPirate:
You cannot be serious. Look at the dynamic you’re setting up here. You agree with the sentiment that “this can’t all be the responsibility of President Obama.” In your very next sentence, you pivot to asking when President Obama becomes responsible for outcomes.
If you acknowledge that President Obama is part of the problem but not the entirety of the problem, why are you still focused on making sure that he is responsible for outcomes? You’ve already stated that he is responsible. Now you’re just looking to pin the entire predicament on him, and I’m sorry, but that is grossly ignorant bullshit.
@cleek:
So then let’s hold a vote on the middle class tax cuts only in the House on Thursday and see if Republicans put up or shut up.
goblue72
@JC: You can’t win if you are afraid to lose. And Obama has proven that he is either afraid to lose, or thinks that its better to take a few crumbs than to risk those crumbs for a win, which is pretty much the same thing.
He is completely unwilling to walk away from the table. I’ve been in a negotiating room with those kinds of guys. Once you realize the other guy won’t walk away, you have him by the BALLS.
NobodySpecial
@LGRooney:
I have a bunch of wiretapping Federal agencies who disagree with your premise. And also a bunch of ‘enemy combatants’ who disagree as well.
WyldPirate
@burnspbesq:
fuck you you insecure jackass that needs to let every one know he’s a scum-sucking shyster. Go DIAF.
The Grand Panjandrum
Should Senate Democrats call the GOP bluff on this and put the repeal of DADT at risk? I know this isn’t a zero sum game but would it really be worth taking that risk?
brendancalling
@WyldPirate:
“The Rethugs completely get their way on tax cuts. Best deal the Dems get is two year extension for all brackets at current rates in trade for UI benefits extension. I won’t be surprised if the dems lose the latter as well. The cuts will then be hung around the Dems and Obama’s neck in 2012. They and he get screwed both coming and going by the Rethugs.”
And that’s if the dems are lucky.
Shalimar
@Dennis SGMM: As an Obamapologist on most things, I still have to ask: Is Obama the worst negotiator we have ever seen on the national stage? The other side doesn’t want to deal with you, ever. Stop giving them shit for nothing.
Oscar Leroy
Noooooooo! ! ! ! ! If we wanted that kind of crazy, pie-in-the-sky leftist demagoguery, we’d go to Firedoglake! Go read a Noam Chomsky book, you defeatist! ! ! ! !
geg6
I haven’t read the whole thread yet, but why, oh, why is anyone surprised by this? Obama signalled that this is exactly what would happen when he eagerly stepped up the other day to throw federal workers under the bus in the hopes that the GOPers would suddenly fall in love with him.
I said I was done with him at the time and got flamed for it by people saying, well, hey, those federal workers can take a freeze when everyone else is having hard times (except the millionaires and banksters, of course) and it wasn’t another capitulation without negotiation nor any sort of indication that he was going to turn his back on any sort of progressive economic stands and that it was just 11th dimensional chess showing how serious he is about the deficit without really hurting anyone (except those federal workers, of course) and that once everyone sees how serious he is about the deficit then he could move on to all those progressive ponies he’s been holding up his sleeve.
Fuck me. If this guy is the best and brightest our side can come up with, we’re more screwed than we’ve ever been.
The Grand Panjandrum
@NobodySpecial:
And authorizing the killing of AMERICAN citizens without trial isn’t showing much restraint either.
JC
Goblue72
He may be powerless, and WANTING to lead, right?
I keep in my head the Rolling Stones article.
I’d LIKE to think that the pre-emptive surrender on the freeze government pay, is a chess move, that we will see the fruit of in the struggle over tax cuts – a useful cudgel when Republicans oppose the extension to only those under $250K – ‘the federal employees are sacrificing, why can’t those who make a quarter of a million – everyone must sacrifice!”.
But I kind of doubt it.
As far as saying things that motivate Dem voters, he has, many many times. His last speech I saw, clearly pointed out the obstructionism of the Republicans, quite obviously. He went after them mercilessly on the campaign trial for Dems this year in September – not that it helped.
I’ve always thought his rhetorical trick was to ‘I’m all in favor of bipartisanship’, then let the Rethugs hang themselves, then point out their bad behavior, once shown.
of course, the media reports this as ‘both sides are contributing to the gridlock’, which is IMMENSELY FRUSTRATING’, to me, I can imagine it must be the same to Obama.
At any rate, I can point to lots of times where
Just is not the truth.
SlyFox
@cleek:
The question is, how do we get that message out? I have been notified by friends who work in the media and the shtick now is anything Obama positive is ignored while anything Obama negative is amplified. The news media as a whole seems to believe that President Obama falling on his face is best for their ratings. With this knowledge out there, how do we do it?
ricky
Presidents get blamed for most that happens on their watch
even when the blame belongs to other players on the same side. But for a bunch of liberal commenters here to blame Obama for the Republican letter is beyond stupidity.
I am going to say this very simply for the very stupid.
Obama did not run to fix the economy. Obama did not destroy the economy. Obama did not elect the Congress we have now. Obama tried to fix the economy and barely got his proposal through this Congress. The economy was worse off than any expected, the fixes only kept the problems from getting much worse instead of measurably better. If you want to speculate on what might have happened with a better stimulus, recognize it might have not passed and/or might have not made things too much better (8% UE sound good?).
Throughout all this Obama’s designated opponents have made clear their objective is to take his Presidency down while many of his “supporters” acted as if anything they do not get was a deliberate personal assault against everything they ever stood for.
goblue72
@The Grand Panjandrum: Yes.
NobodySpecial
@JC: Well, I’m sorry, but I need a bit more from you than ‘Uh-uh’ when the White House says they can give away the tax cuts.
Allan
Every time you get mad at a Democrat because Republicans are acting like assholes, the Republicans win.
Direct your spittle into your telephone while calling GOP Senators, as I do.
Mike Goetz
I think I see what’s going on. Everybody here is deeply afraid of the Republicans, and Obama isn’t. He refuses to give them the power over him that everyone here does, and in your panic you lash out at him. Give it up, guys. He won’t turn himself into a gibbering, bravado-spewing child for you.
WyldPirate
@Midnight Marauder:
I wan’t trying to make it an either/or argument, but I know that you love to break things down this way. You have that history.
You seem to want to absolve Obama of responsibility of any failures by the Dems. I’m sorry, That’s just now what I learned about leadership in the military. In the military, a leader is responsible for the actions of his subordinates. Period. Full stop. End of discussion. The buck stops at his desk.
Now do the actions of the Dems have any bearing on the issue? Yes they do. However, if Obama had had the courage of his convictions and couldn’t get the support of those in the party who are subordinate to him, it’s not as if he is powerless and isn’t in a position to threaten, cajole, bargain or bribe with some quid pro quo. If he can’t do that, he isn’t much of a leader.
Sometimes leaders have to lead by example. His “exanple” doesn’t appear to be getting it done.
Corner Stone
I can’t believe people are arguing it’s a good thing to extend all tax cuts in exchange for promises of cooperation.
Oh wait, yes I can. Just hilariously awful.
stuckinred
@WyldPirate: Yea. like My Lai and Abu Ghraib, all the way up the chain. Come on dawg, you know better than that.
john b
@donnah:
i’m not in construction. i’m an on-site contractor at the base. i’m an engineer, but since the government doesn’t really like to hire employees, i don’t directly work for them. i work for a contractor and can be easily fired. hoorah!
anyway, i just moved to dayton about a year ago after grad school.
cleek
@Midnight Marauder:
i agree.
btw, here’s MSNBC’s sub-head on Hoyer’s announcement that they will try to hold that vote:
from the story itself:
he can’t even be assertive.
and Cantor says:
and there’s your narrative: Dems in disarray hurt good will, while the GOP continues to act in good faith.
WyldPirate
@Mike Goetz:
Interesting hypothesis. More 11-dimensional chess.
I’m not buying what you’re selling. Time will tell, but a blind man can see that Obama and the Dems are shit out of bargaining chips.
Chrisd
Well said. As I’ve written here before, Obama operates as if he has all the time in the world. He’s taking the long view and needn’t be bothered with adapting to shifting political opportunities in the field.
dollared
Just to be clear, the opportunity still sits in front of Obama like the brown oval rug:
1. Call the Republican bluff on taxes. Just call it.
2. Counterstimulate using the available TARP funds to bail out homeowners
3. Come down HARD on the banks on MERS – give them a set of regs that eliminates abuse of the servicing business (divestment being step 1) and three years to comply with all land registration laws.
4. Propose a liberal deficit reduction plan that is strongly progressive, but reduces the deficit just as aggressively as anything else.
5. Declare Social Security untouchable.
He could do it tomorrow. Tomorrow.
And really, in the face of this war, who gives a shit about DADT? Win the 2012 war and fix it then.
Mitch Guthman
@WyldPirate: Good. Let them shoot blow their brains out. The Democrats need to stop worrying about the Village and start putting together a good legislative agenda and go to the country with it.
Mitch Guthman
@WyldPirate: Good. Let them blow their brains out. The Democrats need to stop worrying about the Village and start putting together a good legislative agenda and go to the country with it.
celticdragonchick
@WyldPirate:
I have to agree with you on that.
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
So we have one party that has decided not to govern, and the other party gets punished. This is going to be an awesome two years.
Midnight Marauder
@WyldPirate:
This is borderline nonsensical. Let’s go over what I wrote again.
I find it stunning that you can go from agreeing with this premise in one post to being completely unaware of it in the next.
ricky
@WyldPirate:
Your comment says it all. Unfortunately what it says is not about not about Obama. It is about you. The lessons you learned about leadership in the military would be best applicable if this was a military dictatorship. Obama cannot fire his Congressional subordinates, place them in the brig, or have them shot.
eemom
@General Stuck:
maybe so. Cuz the more I think of it, this
is really a profoundly stupid post. As others have noted above, this exact result would have followed no matter WHAT Obama did.
J
@Tony J: That–put very well–is the question. When your opponents are pursuing polices that will do lasting damage to the world and the nation, and harm your constituents, & are, to boot, manifestly, visibly palpably, loathesome; when the issues you should run on have been handed to you on a platter, and you’re mum about it, what do you want? What do the Democratic party leaders and party worthies whom we’re bashing here–and I agree Obama deserves some but far from all of the blame–want? A kind word from David Brooks? An invitation to go duck hunting with Dick Cheney? I don’t get it.
