A reader sends this email:
Regarding Obama’s comments during his press conference today, I came across something interesting. I know that Obama has recently been reading “The Clinton Tapes” by Taylor Branch and I just started it a few nights ago. Tonight, randomly, I came across this passage (Chapter 4, p. 75-6):
“[Clinton] said Rolling Stone’s founder, Jann Wenner, had come to the White House with author William Greider, a former Washington Post editor. […] Greider confronted him, saying here is one of the countless poor people who looked to you for leadership—you were their last hope. Now they feel utterly disillusioned and abandoned. Can you look into this face and name one thing you have done to help? Or one principle you won’t compromise? One cause you will uphold? One believe you would die for?
The president said he had replied in kind. “I kind of went off on him,” he recalled. He told Greider he had done things already that no other president would do. He had raised taxes on the rich and lowered them for the working poor. He had introduced the AmeriCorps national service program, which Rolling Stone campaigned for, and established it into law. He was taking on the gun lobby and the tobacco industry. He had proposed fair treatment for gay soldiers. He was fighting for national health care coverage, and more, but liberals paid very little attention to any of these things because they were bitch and cynical about politics. They resented Clinton for respecting the votes of conservatives or the opinions of moderates. They wanted him to behave like a dictator because they didn’t really care about results in the world. By now the president was quite worked up, waving hands that again seemed strikingly long and bony but graceful. Pointing at me, he said he had pointed at Greider to tell him the problem is you, Bill Greider. You are a faulty citizen. You don’t mobilize or persuade, because you only worry about being doctrinaire and proud. You are betraying your own principles with self-righteousness.”
History repeats.
Do I need to make a Black Bill Clinton tag?
zmullls
I thought that was redundant….
Matt
Oh boy, that’s brilliant.
Alex S.
Nah, Obama lacks the Lewinsky-factor. Hence his support among males is a bit lower than Clinton’s
John S.
My bizzarro-Bush theory validated. I had no idea that was the case for Clinton, too.
LGRooney
Great catch! It reminds me of “Tear Down This Myth” where Will Bunch goes back to the headlines of the day and finds Conservatives absolutely mauling Reagan for his lack of conservatism, his appeasement of the Soviets, his raising taxes, his not firing Volcker, etc.
birthmarker
I operate on all tags, all the time, so yes…
Ash Can
Every left-wing doctrinaire needs to spend at least one week on Capitol Hill, maybe interning for the legislator of their choice, but always closely observing what goes on in the offices and behind the scenes. The term “reality-based” would take on a whole new meaning for them.
WarMunchkin
I agree and disagree? On the one hand, organization since the ’08 election has completely blown, and people haven’t really done jack shit for persuasion. On the other hand, people dealt with a lot of shit under Bush, worked their asses off during the election, and afterwords, thought that they had deserved a nice long rest.
Chyron HR
“And then I went to my bunk.”
Annelid Gustator
@Ash Can: can you elaborate a little on what you mean?
Punchy
Indeedy
That sound you heard was Martin’s head exploding.
Dennis G.
Leave it to the dawg to tell it like it is.
By the way, I think Black Bill Clinton would be a fine tag.
Cheers
arguingwithsignposts
@Chyron HR:
It was a dark and stormy night…
blahblahgurgleblegblah
That dog don’t hunt no more. Obama is more Republican than Democrat. Perhaps what you really want John, is simply to go back to good old times under a new Party banner.
If this is what Democrats have become, thank God I left the party.
Woodrow "asim" Jarvis Hill
I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again:
I don’t give a damn if the rich get richer, if we can also help the poor not be so damned poor. I thought the point of being a damned Progressive/Liberal was, in no small part, to find the best way, using the resources at hand, to help those who need help. As much as I think the federal pay freeze was dumb, I think this agreement is what we need. As much as I think we could have bargained much better, I don’t really see, given the GOP’s positions, how a much better plan would have worked.
Instead, I see lots of disgust about “another compromise”, about “being sold out”…and not a word about all the people who will be helped, all the homes and lives that will be saved. it’s like these people only care about hurting the GOP, and not about helping people. And if I have to choose — and the Democrats, today, do — between helping people today in the worst recession in decades, and punching the GOP in the bollicks, I know which one I’m going for.
Keep in mind, the gov’t shutdown in the 90s hurt damned few people, in comparison to extending UI benefits. There’s a time to be political, and a time to get the best deal you can.
cleek
so, now we’re back to “he’s doing the best he can” ?
Napoleon
Clinton pushed NAFTA, dropped the ball on the companion worker retraining bill and fucked the bottom 98% as measured by wealth of the US with financial deregulation, so yeah Clinton actually did betray the Democratic base, and I would be willing to say that right to his face.
MattF
Plus ça change,… etc.
There are some differences, though. I get the feeling that conservatives don’t fear Obama as much as they feared Clinton. I’m hoping that this is a big mistake.
Wag
A black Bill Clunton? Gawd I hope so….
mr. whipple
You won’t see anything about ‘people’ with these folks. It’s all about their precious principles and ‘winning’.
Marc McKenzie
Man oh man….this is priceless. And it’s pretty much on the ball.
Just this paragraph alone:
“Pointing at me, he said he had pointed at Greider to tell him the problem is you, Bill Greider. You are a faulty citizen. You don’t mobilize or persuade, because you only worry about being doctrinaire and proud. You are betraying your own principles with self-righteousness.”
…should be shouted from the mountaintops. You know why? Because it’s the goddamned truth.
Mike from Philly
History repeats, boy does it ever. Republicans are balking on the tax cut “deal” because of the unemployment extensions. Who wants to bet hard money Obama throws that over to get tax cuts.
So lets review the play by play here:
1. Talk about how you refuse to bankrupt the Nation by extending the irresponsible Bush tax cuts for those who earn greater than $250K
2. Agree to extend the irresponsible tax cuts for everybody, but only if we get unemployment insurance extensions
3. Pre-emptively freeze federal employee pay in a cynical attempt to persuade those you’re “dealing” with.
4. Watch as they rebel against the idea of extending unemployment insurance as they’re doing today.
5. Agree to extend all Bush tax cuts, freeze fed employee pay and agree to no unemployment extensions, in an effort to get “something” done. The something of course being exactly what the Republicans wanted all along.
While I admit step 5 hasn’t happened yet, does anybody doubt it will? Punch as many hippies and create as many cute tags as you want, this guy has no idea who he is dealing with and has no core principles for which he is willing to fight. Hence he gets rolled. Repeatedly. When we had majorities in Congress, 60 senators and the White House, we weren’t supposed to get rolled. We were supposed to get some meaningful shit done.
I may never stop throwing up
sal
This criticism of criticism of Obama once again misses the point. The criticism isn’t that Obama has only scored field goals. If that’s all he can get, ok. The criticism isn’t he’s not trying for touchdowns. No, you don’t get a TD on every drive. You don’t ever get one if your plan is to kick the field goal from the 40 or 50 yard line because darn it, that’s a lot of work and may not succeed. Holy cow, the other team is trying to stop us, and not so sure about some of the prima donnas in our huddle!
