Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Accused of treason; bitches about the ratings. I am in awe.

Historically it was a little unusual for the president to be an incoherent babbling moron.

đŸŽ¶ Those boots were made for mockin’ đŸŽ”

A democracy can’t function when people can’t distinguish facts from lies.

Bark louder, little dog.

Pessimism assures that nothing of any importance will change.

This blog will pay for itself.

Why is it so hard for them to condemn hate?

I’d hate to be the candidate who lost to this guy.

Insiders who complain to politico: please report to the white house office of shut the fuck up.

It’s the corruption, stupid.

We cannot abandon the truth and remain a free nation.

Speaking of republicans, is there a way for a political party to declare intellectual bankruptcy?

Whatever happens next week, the fight doesn’t end.

The willow is too close to the house.

Peak wingnut was a lie.

Seems like a complicated subject, have you tried yelling at it?

Imperialist aggressors must be defeated, or the whole world loses.

The truth is, these are not very bright guys, and things got out of hand.

And we’re all out of bubblegum.

Come on, media. you have one job. start doing it.

JFC, are there no editors left at that goddamn rag?

American History and Black History Cannot Be Separated

I’d like to think you all would remain faithful to me if i ever tried to have some of you killed.

You are here: Home / Open Threads / Excellent Links / Pissing in the Punch Bowl

Pissing in the Punch Bowl

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I will be accused of whatever is the opposite of readership capture, but there are reasons to be disappointed with the current administration more sophisticated than WURST PREZNINT EVAH HE SOLD US OUT. Here are a couple excellent links that express my feelings more eloquently than I can.

First, “The Editors” at Esquire call out the cowardice at the heart of “looking forward, not back“:

It begins, as do so many things vile and wrong about American politics, with Richard Nixon, revealed once again this month in his own words as being history’s barn-sweepings. More specifically, it begins with how he managed to stay out of the jug after shoplifting an election he could have afforded to buy honestly. Gerald Ford, the jovial blockhead whom Nixon hand-picked to replace his felonious vice-president, pardoned the old crook and told us he was doing it for our own good. “The country,” Ford said, having divined its essential fragility on a hundred manicured fairways, couldn’t stand the trauma of seeing Nixon tried, convicted, and incarcerated. Whether there was a corrupt bargain in play or not, the public excuse Ford gave for Nixon’s pardon was that we all were made of sugar candy and might melt away entirely if the guy got what he so richly deserved.
[…] __
From the start, the Obama presidency has been based on the notion that holding the previous administration responsible for its crimes and neglect was somehow so divisive and destructive that “the American people” might find themselves fainting over it. Now, in the aftermath of the midterm elections, the president is staking what’s left of his mandate on the notion that “the American people” want him to work together with the collection of Confederate reprobates in the other party who will soon be strengthened by a new Congress full of people who are crazier than they are, and that serious arguments based on the principles he espoused during the campaign are the province of “purists” who are getting in the way of “the American people,” who need to be taken care of through whatever half-measures he can rustle up before the clown car pulls up to the Capitol in January.
__
The problem with treating the citizenry like a seven-year-old child is that it devalues whatever legitimate excuse you may have — and Obama has several good ones — for eventually compromising in pursuit of what you perceive to be the greater good. You can only do what you can do, but to make decisions based on the premise that “the American people” are too tender to be exposed to vigorous, angry debate over the public issues, that they are too fragile to be exposed to the real business of what their government is up to — which seems to be the default position of the entire political elite, including the elite political press, as regards WikiLeaks — is to forfeit your legitimacy as an elected political hireling. Nobody elected Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan, or Barack Obama to take care of us, to salve our wounded feelings, or to protect us from the vicissitudes of our fundamental duties of self-government.

And here is Matt Taibbi, in Rolling Stone, explaining why (in his opinion) “Bernie Sanders Puts Barack Obama to Shame“:

… I watched Bernie go through his amazing one-man filibuster against the Obama tax cut deal last week. Week after week, month after month, we watch politicians who disappoint us, not just as leaders but as people, failing to achieve the basic life-competency standard we expect of most grown-ups, doing things we wouldn’t tolerate from 15-year-olds. Whether it’s Mark Foley writing sexy letters to little boys, or Charlie Rangel or Duke Cunningham or Jerry Lewis doing the pay-for-play game, or even assholes like Orrin Hatch roaring with partisan excitement when the individual mandate – his own idea – was recently declared unconstitutional by a federal judge (who himself has financial stake in the health care business), these guys fail the common decency/honesty test with unnerving regularity. It’s sad but true, but in 99.9% of all cases, you wouldn’t think of looking up to an elected official as a moral role model. Which is why Bernie Sanders is such a rarity, and people should appreciate what he’s doing not just for his home state of Vermont, but for the reputation of all politicians in general.
[…]
__
I’m bringing this up now to put into context what Bernie did on the floor of the Senate last week, standing up for eight hours and 37 minutes to make a case that the hideous deal that Barack Obama cut with the Republicans to extend the Bush tax cuts was an outrage to the very qualities that matter most to this politician, common decency and common sense. While everyone else in Washington was debating the political efficacy of the deal – the Hill actually published a piece talking cheerfully about how CEOs found a “new friend” in Obama, while the New York Times shamelessly ran a front-page “analysis” talking up the deal’s supposed benefits to the middle class and the political benefits from same that Obama would enjoy – Sanders blew all of that off and just looked at the deal’s moral implications. Which are these: this tax deal, frankly and unequivocally, is the result of a relatively small group of already-filthy rich people successfully lobbying an even smaller group of morally spineless politicians to shift an ever-bigger share of society’s burdens to the lower and (what’s left of the) middle classes. This is people who already have lots of shit just demanding more shit, for the sheer rotten sake of it…
__
I contrast this now to the behavior of Barack Obama. I can’t even count how many times I listened to Barack Obama on the campaign trail talk about how, as president, he would rescind the Bush tax cuts as soon as he had the chance. He stood up and he said over and over again – I can still hear him saying “Let me be clear!” with that Great Statesman voice of his, before he went into this routine – that the Bush tax cuts were wrong and immoral. He said more than once that they “offended his conscience.” Then, just as he did with drug re-importation and Guantanamo and bulk Medicare negotiations for pharmaceuticals and the issue of whether or not he would bring registered lobbyists into his White House and a host of other promises, he tossed his campaign “convictions” in the toilet and changed his mind once he was more accountable to lobbyists than primary voters. He pulled an Orrin Hatch, in other words, only he did it serially.
__
I can live with the president fighting for something and failing; what I can’t stand is a politician who changes his mind for the sake of expediency and then pretends that was what he believed all along. You just can’t imagine someone like Sanders doing something like that; his MO instead would be to take his best shot for what he actually believes and let the chips fall where they may, budging a little maybe to get a worthwhile deal done but never turning his entire face inside out just to get through the day. This idea that you can’t be an honest man and a Washington politician is a myth, a crock made up by sellouts and careerist hacks who don’t stand for anything and are impatient with people who do. It’s possible to do this job with honor and dignity. It’s just that most of our politicians – our president included, apparently – would rather not bother.

Comity is an excellent thing, but it’s not the only thing, or the most important thing. Worn metaphor, but really, “we” have spent most of the last 40 years slapping new paint and wallpaper over mold-contaminated wallboard, and then the Republicans blame the Democrats for the fact we’re always weak, rashy, and prone to infections. It ain’t a question of bad decorating choices any more — the walls are starting to buckle. It’s past the point where bleach might’ve saved us, and it’s not like the Republicans can be trusted to take down the damaged walls rather than the support beams.

Reader Interactions

169Comments

  1. 1.

    Just Some Fuckhead

    Meh, I reset my expectations to zero after the taxcut deal. It’s all upside from here.

  2. 2.

    General Stuck

    You can only do what you can do, but to make decisions based on the premise that “the American people” are too tender to be exposed to vigorous, angry debate over the public issues, that they are too fragile to be exposed to the real business of what their government is up to —

    Oh, I don’t know. But if I had to guess, I would guess that Obama, as the first black president is averse to the possibility of starting the second Civil War. I mean, he passed universal health care and look what happened>

  3. 3.

    David Fud

    I must have drank too much from the piss-bowl.

    The Republicans have learned party unity and to win at all costs after Watergate. The Democrats are afraid to screw around with people that make black-lists. The Republicans of the last 40 years play for keeps, unlike the Charlie Browns the Dems field.

    It’s also possible that a vampire squid ate my brain.

  4. 4.

    BGinCHI

    This pretty much sums up why I’ve stopped watching Jon Stewart. It’s not that he’s not funny. He is. But the whole snark from the sidelines while demanding that everyone act civilly while so many blatantly uncivil things are taking place just won’t cut it.

    Standing up for what’s right, no matter how much it costs you, is getting harder and harder to find in our political and media classes.

    Dear future: these are not the good old days.

  8. 8.

    batgirl

    What if the American citizenry is like a seven-year-old? Or is that too old? More like a two-year-old? It’s mine, the world revolves around me, me, me, and everyone else can frack off?