FlipYrWhig
@Midnight Marauder: I don’t think Strickland, or, really, enough of the Democratic/liberal/left mediasphere, understands that Obama’s Thing is that he is honest and constructive. He isn’t ignorant that Republicans are dicks. He just doesn’t care.
There’s a car dealer in my town that is known for being the honest one. You go there not because they have the best price but because they don’t bullshit you or make you fight for every last dollar. I think that’s the way Obama sees himself. Not everyone likes that, especially people who like to haggle and think they can do it well.
Just Some Fuckhead
Not to go all meta, but that was a very quick 238 comments. Do any of you actually do any work at your jobs?
ricky
@WyldPirate:
And what, pray tell did they ever have to offer for which any Republicans were willing to risk their seats in a primary.
You and others seem to conveniently forget that most of the bargaining Obama had to do was with independently elected members of his own damn party.
NR
@eemom: If the GOP is going to act like asshats no matter what Obama does, then what purpose is served by unilaterally capitulating to them?
cleek
@eemom:
not quite.
if Obama hadn’t reached out to them first, he wouldn’t look like such a schmuck today, when the GOP made their inevitable ransom demands.
if you think the other guy’s gonna blow up your car no matter what you do, you don’t invite him over for tea the day before.
in other words: this particular “result” includes Obama looking weak. and he brought that on himself.
Captain Haddock
We’re keeping our powder dry, people. Dry powder, dammit!
WyldPirate
@stuckinred:
Granted, there is a bit of hyperbole, but are you trying to tell me he doesn’t hold any sway over the House and Senate leadership or ambitious folks within his party? None at all.
I know Lyndon Johnson was an old hand in the Senate, but he wouldn’t have gotten a damned thing done had he not played some chits. That was more along the lines of what I was speaking of. Are you telling me he didn’t have to do some arm-twisting as Prez to get the Civil rights Act passed?
BTW, weren’t you in the military? I was. As a Lieutenant and a Captain, I was certainly held to that standard. NCOs are held even more stringently to that same standard. It doesn’t necessarily mean that you what get the same level of punishment as some fuck up, Joe Snuffy, but it was instilled in you from day one. Now does that disappear to some (or even large) extent as you go up the chain of command, yep. But it’s a damn shame that that it has and in some respects and under some conditions, it still hasn’t.
SlyFox
@cleek:
And he would look like an asshole once Republicans start flogging that horse called,” We won, and he won’t meet with us. He isn’t being bipartisan.” Either way, hes fucked.
aimai
@eemom:
But eemom–this is the eternal argument. If the Republicans would have acted exactly as they have without the offer of the two year federal worker’s freeze then what was the point of the freeze? It cost Obama a ton of federal worker support and other base support–I canceled my OFA membership over it and I’ve donated literally thousands of dollars to them–so Obama gave away something of moderate importance to his voters and got nothing. He might have gotten “nothing” from the Republicans anway but he’d be in a stronger position vis a vis his own voters. So that’s an actual loss–and in this case totally unnecessary.
This is exactly the point that perfectly loyal Democrats have been making for ages and you and Stuck just attack everyone for being *better negotiators* than Obama and his team. If you end up with nothing but egg on your face you are *doing it wrong.* (I mean Obama and his team–not you.)
Michael D.
Does this mean we are allowed to criticize Obama now? I mean, has some magical milestone passed that I am unaware of?
Can I criticize him on DADT? Or would that still be criticizing someone who is on my side and I should just shut up and believe that he is serious about getting it done?
Or are we only now allowed to criticize him on things John is ok with? Because I know if this came up a few months ago, and if anyone criticized him for it, we’d be roundly savaged in the comments.
Is 22 months now the new rule?
Just asking.
WyldPirate
@ricky:
I was talking about twisting arms within his own party, ricky.
eemom
@NR:
As has already been observed ad nauseum, he HASN’T capitulated yet.
This is all in the minds of you, your fellow drama queens on this blog, and the Howard Finemans of the world whose gospel you follow, even as you purport to ridicule them.
celticdragonchick
@eemom:
By allowing himself to be suckered into hosting them in his dining room yesterday after they insulted him with the dinner invite snub, he looked, ahem, weak and grasping.
The progressive left was pretty unanimous that it was a bad move on hispart, and gave encouragement to the Republicans who would continue to play him and the American paeople.
Guess what?
They did just that…and it is no accident that they waited until today to release their
ransom notedeclaration of intent. It was a calculated slap in his face after the meeting, and a profound display of contempt for Obama and the Office of the Presidency.He let them set this up, and he has himself to blame for it. I have never seen the President look weaker or more impotent then at this moment.
Corner Stone
@NR: Or, what purpose is served by acting in any way that contradicts the reality that R’s are going to be dicks?
It doesn’t make anyone feel sympathetic to his cause. It makes him look like the person in the middle of the cafeteria who just got pantsed.
Tsulagi
No one could have predicted and all that. Nor this…
Likely.
This is like watching Mr. Rogers negotiate with Tony Soprano. And every time Tony spits in his face, Mr. Rogers gives him another cardigan sweater and again breaks out into a rendition of “Won’t you be my neighbor”.
eemom
@aimai:
I don’t believe that Obama intended the federal worker pay freeze as a concession to the GOP or a quid pro quo for anything.
He may have done it in part for symbolic purposes, but I just don’t buy that he’s that dumb.
celticdragonchick
@Just Some Fuckhead:
I’m at school not doing my Spanish lab, lol.
J.W. Hamner
@cleek:
This is Village speak. Who the hell cares what the tiny percentage of people who watch cable news think about the President’s “optics?” Nothing has happened and nothing has changed. Republicans obstructing Obama’s agenda, news at 11.
Corner Stone
@Captain Haddock: Not this hill people! Let’s make the next one the one we want to die on! Or maybe the next one!
gogol's wife
@eemom:
Me too. This is tiring.
NR
@aimai: This has been Obama’s MO from the beginning of his presidency. Shit all over the people who supported him the most, in an effort to make the people who hate him, hate him a little less. Foolish is putting it mildly.
eemom
@Just Some Fuckhead:
Do you actually HAVE a job? And if so what is it?
Just curious izall.
MBunge
@celticdragonchick: He let them set this up, and he has himself to blame for it. I have never seen the President look weaker or more impotent then at this moment.
And I’m thankful that Obama isn’t obsessed with dick measuring contests at the expense of the national interest.
Mike
celticdragonchick
@aimai:
This.
BTW, remember way back when I was the Republican commenter at LGM?
Looks like I went full on DFH somewhere along the line.
danimal
I fail to see how Republican gasbaggery makes Obama look weak. They’ve been doing it for a decade; it’s who they are and how they roll.
The proof is in the pudding. If Obama makes a lousy deal, criticize him for it. As far as I can tell, there is no deal.
Allan
@Just Some Fuckhead: Jobs? There are people who have jobs?
NR
@eemom:
Okay. If and when he does capitulate on the tax cuts, will you come back here and admit you’re wrong?
I’ve already gone on record saying that if he stands firm, I’m willing to admit I was wrong here. Are you willing to do the same? Or will you just move the goalposts again? “The Republicans promised to be extra super nice to him in exchange for the tax cuts, so this is a good deal!”
I’m willing to own up to it if things don’t go the way I think they will. Are you?
stuckinred
@WyldPirate: My point was that using the military as an example how responsibility work doesn’t cut it for me. Shit rolls down hilI. I did 13 months on the dmz in Korea 67-68 and a year in the Nam 68-68. You may have been “held to that standard” in theory but I’m talking about my experiences at a time when the officer corps was totally fucked up. “Nothing in the world more dangerous than a butter bar with a compass.”
WyldPirate
@ricky:
You missed my point. Being a leader is about being responsible for things that happen within your Party. Obama, as President, is the “head” of the Democratic Party.
I wasn’t advocating that Obama “fire” anyone or throw them in the “brig” or have them shot. Get serious.
The CEO of a corporation can get away with–sometimes for quite a while—blaming his subordinates for failures within his company. If he fails enough, though, sooner or later, the Corporate board of directors is going to shit can his ass.
Obama’s shareholder’s don’t appear to be too pleased, either, so he’s skating on some thin ice.
MBunge
@aimai: you and Stuck just attack everyone for being better negotiators than Obama and his team.
Most of the folks slamming Obama have never negotiated a damn thing of any consequence in their lives. They have zero or next to zero experience in negotiating anything and are just repeating a bunch of theoretical crap they’ve read online.
Mike
cleek
@J.W. Hamner:
like it or not, the media is influential, and it is narrative-driven. and if you don’t control the narrative, your opponent will.
playing the optics game really is part of politics.
celticdragonchick
@MBunge:
You really don’t understand power disparity in this culture, do you.
He will fail to get his national security objectives if he looks weak, pearl clutching PC remonstrations from you notwithstanding.
The GOP has already
signaledstated real fucking clearly that all other considerations are rescinded wrt getting Obama out of office…so public appearance of weakness only strengthens their hand in accomplishing this.Judas Escargot
@ruemara:
For the full “Very Important Speech on All Networks” monte, sure… but I doubt that if Obama called up Oprah, Ellen, TDS or The View and asked for a block of time for an exclusive interview, he’d be refused.
He’s already used 60 Minutes as a platform a few times. Just not (again IMO) very effectively.
J.W. Hamner
@NR:
I will certainly criticize him if he extends all tax cuts and gets nothing in return… and will also criticize him if he gets something and that something sucks.
FlipYrWhig
@J: How is he “mum about it”? He says what he wants. Then other Democratic politicians go scurrying in all directions to earn brownie points with the media about how whatever Obama wants to do is a bad idea and wrong. It happens over and over and over again. Obama didn’t make it that way, and he can’t fix it.
J.W. Hamner
@cleek:
The entire field of political science disagrees with you. Narrative is minor, the economy is what matters.
celticdragonchick
@stuckinred:
Three things that strike terror in the heart of an aerial observer:
A captain who says ‘I have an idea!”
A lieutenant who says “Based on my experience…”
A CW3 pilot who says “Now check this shit out!”