It’s a facile argument to claim some policy goal can’t get 60 votes in the Senate. That’s not a reason to start with a policy that can. That’s what you want to end up with. If you have to give ground, make the other side work for it, don’t hand it to them. Maybe Obama’s tactical plan is brilliant. I don’t see it, but I’m not in the Oval office. The strategic plan -well, I’d say it sucks, except I don’t see one. Reminds me of how we’re running a couple operations overseas.
PaulW
Obama wouldn’t be in this mess if you liberals got off your asses to vote this November in the first place.
Voter turnout was down, remember?!
I harped on this over on my site: here in Florida there’s a 900,000 voter advantage held by the Democrats over the Republicans: 4 million D to 3.1 million R. It’s not even a question of if the No Party/Indy voters came out, because final votes for Democratic candidates peaked around 2.5 million. There’s, what, at least 1.5 million Dems who DID NOT GET OFF THEIR ASSES TO VOTE.
Because of that depressed turnout for voters, the state of Florida is stuck with a MEDICARE FRAUD as governor and Marco “Let’s Kill Social Security, Right Retirees Living In This State” Rubio in the Senate. The congressional and state lege offices I can blame on gerrymandering, but those two elections are statewide and thus unforgivable.
I don’t blame Obama. I blame the ones who don’t show up to vote.
Dan
The blame lies with Congress, not Obama. Congress, you will notice, is good at blaming everyone but themselves. There was absolutely no reason not to push the middle class tax cut only bill in october before the election. The democrats flinched then because they were a bunch of cowards coming into a bad election. Now they want to know why obama is seeking to preserve some kind of compromise three weeks before the republicans have a house majority?
I turned on the news last night to hear all these democratic congressmen going off about how ridiculous it was to allow the rich another tax cut. Where the fuck were these people three months ago?! Now they get to rant and rave because they know there’s nothing more they can actually do.
PaulW
The comments are freaking out on me here…. check the code…
damn, it looks like my post merged with sal’s… sorry Sal, I dunno how that happened… lemme repeat…
Hope this saves proper.
joe from Lowell
@PaulW: When Obama did this with the Affordable Care Act – start out pushing for a bill that included a public option, negotiate that away to get to 60 votes in the Senate – the same professional leftists assured me that it was the greatest betrayal ever that he had negotiated away something that started out in the bill.
Woodrow "asim" Jarvis Hill
@Ash Can: As someone who did work the Senate, as an office page[1], yes.
Until C-SPAN, most Americans had a very. very removed viewpoint of all branches of gov’t. There’s a tendency to recall only the “good” points; to forgot that FDR had to toss African-Americans under the bus for his first, highly limited version of Social Security. To forgot that LBJ used the shadow of JFK’s tragedy to push through the ’64 Civil Rights act, and in the process put the Democratic party in the demographic space it holds today, for better and worse.
Governance is an ugly, ugly business. And it looks like a sellout just about all the damned time. GWB didn’t get to touch SS, and his shortcut to “tax relief” put the situation in the limbo it’s in, today; the GOP can’t get their rich people tax cut without giving up something to the poor. THAT is what governance is about, on the day-to-day; it’s rare you get a bill that’s all one-sided, and the late-20th Century Senate rules make it nigh-impossible.
[1] I was a out-and-proud Democrat even then, as well, which made for some interesting work fights considering I worked for Strom Thurmond.
Michael
@Chyron HR:
Subtle reference, nicely done.
cleek
@Dan:
i’d bet many of them were saying the same things, but there weren’t any microphones around to notice. there has always been opposition to extending the top-bracket cuts, but we were never allowed to hear it.
i’m quite surprised at the amount of coverage this tax thing has been getting in the last 36 hours. even though reporters still haven’t figured out how our tax system actually works, they are letting people on all sides of the issue talk about it. weird.
MattMinus
A black Bill Clinton tag would be …
RACIST!
Ash Can
@Annelid Gustator: I don’t really have time to elaborate right now, but let’s just say that once you understand, in first-hand, excruciating detail, how the sausage-making takes place, you understand the need for compromises like Obama’s.
rickstersherpa
Yep, Clinton pretty much nailed it. We Liberals and lefties do enjoy our smugness at being so much smarter and moral than the rest of the population, and letting know it to. And then we wonder why we have been whipped in the last election (going over the Nixonland elections I was surprised that at how well the Democrats have actually done, thanks to Republican screw-ups usually winning 10 out of 21 elections (where winning is defined as picking up House and Senate seats and/or winning the White House. It really makes the 2000 election a bigger give away by the Smug and morally superior left to the Republicans (all you Nader voters) than even I thought it was.)
For a more thoughtful criticism of the administration, I refer you to Mike Konzal at Rortybomb.
“Rortybomb
Peter Orszag’s New York Times Column as Proxy for Obama and his Administration’s Priorities
Posted in Uncategorized by Mike on December 6, 2010
There seems to be a lot of confusion about what Obama is doing, especially in regards to supporting the signature George W. Bush domestic agenda of high-end tax cuts. A lot of people seem to believe that Obama is confused, or a poor strategist, rather than he is simply carrying out exactly what he wants to do in regards to the domestic economy. Kevin Drum vents here.
One way to figure this out is to find a proxy for Obama’s political and economic instincts and beliefs and see how that person views the current climate. I think, and people who are better at this can correct me, Peter Orszag’s recent editorials for the New York Times have been the best barometer for what the Obama administration is currently doing in terms of the economy and budget. By extension, this is also the best barometer for what the Obama administration thinks are the important items to prioritize and fight for and the reasoning behind it.
Orszag was a director of the Hamilton Project, where then Senator Obama spoke at their opening. Orszag has left OMB and is rumored to be heading off to Citigroup, perhaps replacing Jack Lew who was at Citigroup and is now replacing Orszag at OMB. (Democrats!)
Let’s look at some of the stuff Orszag has written since he’s left the administration. One Nation, Two Deficits:
The nation faces a nasty dual deficit problem: a painful jobs deficit in the near term and an unsustainable budget deficit over the medium and long term. This month, the Senate will be debating an issue with significant implications for both — what to do about the Bush-era tax cuts scheduled to expire at the end of the year.
In the face of the dueling deficits, the best approach is a compromise: extend the tax cuts for two years and then end them altogether…Higher taxes now would crimp consumer spending, further depressing the already inadequate demand for what firms are capable of producing at full tilt. And since financial markets don’t seem at the moment to view the budget deficit as a problem…A benign bond market, however, is a luxury we won’t enjoy forever if we fail to tackle our long-term fiscal problem.