    I say this as someone very disappointed with Obama but who also doesn’t have much faith in the American public at large. In other words, we get the government we deserve.

  9. 9.

    guster

    Next you’ll be claiming that the ‘bully pulpit’ is real and sometimes effective, you poor deluded fool.

  10. 10.

    gnomedad

    Nobody elected … Ronald Reagan … to take care of us, to salve our wounded feelings, or to protect us from the vicissitudes of our fundamental duties of self-government.

    Are you freakin’ kidding me?

  11. 11.

    Zifnab

    @General Stuck:

    But if I had to guess, I would guess that Obama, as the first black president is averse to the possibility of starting the second Civil War.

    I wouldn’t mind a little more Lincoln and a little less Buchanan. Henry Clay was the Great Compromiser, but he never made it as President. He didn’t prevent civil war, either.

  14. 14.

    Brachiator

    I’m not laying the responsibility for this tax compromise debacle solely on Obama. We clearly need a better class of Democrats up and down the line. These guys and gals are scared of their own shadows, and worse, can’t do math.

    As we get closer to the final votes, the financial media are pretty clear on what a sweet deal the compromise is for the wealthy. And while the Democrats can try to claim that they needed to make the deal to help 2 million unemployed, the sad truth is that even the “sweeteners” they came up with will screw the poor and the middle class more than the old deals.

    So, here is Forbes blogger:

    But the rich get the nod as the biggest beneficiaries for a few reasons. First, they’d receive the biggest after-tax income boost from extending the current tax policies…
    __
    Second, the estate tax proposed as part of the deal is far better than what is scheduled to occur at the end of the year–and what the president originally wanted.
    __
    Third, as I’ve written before, getting rid of the Making Work Pay tax credit and replacing it with a reduction in Social Security payroll taxes provides a benefit to the wealthy where they didn’t enjoy one before. The Making Work Pay credit doesn’t give anything to an individual taxpayer with an adjusted gross income of more than $95,000 per year or a to a couple earning $190,000 or more annually. But the the payroll tax cut would give the maximum $2,136 tax break to workers who earn $106,800 or more.
    __
    On a related note, the working poor would suffer under the Making Work Pay/payroll tax swap, as Roberton Williams at the Tax Policy Center (and a Forbes.com contributor) has noted: If Congress and the president accept the compromise in its current form, a single worker earning $10,000 will see her taxes jump by $200 from this year to next—her $200 payroll tax cut replaces her $400 MWP. And a couple earning $25,000 would lose $300 as its $800 MWP morphs into $500 in payroll tax savings. Nothing else in the compromise tax agreement compensates for those losses.

    And the one that I really love, a huge giveaway to trust fund babies:

    ‘If the Senate-passed Obama-Republican tax deal clears the House in its current form, rich families will have until Dec. 31 to save billions in Generation Skipping Transfer Tax on money already sitting in trust funds. Noted estate planning lawyer Jonathan Blattmachr, a retired partner of Milbank, Tweed, Hadley & McCloy, says he’s been telling his peers: “Cancel your ski trip or trip to Hawaii. This is a once in a lifetime opportunity.” ‘

    I don’t care if the Democrats fight to the death or compromise. But damn, try to get a little more in return than the thin residue of this deal.

  15. 15.

    General Stuck

    I contrast this now to the behavior of Barack Obama. I can’t even count how many times I listened to Barack Obama on the campaign trail talk about how, as president, he would rescind the Bush tax cuts as soon as he had the chance

    While I like to read Taibbi’s writings, if for no other reason than for entertainment value, the above statement is likely why he gets a lot of shit, and rightfully so, imo.

    Obama didn’t promise to end ALL of Bush’s tax cuts, though there might be one or two times he could have voiced those words. But his platform and about every speech he gave was to make permanent, or preserve the middle class cuts, and let the rich ones expire, as I recall. And he just doesn’t have the power to make the wingnuts vote to separate them and let the rich cuts expire. He made a choice to keep one promise, while it meant letting another go unfulfilled. That was the only choice available, other than let the mc eat cake in a recession. I disagree with this approach, but it is hardly breaking a campaign promise, in toto.

  16. 16.

    Tom Hilton

    Is that childish Taibbi rant supposed to have any value at all, either persuasive or informative? Or is it posted solely to show how completely infantile Matt Taibbi really is?

  19. 19.

    General Stuck

    @Zifnab:

    I was referring to an all out effort to try and convict the former republican administration out of the block. Otherwise, I don’t disagree Obama can be more forceful. But the past two years, he really hasn’t had to that much, because dems run the entire government, and compromises have mostly been with other dems, which I think takes a different style. We are about to find out if Obama is the asshole in chief he claims to be, as needed, when the wingers take over a branch of congress next year.

  20. 20.

    ThatLeftTurnInABQ

    @batgirl:

    I say this as someone very disappointed with Obama but who also doesn’t have much faith in the American public at large. In other words, we get the government we deserve.

    Co-signed.
    On the other hand I don’t remember anybody believable ever promising me that democracy was a good form of government – just that it is better than the alternatives.

    Also, to follow up on what Stuck said at #2, I’m a fan of the thesis that Kevin Phillips has presented in some of his books, namely that US politics is the continuation of civil war by other less violent means. If that is true, then the #1 job of any major political leader on the national stage is to keep us from pulling out our guns and shooting each other.

  22. 22.

    Jim C.

    @General Stuck:

    Agreed. This is accurate. Obama campaigned on ending the tax cuts for everyone making over $250K per year and extending them for everyone else.

    You can argue that Obama, as usual, compromised too much and caved too quickly, but he never wanted to end ALL the tax cuts to begin with.

  23. 23.

    Ming

    I’ll probably go down in flames over this, but I think Barack *did* stand up for what he believed in — making sure the economy moved forward, and trying to get some crumbs to people who were really going to take it on the chin if something didn’t pass.

    I think one thing progressives hate about Barack is he is doesn’t seem at all interested in the symbolic value of various options, but weighs their pragmatic value against the options. So if there’s only a pathetic weak-ass public option on the table, and that’s of huge symbolic value but little pragmatic value, then he’s ready to cut that loose. Similarly, if giving what (totals a fairly small amount of) cheese to fat cats will allow him to do more for the country and the people who need help the most, then he’s willing to do that.

    /obot. but that was obvious.

  24. 24.

    singfoom

    @Tom Hilton: Your mileage may vary, but I find Taibbi one of the best journalists around right now. I guess if you’re unable to handle content with cursewords, then he wouldn’t be your cup of tea.

  25. 25.

    Tom Hilton

    @guster: Your feeble attempt at snark aside, Taibbi is saying things that are demonstrably untrue–e.g., that the President “changes his mind for the sake of expediency and then pretends that was what he believed all along”. Now, maybe someone could conceivably believe that if they were blissfully unaware of the President’s own comments about the deal, but anyone who really is that clueless shouldn’t be writing about politics. And if it’s dishonesty rather than cluelessness, that’s obviously not much better.

  26. 26.

    Zifnab

    @General Stuck:

    But the past two years, he really hasn’t had to that much, because dems run the entire government, and compromises have mostly been with other dems, which I think takes a different style.

    I think you’re right, in that Obama had to do a lot more bartering with Joe Lieberman and Evan Bayh than he did Mitch McConnell and John Boehner.

    But you didn’t see it in the media at all. Obama didn’t have long sit down lunches and debates and slurpie summits with conservative Democrats. It was always outreach to the opposition party.

    I honestly don’t know what kind of Obama we’re going to get in the next two years. That scares the hell out of me, because I know exactly what kind of GOP we’re going to see. Just need to throw on a little CSPAN circa 1995.

  28. 28.

    FlipYrWhig

    I can live with the president fighting for something and failing; what I can’t stand is a politician who changes his mind for the sake of expediency and then pretends that was what he believed all along.

    What about a politician who doesn’t change his mind or say that what he got was what he believed in all along but rather says that he choked down the bullshit offered by the other side because they made it impossible to get what he never stopped believing in? Because, you know, that’s what happened. He _never_ said that the deal was “what he believed all along.” He said the opposite, explicitly.

  29. 29.

    jl

    I know that I am repetitious, but the Obama bashers and defenders are repetitious too.

    I see no use at all at this point in the continued effort to get inside Obama’s head, or trying to figure out whether he betrayed ‘us’ or not, etc.

    Sooner or later we will get some evidence from historical accounts: Obama meant well but was intellectually captured by reactionary CW, Obama is a lying Judas and Manchurian Candidate of the rich, Obama did the best he could with a broken and corrupt Congress. Or something else. The first alternative is my current favorite, but I may be wrong, or I may change my mind, or may wake up in grumpy mood one morning and decide the guy is just a straight up ass, pure and simple, just because.

    Time is better spent arguing for policies you want enacted, and pushing against the continuing effort by reactionary interests to falsify recent and ancient history with lies and propaganda.

  30. 30.

    ThatLeftTurnInABQ

    @Ming:

    I think one thing progressives hate about Barack is he is doesn’t seem at all interested in the symbolic value of various options, but weighs their pragmatic value against the options.