:)
FlipYrWhig
@cleek: Why does he “look like a shmuck today”? That’s the premise of this whole round of How Has Obama Failed You Today. Why?
Republicans act like dicks. Water still wet. No, wait, I’m sorry, make that “Water still wet, experts say.”
donnah
John b, I hope you can keep your job. My late father-in-law was an engineer at the Base back in the sixties and seventies. We also have had many friends who have worked there in a variety of capacities. I worry about them because any more, there are no guarantees.
Good luck! Fingers crossed!
Michael
I’m thinking that it might be fun to stand outside unemployment offices and hand out handy Google Maps to the homes of wealthy GOP contributors in the local area, complete with Zillow appraisals, tax assessments and the like to newly cut-off beneficiaries of UI.
WyldPirate
@stuckinred:
Of course it does and I understand where you are coming from. In theory, that’s how things are supposed to work and in good units, that is how they work.
The military, does, however, have it’s own failures to live up to the standard and people who, by rank or connection are not held to that standard (John McCain is a perfect example).
You were, unfortunately, serving at perhaps one of the low points in morale and unit cohesiveness in the history of the US military.
I wasn’t in the military during from 85-91 both Active Duty and Guard. Fortunately I didn’t have to serve during combat. I did, however, see a couple of instances where junior officers and senior NCOs careers were ended because they were held to the kind of standard I described.
eemom
@celticdragonchick:
Again, not buying. The meeting yesterday was total perfunctory bullshit, and everyone with two brain cells to rub together knew that. Do you honestly think that Obama didn’t?
I agree that gestures towards “bipartisanship” are beyond ridiculous in terms of accomplishing anything, but I just don’t see what Obama loses by maintaining the high ground.
As for this:
Yeah, and so the fuck what? Again, is it NEWS that the republicans have nothing but contempt and malice towards this man?
Sure, it would have been nice if Obama had gone on teevee after the scumbags dissed him two weeks ago and told McConnell and No-boner, “Suck my dick, the meeting’s cancelled” — but that would have accomplished WHAT, exactly?
celticdragonchick
@J.W. Hamner:
Four decades of culture war and paranoia/resentment disagree with the political scientists. Americans are perfectly willing to shit on their economic interests if somebody runs ads about abortion, uppity negroes and men having butt secks.
Tony J
@celticdragonchick:
I get that, but that ‘significant part’ is never, ever, going to vote for any Democrat. They’ve decided that the GOP is their vehicle to the mainstream and they’re going to ride it until someone decides that brand is worth taking back.
But the ‘many other voters’ who broke hard enough against the Republicans in 2008 to give the black guy with the heathen name the White House are still out there. It’s astonishing to me that even the most craven Blue Dog in Congress didn’t look at how the Congressional Elections were shaping up and run on an “I may suck, but look at the other guy swallowing” platform. It was never going to be a bumper year for the Dems, but at least some of the Congressmen in Red America could have played populist long enough to keep their seats before returning to the corporate trough. The punter doesn’t mind if you struggle a little in order to stay in character, just as long as you put out in the end.
That’s what baffles me. What’s the attraction of a political party that doesn’t actually ‘do’ politics?
FlipYrWhig
@celticdragonchick:
I can’t fathom why this would be true. Because Republicans sent a strongly worded letter? Who gives a fuck? Why do we care? Why are we surprised? I don’t understand it, not even a little. I don’t see what is “weak.” It seems to have to do with some idea of “respect” that makes no sense to me.
PurpleGirl
@The Republic of Stupidity: They didn’t. The economy just kept getting worse. SASQ.
Corner Stone
@J.W. Hamner:
IMO, I agree with you. But look at what we’re arguing about here. DADT, DREAM, tax cuts and UI.
Of those only UI can be said to be truly stimulative. Some of the MC tax cuts will go into the economy but at this point people don’t see those as “cuts”, they’ve come to depend on that level so they can budget.
Regarding the economy, what are we really fighting for that’s going to do a damn thing to improve it over the next year or two?
eemom
@J.W. Hamner:
Same here.
At this point I just want all the tax cuts to fucking die.
FlipYrWhig
@NR: Who shit on what? What the fuck are you talking about? When did everyone go totally batshit? Did I fall asleep and wake up in the Larry Johnson days of DailyKos?
stuckinred
@WyldPirate: I am more than certain that things are much better now that they don’t take 100,000 non-qualifiers a year so the Cheney’s and Newt’s can stay in school.
celticdragonchick
@eemom:
Then it had no purpose, which was widely pointed out. especially since they had already given him a hearty “fuck you” the week before wrt a formal dinner.
Of course, it really did have a purpose for one side…which we found out today.
It was another very public ‘Fuck you!”.
JC
EEmom,
Agree on this. Obama did this for his own strategic reasons. What is the goal that he thinks it will accomplish? Certainly not ‘negotiating with Republicans’.
I don’t understand the goal, it looks quite bad, I can only hope for a big 11 dimensional chess REVEAL that will happen later. But I’m not hopeful.
Seriously though, let them all expire. Let it expire. That would do the most for deficit reduction you could imagine, not that Obama would get credit for it.
The suggestion above on using HAMP funds already written into law. Maybe something like that will cover.
Back to the bigger picture though, what we are really looking at is the best way for Obama to play chicken with Republicans.
I do agree with the commenter who said that Obama needs to know when to walk away, when the deal offered is bad, for his base, and for the country. don’t make a deal just to get a deal.
FlipYrWhig
@danimal:
I’m with you. I really don’t understand it. Just, like, at a deep down level, I don’t get how someone being a dick to me makes me “look weak.” I think I need to consult a primate specialist or something.
WyldPirate
@Midnight Marauder:
The Rethugs will gladly vote no on this and throw the ball in the Dems court. It will go to the Senate where the Rethugs won’t vote for cloture. Taxes get raised. Obama and dems get blamed.
Please pay attention, Maruader. This is not that hard. The Rethugs know the electorate won’t remeber who voted it down in 2010 when they hit the polls in 2012. What they will remember and be reminded of in every damned campaign ad is Obama instituted the biggest tax hike and history.
FlipYrWhig
@celticdragonchick:
So what? Who cares? Do things like this really bother you in your own life?
Peter
Why does Obama look like a schmuck in this circumstance, exactly? He doesn’t to me.
Bruce (formerly Steve S.)
@eemom:
Good, then he might as well do the right thing; veto any bill extending any of the tax cuts.
Omnes Omnibus
@stuckinred:
I take it you have never met a captain with a plan.
JC
By the way, on chicken playing, and oppositional government.
Does anyone really think, Obama and Reid pointing out that “Republicans are obstructing everything”, constantly, really matters to either the media, or to regular people?
Doesn’t it just look like weak complaining, to regular folks, and to the corporate media, “Obama is being partisan?”
Is it better to intersperse that with ‘of course I’m all for bipartisan work! Let’s do X!”, all the while knowing that Republicans will show themselves to be idiots, and it will fall through anyway?
celticdragonchick
@FlipYrWhig:
A President (or any leader) who looks weak and ineffectual will not get support from allies…since they do not want to be be associated with weakness. He or she will come under increasing attack from enemies, who sense opportunity to do more damage. He or she will find that political capital has vanished and that survival must take precedence over other goals.
Go read what happened to Andrew Johnson and how the appearance of weakness metastasized into a crippled administration and a crippled Office of the Presidency for a generation.
celticdragonchick
@FlipYrWhig:
See comment 296.
Obama is in increasing danger of a primary challenge with fiascos like this, and that would be a disaster.
Corner Stone
@JC:
You’ve pinned all your hopes on some mythological 11-D move but you’re not hopeful?
So which is it? Are you hopeful it’s all part of some unfathomable larger strategy, or are you not hopeful at all?
FlipYrWhig
@celticdragonchick: No, the question was, why does he “look weak”? Not why does “looking weak” hurt.
JC
It’s important to remember, by the way, that Republicans are ALLOWED TO GET AWAY with saying, “must extend tax cuts!”, “must deny unemployment benefits because of deficit!”, in THE SAME SENTENCE.
Really, this is both political and media malpractice. There is no excuse. These guys should be hounded from the stage, for that alone.
And yet the current media and political reality is that the B.S. is not called on, Republicans who say the above, are still taken seriously.
And it is, quite frankly, insane.
stuckinred
@Omnes Omnibus: They didn’t let people like me anywhere near captains.
FlipYrWhig
@celticdragonchick: What’s the “fiasco”? I really, truly, no lie, don’t understand the entire premise of why people like you are acting mad.
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
@Tony J:
The Dems can’t get near a microphone. That is the difference.
Yes, they can use alternate media and other channels, but too many people in the US just can’t or don’t want to pay attention, to the point where the only way to get through to them on any issue is to get up in their grill and run lurid blood-soaked ads 24×7 on every damm channel on the TV, and then have the airheads on talk radio ram it home morning, noon and night. And even then, maybe a quarter of the electorate might get the idea.
Our voters are professionals at tuning stuff out, ignoring it, fast forwading past the ugly parts. We are TiVo nation. The memory hole may not have been invented here, but we’ve perfected it – which is exactly what you would expect in the land where modern advertising was perfected first.
And the Dems don’t have access to that dominant, broad-spectrum media machine cum propaganda mill, except for the Blue Dogs, who are old-school Republicans in disguise anyway, so whatchagonnado?
FlipYrWhig
@Peter:
I have no clue. None whatsoever. I’m not playing rhetorical games. I truly do not understand.
Corner Stone
I’m reminded of the movie version of Beowulf The Thiteenth Warrior where the smaller viking warrior is goaded into a fight with a huge hometown warrior.
They tussle for a while and the huge guy is clearly winning. Then the small warrior gets the signal and very quickly and easily dispatches the huge guy.
Of course it was subterfuge. The small warrior was clearly better and could’ve done the deed at any moment.
He chose to bait the huge warrior and his allies so they would understand his cunning. That slapping his pen!s on the dais was not effective. But letting you stick your neck out for him to chop when he felt like was how he would play this contest.
And that was an awesome scene for me. And I keep waiting for the thrust, the slice, the life changing blow.
Omnes Omnibus
@stuckinred: Probably for the best… for everyone’s sake. ;)
FlipYrWhig
@ThatLeftTurnInABQ:
Very Andre Serrano.