This is exactly the likely outcome of the debate, the outcome that the Obama administration has pushed for recently. Orszag believes we’ll have a bond market problem starting around 3 years from now if we don’t start austerity plans. He thinks that raising taxes on the rich right now is a bad idea economically and that there will be the political will, perhaps because of the bond market, to cut them in 2 years. Orszag write this in the New York Times, and by all accounts it is what the administration has set out to do. It’s not the problems I see, hence my disagreement.
Continuing, Saving Social Security:
In contrast to the medium-term fiscal outlook, which is not improved by the election results, Social Security reform may be. Erskine Bowles and Alan Simpson, the co-chairs of the fiscal commission due to report at the beginning of December, have both expressed a desire to restore solvency to Social Security. And Republican leaders have previously expressed a willingness to tackle the issue too.
Social Security is not the nation’s key long-term fiscal problem — health care is. (A column in Thursday’s Times will discuss health care.) But Social Security does face a long-term deficit, and a variety of reasonable reform plans (including one I wrote with Peter Diamond, a winner of this year’s Nobel Prize in Economics) have been proposed to address that deficit.
The left, though, seems adamantly opposed to restoring actuarial balance to Social Security now. I have trouble understanding this reluctance for several reasons: the key issue progressives had been concerned about — individual accounts within Social Security — has been definitively won in their favor (for now); they have a president from their party in office, which will not always be the case; acting now would allow changes to take effect more gradually, cushioning the blow; and establishing some credibility on out-year fiscal problems by enacting Social Security reform could open up (admittedly limited) running room to pass necessary additional stimulus legislation in the short run.
Given the left’s strident opposition to any serious discussion of Social Security reform, the issue will provide a key early indicator of the administration’s response to the election results.
This seems like what the administration believes. The real problem with saving Social Security, and by extension starting to get serious about the budget, is that “the left” are getting in the way. Bowles and Simpson are willing to have a discussion on this, and though they may not be perfectly on target they’ll frame the debate in a way that Democrats can work with. Heck even Republicans are interested! Everyone seems interested in doing what is responsible except the left, even though the cards are stacked in their favor. Orszag write this in the New York Times, and by all accounts it is what the administration has set out to do. This is not the problems I see, hence my disagreement.
Continuing, Sailing the Wrong Way with QE2?
To bolster the economy, we need a three-part shift in policy:
· more fiscal expansion (read: more stimulus) now;
· much more deficit reduction, enacted now, to take effect in two to three years; and
· an improvement in the relationship between business and government (the current antagonism, even if not the primary explanation for slow hiring and sluggish investment, does seem to be affecting hiring and other business behavior).
We need short term stimulus and medium-term deficit reduction, but it’s also important for overt and serious moves to improve the relationship between the business community and the government. Not just because of the importance to the Democratic party and brand, but also because it is increasing unemployment and keeping a full recovery from happening.
I don’t think this is the case. But Orszag write this in the New York Times, and by all accounts it is what the administration has set out to do post midterms.
It’s not hard to imagine Orszag and his fellow-travelers thinking that federal workers could do with making just a bit less, or that structural problems in education and skills are really driving unemployment, the latest rumor we are hearing from the Obama economics team. The political rationality behind this should be examined more critically – what’s neo about this kind of neoliberalism? – but these writings put into context that these policy solutions, rather than being the result of perpetual screw-ups and bad bargaining, are precisely the outcomes that one could imagine them wanting to bring into the world.”
mr. whipple
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zPlCWNYzm1E
Maody
I don’t like the deal as it stands, but certainly will take it so that poorer people and unemployed folks losing bennies might not be out in the cold dark of winter, lose more of everything and be generally FUBAR’d. There is nuance and compromise and infighting and posturing for any progress and Obama is right about comparing this to the HCB. Yes, I wish Obama started on the higher side of this compromise – but who says he didn’t behind closed doors? And – there is only so much time left before the congress changes radically. I think the absolutists need to go to hell – and some of these are ones who should *remember* that all good change takes a long hard slog.
Also, too, I am more leftist than progressive or democrat, but a pragmatist. Just sayin’.
Dave
@mr. whipple:
This. I was stunned at the “progressives” touting fucking Landrieu as some kind of standard-bearer. She fucks the Democrats over on a regular basis, derailing Democratic legislation left and right. She doesn’t try to rally votes to get 60 votes for Obama’s tax bill (the one progressives wanted, which went down Saturday, in part, because 5 Democrats fucking bailed on it). But now with this self-serving tripe, Landrieu is some kind of standard-bearer??
Fuck. That. Shit.
Scott de B.
The far left, those comprising the firebaggers, those who voted for Nader, those who only find fault with Democrats for being insufficiently liberal, are ideological liberals. They are overwhelmingly white and middle class. They want to fight poverty, of course, but poverty doesn’t directly impact them. They justify their identical purity by claiming that if their beliefs are not followed exactly, nothing can be accomplished re: poverty et al.
El Cid
Greider actually wrote about this in his article following the interview.
He said something like ‘the anger of a President is awesome to behold,’ or some such.
It was one of his more pathetic lines.
John Bird
Oh, of course! I backed everything Clinton did and never criticized him. This is exactly like that! Thanks, John, I’ve seen the light!
JR (not the other JR)
@zmullls: This black woman says, “Amen!” LOL
John Bird
@Maody:
Jesus Christ. Do you need the number of a shelter?
Blue Neponset
I am surprised Clinton had the balls to actually state an opinion without polling to back it up.
Maybe those of us in the Professional Left should start our own party. We seem to have a lot of power.
terraformer
@WarMunchkin:
Yeah, I’m tired. I was naive in thinking that, okay, the long nightmare is over, an adult is in charge, “I got this.” Somebody has our back to at least hold back the Money Party’s greed.
Again, naivete. I recognize the need for compromise, I really do. But for me, whether or not there was a fight behind closed doors is not the point – what I need to see is fighting, very clear, very obvious, public fighting for core principles. And then compromise if that is what it takes to get something positive out of it.
Maybe he does support core democratic principles. But there has not yet been a clear indication of what those principles are. Maybe it’s just a messaging problem. But what I believe is that fighting and losing is at least honorable; not fighting (and fighting behind closed doors is pretty much the same to those of us who aren’t or haven’t been clerks or pages as witnesses to the sausage-making) at all is not.
Agoraphobic Kleptomaniac
A minor victory of compromise that fails to avoid the slap of the long arm of history is a devil’s contract.
*Flashback 1999*
“Well, we may have repealed Glass-Stegal, but otherwise we wouldn’t have got the 2000 budget passed and millions of people would be out of work.”
Maody
@John Bird: Are you calling me an Obot? Ouch. Nope, it’s the sausage making that AshCan is talking about.
El Cid
@rickstersherpa: Also linked by Rotybomb, a paper by Thomas Ferguson & Robert Johnson on the duplicitous notion that pursuing minor, austerity-focused deficit ‘reduction’ in the actual context in which we find ourselves would help US economic recovery short, medium, or long term.