    IIRC at least one of the up-close descriptions of B.O. to emerge from the first crop of WH memoirs is that he is one of the most unsentimental and ruthlessly pragmatic persons on the planet. I imagine it is a very thin line between being like that and having a sort of color blindness with regard to symbolism and purely symbolic gestures.

    The irony is, symbolism and purely symbolic gestures are very important in politics and a political leader ignores them at his or her peril.

  32. 32.

    aimai

    On the question of “looking forward rather than back” I think the idea that Obama did what he did in order to protect the delicate sensibilities of the American people is incorrect. I think he refused to look back because we are all implicated in the illegalities and immoralities of the Bush years. Not all of us–sure. But a phenomenal number of Americans in government, business, and civilian life were complicit in what happened. There was no way to target *just* Bush or Cheney. The cock up that was the Plame investigation and prosecution was just the start of the years worth of investigation and litigation. It would have swallowed what we now know to be the only productive years of Obama’s first term.

    I share Kay’s feelings in many ways and I wish that the President and his party had a better grasp of the role of “empty symbolism” in creating and maintaining a political majority. If you can’t get people to understand *and also believe* that you are fighting for them it almost doesn’t matter, politically speaking, whether you win or lose a given battle. You may “win” a battle, legislatively speaking, and lose the war for hearts and minds, or lose the war for the next round of elections.

    aimai

  34. 34.

    FlipYrWhig

    @Ming: I see it as you do. Obama’s thing, which he said repeatedly during the HCR debate and reinforced in the statement on the tax cut deal, is that he delineates goals and principles, has clear ideas about what means he believes will achieve those, but is always willing to adapt those means in the pursuit of the larger goals. Some people find that slippery, others find it flexible.

  36. 36.

    El Tiburon

    @Tom Hilton:

    Is that childish Taibbi rant supposed to have any value at all, either persuasive or informative? Or is it posted solely to show how completely infantile Matt Taibbi really is?

    Go stick your face in a big bowl of poopy-shit, dumbbutt face.

    I would say Taibbi, along w/ Bernie Sanders/Stewart/Colbert and a few other pundits of note, are about the only voices we have that don’t speak in twisted tongues so as not to upset the establishment.

    Taibbi is saying things that are demonstrably untrue—e.g., that the President “changes his mind for the sake of expediency and then pretends that was what he believed all along”.

    So, be a man and prove it then.

    but anyone who really is that clueless shouldn’t be writing about politics.

    Agreed. See you over at Martha Stewart’s blog or Perez Hilton.

  37. 37.

    Nanette

    I loved the Sanderthon, at least as far as I heard and read of it. But I guess I took something a little bit different from it than some. Sure it was, in a way, an indictment of the Obama tax deal, how could it not be? But he was also, as far as I’m concerned, showing “progressives” how it’s done, as far as opening up room to Obama’s left.

    I think it was right here on this blog that someone posted about a bunch of people contacting Politifacts, wanting them to confirm Bernie’s numbers about the rich related to the poor. And they did confirm them. I don’t remember what they were now, but they were shocking to a number of people.

    Now, this tax deal will likely go through (as far as I can tell) but in 2 years it is supposed to expire. Between then and now the Republicans are going to do all they can to make sure that they are reinstated. What if, also between now and then, “progressives” – on their blogs, in their religious groups, at work, wherever – took a page from Bernie’s book and catapulted the truth of the matter, in numbers more accessible, or immediate, to the average person than “the top 1%”? Might there not begin to build up a disgust for the tax cuts to the rich, which by the way are bankrupting our nation, along with the wars and such?

    Anyway, me, I think Bernie Sanders was on Obama’s left flank, deliberately jabbing away at the opposition and laying the groundwork for the future.

    I could be wrong. Pollyanna is sometimes my middle name.

  38. 38.

    Brachiator

    @General Stuck:

    But his platform and about every speech he gave was to make permanent, or preserve the middle class cuts.

    Problem is, this compromise doesn’t even preserve middle class tax cuts. And it doesn’t just extend the Bush tax cuts to the wealthy, it gives the wealthy new tax breaks.

    @batgirl:

    In other words, we get the government we deserve.

    I understand what you mean, but I’m not sure I totally buy it. The Democrats claimed that they got the message, that they were energized, that they recognized that they were given an opportunity to do things differently this time.

    This was the government that I voted for. Instead, we are getting more of the same old stew: “We couldn’t get it done this time, but re-elect us and we promise to try to get it done in 2012. Or maybe 2016. Or somewhere down the line. Look, there’s that scary Sarah Palin!”

    We are about to find out if Obama is the asshole in chief he claims to be, as needed, when the wingers take over a branch of congress next year.

    This is an interesting twist. Is it like a hockey game or a football game where you resign yourself the a team’s inability to score, and hope that they can just play a tough defense?

    Obama may need to have his veto pen ready. But what does he do to get judicial and other appointments through a Senate that is set firmly against him?

    It’s going to be a rough couple of years.

  41. 41.

    Pangloss

    Obama should have a backdrop behind him with a brief summation of his issue at hand every time he makes a speech or does a town hall. That’s what every other recent President has done. If O thinks it’s hackneyed, gauche or jejune, maybe that’s why he’s failing in the messaging department.

    If GWB had signed anything as momentous as HCR into law, he would have had a frickin’ 3-hour broadway musical with opulent production numbers at the signing ceremony.

    Sheesh.

  43. 43.

    El Tiburon

    @FlipYrWhig:

    Some people find that slippery, others find it flexible.

    Others see it as an inability to make a principled stand, except when those principles seem to be the antithesis of his originally state goals and policies.

    He stated emphatically that he was for the public option. He most certainly DID NOT stand up for that in the slightest.

    He stated emphatically he was against many of the Bush-era policies of detention, wiretap, etc. He most certainly DID NOT stand up for that.

    He stated emphatically he was most certainly against extending tax-cuts for the rich, yet here we are.

    His transgressions against his emphatic, stated goals are so numerous and well-known as to not bear repeating in their entirety.

    He has nothing left to bargain with. Nothing.

  44. 44.

    MBunge

    On the subject of holding the Bush Administration responsible for its crimes, when our society can’t even impose the minimal social sanction of shunning on Iraq War cheerleading a-holes like Bill Kristol and Christopher Hitchens, when our media fall all over itself to report the mutterings of a potential war criminal like Dick Cheney, and when our elites just shrug their collective shoulders at anything to do with Iraq now…I find it hilarious that people criticize Obama for not taking on a fight that virtually no one else really wants to fight either.

    Mike

  45. 45.

    taylormattd

    @guster: Dear guster. Anne was talking about you right here:

    there are reasons to be disappointed with the current administration more sophisticated than WURST PREZNINT EVAH HE SOLD US OUT

  46. 46.

    General Stuck

    @Zifnab:

    All of the glad handing Obama has done the past two years have been annoying for sure, but most of it was just meaningless political posturing, as far as legislative politics is concerned. But I was just a little while ago reading the new ABC/Wapo poll, and Obama is still way up on willingness to work with others, the GOP. I know others don’t think this is important, but I do, electorally, down the road 2012 in the heat of a reelection campaign, those that decide elections in this country, true swing voting indies, it gets them all giddy with the kumbaya they value.

    But I certainly agree, that fairly soon the wingnuts are going to test this president in new ways, with their new power, all the way to the edge of the nihilistic cliffs, on about every issue, but especially economically. He can offer some middle ground stuff for compromise, but not sell the farm, even if the wingnuts fuck around with their matches and burn it all down by accident with brinkmanship./ The fight over the debt ceiling is going to be scary, and too close for comfort, I fear.

  47. 47.

    srv

    The measure of a successful presidency is whether their legacy persists. On the wars, terrorism, much of foreign policy, tax-policy, civil liberties, Executive authority, Gitmo, economic policies, Wall Street influence, income gaps and much more, people can whine all they want, but GW’s legacy objectively persists. In some areas, Obama won’t be able to differentiate at all (judicial appointees), and in other new initiatives they wouldn’t disagree (payroll tax holiday).

    Whether Obama’s big differentiators, like Healthcare reform, persist, is TBD. Even if he’s replaced in 2012, probably somewhat. HCR is something that has been coming for decades. The Republicans will change the window dressing, remove anything that does not maximize corporate profits and claim it for themselves.

  48. 48.

    Zifnab

    @Tom Hilton:

    Now, maybe someone could conceivably believe that if they were blissfully unaware of the President’s own comments about the deal, but anyone who really is that clueless shouldn’t be writing about politics.

    You can Specter all you want, but at the end of the day actions speak a lot louder than words. And Obama aggressively sells these middle-of-the-road packages. He dismissed a trillion+ dollar stimulus out of hand for a smaller package and was happy to load it up with tax deals as a compromise. He pushed a watered down health care deal from day 1 of negotiations and proceeded to sell off valuable chunks for votes he never got on the GOP side.