JC
Cornerstone,
I’m hopeful it’s part of a larger strategy, since I do know that Obama has very clearly and concisely and critically laid out, many times, the current Republican strategy of opposition, hasn’t lost the insight he has elucidated many times, the last year.
So he isn’t doing this to ‘compromise with the Republicans’, because he has, factually, shown that he knows the Republicans have no wish to compromise.
So yes, then I don’t understand the strategy behind it. And I don’t see how it would work, I just hope he knows something I don’t, and that they – the administration – is strategically smarter than I am.
Paula
@FlipYrWhig:
Dude, don’t you see? Obama had a MEETING. The Republicans sent a STRONGLY WORDED LETTER. This has never happened before in the history of the presidency.
cleek
@J.W. Hamner:
almost.
voters’ perception of the economy is what matters.
and that perception can be managed.
two examples: leading up to this election, 80% of the people were convinced that Obama raised their taxes. and the press didn’t really bother to enlighten them.
likewise, the 2009 budget, the one where the deficit jumps in all those graphs, was due to the budget that Bush signed. but i never heard the press correct anyone about that.
those are triumphs of GOP-inspired narrative over reality, and they caused people to think Obama was a big-spending commie who was destroying our economy.
DaBomb
@eemom: I kinda at the point to let the tax cuts die too.
And as for the bipartisanship crap, here’s a set of recent information on why Obama is showing why he is working with the Republicans.
http://pewresearch.org/pubs/1798/poll-less-enthusiasm-gop-2010-victory-policy-more-negative-campaign-no-compromise
http://www.thedemocraticstrategist.org/strategist/2010/11/tds_co-editor_william_galston_23.php
Both of these articles, as well as others disclose why he is being bipartisan.
Voters want that.
I don’t understand all of this faux outrage over something that hasn’t happened yet. But this is how the past 2 years has been.
Wash, rinse, repeat.
Hunter Gathers
The voters in November gave their blessing to this type of behavior from the GOPers. It’s what this country really wants. We don’t want solutions to problems. We want pious gasbags who will yell and scream, accomplish nothing, and kill brown people to make us feel better.
The only thing Americans hate more than huge, structural problems, are solutions to those problems. It’s why the Dems lost the House. Because they had the audacity to try to help people. Americans hate that kind of shit. We want tax cuts, wars, and an oppressed minority of non-whites to do the type of shit white people won’t do. Obama’s election was a moment of clarity. And then America went right back to the bottle and the crack pipe.
Bring on Soylent Green. It has the electrolytes that plants crave.
DaBomb
@Paula:
This comment wins the intanetz!!
FlipYrWhig
@Paula: Remember when not having the meeting was the worst dis move EVAR? And now having the meeting and then something else happening is the worst dis move EVAR?
geg6
@aimai:
Hm…funnily enough, I just got an email from OFA requesting my input on how I though they did during the 2010 election and requesting more donations. You are free to imagine the terms I used to tell them to stick their goddam ineffectual organization that does nothing put pick my pocket while their leaders are led around by the nose by lunatics and oligarchs from the other side of the aisle. Oh, and to cancel my membership, too.
JC
Paula,
That was a great comment, by the way. funny snark.
FlipYrWhig
@DaBomb:
Well, you don’t want to run the risk of being the last one to be outraged.
Kryptik
@JC:
When they’ve been doing just that for the past 2 years, and still get tarred as being ‘outrageously partisan’ compared to the GOP?
When polls say that the GOP needs to move MORE RIGHTWARD and that the Dems are so far lefty they need to move to the center, ‘for the sake of bipartisanship’?
When time and time again, they’ve made reaches out, got kicked in the face, then told ‘you fucking hyperpartisan tyrant!!’ and people end up believing that the DEMS ARE THE MOST EXTREME PARTY OUT THERE, even compared to the Tea party?
NO, it’s not fucking working at all!
cyntax
Well, for those who think having the GOP over for dinner was a good idea, there’s this reaction from the GOP about the news that the House will vote on middle class tax cuts tomorrow:
So now we have the GOP trying to use Obama’s attempt at bipartisanship to undermine what the House is doing.
Joseph Nobles
@DaBomb: Thanks for that. That’s better than all the hippie punching for the past couple of months. Show me the data!
J
@FlipYrWhig: In the assignment of blame I thought I was leaning harder on ‘the other Democratic politicians’ whom you also fault, while saving some blame for Obama. As far as being mum, it seems to me that Obama–and yes other prominent Democrats–have been very, very quiet about their opponents’ (despicable) motives, about whose interests those opponents serve, about what the (foreseen and intended) consequences of the policies they advocate will be for the vast majority of Americans, just as Tony J said in the post to which I was responding.
I know, and I bet most of the others complainers here know, that politics is difficult, that it’s the art of the possible, one can’t get everything one wants and so on. But history is littered with leaders of whom one can say they meant well, but circumstances prevented them from doing well. There are always excuses and they’re real enough, but every once in a while some leaders do accomplish something of value in the face of difficulties. The question I have–and it’s not (yet) rhetorical–is does (chiefly but not only) Obama have it in him to be one of them?
geg6
@J.W. Hamner:
Um, speaking as someone with a degree in political science, you’re full of shit. Narratives matter, as do economic conditions and probably about a dozen other things I don’t have time to dig into my old texts and research papers to look up. Any political scientist who claims that the media and rhetoric are irrelevant is a pretty shitty political scientist.
cleek
@Paula:
do you doubt they’ll follow through with it?
@Peter:
he looks like a schmuck because he keeps giving the GOP the benefit of the doubt. he keeps pushing the bi-partisan thing; he says he failed to work with them enough. but it’s been clear for almost two years now that the GOP has no intention of playing that game. and yet nobody is blaming the GOP for not being bipartisan enough, they’re blaming him, hell Obama’s blaming himself for these failures of compromise.
and he can’t be trying to set them up for a “hypocrisy” charge, this time, because he’s passed on plenty of chances to call them out for that.
he’s just … well, i don’t know what he thinks he’s doing. but the GOP isn’t being hurt at all by it. they’re running the show, and they’re still in the minority.
FlipYrWhig
@cyntax: How come the Republicans’ comment doesn’t make them “look weak” because of all their wussy talk about bipartisanship and the “spirit” of a meeting?
JC
Kryptik,
Well, again, I would refer you to The Case for Obama, in the Rolling Stone.
The administration has accomplished a lot, given the limitations they were presented with.
And I would say that Obama always ‘being open to bipartisanship’ on a rhetorical level, is good in at least two ways:
a. Polls, as cited above, say this.
b. Helps with Obama’s own approval percentage. Which is still fairly high, given the economic situation.
Now, of course, it’s a different reality. Gridlock is what we will get, no matter what Obama says or does, so, how is the best way to act, and move forward when possible, in the face of gridlock?
I don’t know, myself.
cyntax
@FlipYrWhig:
Cause they’re able to create the impression of inconsistency for our side. It allows them to have their cake and eat it too.
Malron
Let them block everything, since they’ll do it anyway. That way ALL the tax cuts expire, the money goes to pay down the deficit and liberal and conservative alike get to continue to blame Obama for everything while the economy continues to improve.
FlipYrWhig
@cleek:
IIRC I think he said he failed to _talk_ with them, i.e. Congressional leadership, enough. Not that he failed to _work_ with them, i.e. Republicans, enough. But I didn’t go back to look for the quotes.
Corner Stone
@FlipYrWhig:
“How do you ask the last man to be outraged for a mistake?”
FlipYrWhig
@cyntax: But it also goes to show that “looking weak” is in the eye of the beholder. If that had been a Democratic statement, people would be screaming about how pusillanimous and wrongheaded it was.
Paris
The deal could be pass DADT, START, etc everything else and then we’ll extend the tax breaks. After they pass the agenda, oh woops, out of time, tax breaks cancelled – see you next year.
I can dream.
ricky
@WyldPirate:
Sorry I was out. So did Capn. WyldPirate twist the arms of his non-coms or give ’em orders? I did not know military leadership involved arm twisting.
You might want to check out LBJ’s Civil Rights leadership a little more closely. I don’t think he needed to twist too many recalcitrant D arms since the percentage of Republican votes for passage was higher than the Democratic percentage.
NR
@DaBomb: People don’t care about process. Just because they say they want bipartisanship when a pollster asks them does not mean that they want it if it comes at the expense of good policy.
When someone is driving down a brand new road, do you think he thinks to himself “I wonder if the funding for this road passed with bipartisan support?”
When a mother drops her kids off at school, do you think she thinks to herself, “I wonder if the funding for this school passed with bipartisan support?”
Do you think a single person walked into the voting booth on November 2nd and said to themselves, “Well, I’ve been unemployed for the last 18 months, but I’m going to vote for Democrats because they’ve just been so gosh darned bipartisan this entire time!”
Of course not. The voters care about results. If you pass good policy and make people’s lives better, they won’t care how you did it. And if you don’t, all the bipartisanship in the world isn’t going to save you.
WyldPirate
@Corner Stone:
I see Tinkerbell hasn’t visited you yet. She will. Soon.
All of the brilliance of the winning move of the two year 11-dimensional game of chess shall soon be revealed.
Kryptik
@JC:
I will admit that he’s gotten quite a bit done, that I will give him. But when people don’t see it? When people instead see almost the exact fucking opposite of what’s actually gotten done, and then base their support and votes on that? That’s a serious fucking problem.
And as for those polls? I find myself having doubts considering the last fucking 2 years, we’ve essentially seen the same thing: ‘Public says they want Republicans to compromise more’. Republicans instead stonewall completely, and Dems try to compromise the best they can. Public instead blames…Dems both politically and electorally. Rinse, fucking repeat. Voters have been saying that Republicans need to work with Obama more, but when push comes to shove and they don’t, they blame fucking Obama and the Dems, because they don’t fucking bother to show that the Republicans really are acting in bad faith, they aren’t compromising, and they’re in fact being as fucking obstructionist as possible.