Rortybomb adds:
Bullsmith
The price of this deal is going be trillions of dollars in cuts to social programs. But since Obama cannot fail, he can only be failed, that has to be understood as a necessary, reasonable compromise. After all, what reasonable person wouldn’t agree that in order to get tax cuts, one must give more tax cuts.
John Bird
The only proper thing to do is to never give a wealthy politician the benefit of the doubt when he’s apologizing for screwing you. Democratic or Republican or otherwise.
ornery curmudgeon
Ah, good morning. To see the day the nasty Conservative ‘base’ is scolded by anyone, anyone at all — a politician, a military commander, a preacher, the press.
No, no. Traitor-loving Cons get constant tongue baths by TPTB; liberal progressive nader-loving hippies get the hate from all sides.
Thank you, Cole, for your sponsored librul hate-session of the morning. It’s great having you on ‘our side’ …
John Bird
@Maody:
I’m not calling you anything.
I’m saying, you’ll live a happier life if you dismiss the fantasy that everything is secretly better than you think it is in Washington.
Lolis
http://www.gallup.com/poll/145109/Americans-Support-Major-Elements-Tax-Compromise.aspx
Apparently Americans like the tax cut compromise well enough. As a super liberal person, I never forget the majority of the country is not like me. I grew up around racist fake cowboys. It scars for life.
Corey
So, the moral of the story is that you, Obama and Bill Clinton are all capable of destroying evil strawmen?
angler
The end game: A national sales tax, no income tax, right to work laws across the country, poverty rate approaching 25%, unionization rate under 5%, healthcare still busted and life expectancy falling, except for the upper income bracket, Republican majorities forever . . . and it’s all the left’s fault.
Clinton’s ability to be self pitying and self-serving is nothing to celebrate. This tired, dumb screed of the past two years on the left as pie in the sky moralists and the pres as clear eyed is crap. There have been an array of practical roads to more progressive legislation at every turn. Because Obama nixed them doesn’t mean they were idealistic. It means he didn’t want the policy. Same for Clinton.
mr. whipple
You wanna see fighting, go watch WWF or get out your GI Joes.
pk
I am disappointed in Obama not so much for his policy compromises, but more for his defeatist attitude. For 8 yrs of Bush and the republicans, liberals were vilified and called all sorts of names (traitors and fifth columnists come to mind). The liberal progressives were proved to be right. Repubicans have pretty much completely screwed up everything.
Now here comes Obama saying all the right things with a passion and then proceeds to act like a coward. And yes I said coward. Too cowardly to prosecute the Bush criminals in the face of obvious wrong doing. Always trying to play nice with people who betray him (Lieberman) or are out to destroy him (republicans). And abject stupid surrender before the fight has even started. What was the reason for the federal pay freeze. How does that help anything. Does it bring down the deficit? Do the democrats like it? Does it help the middle class and the American people (those he says he is desperately trying to help)? Or does he think the republicans will fall in love with him if he makes this one more concession? And to those who say he has done a lot I will say so what? It is his job to do a lot and to do even more? There is nothing wrong with compromise, but you never ever compromise your core principals. I am afraid with Obama he is compromising away what it means to be a democrat.
If Obama does not believe in truth or justice, believes in being in Afganistan indefinitely, does nothing for climate change, and is O.K with permanent tax cuts for the rich (I am not buying that he will fight against them in two yrs), then he is just a smooth talking republican.
Having said that I will still have to vote for him, because there simply is no other choice.
amk
Brilliant. It’s clear that left hasn’t learnt a single thing on messaging at all even after 8 years of dubya.
John Bird
@Corey:
I’d agree, and add that all three demonstrate Deuteronomic skill at scapegoating. It’s not just that they’re attacking a fantasy, but that they’re blaming all their problems on the same.
John Bird
@amk:
I’ll worry about “messaging” when I get hired as a public affairs officer by the White House. Until then, I’m a private citizen, and I’m necessarily poised against Washington and the people who pay for it.
ornery curmudgeon
@mr. whipple: “You won’t see anything about ‘people’ with these folks. It’s all about their precious principles and ‘winning’.”
You have this very wrong, Whipple … yes the idea is to help humanity now and in the future.
We may differ on the best long-term way to do that, but whipping oneself into a circular frenzy with hateful ideas about political allies is worse than non-productive.
Maody
@John Bird: no fantasy here about ‘goodness’ behind closed doors. it’s a gigantic fuck up. would I love to see some yelling and fist pounding stance taking over this? hell yes. is it going to happen in a way that is good for the most? probably not and those blue dogs who are just republicans in sheep’s clothing are the ones screaming about moral justice; the likes of Landrieu et al.
there are consequences to losing the whole shebang.
John Bird
@Maody:
They’re all screwing you, is what I’m saying. They’re screwing you for rich people who are worth more to them than you.
kindness
re- Black Bill Clinton tag? How about a Black Slick Willy tag?
John Bird
Can I tell you?
There is nothing more laughable, or more pathetic, than the man in the White House a-whine-whine-whining about how the left-wing activists in America are making things hard on him.
This will be an immutable truth until the country collapses.
chopper
a few things i learned from the clinton years:
lefty-left progressives would rather be ‘pure’ losers then impure and accomplish shit. this makes them as doctrinaire and orthodox as the craziest libertarian. see: the 2000 election. yeah, gore and bush were totes ‘exactly the same’, right? you take the ‘professional left’ and put them in a time machine back to the 30’s and within a day they’d be calling for FDR’s head on a platter, despite a knowledge of history.
there is no ‘democratic base’. we’re not goopers, nor do we want to be. but all this talk about clinton or obama ‘shitting on the base’ is moronic.
Maody
@John Bird: no kidding. now for some breaking news… oh heck, it’s old news. Citicorp’s Plutonomy for instance. I am not unaware dood.
On a personal note, I gave up being a purist or absolutist watching my husband die. Life, love & legislation are relative and complicated.
LikeableInMyOwnWay
Well hell, John. You just damned your entire commentariat.
Well, except for me :)
Approaching the thousand post mark on this general subject in the last couple days … and it’s all pretty much nonsense.
Obama can’t free congress from its self-imposed paralysis. All the blather to the contrary is just bullcrap. His move this week is the best possible move. That’s it. There isn’t much else worth saying. Congress now has to pass the deal he made. What other choice do they have, short of acting like a real legislative body out to do good work? Since they are not going to do that, then …. here we are.
The end. Close the threads and let’s talk about pets and food.
John S.
@chopper:
THIS.
Maody
@chopper: not to mention damaging and useless.
geg6
@Napoleon:
THIS.
So I’m supposing Harold Ford is now a champion of the masses now, too.
Sorry, John, but I’m not buying it. The best you can say is that Obama is now just as good as Clinton? Seriously? Man. There’s some change I can believe in!