    And with this tax deal, he SAYS he doesn’t like it, but all his legislation to date seems to suggest that there’s nothing he doesn’t believe more tax cuts won’t solve. This entire thing is a giant ball of tax cuts – from the Social Security Holiday to the Renewable Energy Credits to the big fat estate and upper income cuts.

    Mouthing the words “I don’t like this tax deal” doesn’t sell me. He was floating the idea of temporary extension from the outset, and every time the legislation budged it was from the left. I am throughly sick of giving concessions to petulant, hostage takers. And I’m sick of the President SAYING he doesn’t like a bill and aggressively pushing it anyway.

  50. 50.

    FlipYrWhig

    @aimai:

    I think the idea that Obama did what he did in order to protect the delicate sensibilities of the American people is incorrect. I think he refused to look back because we are all implicated in the illegalities and immoralities of the Bush years.

    See, I think it was because

    (1) He knew that even in a best-case scenario he’d need a few Republican votes to get anything passed, and a “partisan witch-hunt” would poison that possibility. Well, as it happened, Mitch McConnell decided to poison it preemptively, so that didn’t work out.

    (2) He knew that he had won in large part because people were sick of Bush, and after winning as big as he did, to follow that up by bringing back up a bunch of Bush-era stuff would seem like “running up the score.” Well, as it happened, Republicans decided to treat him as illegitimate and partisan from the get-go anyway.

    (3) Maybe more important than either of the others, he took office in the midst of an economic near-catastrophe, and a huge chunk of the first two years has been consumed by finding ways to deal with that — which was very little related to what either candidate ran on. Taking time out from patching holes and otherwise scrambling to investigate and punish the previous administration’s wrongdoing might well seem gratuitous.

    It really did strike me the other day, for really the first time, that apart from HCR, so few of the big decisions of the Obama presidency feel IMHO like anything we spent that year of the primaries and general-election campaign debating at all.

  51. 51.

    El Tiburon

    @Pangloss:

    If GWB had signed anything as momentous as HCR into law,

    Tell me again why HCR was such a big deal? It prevents people from being kicked-off for pre-existing conditions? It mandates that everyone has to purchase insurance form an insurance company? Kids can stay on until they are 26?

    My bet is HCR doesn’t change a goddamn thing. I mean, didn’t Obama admit what he passed was a Republican plan? Born from the Cato Institute?

    HCR did not change anything; it reinforced our stupid and wasteful health insurance industry.

  52. 52.

    taylormattd

    @El Tiburon: Dear El Tiburton:

    there are reasons to be disappointed with the current administration more sophisticated than WURST PREZNINT EVAH HE SOLD US OUT

  53. 53.

    ThatLeftTurnInABQ

    In looking back at the 2008 campaign, I recall 4 main themes which received the most emphasis and a lot of the choices which Obama has made since getting into office can be understood as an attempt to stick to those themes, to interpret them as “the job he was hired to do by the American people as a whole”. The 4 main campaign themes were: bipartisanship, jobs, healthcare, and green energy. When we find fault with him and his administration we need to distinguish when we are faulting him for pursuing these priorities to the exclusion of other issues and when we are faulting him for failing to make progress in his stated areas of emphasis.

    Personally I think he has done a pretty good job on the healthcare front given the obstacles, has done a mediocre job in the area of jobs and green energy, and bipartisanship was a will-o-wisp which he followed into a swamp.

  54. 54.

    FlipYrWhig

    @El Tiburon: So, you think it’s slippery. Got it. I see it as the inevitable conflict between knowing clearly what you want and having to deal with 100 princelings variously intent on not letting you have it.

  55. 55.

    MBunge

    @El Tiburon: He stated emphatically he was most certainly against extending tax-cuts for the rich, yet here we are.

    I must have been confused, because I thought Obama campaigned on a whole lot of things, many of which he’s already achieved. But I guess he just went around the country and the only thing he ever promised to do was raise taxes on rich folks, no matter what the consequences might be. Man, how did he ever get elected running on that platform?

    Mike

  56. 56.

    WyldPirate

    Obama’s problem is that he doesn’t have the courage of his convictions to really fight for what he believes in.

    Here was Obama on the “Estate Tax” back in 2006:

    This is shameful. Are we really going
    to cut taxes again for the Forbes 400
    before we fix the alternative minimum
    tax which affects middle-class families? Are we really going to cut taxes
    again for multimillionaires and billionaires before we extend the expiring
    child tax credit which helps working
    families? Are we really going to worsen
    our country’s financial future for all
    Americans just so that a tiny number
    of the estates—estates that average
    over $13 million—can escape all taxes?
    There is no economic justification
    for repealing the estate tax and certainly no moral justification. This is
    politics pure and simple.
    So if the Republicans want to bring
    up their Paris Hilton tax break to use
    it as an election issue later, I say go
    for it. Because I can think of no better
    statement about where and how we differ in priorities than that.

    First of all, let’s call this trillion-dollar giveaway what it is – the Paris Hilton Tax Break. It’s about giving billions of dollars to billionaire heirs and heiresses at a time when American taxpayers just can’t afford it.

    You can watch Obama say the later at Maddow video at about the 8:00 minute mark

    Obama simply won’t fight very hard for what he believes in–particularly if it gets in the way of his re-election. He folds in a heart beat.

    ETA: Not only will he not stand up, he caved in and gave the Rethugs a BETTER DEAL than the old estate tax.

  57. 57.

    taylormattd

    @guster: wait, you forgot some of your meaningless slogans. Let me help you:

    Obama has slapped us all in the face. We’re being forced to eat shit sandwiches while being thrown under a bus. These Obama apparatchiks are selling out progressives to corporatist centrists. Anybody who criticizes me for these views is punching hippies while pulling away the football and clapping louder in a cult.

  58. 58.

    taylormattd

    @WyldPirate: Dear WyldPirate:

    there are reasons to be disappointed with the current administration more sophisticated than WURST PREZNINT EVAH HE SOLD US OUT

  59. 59.

    Jay B.

    @jl:

    Time is better spent arguing for policies you want enacted, and pushing against the continuing effort by reactionary interests in falsifying recent and ancient history with lies and propaganda.

    Oh, MAN.

    Now imagine doing that, being told by various allies such things are impossible, you want sparkleponies and that you’re wrong anyway because obviously if what you wanted done was right, the Administration would be doing it, QED, AND having your “elected friends” strive at every possible moment to undercut the point that the past isn’t even past, but CENTRAL to the problems we face — so they can go to their benefactors in the GOP and Wall St. and say they were right all along — well, yeah. It’s futile.

  60. 60.

    General Stuck

    @Brachiator:

    Problem is, this compromise doesn’t even preserve middle class tax cuts. And it doesn’t just extend the Bush tax cuts to the wealthy, it gives the wealthy new tax breaks.

    I don’t understand this, most likely because economics gives me a rash. How does it not extend the mc tax cuts? though not preserve them if you mean make permanent.

    The way I see it, the two year deal is the best time frame, because these cuts will expire just after the 2012 election, and before any new congress, or new president is sworn in Jan 2013. Thereby, if Obama loses his reelection, he will be able to let all of the cuts expire, and same if he wins, not having to face reelection again. In the meantime, the mc cuts continue, and will be stimulutive to the econony because that money will be spent, albeit not the rich ones, that are the lesser amount of the two, I think.

    Of course if Palin moves into the WH, none of this will matter much, and I will be paddling my canoe to Guatemala.

  61. 61.

    Zifnab

    @John Cole:

    I’ll refrain from comment until Sanders wins a primary for President. Anywhere.

    Is this a litmus test for something? Because if the only acceptable politicians are party primary winners, your options are inevitably going to range from Meh to Ugh on the left and WTF to Sarah Palin on the right.

    Are we permanently relegating ourselves to lackluster and crazy pols now? Might as well just pencil in Snooki for President.

  63. 63.

    LikeableInMyOwnWay

    Yeag, blah fucking blah, Bernie Sanders, the world’s favorite pet SociaIist …

    Except for one thing. The bill is going to pass, and Bernie, Goddie love him, couldn’t pass a goddam kidney stone if his life depended on it.

    What kind of dumbass president would shape his policy around the maudlin pleadings of the only SociaIist in congress who has to caucus with Democrats to even be heard?

    Seriously, do you people even listen to yourselves?

    * Sanders’ affiliation is listen on the senate.gov site as “I”, not even they will admit he’s actually a frigging sociaIist.

    Nothing wins in this country like avowed sociaIism. Hell, you can’t even write it on this blog without being sucked into the Filter of Death.

    Obama said he would rescind the Bush tax rates? Really? A constitutional lawyer said he would make tax law, and nobody even called him on it? Is that really what happened? Or did he say we should get rid of them? And did Americans elect a congress that couldn’t get the job done? Isn’t that what really fucking happened? So why don’t you cut the crap?

  64. 64.