That’s why those polls are such small comfort. They people don’t see obstructionism, they actually somehow fucking see the Repubilcans acting in good faith and trying to work with the President and those mean nasty ol’ Dems leaving them out in the cold. It’s fucking backwards, but it’s what’s seen and it’s what’s fucking being acted on, and instead of seeing that it’s not working, that they need to actually publicize the GOP’s stonewalling more, the Dems…CAVE FUCKING MORE.
@NR:
I have to add here is that even good policy isn’t enough if the other side is successful in getting people to believe the exact opposite of your policies has happened. And that’s yet another Dem failure of not defining themselves and allowing the GOP to walk all over them by defining the Dems themselves, in as unflattering terms as is legally (and not-so legally) possible.
goblue72
@JC: Someone upthread mentioned that most of Obama’s critics have never negotiated anything in their life.
I have – and I’m not talking about buying a used car. I’m talking the kind of deal brokering with lots of zeroes and very angry superiors & board members if I screw it up.
And yes, sometimes you just have to walk away if you aren’t getting what you need from the deal – you only make the deal if you can walk away in a better position than the alternative option of not making the deal. If you don’t get a material marginal benefit gained from entering into the deal (net of opportunity costs, transaction costs, assumption of contingent risks & latent liabilities, etc), THEN WALK THE EFF AWAY.
Beyond avoiding a crappy deal, walking away also changes your bargaining position with counter-parties with whom you do repeat business (like, say, Obama and the Republicans). On the one hand, it signals to the other party your seriousness when you maintain a “take it or leave it” position. However, it can make the counter-party slightly more reluctant to try to do a future deal – but in this case, that is of little consequence as the Republicans don’t have any alternative partners – there’s only ONE other side of the aisle as it were. Its do a deal with the Democrats or do no deal.
So far, one of the few guys Obama brought in who knew how to cut a deal was Steve Rattner, the hedge fund guy from Quadrangle Group who was the short-lived car czar who brokered the GM & Chrysler deals with the UAW, execs, bond holders, etc. You knew he drove a hard bargain and crammed haircuts all around because all the money men were complaining how unfair he was to the bondholders. Course, guys like that – like Sptizer – often come with issues – in Rattner’s case being the SEC and Andrew Cuomo coming after him for a kickback scheme. But hey, when you need a guys who can break kneecaps, you gotta put up with their extracurriculars.
cleek
@Kryptik:
Like
The Dangerman
@artem1s:
You are absolutely right and I 100% wish the world worked that way; it doesn’t. That’s why the Right seems to win; they go down and dirty, they don’t give a shit about principles, they want victories. Me, too.
I say fuck it all and take a huge win because the 2% tax extension is going to happen, might as well get something for it.
DaBomb
@NR: So your point is?
I can tell you what my point was in posting those two of many links about his reaching across the aisle….
Voters want that.
The people who read this blog are not a huge section of the base. I have said this ad naseaum. Hence why his approval ratings continue to be high amongst dems.
Even the writer from the second link stated that it’s the right thing to do. Did you read that full article?
So if you want things to change, instead beating your keyboard, why don’t you call your elected representatives and tell them what you want.
I did.
Midnight Marauder
@WyldPirate:
So what’s the plan from the Democratic Party to combat the inevitable, then? Because it’s not just President Obama that’s going to be in the crosshairs of the Republican Party; it’s the entire Democratic agenda.
This is where I get infinitely frustrated with liberals and Democrats. Why are we just ceding the entire narrative for the 2012 presidential campaign to Republicans? Not every attack ad needs the White House’s approval. Why are we just accepting that the electorate will fall for bullshit Republican campaign ads lying about “the biggest tax hike in history,” as opposed to being focused on making sure that we put our ducks in a row by holding a vote on the middle class tax cuts only and then coming out with various messaging campaigns depending on the outcome of that vote? Why are you just laying back and accepting the fact that Republicans are going to lay and that there is “nothing we can do about it?”
I am going to post this quote in every thread this issue comes up in until people begin to acknowledge this salient truth:
@BombIranForChrist:
WyldPirate
@ricky:
You’re just being willfully obtuse, now. You know good and goddamned well that orders are generally followed in the military and “arm-twisting” isn’t involved.
Or perhaps I’m giving you way too much credit….
cyntax
@FlipYrWhig:
To a certain degree weakness is part of the narrative. But in this set of events there’s nothing to point to in the Republicans’ actions as an example of inconsistency reagrding their stated goals. Their real goal (of accumulating power rather than governing) is another matter.
JC
Kryptik,
I’m actually of the opinion of letting all the tax cuts expire. The House will vote on the $250K, and then we will see if Obama holds the line.
Now, if he does – and he better, as far as I’m concerned – then we will go see whether ‘republicans held up tax cuts for normal people because millionaires didn’t get tax cuts’, or whether, as is above, ‘obama presided over large tax increase’, is the meme.
I don’t hold out a lot of hope for the 1st perception, since somehow TARP because OBAMA’S fault, in the eyes of a large percentage of the public, despite how untrue it was.
But if Obama caves because he is afraid of meme #2, well, then he isn’t doing right by the nation, even if it costs him re-election. Not to mention, the Rethugs will find lots of ways to call him a tax and spender anyway.
80% of 2012 will be economically based anyway. And anything that will benefit the economy, we already know, won’t get through the House.
WyldPirate
@Midnight Marauder:
I have no clue and wish I knew the answer. Someone could make an awful lot of money if they did know.
I think the root of the problem has to do with the difficulty in penetrating the short-attention spans of the average voters. Most have a lot going on, are distracted or simply don’t care. Some are susceptible to BS Rethug propaganda. It’s hard to counter a “knee-jerk” 30 second soundbyte ad targeted to get an angry, knee-jerk reaction when laying out the truth of an issue in an understandable format might take two to three times as long.
Tony J
@J:
Yes, that’s what I meant.@ThatLeftTurnInABQ:
But the Dems – can – get near a microphone, they just won’t use it for political gain. I get that the MSM are always going to paint any issue as “Democrats Cure Cancer – Big Win For Republicans”, but that’s been true for a long time.
A Party that won in 2008, when the MSM was going all out to save the McCain/Palin ticket, shouldn’t be having any trouble getting their message out to voters when the current opposition are even more reliant on friendly media coverage to make them seem less insane than Mccain was.
Simple message – The Other Guy wants to give all your money to rich people. It’s true, it’s obviously effective (because the Republicans ran on opposition to the Bail-Outs they voted for, and won), and it’s still true.
When your political opponent hands you an axe and says “I dare you to cut my head off. BTW, I’m fucking the underaged sons of everyone in the audience”, your decision to negotiate continued son-fucking in return for a promise of consideration in the matter of extending employment benefits does not go over well with the said audience. Before you know it, your opponent has convinced the audience that they were only joking but you seem to be serious about the whole “amnesty for paedophiles” thing, and what does everyone think about that?
Does that analogy work? I think it expresses my opinion, but I was going for pithy.
cyntax
Well, when it cmoes to the tax cuts, we’ll see soon enough. Seems the WH is hinting around that the deal will be a “temporary” extension of all tax cuts for 2-3 years. The question is, what do we get for that?
morzer
I thought the official government position was not to negotiate with terrorists. What else are the Republicans at this point?
goblue72
@cyntax: A Republican in the WH and a GOP controlled Congress who turn around and make the Bush tax giveaways permanent.
cyntax
@morzer:
The ones calling the shots?
NR
@DaBomb:
Since you like polls so much, here’s one for you:
I think Obama is not as popular with the base as you seem to think he is. If he keeps up the constant capitulation to the Republicans, he WILL be primaried.
NR
@cyntax:
Do you even need to ask this question?
LT
@Corner Stone:
Glad someone got it…
FlipYrWhig
@NR:
“Bipartisanship” is a phrase people use to mean many things besides “members of both parties voted for this.”
(Just like “deficit” doesn’t only mean “the money the government laid out minus the money the government took in,” it also means “money the government wasted on undeserving people.”)
One thing that many people mean by “bipartisanship” is “putting aside the bullshit and getting things done.” Ergo, voters who care about results and don’t see results may label that phenomenon “a lack of bipartisanship.”
So, yes, people when polled will say they care about results. They will also say they want to see bipartisanship. IMHO to many people those are essentially synonymous. They don’t mean its literal definition, they mean its connotation of practicality.
Hunter Gathers
@NR:
What, exactly, would that accomplish? And who would run?
cyntax
@goblue72:
Yeah, with Citizens United and the taxcuts being extended 2-3 years, think about how much money will be spent against the Dems in 2012.
I still don’t think Palin is electable though, so if they nominate her, there’s a chance.
FlipYrWhig
@Tony J:
You’re discounting the discomfort very many “centrist” Democrats have when it comes to anything having to do with tax policy. I believe your “simple message.” I like it. Does Max Baucus like it? Does Charles Schumer like it? That’s the question.
DaBomb
@NR:
If you think that Obama would be primaried successfully and that opponent would in the general election, then you are really out of touch with reality.
And the Dems will lose a huge part of their base (African-Americans) for a long time. I can promise you that. You can’t win without us. So put that in your pipe and smoke it.
Corner Stone
@LT: The rest of them are reading the blog with their hand covering their face, and peeking a look every now and then by spreading their fingers a little.
FlipYrWhig
@Hunter Gathers: Especially since there’s already an idea out there even among many Democrats that Obama is _too_ liberal, there’s no guarantee that the people who want to see a primary challenge are thinking of themselves as coming from the left. That’s how NR reads it, but the number of people who disapprove of Obama being not liberal enough–last time I saw that figure–was 9%. The number of people who disapprove of Obama as being too liberal was much higher. Some of them are Democrats.
I think we’re much more likely to see someone like Evan Bayh. Maybe the deep-pocketed, nothing-to-lose Harold Ford.
NR
@DaBomb: The way Obama’s going, he may only get the black vote. And that is not enough to win anything.
Obama has fractured and pissed off his coalition. The results of the midterm should have told him that. But apparently, the lesson has yet to sink in.
JC
GoBlue72,
Thanks for the info on Rattner. Didn’t know that little slice of history.
Corner Stone
@DaBomb:
Are you saying the AA’s would vote for the Republican? Or just stay home?
That’s an awful blanket allegation to make!
Hunter Gathers
@NR: You know, the last time the Dems primaried their own POTUS was in 1980. How well did that work out?