I am massively disappointed in this president. Massively. I never took him for a Bernie Sanders or even an Edward Kennedy. But damn, I never thought I’d see a Dem president so in thrall of the Broders of the world again. To me, to compare him to Clinton in any way is more damning than exculpatory. Since Clinton (and yes, Reagan and Bush I and certainly Bush II) is one of the major instigators of the mess we are in economically, I am not impressed that you think he’s so much like him.
FTR, I have no desire to have him primaried. I will be voting for him. There are things he’s done that I fully support and give him full credit for. But my criticisms and disappointments with him are exponentially larger than the ones I had with Clinton back in the 90s. Mainly because he claimed to have learned so much from Clinton’s mistakes and would do things differently. That’s what I wanted from Obama. Turns out being Bill Clinton, Jr., only with a huge helping of dialing up the already Big Brother-ish security state and an even more sloppy French kiss for banksters and zillionaires, is all Obama and his most fervent supporters aspire to. It’s very sad.
John Bird
As far as I can tell, the game went down the same way. Both the Obama and Clinton administrations were able to tamp down left-wing opposition for a couple years by holding out tantalizing, ethereal roles in the new government to large left-wing “activist” groups and their big names.
Eventually, though, the administrations moved so far right in policy – surprising no one, really – that these groups’ members began expecting their leaders to speak out. At which point both administrations switched to a position of attacking the left as ungrateful, as we see above.
It is the Clinton playbook, you’re right about that.
Read Matt Taibbi’s Griftopia for a good summary.
nogo postal
The Bush tax cuts did not create jobs…continuing these cuts will not create jobs..How about we let them all expire. Then take the almost a trillion $$ these represent over the next two years and put it into a WPA type program..you know..JOBS …people without jobs will not benefit from a tax break. Does anyone really believe Obama will have the same credibility in 2012 when he campaigns on raising taxes for the rich as he did when he campaigned on this issue in 2008?
harlana
I’ll tell you what will wear down your principles as a liberal, being unemployed for 2 years and losing your benefits. I don’t believe there is one person here who is happy about the tax cuts being extended, but this is an emergency situation for so many people, if this is the only way to get an extension, you won’t hear a peep out of me. When I was employed, I could afford to take principled liberal positions but much has changed. Sometimes you have to be taken down pretty hard to learn humility and accept what nuggets of help you receive with gratitude and without question.
That said, I have no right to criticize others who are angry about this compromise (probably most of them are employed and I say, good for them). I’ve been there, I know how they feel, but of course, I graciously accept the fruits of this compromise as it affects me personally.
John Bird
@Maody:
I’m sorry about your loss, but I don’t think anyone here is an absolutist or purist. Those are insults, not positions.
Davis X. Machina
there are consequences to losing the whole shebang.
You will have, as compensation, a lean, mean, truly progressive Democratic party, no more sellouts, no more compromises.
Surely that’s enough.
Oh, there’ll be a few innocent victims, but in the long sweep of history, their sacrifice is necessary, if that’s what it takes to finish off the GOP.
I am sure if we asked them, those so inconvenienced would admit as much.
One question — what’s the best memorial to them? Commemorative stamp, or something tasteful and not too showy, on the Mall in Washington?
I’m torn.
ornery curmudgeon
The interesting moments happen when the Coles of the world suddenly realize THEY are the hated left …
Hence the need to bash the leftier left-lefts, to prove you aren’t one of THOSE kind.
It will not protect you.
We aren’t on a linear spectrum anyway, btw; the purpose of the word PROGRESSIVE was to get away from the 2-class dichotomy Wealth sets up to win. (Fish, you get in this barrel right here.)
John Bird
@harlana:
Exactly. They beat the American people down and hand out Band-Aids and then who can criticize?
cleek
@ornery curmudgeon:
i’m pretty sure i’ve read many quotes and articles from establishment conservatives bad-mouthing the teabaggers.
John Cole
Or maybe the lesson you could learn from this is that all Presidents become insular and think their critics are not treating them fairly, which is what I got out of this post, not ZOMG THE LEFT SUCKS.
You simplistic twat.
amk
@John Bird: Ever heard of the word introspection ?
John Bird
@LikeableInMyOwnWay:
You have to be a joke. You can’t be for real. You’ve combined “he got the best possible deal” with “he’s powerless, it’s Congress”, rolled them all together, and then demanded that all debate be closed.
What a trip.
Ann B. Nonymous
When did whining become activism? This isn’t football, where the most anyone can do is complain on talk radio. This is still a participatory democracy.
Giving each other the glad or sad hand on each others’ blogs is nearly the opposite of doing something. I gave up on Talking Points Memo when Marshall showed pictures of their newsroom operation: they have four big screens where they watch what other people are talking about on television. No wonder. This is the magnetic yellow ribbon on the trunk of political activism.
All of you people have a computer and a phone. Most of you can make phone calls and compile information. Some of you can even meet people face to face without the other person screaming, “Oh my god it’s some freak from the Internet.” Organize your fucking community already.
But you don’t, and you won’t. You people would literally rather whimper like a dog who isn’t allowed onto the couch than participate in the political process at any deeper level than bitching like cheerleaders in the bathroom about the prom queen.
John Bird
@John Cole:
So you agree this was a statement of craven spite on the part of Clinton? And that similar statements from the Obama White House have similar origins?
Is THAT what you’re saying? What are you saying, John?
Davis X. Machina
Me, I’m just looking forward to Bernie Sanders and Jim DeMint standing shoulder to shoulder in the well of the Senate to defend the working class against the expropriators.
LikeableInMyOwnWay
@John Bird:
Yeah, your rant sounds really slick, right up until you have to offer an alternative scenario. The president pretty much covered those yesterday.
Unless you have an alternative scenario in which congress diddles itself for two years over taxes and then expects the president to save them in the last ten days of the lame duck session, and can explain how it would work, then go fuck yourself. You got nothing and you know it.
beergoggles
Well, once you whip out the comparison with Clinton, it becomes a lot easier to criticize Obama without being called a racist.
After all, it’s not like no one ever criticized Clinton.
But on the serious side, I have no problem with the deal other than for the payroll tax cut, which stinks as a way of backdoor gaming SS in the future. And I don’t trust Obama on SS because of the way he stacked the catfood commission.
Earl Butz
Hmmm.
Virtually no regulars posting here. I wonder where all these new commenters are coming from?
John Bird
@Ann B. Nonymous:
You don’t know a thing about anyone on here, so you should probably shut your mouth.
Blue Neponset
@John Cole: I read it the same way as the simplistic twat. Maybe you should update the post to make your opinion clearer?
John Bird
@LikeableInMyOwnWay:
So you were serious. Wow. No, I understand that you can’t possibly envision any scenario where your leaders stick up for you. I have a hard time doing it nowadays too.
mr. whipple
@Davis X. Machina:
Gonna be awesome TV, no doubt.
Fr33d0m
Personally I knew that Obama was more progressive than liberal. While I think this deal is a strategic mistake, I am sure they got what they felt they could.