    FlipYrWhig

    @WyldPirate: Um, speaking after signing the deal, he reiterated that continued tax cuts for income over $250K were bad policy. But he accepted that provision, loathsome as it is, because _on balance_ he liked how it turned out. Where’s the inconsistency? That’s where Taibbi is wrong too. Obama didn’t say, “woohoo, tax cuts for the rich, like I always wanted!” He said the equivalent of “tax cuts for the rich suck, and I’m still sure that’s true, but the deal has other components too, and I’ll take those along with the bad policy I’d’ve rather never gone along with.” Hostage-takers, remember? Was he intending that to mean that he always wanted to be taken hostage, so it was a thrilling fantasy to live out?

  65. 65.

    BGinCHI

    Since no President ever has or ever will deliver on all campaign promises, why is Obama any different?

    You don’t think the office of the Prez changes people? You don’t think the system is stronger, more resilient, and more fucked up than any righteous reformer expects?

    But, and it’s a big but, we ought to bitch about what we think the WH is doing wrong and should Sanders the shit out of wrongheaded and morally bankrupt ideas and policies.

    It’s both: Presidents, just like top draft picks, always disappoint you. But that doesn’t mean you turn on them when there’s lot of work to get done.

  66. 66.

    joes527

    Shorter @aimai: Evil is too big to fail.

    I’d explain how you got this all wrong if I didn’t suspect that you actually nailed it.

  67. 67.

    WyldPirate

    @taylormattd:

    Fuck off apologist.

    Read what the man said. I quoted it from the goddamned Congressional record.

    He either sold out his principles or he is so politically inept he got fucking outmaneuvered and gave the richest of the rich an even better deal on the Estate Tax than the old law.

    He has done this on multiple occasions as El Tiburon pointed out,

  68. 68.

    eemom

    I was impressed as hell by Bernie Sanders last week too.

    However, I have since begun to wonder about the question some have asked, i.e., why didn’t he make it a real filibuster to hold up the vote on Monday?

    Maybe there’s some procedural reason I don’t understand.

  70. 70.

    Brachiator

    @ThatLeftTurnInABQ:

    Personally I think he has done a pretty good job on the healthcare front given the obstacles, has done a mediocre job in the area of jobs and green energy, and bipartisanship was a will-o-wisp which he followed into a swamp.

    I agree with you with respect to health care, and the jury is still out on financial regulatory reform (and I give him props on finding a way to install Elizabeth Warren despite fierce opposition).

    But Obama has at best fought a holding action on preventing the economy from getting worse, and this latest compromise actually undoes the benefits of some of the tax cuts that he championed the first time around.

    @Jim C.:

    You can argue that Obama, as usual, compromised too much and caved too quickly, but he never wanted to end ALL the tax cuts to begin with.

    And here, Obama needlessly garbled his own message, and neither he nor his staff seems to understand how marginal tax rates work. His proposal would have still provided tax breaks for everyone. The rich just would not have had the excessive windfalls they got under the Bush tax cuts.

    And he should have pointed out that the loss of the Bush tax cuts would still be far less than the huge gains in income that the wealthiest Americans accumulated over the past few years.

    I can understand some of his method. It’s not just “reaching out,” trying for bipartisanship. He defers to Congress, expecting them to come up with legislation based on very loose outlines coming from the White House. But this does not seem to be working, given the temperaments of this bunch of Democrats and Republicans.

  73. 73.

    General Stuck

    @eemom: It wouldn’t make any difference, 7 or 8 hours yakking when 80 plus senators voted for it. Plus, there are a bunch of bills that HAVE to be passed in a very short time period, such as the omnibus to keep the government running, START, etc,,,, And Bernie wasn’t to mess with that.

  74. 74.

    ruemara

    @eemom:

    Because he was engaged in a show, not a real filibuster. He knew it would pass, he did not want all of it to pass, but he also knew there was nothing better that would pass. He engaged in showmanship, people are lauding him, the real meat and bones of the legislation, flaws and all are completely lost, as is his efficacy. And I adore me some Bernie Sanders.

  77. 77.

    General Stuck

    @Corner Stone:

    Is this all you have CS, just hanging around flinging piles of your own feces at other commenters you don’t like, and grunting now and then. What purpose does that serve you?

  78. 78.

    MBunge

    @WyldPirate:”You find it hilarious that anyone criticizes anyone over anything. In your eyes he does nothing wrong.”

    Oh, I think Obama does stuff wrong. But when even commentors on this very blog can’t tear themselves away from the writings and squablings of unrepentent Iraq War cheerleader Christopher Hitchens, I find it funny how people get angry because Obama doesn’t want to put George W. Bush and Dick Cheney on trial for war crimes.

    Mike

  79. 79.

    MBunge

    @Corner Stone: Hey Mike, I appreciate your effort.
    The goalposts are now——> over there.
    Thanks again.

    For snark to be effective, it has to be understandable.

    Mike

  80. 80.

    Three-nineteen

    @Zifnab #11: what exactly do you think Lincoln would have done differently from Obama? From what (little) I’ve read Lincoln’s first two years in office parallel pretty well with Obama’s.

  83. 83.

    WyldPirate

    @El Tiburon:

    HCR did not change anything; it reinforced our stupid and wasteful health insurance industry.

    Exactly. Not only that, we got the normal ~10% increase in premiums this year.

    I still say the whole damned lot of HCR is repealed after 2012.

  85. 85.

    MBunge

    @Corner Stone: You’re a little dim. We all get that. It’s ok Mike.

    You string together a word salad that only makes sense to yourself, and I’M the one with the problem?

    Mike

  86. 86.

    Malron

    Then, just as he did with drug re-importation and Guantanamo….

    Always nice to see when we aid and abet a bullshit talking point, even when the rest of your argument might be valid.

    Explain to me how Obama is supposed to close Guantanamo when every time it comes up for a vote in Congress the vote to deny funding is almost unanimous. Should he wave his Magical Negro Black Dick over Cuba and make it so all by his lonesome?

  87. 87.

    dianne

    That lady who told Obama that she was “exhausted of defending you” said in a few short words what all the bloggers, talking heads, editorial writers have spent thousands of words trying to say.
    When someone complains about Obama to me I can no longer think of anything to say in his defense. The last year has left me mute. I felt sorry for him when he had to get Clinton to take over his press conference. The last year has made him mute, too.
    He can still win in 2012 but I will no longer think of it as a victory for the middle class. Obama was to have been our advocate and we won’t get an opportunity like this again. Why couldn’t he have been just a little bit better? I know its supposed to be a global economy but we make up a huge market and we will be sorely missed when we are gone.

  88. 88.

    Corner Stone

    @MBunge: Sigh. Ok.
    Your post at #55 is a classic example of “moving the goalposts”. So that any criticism or argument is invalid against a set of relatively incomparable goals or measures.
    IOW, it doesn’t matter what anyone here says, you will continue to rearrange the criteria to judge accomplishments and/or previously stated “goals”.
    I’m pretty sure everyone but you knew what I said.

  89. 89.

    LikeableInMyOwnWay

    no President ever has or ever will deliver on all campaign promises

    A constitutional lawyer made a campaign promise that as president he personally would deliver a tax law? When, on what date did he make that speech? And who pushed back on it? Nobody? Presidents don’t make tax laws.

    Ask the whiners for a transcript of the campaign promise they are talking about. I haven’t been able to find it.
    When I look at analyses of the campaign and tax policy positions of candidates McCain and Obama … I find that they are talking about proposals. Proposed tax policies, rates, cuts, extensions.

    Proposed … to whom? Congress, do you suppose?

    My source is the Tax Policy Center at the Brookings Institution. I think I would have expected that these folks would at least mention it if a candidate for president suggested that he or she would actually deliver tax laws, rates or schemes, since, you know, doing so is actually Constitutionally impossible. What do you think? Did the candidates actually state that they would do so, or did they propose tax schemes which would have to be approved by congress?

    And if the answer is the latter, why are we even talking about this?

    In campaign speeches, Senator Obama has proposed increasing payroll taxes for high-income individuals but his campaign denies having a particular policy relating to payroll taxes. The campaign’s website says that Senator Obama would increase taxes on high-income individuals as a way to extend the solvency of Social Security. Lacking specifics, we assume an additional two percent income tax on AGI above $250,000 and a two percent payroll tax paid by employers on each worker’s compensation above $250,000)

    Do some people actually think that when candidates for the presidency suggest or propose tax policy that they are promising to actually personally deliver the tax scheme? If they do, then aren’t they too stupid to understand the most basic workings of their government? And shouldn’t we therefore just tell them to shut the fuck up?

    If presidents can deliver tax schemes, why don’t they just write the orders on their first day in office and be done with it? Why are we dealing with this now?

    We are talking about a congress that is so petulant and fucked up that it can’t do the simplest and most obvious humane things needed by citizens, and we are sitting around talking out of our asses about how Obama didn’t deliver a tax scheme?

    Why, isn’t anyone in charge of this place?

    And why doesn’t somebody tell Ed Schultz to shut his lying pie hole?

  90. 90.