DaBomb
@NR: Another thing about your poll:
“Interestingly, a plurality of Democrats – 42 percent – would like to see a more liberal challenger while half of Democratic leaning independents – 50 percent – would like to see a more conservative one,” says the release by the Marist poll.
Most people are looking for a more conservative President, according to this poll.
Also,
What lesson from the Midterms? That old white republicans want their country back?
But if you keep reading further in that article that you linked too… people would still vote for him in a three way race and apparently there isn’t a Republican front-runner who can beat him.
But if you think that the Democrats can win an election with hardly any black votes, as I stated, you do not live in reality.
FlipYrWhig
@DaBomb:
Didn’t know it before — but I called it.
Mnemosyne
@cleek:
Oh, Jesus fuck. So now the media narrative is that the Republicans had nothing but goodwill towards Democrats after yesterday’s meeting — you know, the meeting after which they signed and sent a letter telling Obama to get fucked — and now it’s all the Democrats’ fault that the goodwill is gone?
How do you fight against a media that will literally report out-and-out lies? I really want someone to tell me.
geg6
@Mnemosyne:
You can’t. That simple. We are well and truly fucked. Welcome to the banana republic. Lucky for me, I have a lot of BR in my wardrobe, so maybe I’ll be spared being one of the “disappeared.”
General Stuck
@NR:
I sure am glad Cole posted this idiotic thread that seems to have pushed most of the stupidest part of this blog off the Obama wagon, hopefully for good. Dead weight, that is all emo and no brain.
Any of you pol wizards bother to look up Reagan’s and Clinton’s poll numbers before going on this wank fest? That’s what I figured. Stick a fork in the pro left and throw them under the Unicorn, they are done. praise Allah!! The new 10 percenters
Uncle Clarence Thomas
.
.
I don’t understand why they make President Obama grovel to Republicans so often.
The man doesn’t have a grovelling bone in his body!
.
.
DaBomb
@FlipYrWhig: Yes, you did. But you can’t some of these folks around here that.
The netroots has been great about picking “progressive” candidates that win like: Halter, Feingold, Grayson…
We should aiming our ire at the Obstructionist Republicans and the Dems who don’t support the President.
But alas, this not what dems in liberal blogosphere do.
Here’s more data about Obama’s support:
Here’s the article: http://www.tnr.com/article/politics/79530/democratic-primary-challenge-obama-2012
But let’s keep the circle-jerk going.
FlipYrWhig
@NR: Do you have any figures to show that “his coalition” didn’t turn out? Because all the numbers I have seen suggest that angry old white people turned out in droves, thus reducing the percentage _of voters who turned out_ that self-reported as liberals, young, black, etc. But I have yet to see anything to indicate that the _rate of participation_ by liberals, youth, black, etc., dropped by comparison to other midterm elections.
Basically, if cranky old white conservative people crashed the system, that would register as “fewer liberal people as a proportion of those who voted,” even if the same number of liberal people as a proportion of the voting-age population came out.
What all the pundits said about the “Obama coalition” all along was that turning out infrequent and first-time voters was a risky strategy because those supporters tend not to show up in midterm elections. It looks to me like that’s what happened. Liberal disaffection is real, but it doesn’t seem like it’s enough to determine the outcome of an election.
But I’d reassess with different numbers.
General Stuck
@DaBomb:
The netroots needs to spend more time in therapy, and less time on blogs.
brendancalling
@NR:
i am not black, nor do i see black people as a monolith, so I’m not prepared to speak for anyone but myself, a working-poor white guy who lives in a majority african american neighborhood, works with a lot of black people, and likes to have conversations with everyone about everything.
It is my understanding that the unemployment situation for african americans is as bad as it has been since the Great Depression. If that persists into 2012, I don’t know how many black people (or anyone else) are going to be fired up and ready to go, especially if Obama keeps capitulating to the GOP. People like leaders that lead. People want their promised hope and change.
and let’s not also forget that, until she made a number of boneheaded race-baiting comments, the black vote was with Clinton. More on that topic here.
So i don’t know. A lot of [white] people have told me they expect black voters to stick with Obama out of racial loyalty. My own conversations seem to indicate a general approval of the guy and pride in his accomplishments, but a serious undercurrent of “where’s my hopeful change. things aren’t better for my community.”
WyldPirate
@Hunter Gathers:
You do know what the economic climate and the general perception of Jimmy Carter was at the time, too, don’t you HG?
If you need a reminder check one of the tags for this thread.
FlipYrWhig
@DaBomb: I think people can aim their ire anywhere they see fit to aim it _on policy_. Pay freeze, stupid idea. Health care bill, too corporate, sucks. Whatever, go crazy.
When it comes to this “optics” stuff, it’s all impressionistic anyway, and it all seems to derive from primate behavior concepts:
It’s all about saving face and showing strength and rituals of humiliation. That seems like a poor way to analyze politics.
General Stuck
@FlipYrWhig:
It seems a poor way to do anything, up to and including taking a shit. But this is the world we live in.
FlipYrWhig
@General Stuck: I don’t understand how it became such a widespread notion that if someone fucks with you, _you_ have suffered a grave insult. It’s like that folk wisdom about going to jail and picking a fight with the toughest guy in the prison, and that way you won’t be messed with. All the talk, by analogy, about playground bullies and “dissing.” I think it’s just juvenile. Is it a generational thing? I’m 39. I don’t get it.
DaBomb
@brendancalling: Well that interesting.. that blacks might not be excited to vote Obama in, since we voted in Clinton twice and unemployment numbers for blacks didn’t improve that much while he was President, welfare reform came about, and their were huge discrepancies in crack-cocaine sentencing.
My experience is also from the black neighborhood I grew up and the black people I work with, who feel that President Obama has not been given a fair chance.
WyldPirate
@DaBomb:
Overall nationwide polling does not tell you shit at this stage of the game.
Getting elected is still an electoral college game. Where the economy is bad and the demographics matter and matter a lot. I think Obama is likely in deep trouble in areas that really matter. These areas have–and Obama attracted–a lot of swing voters.
It seems to me that you’re putting too many eggs in the polling basket right now–especially if your data is nationwide polling data.
It’s early still and it’s all about the economy now and most likely in 2012 as well.
Triassic Sands
This just gets more and more painful as the days pass.
I’m shocked, John. Did you get permission to write that?
Jeebus, didn’t this guy already promise to take his ball and go home? Or is this just another play for sympathy and attention? Or is he ordering everyone else to leave? It’s difficult to decipher his tantrums at this point — they’re so frequent.
The fallacy in this and every other similar comment by the author and like-minded individuals is in assuming that Obama’s lefty critics don’t support him or want him to succeed. That’s just part of the big cry-baby act.
No president deserves unconditional “love” or support. Obama really does need to give his supporters (and former supporters) on the Left reason to continue to support him.
I don’t understand why Obama doesn’t understand just how weak he looks, especially since lots of people, friends and foes alike from across the political spectrum are so aware of it and have pointed it out repeatedly in print. That conclusion seems to be approaching unanimity (except, of course, for the usual suspects). It’s easy, and justified, to ignore critics on the Right, since most are utterly dishonest and hypocritical, and want Obama to fail. But the criticism from the Left should not be ignored. Neither should it be condemned as coming from fickle fair-weather friends.
Obamapologists can rant all they want, but the list of Lefties who are disappointed in Obama (or disgusted or angry, etc.) is incredibly long. Some of the Left’s most staunch voices — e.g., Krugman and Rich at the NY Times — as well as many, many others have pointed out Obama’s obvious failures. Like me, they want him to succeed, but few of us believe his approach up to now has been anything but a long-term losing proposition.
General Stuck
@FlipYrWhig:
I personally think it’s an emotional problem thing. The internet, and politics, and inner turmoil, all coming together for an opportunity to emote and project. Especially onto authority figures serving as parental surrogates for the lifelong disappointed.
I came here initially to emote, but my emo was confined to republicans running the government into the bloody swamp, and when that changed, so did that prevailing emo or anger, or whatever.
Others seem to not have been affected by this change, and turned on their own to keep it going. And are apparently unawares of the pettiness of a lot of their complaints, and seem impervious to internalizing rational explanations, as best that can be made concerning the often bizarre turnings of politics.
That’s what I think
WyldPirate
@General Stuck:
This is truly funny. You need to read the thread again when you use “most:. Going by your estimation would be wrong. If “most” were pushed off–and they weren’t because as pissed as I am at Obama at times, there is no one the Rethugs could field I would consider voting for.
If most of the “stupidest part of the blog” that was critical of Obama in this thread stopped posting, you, DaBomb, FlipYrWhig and a few more would be the only ones posting.
Chill out, Stuck. Most of the people that post here are still going to vote Dem. Some may sit home and some may not do the GOTV thing, but they’ll still vote
Hunter Gathers
@WyldPirate: What’s your solution to what ails Obama? And no bully pulpit bullshit either. Keep in mind that the GOP controls the House and it takes 60 votes to pass anything in the Senate. That and more than a few members of his own party will stick the knife in his back at any given opportunity. And the public at large seems to be schizophrenic at the moment. So tell me, what would you do, other than bitch.
FlipYrWhig
@Triassic Sands:
Via DaBombabove:
So somewhere between 9 and 15 percent of liberal Democrats can make a lot of noise about Obama’s bad weakness and weak badness. Some of them are very smart. Many of them just think they are.
Hal
@brendancalling
The vote was split because people didn’t know who Obama was, most importantly, because they did not think a black man could get elected.
Bill Clinton made a point of doing a little bus throwing with the black community to appeal to working class whites, and he still remains popular within the community, so Obama doesn’t have to worry.
Corner Stone
@WyldPirate: Ohio and Florida are looking pretty sketchy at the moment. But it is a long way out still.
General Stuck
@Triassic Sands:
You must be new. I don’t cry like your ilk, i shove shit back down the shithole. note the difference. If you can’t read all the ship jumping going on around here, often in explicit terms, then you need to go back to school. This isn’t legitimate complaints about Obama. This is a fucking pitchfork party by juvenile delinquents and quasi racist liberals flogging the inadequate black man meme from the right. I piss in your milkshake motherfucker, and will continue to do so here as I desire, like the rest of you manic Heathers. Cole can ban me if he wants, otherwise, I will haunt your Bj experience until they drop my raggity hillbilly ass into the cold earth.