The presser left me with the feeling of the President as the kid in school that always acted like he’d fight if it came to it, but was the first one to run when it did. There is no fight in this guy–he is a pragmatist.
If I had to choose I would choose to see him break his promise to not let my taxes go up rather than break the one about not extending the cuts for the rich. Even though he didn’t promise not to let my taxes go up. He promised not to raise them and I see that as entirely different.
kay
That’s an amazing thing to say. I don’t know how I’d respond to that, actually.
What happened next?
They both admitted their shortcomings and went home, chastened, yet vowing to do better :)
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
@Marc McKenzie: I tried to make that my sig over at GOS, but it’s just a little too long. But I don’t want to remove any of it.
Strandedvandal
@LikeableInMyOwnWay: This.
chopper
@Ann B. Nonymous:
i dunno, the 80’s? 90’s? apparently actually doing shit became passe at some point. if you go talk to people who participated in the civil rights movement or protested vietnam, who were shot at and hit with water cannons and arrested and beaten, and tell them ‘hey, i bitched on a blog!’ they’ll hit you in the head.
LikeableInMyOwnWay
@John Bird:
All you have is slogans. Slogans are cheap. They are a dime a dozen. Any asshole can copy them off the tv and post them next morning, right? In case you thought you were fooling anybody.
“Your leaders stick up for you.” Congress failed to do its job … on purpose. It said it would, and it did. It made defeating Obama its main objective, while governing took a back seat. Your trite version of tail wags dog and everything will be okay is just fucking nonsense.
Again I ask you, present the plausible alternative scenario for this lame duck session, and defend it, otherwise, shut the fuck up.
superking
Does this mean that people who do mobilize and persuade can legitimately complain about the President? If so, I think there are a lot of us who will keep talking about his lack of fortitude.
In fairness, if I were in Congress, I would probably vote for the deal, just to get it done, but I’m really bothered by Obama’s calculus. If you’re the only sane person in a room, you’re always going to have to give in to the lunatics. Obama said in his press conference that letting the tax cuts expire would have done real harm to most Americans and he wasn’t willing to let that happen. The problem is that the Republicans are perfectly willing to harm the American people. And next time they are going to be perfectly willing to inflict more suffering unless they get what they want. They really are sociopaths. So, if we’re sane, at some point we have force them to accept the consequences of their actions. Otherwise, we will just constantly be beholden to their insanity.
harlana
@John Bird: True dat. At some point, idealism goes out the window and you are faced with the political realities that rule the day.
John Bird
Here’s the scenario: we just got fucked by the Republicans and the Democrats at the same time. The Republicans? More culpable. The White House? Still culpable.
This shouldn’t be hard for people to grasp.
I would advise against giving the powerful the benefit of the doubt. Just as, you know, some advice to live by.
hoyt
hey I’m working hard. I cleaned the kitchen & mowed the lawn and swept the porch & it was HARD ! !!
Where are the jobs ?
nancydarling
We all need to get on the horn today to Landrieu, etal (including my hero Bernie Sanders) and call them on this bull shit. Like I’ve said before, we need to run interference for our guy.
Lolis
@nogo postal:
Great idea. I am sure Obama never thought of it. Why don’t you tell him how he is going to get that great bill through the House and Senate?
Blue Neponset
@LikeableInMyOwnWay:
If it was totally wicked impossible to get the middle class tax cuts separated from the rick prick tax cuts then why did Obama promise he would do it? Did he expect 67 Democratic Senators in 2009?
CaptainFwiffo
Some of the defenses of Obama seem like a strange, inverse ad hominem. Even showing that the attacks on him from the left are racist (some are) or stupid (a lot are), that doesn’t mean the deal is a good one. It’s possible both the “professional left” is being stupid (I think many are), and the deal is bad (I think it most definitely is).
Kryptik
@John Cole:
To be fair, John, this seems like a fairly ambiguous post, and considering how stratified things have become here and amongst the left in general, it’s not hard to see where some are reading it as gratuitous hippie punching, supportive or angry. Take a look at the comments here already. About 90% here have taken it as hippie punching, either agreeing with it or decrying it.
NR
@Bullsmith: The Obama defenders need to read some Voltaire, because at this point they’re seriously starting to remind me of Pangloss in Candide. God is good, therefore this is the best of all possible worlds, therefore any evil that happens is both absolutely necessary and the least that it could possibly be.
Davis X. Machina
I’m glad I kept my “Kill the Bill!” bumper stickers after the health care vote. This way I get additional progressive cred without any additional expenditure.
Sunk costs suck.
John Bird
@LikeableInMyOwnWay:
You see these people as “your team” and “their team” and want an alternative scenario where “your team” “beats” “their team”. I see them as a small group of people who are mainly interested in keeping the cash flow to their campaigns, and who are holding up starving families in front of themselves as a shield. You’re helping.
I fear we will not see eye to eye.
chopper
@Lolis:
i know how – “strategery”.
Capri
When you get right down to it, all the progressives really want is to have a few rhetorical bones thrown their way.
A comment or two to pander, just a few “I really would love the public option, but….” and “Taxing the top 2% at current rates hurts us in the long run, but…..” would make them all happy. Then they could believe that Obama was in their corner and was fighting for them, even if at the end of the day the legislation is exactly the same. Then it becomes the best we could get instead of unforced capitulation.
Per usual, the Republicans do this better than Democrats, to the point of waaaay over overdoing it.
Blue Neponset
@chopper: So why are you here bitching about it on a blog? Shouldn’t you be out protesting somewhere?
Ash Can
@Annelid Gustator: And now that I do have time to elaborate a little more, I see that Woodrow “asim” Jarvis Hill did instead, and very well, too.
@Woodrow “asim” Jarvis Hill:
LOL! I bet the congressional aides just loved you.
John Bird
@Blue Neponset:
But that was just a *sniffles* CAMPAAAAAAIGN PROOOMISE.
chopper
@Blue Neponset:
i’m not bitching about the deal. i’m with the president.
John Bird
@Capri:
The stupid progressives, sure. The rest of us don’t care about “stance” or “fighting words” or “getting worked up”, etc; we’re results-oriented.
Really, I understand this stuff can be aggravating, but stop and think for a second. If Obama could appease people on the left in America by saying some stuff, wouldn’t he say some stuff?
chopper
@John Bird:
jesus, i spit coffee at that.
John Bird
@chopper:
LOL, and I’m with Warren Buffett. We go out sailing all the time, me and him, we’re best buds with similar beliefs and motivations.
John Bird
@chopper:
You don’t have to tell me how laughable many Democrats find the idea of the Democratic platform. It’s one of the bigger problems in this country.
John Bird
Things for a civilized country:
Universal health care
Properly progressive income tax structure
Comprehensive regulation of the financial industry
LOL, guys! We’re fucking barbarians!
Maody
@nancydarling: sent my emails, made my phone calls. the anger is understandable and righteous, totally get that and have that, but I think this is what is attainable and passable at this point in lameduckness.
and just to make sure John Bird understands, I am not a political neophyte, if you think words like absolutist and purist are insults then you might just be an empty hat.