    Jabari

    Let me get this straight: Esquire believes that the President had “several good” and “legitimate” excuses for compromising with the Republicans (and conservative Senate Democrats) to achieve what he “perceive[s] to be greater good,” but those “legitimate” and “good” excuses — “several” of them! — are rightfully “devalued” because he failed to prosecute former Administration officials for war crimes, and that failure to prosecute is synonymous with treating the citizenry like “seven-year-olds,” which they most assuredly are not.

    Getting it straighter: and Ms. Laurie thinks this is a “sophisticated” argument.

    So could someone, please, straighten it fully for me: If “the American People” — stiffened as we are for “vigorous, angry debate” and up to the challenge of being “exposed to the real business of what their government is up to” — are so grown-up and adult like, then why weren’t we out in the streets in the winter of 2001 lighting some several somethings on fire (a city or two would do) and demanding that we would decide our presidential elections — down to the last jot, tittle and hanging chad — and not 5 folks who just happened to sit on the Supreme Court. Y’know, well before that Administration got the chance to move into the White House and start planning up some war crimes?

    If memory serves, “the American people” just “wanted it all to go away.” And, funny, that rather seems like a nation of people who are rather “fragile,” “tender” and “made of sugar candy.”

    Methinks maybe the good folks at Esquire should stick to fashion and man-scaping tips. No?

    (And, seriously, we don’t elect Presidents to take care of us and make us feel good about ourselves? Friggin’ seriously?)

  91. 91.

    Brachiator

    @General Stuck: RE: Problem is, this compromise doesn’t even preserve middle class tax cuts. And it doesn’t just extend the Bush tax cuts to the wealthy, it gives the wealthy new tax breaks.

    I don’t understand this, most likely because economics gives me a rash. How does it not extend the mc tax cuts? though not preserve them if you mean make permanent.

    I posted some analyses from a Forbes blogger earlier in this thread, but here are a cluple of key items:

    Third, as I’ve written before, getting rid of the Making Work Pay tax credit and replacing it with a reduction in Social Security payroll taxes provides a benefit to the wealthy where they didn’t enjoy one before. The Making Work Pay credit doesn’t give anything to an individual taxpayer with an adjusted gross income of more than $95,000 per year or a to a couple earning $190,000 or more annually. But the the payroll tax cut would give the maximum $2,136 tax break to workers who earn $106,800 or more. (The Social Security tax applies to all earned income up to this amount.)
    __
    On a related note, the working poor would suffer under the Making Work Pay/payroll tax swap, as Roberton Williams at the Tax Policy Center (and a Forbes.com contributor) has noted: If Congress and the president accept the compromise in its current form, a single worker earning $10,000 will see her taxes jump by $200 from this year to next—her $200 payroll tax cut replaces her $400 MWP. And a couple earning $25,000 would lose $300 as its $800 MWP morphs into $500 in payroll tax savings. Nothing else in the compromise tax agreement compensates for those losses.
    __
    If the Senate-passed Obama-Republican tax deal clears the House in its current form, rich families will have until Dec. 31 to save billions in Generation Skipping Transfer Tax on money already sitting in trust funds. Noted estate planning lawyer Jonathan Blattmachr, a retired partner of Milbank, Tweed, Hadley & McCloy, says he’s been telling his peers: “Cancel your ski trip or trip to Hawaii. This is a once in a lifetime opportunity.”

    The people behind the compromise (including some Clinton holdovers who should have known better) did not have a sharp staff that could double check their numbers and the consequences.

    Hope this is not too much detail for you (and I am not being snarky).

    Bottom line is that the payroll tax cuts give more to the wealthy and is less generous than the credit it replaces. There may also be some negative consequences for lower income taxpayers who try to take the payroll tax credit and the child tax credit.

    I can understand Obama not pushing for making the middle class tax cuts permanent. But some of what he agreed to here may undercut some of his own earlier policy.

    Rachel Maddow did a great piece on this earlier in the week that suggests that kicking all the cuts, both his and the Bush tax cuts into 2012 may work against him. You already see boneheads like Mitt Romney and Sarah Palin whining about how the Bush tax cuts should be made permanent. The other shoe is to cut back or repeal any Obama cuts, such as the expanded education credits. The theme of the GOP will be “we must get rid of Obama and the Democrats to make sure we get the tax cuts that we want.” Obama is betting that the economic dice will roll his way, but he has loaded up the Republicans with all kinds of advantages and arguments.

  92. 92.

    ThatLeftTurnInABQ

    @LikeableInMyOwnWay:

    We are talking about a congress that is so petulant and fucked up that it can’t do the simplest and most obvious humane things needed by citizens

    Well to be fair, there was just no way the Rabid Dog and Human Moran Euthanasia Act of 2010 was ever going to get 60 votes in the Senate.

  93. 93.

    Tom Hilton

    @singfoom: I gather you’re not familiar with any of my prior comments, or you wouldn’t have made yourself look foolish by suggesting that I’m “unable to handle content with cursewords”. So I’ll let you slide on that, and just say it’s the content of Taibbi’s rant that I consider infantile. It’s the sort of simplistic self-righteous bullshit that assumes a world without tradeoffs or difficult choices and values noble futility over messy, ambivalent success.

  94. 94.

    LikeableInMyOwnWay

    @ThatLeftTurnInABQ:

    Maybe, but I’m not into being fair. Just accurate.

    The entire “Obama made a bad deal” argument boils down to this single assertion: “I coulda made a better deal!”

    Yeah, that’s right. I totally believe some asshole on an obscure blog could have made a better deal. Either that, or the entire Mount Everest of words on this subject for the last couple of weeks has been just wasted. We don’t want to believe that, do we?

    Heh.

  95. 95.

    Tom Hilton

    @Zifnab:

    You can Specter all you want, but at the end of the day actions speak a lot louder than words….And with this tax deal, he SAYS he doesn’t like it, but all his legislation to date seems to suggest that there’s nothing he doesn’t believe more tax cuts won’t solve.

    Pretending you don’t like a position you actually agree with != “pretend[ing] that was what he believed all along”. Even if we were to grant the truth of your dubious assertion, that wouldn’t change the fact that Taibbi’s statement is demonstrably untrue.

  96. 96.

    Jay B.

    @MBunge:

    But when even commentors on this very blog can’t tear themselves away from the writings and squablings of unrepentent Iraq War cheerleader Christopher Hitchens, I find it funny how people get angry because Obama doesn’t want to put George W. Bush and Dick Cheney on trial for war crimes.

    You’re right, it’s appalling that Obama didn’t lock up and try Hitchens instead of the actual people who actually implemented Hitchens’ preferred policy.

    It’s exactly like blaming Julius Streicher and saying its laughable that people got mad at the allies for not prosecuting Hitler.

  97. 97.

    SlikRik

    @Tom Hilton:

    You’re still here? What, did you miss this:

    “So, be a man and prove it then.” — El Tiburon

    ? (Just to remind you, Taibbi said POTUS “changes his mind for the sake of expediency and then pretends that was what he believed all along”; you said that was “demonstrably untrue.”)

  98. 98.

    Jay B.

    Point:

    Do some people actually think that when candidates for the presidency suggest or propose tax policy that they are promising to actually personally deliver the tax scheme? If they do, then aren’t they too stupid to understand the most basic workings of their government? And shouldn’t we therefore just tell them to shut the fuck up?

    Counterpoint:

    Pete DeFazio (D-OR):

    “The White House is putting on tremendous pressure, making phone calls, the president is making phone calls saying this is the end of his presidency if he doesn’t get this bad deal,” he told CNN’s Eliot Spitzer.

    The Administration denies saying “anything like that”, but no one is fooled:

    The White House has been aggressively selling the deal, which includes a two-year extension of all the expiring Bush tax cuts in exchange for a 13-month extension of unemployment benefits, to skeptical lawmakers and the public.

    Or you can believe that the Administration isn’t doing anything and has no power.

  100. 100.

    Daulnay

    @Brachiator:

    The trust fund giveaway is huge. Maybe as much as a half a trillion (no typo) dollars.

    The GST tax would go up to 55% at the end of the year, without the bill. For the last two weeks of this year, it will drop to 0%, under the bill. There is something like $1.1 trillion in personal trusts in the U.S. It’s unknown how much of that are in GSTs, but GSTs have been widely used to avoid taxes over the last couple decades.

  101. 101.

    WyldPirate

    @Brachiator:

    Rachel Maddow did a great piece on this earlier in the week that suggests that kicking all the cuts, both his and the Bush tax cuts into 2012 may work against him.

    Here it is.

    Obama is betting that the economic dice will roll his way, but he has loaded up the Republicans with all kinds of advantages and arguments.

    Exactly. This is why not fighting this out was so fucking stupid and spineless. At the worst, he could have ended up with the deal he got.

    The Rethugs are going to hammer the ever loving shit out of Obama about adding to the deficit. He gave them a weapon to argue about cutting “entitlements” with the tax cut holiday. Corporations are not going to add jobs if demand is not there. People with the measly few bucks in their pocket from the SS witholding cut are barely going to notice it. Hell’s bells, the median wage is less than it was a fucking decade ago now.