General Stuck
@WyldPirate:
Go die in a fire you pig ignorant cracker.
kc
At some point, the Obama administration is going to have to give his supporters some reason to, you know, support him.
He’s too busy trying to give Republicans a reason to support him.
JC
Everyone has to understand, it is going to get worse, the next 2 years, minimum. Not better.
For example, ‘Republicans block child nutrition bill’.
No ill effects on Rethugs.
Nothing will be done in the next two years, except for possibly something like Welfare Reform, that meets a Republican talking point, that Democrats can sorta get behind.
I don’t know what that would be. I also don’t want to speculate.
Also, important to understand, given the makeup of the Senators coming up for re-election in 2012, mostly democrats, a simple law of averages shows that Republicans take the Senate in 2012. Much worse if economic conditions haven’t improved much.
Again, what’s the right thing to do in a situation where Republicans and ConservaDems can actually overrule Obama’s veto?
FlipYrWhig
@Hunter Gathers: I think there’s a place for bitching, long, loud bitching. Bring it on. This is a bad idea, that is a bad idea, whatever. It’s a forum. Carp away. We all want better policy and better politics.
What I don’t think there’s a place for is this notion that it’s easy to fix things and, on account of how easy it is, Obama’s refusal to do them must mean that he has no balls. And then to get into a whole pseudo-science of testicular fortitudinology about how some story in the news expressing unsurprising Republican posturing proves yet again that Obama has no balls… Why do that? Does it somehow confer more balls upon you? It’s weird. Weird and faux macho.
lamh32
@brendancalling:
I am black. No we are not a monolith, but within the community, not blog-readers, not-blog watchers, who have never heard of Hamsher, FDL, Greenwald, DKOS, etc, not among “co-workers” or acquantances, Obama has support from African Americans…PERIOD. DaBomb is right, and as per usual, the “primary Obama” crowd disregards it cause their one or two Black friends (usually as tapped into the liberal blog as they are) are just as angry as they are and are fed up with Obama. Some of ya’ll really need to get out of your political social circle sometimes.
Listen to urban radio, visit urban blogs that are not political in any real way, and then come back and talk to me.
Dems primary Obama at their peril. It’s funny, I think that if Obama had decided NOT to run, then it may have been better for the Dems, Blacks would still vote, but probably not in large numbers. All the people I know already say that Obama should take his family go home to Hawaii and show the Dems, GOP and teabaggers the deuces.
kc
@Midnight Marauder:
Oh, I blame them too.
I’m not really sure what the point of the Democratic Party is any more.
FlipYrWhig
@lamh32: I am pretty far to the white side on the racial continuum. What my mom just told me over the weekend was, “Everyone is so mean to Obama, and they give him such a hard time.” Our family’s political consensus is liberal, and my parents read the newspaper and listen to news radio and watch Jon Stewart. I have an inkling that her view is at least somewhat widely held. But I don’t really know.
DaBomb
@WyldPirate: “Overall nationwide polling does not tell you shit at this stage of the game.
Getting elected is still an electoral college game. Where the economy is bad and the demographics matter and matter a lot. I think Obama is likely in deep trouble in areas that really matter. These areas have—and Obama attracted—a lot of swing voters.
It seems to me that you’re putting too many eggs in the polling basket right now—especially if your data is nationwide polling data.
It’s early still and it’s all about the economy now and most likely in 2012 as well.”
You know I could buy this, if this was the first and only poll of its kind. But there have been many polls that have indicated the same things. Even Rassmussen’s polls have indicated some similar stuff.
You are notorious for putting to many eggs in your basket with the Obama Failz sentiment. I am sure if I found a poll that supported your thought process you would be speaking a different tune.
JC
General Stuck,
Whoa-kay.
Bit of an overreaction to what WP was saying, but it is BJ, you’re allowed.
I agree with the general thrust of your sentiments, on ‘Obama pouters’ being unrealistic. BUT:
Obama DID just pre-empt negotiation on federal wage freezes, and just said ‘fine’.
There are legitimate questions about Obama negotiating style.
So there is going to be CONCERN, about what is coming down the line, which I think is inevitable.
Now, those who say primary Obama are smoking something.
geg6
@General Stuck:
You know what? You are also a pig ignorant cracker.
You want to support Obama no matter what, never criticize him, never see anything wrong with his strategy or policy positions, that’s fine. Some of us desperately wanted to do the same. But there comes a time when you have to face facts. And it seems that this may be the time for me. As WP said above, we have nowhere else to go as Dems. If Obama runs, I’ll vote for him because I’m not stupid enough to go the Nader route. But I won’t be a part of OFA any more, I won’t be donating, I won’t be canvassing or phone banking. I’ll leave that up to his ass lickers like you.
FlipYrWhig
@kc: The point is that everyone who isn’t a paranoid crazy person has been chased out of the Republican party, and as a result the current “Democratic Party” is at least a third pretty much G.H.W. Bush Republican and even farther right than that. The non-crazy party stands for Trying To Do Stuff but disagrees internally to a nasty degree. Then the crazy party stands for Not Even Trying To Do Stuff.
I think it was commenter Davis X. Machina who said that you have to keep in mind that there are the Democrats who are Democrats and the Democrats who are really Republicans.
The Democrats who are really Republicans sometimes flip en masse to join the Republicans. The Democrats who are Democrats have to work very hard to keep them from doing that, because their politico-dar sends them in that direction instinctually.
Thus “Democrats” don’t stand for much, tend to stray, and have to make bland and watered-down mush of all policy.
And they’re the good ones.
Admiral_Komack
BREAKING NEWS!
The sky is falling!
…and it’s Obama’s fault!
Film at 11.
FlipYrWhig
@JC: I don’t think he’s playing p0ker badly. I don’t think he’s playing p0ker to play p0ker. I think he’s playing p0ker because people like p0ker-players.
Kind of like Stu Sutcliffe in the Beatles. You can say he plays bass very poorly and demand that he learn how to play bass better. But he’s not really there to play bass, he’s there to make the band look cool.
It might not _work_, but that’s the idea, I think. That there is value in being the guy who’s always willing to sit for a hand, win or lose, because he’s a fun guy. Only here the issue isn’t being “fun” or “cool,” it’s creating the impression that he is constructive and serious and practical.
WyldPirate
@Hunter Gathers:
Really good question, HG.
First he needs to understand that first and foremost “It’s the economy, stupid”. He needs to come up with a plan/proposal of action to try and turn things around and he needs to go out at every opportunity to sell the hell out of it. He needs to get coordinated, active selling of the same plan by Dem surrogates as well.
The Rethugs are not going to cooperate which is clear. He first needs to recognize this and to gradually start sharpening his words towards them. He also needs to convince a very credible advocate–say someone like Bill Clinton–to start bashing the ever-loving shit out of the Rethugs for their stonewalling. Most of all, the Dems need a fucking coordinated message and they need to get out and pound it home every fucking day.
Just judging from the Dems today on MSNBC, I’m starting to see a lot more Dems sharpening up their elbows. But they are going to have to seriously pick up their game and get on the same page.
FlipYrWhig
@Admiral_Komack: It’s more like BREAKING NEWS! Sources say sky may fall! Why hasn’t Obama prevented the sky-falling situation? Our roundtable includes Liz Cheney, Bill Kristol, Harold Ford, and a guy who wrote a book on the history of claims that the sky is falling.
General Stuck
@geg6:
Oh spare me, you call it quits on Obama about every other week, I don’t give a shit who you vote for, who you work for, or the fruit loop spastic nonsense you spout on this blog.
Follow wildypirate, he is about your speed.
FlipYrWhig
@WyldPirate:
Yeah, well, that part is impossible. They _need_ a fucking coordinated message, but they don’t actually agree on what it would be, and _way_ too many of them derive a lot of satisfaction in running to the press to discuss why the message–whatever it is–sucks. Shoulda done this, coulda done that, senior staffers say. Democrats have been doing that for years.
They don’t _do_ fucking coordinated messages.
If they did, they would have by now.
WyldPirate
@DaBomb:
Fair criticism, DaBomb.
Obama has accomplished a good deal, but he hasn’t sold his accomplishments worth a fuck. Sure, he got HCR passed and we avoided a depression, but the U-6 is about 16% and people are fucking hurting. Twenty percent of the fucking population is really hurting as they are receiving some sort of Federal aid.
Most importantly, Obama is getting KILLED on the messaging front by the Rethugs. Just absolutely destroyed. Perception becomes reality sometimes whether we like it or not. Read through this thread today if you don’t believe it. People are breaking out the harshest criticism of Obama that I have ever seen here. This is from people that I called Obots with an Obotomy on a regular basis.
I’ll gladly be proven wrong. I hope like hell I am. I don’t want to see another crazy extremist Rethug in the White House any more than anyone else here.
WyldPirate
@FlipYrWhig:
This may be true, but they sure as hell better try to find one.
Otherwise, they are going to be at the mercy of the GOP overreaching to get the keys back from the Rethugs.
DaBomb
@WyldPirate: There have been criticisms like this lobbed at this President on this blog in this magnitude before. Nothing new.
HCR was crazy like this.
Yet again, people who read blogs make up only 2-5% of the voting populace. That’s it. Not a huge representative sample of the population. So it doesn’t matter if some folks lose their minds from time to time.
General Stuck
@JC:
No such animal. I am not complaining about people complaining about Obama’s negotiating style, though I think it is just one more manufactured left wing meme to bring Obama down. What I am objecting to is the herd mentality to pick up on any uttering from Obama, or his administration to launch into a full blown Malkinite poutrage, And I object to, and will continue to object to characterizations using terms like “weak” or any other similar smear, as using racist memes toward the inadequate black man bullshit. Get used to it.
Maybe Obama cut the fed pay by a whopping one time 1.4*% because he thought it was a good idea because most other Americans are facing cuts as well. And not as some bargaining chip for anything. Because those no longer exists, it is existential ideological warfare only for the foreseeable future, and it is also thoroughly stupid for Obama or any dem presnit to go full metal liberal warrior, take no prisoners in a country where less than 20 percent pop that identify with that. Doesn’t mean he should give anything of substance to the wingnuts, but for gawds sake, let the man play politics his way. He has earned the bennie of the doubt, dontcha think.