LikeableInMyOwnWay
@John Bird:
No shit, Sherlock. The world doesn’t need another concerned knownothing yapping away at the same slogan pundit horsemanure we can hear on tv 24 hours a day.
Describe a better scenario for this month than the one you are getting, and how it would work, and explain why yours is better than the one that exists. Otherwise you are just another pair of false teeth flapping on the nightstand, buddy.
Like I said, you got nothing. I am making you President For A Day. So, what do you do? Call 1-800-GOP and demand that they let the Senate work like a real deliberative body? Log onto BlueDog.org and ask the blue dogs to stop licking their own genitals and actually be Democrats?
I know, how about pounding the table and doing your best imitation of Newt Gingrich?
Blue Neponset
@John Bird: It is kind of funny that the ‘clap louder’ crowd doesn’t seem to want to admit that at one point (not that long ago) Obama himself thought it was possible to only extend the middle class tax cuts. Now that the President has changed his mind about that it is totally stupid to disagree with the President.
Glinda
@LGRooney: Thanks! You just gave me my Christmas reading. I missed that one.
LikeableInMyOwnWay
@Blue Neponset:
No president can promise that any congress will do anything.
He can only implore. Just ask Harry Truman.
If you thought that a president made you a promise about what congress would do, then you are a damned fool. Until the votes are counted, there is nothing to promise.
Once congress announced that it wasn’t going to govern, then the game was up. Weren’t you paying attention?
LikeableInMyOwnWay
They got their bones. But there is a time for rhetoric and a time for governance. The Republicans basically decided to prove that they were right about government not working. They stopped it from working whenever possible.
The fact is that the Senate is a broken institution. It can’t govern or be governed. If you don’t like that, then your job is to elect the 67 Senators you think are willing and able to change the rules. Otherwise you are left with your magical thinking.
Blue Neponset
@LikeableInMyOwnWay:
Yet, that is exactly what Obama did. It is also what every Presidential candidate does. A HUGE part of a President’s job is shepherding his agenda through Congress. This is why we call the “Bush Tax Cuts” the “Bush Tax Cuts” and not the “Trent Lott Tax Cuts”.
Ann B. Nonymous
@John Bird:
I know exactly what you are: someone who spends their time bitching on people’s blogs trying to get on people’s nerves, rather than doing something himself.
In other words, you’re a worthless person.
(and what a way with women. just you shut your mouth, honey, until I say to open it. right?)
Brighton
Was it compromise when the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor? Hell no!
This country was NOT founded on compromise.
bemused
Thankfully, I was out most of the day yesterday with no access to the blogosphere but knew there was much hand wringing on radio and tv. I’m exhausted and frustrated that progress on so many vital issues in this country is continually like pushing a boulder up a mountain with obstructionists behind the pushers hanging onto their legs. What I am not going to do is panic, take my ball and go home vowing to never play with Obama and Democrats again. Nobody promised us a rose garden. In 2008, I heard possibilities but never expected anything but a long, tough slog to realize any of them.
I am not saying we should acquiesce and be complacent, not at all. We keep working and stay focused. I’m seeing and hearing a whole lot of over-the-top panicky hysteria, imo, potentially causing more harm than good. Simmer down, chill, take a deep breath.
Blue Neponset
@Ann B. Nonymous:
I’ve read some dumb things on the internets but that is one of the dumbest.
LikeableInMyOwnWay
@Blue Neponset:
You don’t listen well, do you? Maybe caps will help?
NO PRESIDENT CAN PROMISE THAT CONGRESS WILL DO SOMETHING IN THE FUTURE. Period.
And anyone who thinks he can, or thinks that they heard such a promise, is a damned fool. What that means for you, you can figure out for yourself. But that’s a fact you can take to the bank, and if you don’t get that, then your credibility on this thread or any related threads is zero.
Blue Neponset
@LikeableInMyOwnWay: I understood you perfectly. I just completely disagree with you.
jeff
What horseshit. And people please stop clapping. While labor markets were tight, due in large part to a stock bubble economy, Clinton went out of his way with assaults on the poor. Beyond the financial deregulation he oversaw that helped create their current devastation, he oversaw a broad assault on the poor.
Specifically:
Welfare Reform: a coded attack on blacks to please white voters. It created work requirements (a problem when there are no jobs!) and hard and fast time limits on welfare receipt. Moreover, it left the states to administer the benefits, most of whom quickly eroded the safety net. In effect, he ended cash assistance to poor families with children.
NAFTA and GATT: I think this one is pretty self-descriptive. But Bill Clinton led the globalism charge to toss the American working class under the bus, further hollowing out our domestic manufacturing base and the millions of jobs and lives that went with.
Crime Legislation: Bill Clinton provided a steroid injection to the war on drugs and actually oversaw the greatest prison increase in our nation. Again, purely racially coded politics with the recipients being the poor. (see 1994 crime bill, anti-terrorism bill and 3 strikes laws). Please look at the prison rolls and incarceration in minority communities since the 1990s.
Housing: Ended the government’s direct provision of housing to the poor. Introduced the one-strike rule for public housing resident that grants evictions without due process if someone on their property engages in illegal activity (often having nothing to do with them). HOPE VI, which is effectively a mass gentrification weapon, replaced the old one-for-one rule that required replacement of any demolished public housing unit – with the end result being diminished public housing stock and probably more homeless.
So please, please do not use your Obama defenses to sanctify Bill Clinton’s work on behalf of the poor and downtrodden. Obama is not Clinton, thank god.
But because some tipster sent you a graph from a Clinton biography that bludgeons some writer means shit. His legislative accomplishments were a direct assault on the poor to curry favor with the soccer mom/suburban voting block created by Mark Penn and others.
The evidence against Clinton on the poor is so stark and troubling to defy other rationalizations. And as someone who has studied and fought it, any revision is insulting. This bullshit passage is fluff.
I can find you some real fucking poor folks to paint the picture if need be.
Lisa
@blahblahgurgleblegblah: I am glad you left too. The smell is much fresher now.
Lisa
@jeff: Word to your mother. Seriously. Say it again and say it loud.
Bill Clinton was not some crusader for the poor. He was part of the “New Democrats” who wanted to run AWAY from the labor/working class set and makeover the party to be more attractive for various wealthy white unitarianish types. He did a good job. For them.
sukabi
it’s funny how people can read the same thing and come up with entirely different reactions… if what has been attributed to Clinton in the blockquote above is true, then my estimation of and respect for him has gone down, because that was an entirely douchebag move…
charles pierce
1) NAFTA.
2) Repeal of Glass-Steagall.
3) Welfare Reform Act Of 1996.
4) Sister Soujah.
5) Billy Ray Rector.
6) The Anti-Terrorist Act, now containing shiny new death penalty offenses!
Yeah, history does repeat.