    This same argument is going to go on again in 2012. Obama will kick the can down the road and he will be faced with squeals of “deficit raiser” and “tax raiser”.

    My bet is that he doesn’t fight for repeal of the above 250K tax rate to the Clinton levels. He kicks the can down the road. He avoids fights. He doesn’t really believe in repealing the rates.

  103. 103.

    agrippa

    @WyldPirate:

    I submit that neither does anyone else.

    It is not a coincidence that this issue was avoided until after the election was lost, with 63 Democrats being fired.

    Obama was, then, forced to make a Hobson’s choice.

    That was no accident.

  104. 104.

    FlipYrWhig

    @WyldPirate:

    This is why not fighting this out was so fucking stupid and spineless. At the worst, he could have ended up with the deal he got.

    In other words, if he had wasted more time getting the same deal, you would have been more happy. Something a bit odd about that… especially considering that there’s a whole lot of other stuff that still has a shot at passing the last gasp of a Democratic House _if_ there’s a tax deal in place, and _not_ if there isn’t.

  105. 105.

    General Stuck

    @WyldPirate:

    dude, the wingnuts are going to hammer away on taxes and deficits no matter what happens. The only real thing Americans care about is getting and keeping a job. If those don’t start arriving by 2012, it won’t matter, the arcane everlasting wingnut demagoguing about taxes and deficits. Likewise, if the economy sparks back to a solid level and jobs are created, no one will care much about their taxes, especially until they actually see them go up in their paychecks, which will be after the 2012 election.

    I know you want Obama to fail, but the scorched earth bullshit analysis, is in fact bullshit analysis.

  106. 106.

    Corner Stone

    @FlipYrWhig:

    especially considering that there’s a whole lot of other stuff that still has a shot at passing the last gasp of a Democratic House if there’s a tax deal in place, and not if there isn’t.

    Oh please. C’mon Flip.

  107. 107.

    chunksmediocrites

    @likableinmyownway:

    Do some people actually think that when candidates for the presidency suggest or propose tax policy that they are promising to actually personally deliver the tax scheme?

    Simply that they will actively work to support it, in their position of executive power. Though in excusing Obama of any considerable role in what policies get passed into law, you make Obama not only without blame, but also without praise; in a branch continuing the executive power-grab started under Bush II, no less.

    The rest of your argument devolves, as you’ve built it around the revelation that the president doesn’t make laws, congress does. Gosh if only Obama knew somebody in congress. Because seriously, even lobbyists write some of the bills that become law. If only Obama’s administration had the ability to lobby congress, or some sort of media exposure.

    And why doesn’t somebody tell Ed Schultz to shut his lying pie hole?

    …You’re busy, or something?

  108. 108.

    MattR

    @Malron:

    Explain to me how Obama is supposed to close Guantanamo when every time it comes up for a vote in Congress the vote to deny funding is almost unanimous.

    From what I understand Obama has the exclusive power to close Guantanamo as a prison (or more to the poitnt to release every prisoner who is held there). Whether or not he should make that threat or take that action if Congress calls his bluff and refuses to fund the use of prisons in the USA for those prisoners is a different matter. But Obama does have actions he can take if he really wanted to close Guantanamo.

  110. 110.

    Marc McKenzie

    @Three-nineteen:

    Nice point, Three-nineteen.

    But remember, it seems that many of Obama’s critics on the Left side of the fence have misread or outright forgotten history. FDR did not get his New Deal programs passed in two seconds or 100 days–it took around 2 to 4 years.

    Many historians agree that Obama has done a lot in just two years. And I agree that there is much to criticize him about. Having said that, though, the criticism needs to be constructive, not this “F**K YOU!” type seen on too many blogs nowadays. Plus, a lot of the issues raised by some critics are not Obama’s fault or they are due to the mistakes of Congress.

    Oh, and a primary challenge to him in 2012? Biggest mistake ever. Best way to get a Repub (God help us if it’s Miss P) in the White House to drag things even further, probably even past the ninth level of Hell. Oh, and I suppose “everything must fall apart first and then all Americans will wake up and usher in utopia!” Yep, that move really works well…it worked so well in France after the Revolution and I guess the Communists were right when they said, “After Hitler, us.” Too bad about all the innocent lives lost, but who’s counting?

    My final point–yes, constructively criticize this President if you have to. No one is above criticism, and Obama has said so. But when you throw more s**t at him and not at the Republican jerks who have f***ed things up and continue to do so, when you spend more time moaning and groaning about Rahm instead of McConnell and his foolishness, when the complaints are more about Geitner and less about Boehner…yeah, there is a problem.

    In other words, can we turn more of the fire at the people who really deserve it?

    Just sayin’.

  111. 111.

    MattR

    @General Stuck: It would kill him politically, but he could actually do it if he thought that closing Guantanamo was that important a principle. (EDIT: And I am genuinely curious to know if I am right in my belief that Obama has the power to order all prisoners released or quickly charged and tried)

    As an aside, perhaps if Congress thought he was actually serious about doing something that drastic then they would actually take the steps to allow for civilian trials and incarceration of KSM and others.

  112. 112.

    Marc McKenzie

    @General Stuck:

    The problem isn’t just that he (WyldPirate) wants Obama to fail…the problem is that he doesn’t seem to give a fig about the consequences if that happens.

    Remember 2000 when the Naderites didn’t care about Gore’s loss? Or when we brushed off Carter’s loss with a “So what, he sucked anyway”? What followed was much, much worse…and we’re still dealing with the foul stench left behind by GWB’s antics.

    And no, fixing the mess left behind by that idiot will take a lot longer than 100 days. Try years or a decade or more.

  114. 114.

    Marc McKenzie

    @MattR:

    Matt, Obama did sign an executive order during the early days of his administration to close Guantanamo. Except that a couple of things happened:

    1) What to do with the detainees? For some, their home countries either do not want them or they will be killed upon return. Which is why there were takes and diplomatic maneuvers to get other nations to accept them.

    2) Many in Congress, including many Democrats, refused and fought tooth and nail to even allow any of the detainees to either be placed in prison in the US, to be put on trial in the US, or even be allowed to be repatriated in the US.

    Now, I guess that Obama could force them to accept the detainees…but he would be a dictator if he did that.

    In regards to Mohammed’s trial in New York City, where he should be put on trial…well, Obama and AG Holder have tried and tried to get it done…but the New York media was against it, several Reps in NYC were against it, both Senators from NY were against it, and finally, Bloomberg threw in the towel and said no. So what else can Obama do?

    You may think that all Obama has to do is sign an order and bam! Guantanamo is shut down forever. The problem is (well, it’s more like a hard, harsh truth) is that forces both within and outside his own party have prevented that from happening.

    Not trying to bash you here, but just trying to point out that the Guantanamo is a heck of a lot more complex than the standard meme of “Obama didn’t close Guantanamo, so he sucks (add whatever body part you choose)!!”

  116. 116.

    Corner Stone

    I finally figured it out. Senator Kyl looks just like the character G’Kar from Babylon 5.

    Google it. You’ll agree.

  118. 118.

    MD Rackham

    @MattR: Not sure why he couldn’t close Gitmo as a military prison and release the prisoners.

    Only to discover–quelle surprise!–that there a bunch of FBI agents present to re-arrest the prisoners and escort them to US jails to await civil trial.

    Is Congress really going to object to the use of existing funds for re-arresting the prisoners?

    The real problem, of course, is that there is no way to try those people in civil court because the torture and other civil rights violations make any evidence too tainted to use. Plus the problem that many are no longer sane.

  119. 119.

    Sebastian Dangerfield

    How is it that so many Juicers have forgotten that there is no 60-vote hurdle for having a vote on middle-class tax cuts? I’ve seen oodles of comments proffering, as an excuse for the Dems, that the poor wee bairns could nae convince enough members of the minority party to get 60 votes on cloture for extending only the middle-class tax cuts. This is no excuse. Reconciliation is plainly available for such legislation (just as it was for the whole Bushit tax cut package to begin with). The cynic in me is tempted to conclude that the “we just don’t have 60 votes” excuse is a smokescreen hiding the fact that many, many Dems are entirely captured.

    While this is not entirely on Obama, the fact that he never even broached the topic of doing the vote via reconciliation, alas, speaks volumes.

  120. 120.

    Jay B.

    @Marc McKenzie:

    My final point—yes, constructively criticize this President if you have to. No one is above criticism, and Obama has said so. But when you throw more s**t at him and not at the Republican jerks who have f***ed things up and continue to do so, when you spend more time moaning and groaning about Rahm instead of McConnell and his foolishness, when the complaints are more about Geitner and less about Boehner
yeah, there is a problem.

    Yes, I think the real problem is that no one has considered the impossible awfulness of the GOP. If only someone had said something since 1980, maybe, just maybe, people would know. That or you could apologize to them for not considering their feelings when it comes to tepidly progressive legislation.

    And let’s see, who brokered this “tax compromise”. What are the kids calling it? Oh yeah, Obama – McConnell (even the odious Mary Landrieu). So awash in this endless Rahm-bashing (which surely, has happened somewhere in the last three months since he stepped down) we’ve lost sight of the true enemy here — Mitch McConnell, who happened to shape, with the President, the parameters of a devastatingly one-sided tax plan, which we are now supposed to support.