I accept my new role as an Obot troll, and if fact, it is kind of freeing in a way.
FlipYrWhig
@WyldPirate: They don’t really see themselves as a “they.” That’s the problem.
General Stuck
Has wildythang suddenly started acting like a normal human, or is it just me?
FlipYrWhig
@General Stuck: I don’t think “weak” is a racist meme. But I do think it’s a borderline homophobic meme. It’s all “balls” this and “pu&&y” that and “weenie” and “wussy.” He’s not man enough. I don’t think that’s helpful, and it’s a framing device that redounds to Republican/conservative benefit time and time and time again.
LT
@Corner Stone:
Heh.
General Stuck
@FlipYrWhig:
It all has the same roots, in the south, where I grew up. It’s not like the leftists haven’t been employing right wing memes when they think they can bully Obama this way or that.
That’s why I consider them the same as republicans, no more no less. I don’t care anymore what there issue beliefs are, all 100 or so on the internet blogs.
Uncle Clarence Thomas
.
.
Shorter Uncle Clarence Thomas, balloonbagger edition:
Grovelling – it’s the new Black.
.
.
Admiral_Komack
@FlipYrWhig:
I stand corrected.
Thank you.
FlipYrWhig
@WyldPirate:
That’s in the hothouse, though. Are the normal people even paying attention? Seems like a typical day on the evening news. Bunch of people in suits say that they have different views on policy. Nothing happened yet, but sources say something might happen soon. Blah blah blah. I don’t know why everyone decided to get all hyped up and doom-y today.
eemom
@lamh32:
God, that sounds nice. Can I join this community even though I am not black? I guess I can’t undo the fact that I HAVE heard of them, but that’s nothing a little hypnosis couldn’t fix.
And I was saying exactly that to a friend yesterday. If I were him I’d call a presser, do a little cover of “Take this job and SHOVE it,” and be done with it.
Martin Gifford
@FlipYrWhig:
@celticdragonchick:
This.
But FlipYrWhig and co will always say nothing can be done.
The problem is lack of consistent leadership.
The solution is consistent leadership.
Like MLK.
Paula
@General Stuck:
IT’S JUST YOU.
Hugh
There are a jesusbillion comments and I don’t have it in me to read them before I post. So let me just say, at high risk of this post being an echo of earlier posts, that Obama’s lack of “fuck you” to the Republicans is soooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo depressing\ I can hardly express it; I can’t let the “o” key stay down long enough to feel sated. As my gay homosexual partner said a couple of weeks ago, Obama keeps bringing slices of pie to a gun fight.
FlipYrWhig
@Martin Gifford: Dude, that’s just fucking stupid. celticdragonchick and you are imagining “leadership” in a cargo-cult way, where you just pantomime leader-like actions in the proper sequence and stuff just drops from the sky. The leader! He led! We have goodies!
Martin Luther King didn’t have to get legislation passed. He could push the conversation from the outside without selling out. (And, for that matter, he was nitpicked by people who wanted him to be more radical, as well as being nitpicked by people who wanted him to be _less_ radical.) Who is doing that? Nobody. Did you see Martin Luther King spending his time handing out flyers saying that Kennedy and Johnson had no balls? I don’t remember that.
I didn’t say nothing can be done. I have said and will continue to say that whatever will be done will be fucking difficult, not easy, and will not be analogous to the plots of _Nancy_ comics where Sluggo has to find a way to confront a street tough.
celticdragonchick
@General Stuck:
You really ought to see a professional about your issues.
celticdragonchick
@FlipYrWhig:
A cultural anthropology course sounds like something you could benefit from, since you have difficulty understanding social power relationships.
Quiddity
@Michael D.: Today, Pope John Cole has granted a special dispensation to commenters, allowing them to be critical of Obama.
General Stuck
@celticdragonchick:
go back to LGF where you belong, republican. I got no time for your stupid ass, nor your single issue faux liberalism.
Sloegin
1. Repugs say they’ll hold Govt hostage till they get their tax cuts.
2. Dems cave and give em their tax cuts.
3. Repugs then say ‘fuck you’ and hold Govt hostage anyway for something else.
Can anyone argue that this won’t be the case? Name any real compromise the Repugs have made in the last 2 years.
MJ
@General Stuck:
Hi Stuck,
I totally agree with you and FYW on this point (about the quasi-racist and sexualized anger being directed at Obama from folks on both his left and right flanks). All of this “grow some ballz”, “he’s a p@ssy” language is filled with passive aggressive resentment for
Folks don’t talk about it now, but lynchings almost always involved male victims being castrated or sexually mutilated. Moreover, many of the “crimes” that were used to justify lynchings were rooted in the belief that black men’s virility was dangerous and needed to be violently controlled.
By the way, thank you for staying sane today when nearly everyone else here decided to jump @ss first into the “OMG, I totally
lovehate that pretty mutherf’er Obama for not taking my calls today” crowd.The Sheriff's A Ni-
This thread’s still goin’ on? Jeezus. Here’s what I know.
I didn’t see any Democratic leadership when Harry and Sally put a bullet in HillaryCare. I didn’t see any Democratic leadership when Teddy Kennedy torpedoed Jimmy Carter’s sub and spawned the Age of Reagan. All of Lyndon Johnson’s ‘leadership’ credentials didn’t help him or Hubert Humphrey any in ’68. Will Rogers once opined, “I am not a member of any organized political party. I am a Democrat.” Understand that Will Rogers has been dead now for seventy-five years.
But all Obama has to do is give a few fiery speeches and everyone gets their pony as the Democrats fall right in line. Right-o.
Quiddity
@General Stuck:
It’s not a new role for you.
What I am curious about, is, what blogs do you read that share your viewpoint? A full-throated defense of Obama (or the White House in general). I haven’t seen anybody reference, or link to, such an animal.
Where are they? They can be small. Or big. Or even overseas.
This question is open to all, not just GS. What blog is sticking up for Obama?
General Stuck
@Quiddity:
I think BJ was about the last lonely outpost in the liberal blogosphere. I know of no other, really, except maybe the OFA blog. And Political Wire has a pretty good comment section. I don’t think either place puts up with the bullshit we get here. But it is Cole’s wish to keep it ban free, and I respect that. There are some people here I just adore, and is why I stay, and the pets, and Cole is a good dude, really. I just think joining the liberals wasn’t quite what he expected, and he gets pulled and shoved this way and that by us crazy center left folks.
General Stuck
@MJ: Thanks!
Ross Hershberger
Are we going for the Epic Comments Record here? I just put in a hard 9 hours at work and this pot is still on the boil.
Maybe halfway through reading, and nothing to add.
Except amazement.
Martin Gifford
@FlipYrWhig:
Why do a bunch of dimwitted neocons make it look so simple?
I’ve explained this many times here at BJ, but I’ll try again…
1. The reason it is or seems difficult now is because progressives or Dems failed to fight in the past.
2. The reason it will be difficult in the future is if progressives or Dems fail to fight now.
If you don’t fight you lose. And, yes, losing makes things look difficult. And if you don’t fight, all you feel is the other guy’s punches, so things look pretty bad. But as soon as you start fighting, things pick up and you get some supporters.
But if you can’t fight as POTUS, then what does that say about you?
patrick II
if you were to ask me today about the 2012 presidnetial eledtoj, I would say Obama would win, but not have much coattails and not much suport in cngress. It will be four years of treading water while we get reaady for 2016, cuase if Obama is still presisent after 2012 it will be as a total figureHead. His lovely family will dress beautifully for the balls, Bo will look cool and jaunty n tturnn ind i probaboy the most effeftive Obmam family member, keeps stray mice away. The queen of England can give Obama tips about what to do and behave at royal occassions;l Obama can give a lotelyspeech and then we can ahv somedessert and go home. Everyonce in awhile the minority leader will come to tell Obama how the country is doing and Obama will nod appreciatively and offer the minorty leader some milk and cookies. Obama will be in charge of parades and rallies and waving at the crowods. the minority party will keep the country running — a new war perhaps, or police clampdown on the burgeoining soo
up kitchens. AFter while soup kitchens will be put in the back alleys away from photogrophers and all will go as before with lovely blls and shining lights a lovely speeches about change. Following with the kissing of the minority leaders ring.
brendancalling
@Quiddity:
“What blog is sticking up for Obama? ”
booman tribune. obama could go on TV, eat a live kitten, spit the brains all over the camera while burning Santa Claus alive, and Booman Tribune would either be openly supportive, shrug and say “it’s the best we can do”, or call out the Republicans for doing something else that’s awful.
Oliver Willis is pretty worshipful too, but even he’s been more critical than BMT.
lawnorder
In fairness to Obama, this country is a hostage of the rich and powerful. They tasted that sweet, wonderful no accountability bailout money and want more of it. Tax free. Why spent effort and risk when you can just suck on Uncle Sam’s teat ?
We are fucked.
Beth
Obama: The Great Capitulator.
But let us not spare the Republicans their share of the blame on this. These people get their collective undies in a bunch every time someone says “Happy Holidays” and start screaming and crying all over FAUX News about “The War on Christmas” (even Eric Cantor’s getting in on the act, which would be funny if it wasn’t so very surreal). But they certainly don’t have the faintest grasp of what Christmas, or Christianity for that matter, is supposed to be all about.
Jesus: ‘Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brothers, you did it to me.’
Republicans: ‘If you don’t extend tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans, then the unemployed and their families can starve for all we care.’
They want Jesus to return? Well, when he does, he’s going to kick their asses.
Beth
Obama: The Great Capitulator.
But let us not spare the Republicans their share of the blame on this. These people get their collective undies in a bunch every time someone says “Happy Holidays” and start screaming and crying all over FAUX News about “The War on Christmas” (even Eric Cantor’s getting in on the act, which would be funny if it wasn’t so very surreal). But they certainly don’t have the faintest grasp of what Christmas, or Christianity for that matter, is supposed to be all about.
Jesus: ‘Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brothers, you did it to me.’
Republicans: ‘If you don’t extend tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans, then the unemployed and their families can starve for all we care.’
They want Jesus to return? Well, when he does, he’s going to kick their asses.