Bill Clinton’s capacity for angry self-pity remains legendary.
lol
The Clinton quote is relevant folks because he’s already being reimagined into some super-leftie super-hero along the lines of FDR and LBJ over at GOS, FDL and elsewhere even as they attack Obama for not undoing Clinton policies fast enough.
calling all toasters
Clinton did what he did with a Congress that was split almost exactly 50-50. Obama couldn’t carry the Big Dog’s jock. How about “black Paul Tsongas” for a tag?
lol
@calling all toasters:
Clinton had a 57-53 edge in the Senate and a 259-176 edge in the House when he took office. Would you care to lie again?
LikeableInMyOwnWay
@Blue Neponset:
You disagree with what? That a president can promise you that a congress will do something? Because that is the point.
Explain how you “disagree” with that. Go ahead. Let’s see what this disagreement looks like when you take the mask off it.
Write it down, here.
LikeableInMyOwnWay
@lol:
57-43?
kMc
Man, this is some insane shit. Can we not all agree that:
1) The ‘left’ can do a lot more than it currently does to promote the change it seeks AND
2) The Democratic Party, to include the President, has shown absolutely amateur leadership in dealing with some of the problems of the day?
I like the President. But he isn’t perfect and I don’t know his thinking on anything beyond what I can gather from listening to him. At this point, a heavy dose of skepticism regarding his actions (or lack thereof) seems to me to be the most sane response to anything coming out of the White House.
Fuck! A Duck
You have to forgive John, he was too busy masturbating to pictures of Reagan to have actually learned anything in the ’90s.
IndieRockrocks
James Kwak sums it up nicely here.
http://baselinescenario.com/2010/12/08/more-on-the-tax-deal/#more-8362
Does the ‘professional left’ demand strict adherence to their dogma? Sure, probably. But than so does everyone here, just a different kind of dogma. I get the impression that most people that write here would be happy to see progressives shut up and just vote how their told too.
thelonius
Sorry John, but there’s this little thing about stiffing the 99ers to consider. Clearly they didn’t count to Barry and it seems they don’t count to you.
Bill Murray
@charles pierce: you missed a few
Defense of Marriage Act
Telecom Bill of 1996
Digital Millennium Copyright Act
Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell could probably be put in there too
News Reference
I voted for Clinton twice, voted for Obama in 2008, and will vote for Obama again in the 2012 General Election. That said:
CLINTON PUSHED CRIPPLING RIGHT-WING ECONOMICS THROUGHOUT HIS PRESIDENCY
Clinton’s JOB DESTROYING NAFTA trade agreement effectively handed Republicans Congress.
Unions used to be a cornerstones for Democratic wins and Clinton crushed them.
Clinton was elected in 1993 and immediately worked to FCK American workers. By January 1st 1994 Clinton had managed to cram NAFTA through Congress which destroyed American jobs and provided the framework for additional JOB DESTROYING trade agreements.
Union members knew Clinton fcked them and they held Democratic leaders responsible.
The Telecommunications Act of 1996 signed by Clinton crippled small independent media efforts from realistically competing with the ever-consolidating mega-media-monopolies.
“Messaging” requires infrastructure. But Clinton obscenely created a completely anti-competitive environment for ALL media.
You wonder why Democratic leaders (let alone ‘the left’) can’t get their message out? It’s simple: Billionaire media-mogul’s and millionaire
newsentertainer’s interests are economically tied to right-wing economic cons.Good journalism was essential to getting facts out to the public and Clinton helped turn news businesses into an entertainment monopolies that only think about the bottom line.
Clinton butchered basic financial regulations that protected US for over 60 years.
Clinton’s compliance with Republican’s deregulation mania shredded basic financial regulation protections that went back to the 1930’s. Clinton helped eliminate the Glass-Steagal Act which had been essential at preventing banksters from taking reckless gambles with depositors money.
Clinton’s deregulation of the banks was a significant underlying cause of the 2007 Great Recession. Sure, it took almost seven more years of right-wing economics to really, really screw things up, but Clinton significantly helped them.
Clinton’s hard-right-wing turns were a lesson to many on ‘the left’ and it’s part of what they base their informed criticisms of Obama on.
Obama is clearly running Clinton’s right-wing playbook right down to the “triangulation”, the “Sister Soujah’ing” of his left-wing critics, and his many Clinton-era hires.
Obama’s Clinton-era personnel adopted and even pushed a lot of very far-right-wing policies.
See also ‘left-wing’ criticisms during the 1990’s of Clinton’s hand in: Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act, death penalty, CALEA, CFMA, DMCA, DADT, DOMA, GATT/WTO, Clinton’s “assault on the poor” and welfare-“reform”, amongst others.
WhatAreWeDoing
IndieRockrocks says,
James Kwak sums it up nicely here.
I get the impression that most people that write here would be happy to see progressives shut up and just vote how their told too.
*************************************************
That should not be, but we also cannot ignore that fact that the Republicans do EXACTLY that.
I don’t know how to balance party unity with healthy skepticism, but we need to acknowledge that the GOP walks in ABSOLUTE lockstep, while bickering among ourselves serves the right wing agenda best.
I fear that as mass media gets worse, and as Republicans get more committed to power and less committed to governance (Go back to Reagan?) and Democrats are more divided,(What do you do about my blue dog who has voted with the GOP in almost EVERYTHING, but our district went 60% for McCain?):
It becomes that much harder for each new Democratic president…
Then the Left expects even MORE from each new Democratic president….
The GOP speak with one voice….
While the mass media gets even worse…
The facts get more muddied….
Democratic approval ratings go down…
Democrats in Congress have less reason to vote for the agenda that swept them into the majority….
Republicans gain more power, by default….
Republicans get more committed to power and less committed to governance….
We regress further….
It is even THAT much harder for each new Democratic president….
While the Left expects even MORE…..
While the mass media gets even worse…
The facts get more muddied….
I am saddened by the fact that just as we have more and more liberals in the media, I am put off by the constant whining, instead of some positive movement such as :
We should have been in DC countering EVERY Tea people rally. We should have been at every townhall in GREATER numbers, We (who donated and worked for Obama,[they know who we are]) should have been coordinating e mail and phone calls to the White House and Congress.
We should have made clear from March 2009, that WE are the people to whom Washington was not listening to ; not those who lost the 08 election.
I don’t know how to strike the right balance, but I feel that we HAVE helped the regressives more than the progressives.
WhatAreWeDoing
@mr. whipple:
Thank you!
It’s about time!
She was also opposed to the public option.
It seems she opposed EVERYTHING that would have kept up Democratic approval ratings, thus making it that much harder for them to get the next thing through.
I feared we were in trouble at the beginning, when with the closing of Gitmo, the GOP shamelessly stared their “terrorists will be released and kill your children”, while the media, practically ran “Will terrorists will be released and kill your children”and the Democrats cravenly abandoned Obama and said, “Not in my state!!”