    And we’re also supposed to have bitched more about the one guy who has, until 2011, next to no power (Boehner) opposed to a guy who, by all accounts, has a lot of power AND fatally compromising ties to the very people who have even more to do with the shitty economy than the current minority leader of the house.

    All of which is surely OK, so long as we vent our powerlessness constructively and not at the hopelessly corrupt, entwined interests which rule our country and our lives.

  121. 121.

    Sebastian Dangerfield

    @Marc McKenzie:
    Re trying Mohammed in federal court in New York, you say:

    the New York media was against it, several Reps in NYC were against it, both Senators from NY were against it, and finally, Bloomberg threw in the towel and said no.

    As far as I know, none of these individuals or entities was in charge of the Department of Justice, the Marshals Service, or the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts — you know, the entities that actually make the decisions regarding the venue for criminal cases and the security that is required for orderly court proceedings.

  122. 122.

    agrippa

    @John Cole:

    So will I.
    I think that
    it is very unlikely that Sanders will run for the nomination. Further, no one else is likely to run either. There may be third party candidate, which may be interesting. Who will that candidate actually run against?

    Further, I have no problem with people speaking their mind about Obama; it is a free country and people are entitled to their opinion. They do not even have to make sense.

    After all, the Democrats in Washington did a poor job and have earned criticism.

  123. 123.

    MattR

    @Marc McKenzie: I wouldn’t call myself a Naderite but I did vote for Nader over Gore in 2000 in New York. I was young and politically naive enough to believe that there would not be that much a difference between Gore and Bush as they were both captured by corrupt, corporatist parties. I was right in my general sense about the two parties, but I failed to realize that one would take us running down the wrong path while the other would only take us a step or two that way (or perhaps even a step or two in the right direction if we are lucky). And I wonder if that is part of the apathy with young voters in general. They focus on the craptacular similarities between their options and not on the differences in how crappy they are. I see that when South Park represents the options as a giant douche vs a turd sandwich.

    @Marc McKenzie: Thanks for the response. I definitely don’t think this is a simple matter, but I do think that Obama has the power to bam! close Guantanamo forever if he is willing to deal with the realities that would entail. (I don’t think he should do it, but I think that he could if he decided that it was an absolute moral imperative) IMO, issue number 1 that you name is the biggest issue he would face. Even if you decide to release every prisoner, you cannot release them to nowhere. As for number 2, that is a political matter about the best way to deal with the prisoners at Guantanamo. But if you could figure out where to send prisoners upon their release, then Obama could close Guantanamo without dealing with Congress. (Granted this would require the release of KSM and others who should not be released, but Obama could make the argument that release is the only option when compared to unconstitutional, indefinite detention)

  124. 124.

    Three-nineteen

    @Sebastian Dangerfield: Because reconciliation can only be used once a year, and we already used it in 2010 for HCR. Next year the GOP is in charge of the House, so the opportunity will be gone.

  125. 125.

    lol

    @Zifnab:

    He dismissed a trillion+ dollar stimulus out of hand for a smaller package

    This is just straight-up objectively false. Congressman Obey said months ago the Obama folks started at $1.4 trillion and negotiated down to $900 billion to get a bill that would actually pass.

    Just further proof that manic progressives will take anything anti-Obama as gospel if you repeat it enough.

  126. 126.

    Sebastian Dangerfield

    @Three-nineteen:
    Oh, ker-balls! Had not realized that; I’ve been reading that the 2010 reconciliation was still open for an add-on re the public option (albeit on the dread FDL) and assumed that they could finagle taxes the same way. Appears I’m wrong on the latter — possibly on the former (shakes fist as Dave Dayen).

    Cheerfully withdrawn. And replaced with second-order grumblings about not addressing it before the lame-o session.

    P.S. Who you calling “we,” kemosabe?

  127. 127.

    Hawes

    Correct me if I’m wrong, but didn’t Bernie Sanders vote for that health care bill that Obama capitulated on? Was Sanders one of the 99 Senators who voted against trying Gitmo prisoners in the US?

    Look, I love me some Bernie. But he’s a politician, too. While I agree with just about everything he said about the tax deal, I also understand that if I was a Senator I would have voted for it. Well, I would have tried to get it to the floor in September, but I would vote under these circumstances.

    That doesn’t make me without principle.

  128. 128.

    Jay B.

    @lol:

    That’s a pretty stupid misreading of what Obey was saying. In fact, he pretty much says that the Administration — entirely on their own — watered down the stimulus push:

    So his Treasury people came in and his other economic people came in and said “Hey, we need a package of $1.4 trillion.” We started sending suggestions down to OMB waiting for a call back. After two and a half weeks, we started getting feedback. We put together a package that by then the target had been trimmed to $1.2 trillion. And then [White House Chief of Staff] Rahm Emanuel said to me, “Geez, do you really think we can afford to come in with a package that big, isn’t it going to scare people?” I said, “Rahm, you will need that shock value so that people understand just how serious this problem is.” They wanted to hold it to less than $1 trillion. Then [Pennsylvania Senator Arlen] Specter and the two crown princesses from Maine [Sens. Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins] took it down to less than $800 billion. Spread over two and a half years, that’s a hell of a lot of money, but spread over two and a half years in an economy this large, it doesn’t have a lot of fiscal power.

    So, in human English, the Administration AT FIRST, without even consulting Congress, understood how vital a very large stimulus would be, but then over the next few weeks dismissed their (correct) initial numbers out of hand, fearing that it was going to “scare people” and then let the “moderates” at the numbers, fatally watering down the stimulus before the debate even started publicly. That’s exactly what Obey is saying here. You are laughably wrong.

  129. 129.

    Tim I

    I enjoy most of your posts, Anne. But sometimes, like today, you come off as dumb as a stump.

    Barrack Obama could not have accomplished the lofty policy goals he has achieved, if he let his administration get bogged down in fights over prosecuting the last administration.

  130. 130.

    Jay B.

    @Tim I:

    So, to boil it down, the rule of law is all well and good, unless it stands in the way of an extension of a tax break to the ultra-wealthy.

  131. 131.

    Corner Stone

    @lol: No they didn’t, you fucking liar.
    You do this all the time. Is your other handle Mnemosyne?
    You keep trying this on, and just straight up fucking lying.
    FAIL.

  133. 133.

    lol

    @Jay B.:

    Bottom line: Obama started with $1.4 trillion, the moderates he needed the votes of to actually pass the bill watered it down to $800 billion and Firebaggers like yourself continue to lie about what happened.

    If only Obama was interested in empty posturing to placate your fee-fees, he could’ve failed to pass a larger package and ended up with nothing. This clearly was the optimal outcome in Firebagger land.

  134. 134.

    Onkel Bob

    Hardly a manic progressive, but when the frau was asking back in 2008 how could it get worse, I responded just wait and see. The modern Democrats have a history of spinelessness in the face of adversity, and BO is just more of the same. I like the first comment…

    Meh, I reset my expectations to zero after the taxcut deal. It’s all upside from here.

    Yeah, like it’s going to go up. I fully expect that we have not seen the least of it yet. BO is is going to make Quisling look like a patriot and heroic figure before his first and last term are through.
    Yeah it’s a Godwin, but I didn’t use the N word so there!

  135. 135.

    agrippa

    @lol:

    Quite true.

    The votes were not there. The WH knew that the votes were not there.

    “If supposes were roses, I would make a bouquet;

    If wishes were fishes, I would catch some today.”

  136. 136.

    FlipYrWhig

    @Corner Stone: The fact of the matter is that they could fight to their last breath on the proper level for tax cuts, and definitely have no time to do anything else, and still maybe not even _win_ on the tax cut question; or they could strike a deal fast and _attempt_ to make time to do something else. Of course, it still might not work. WP was saying that he wanted to see a more aggressive show of fighting on tax cuts, after which point settling for the deal they got would have been grudgingly acceptable. Fair enough. But if fighting longer on tax cuts cost the opportunity to get DADT repeal through, would you still do it? I wouldn’t. The whole thing could still blow up, I realize, but at a certain point you have to do the equivalent of calling a timeout or committing a foul so that the other side can’t just run out the clock. As long as there’s time on the clock, something crazy could happen.

  137. 137.

    FlipYrWhig

    @agrippa: I think that some of the fiercest disputes here and around the blogosphere arise from a difference of opinion related to what you just said. The question is, when the WH strategizes on legislation, and they determine that they’re short of the filibuster-proof 60 votes, what do they do? And that’s something we don’t hear the details about. Are they trying to flip people to their side? How hard? Who are they putting on that task? Or do they just count once and then give up?

    Obama critics appear to have concluded that the WH doesn’t try hard enough to corral those renegade votes. I’m not sure we have enough information to know that. From the outside, to us, and maybe even to the media, it’s not going to be possible to tell a concerted effort that fell short from a lackadaisical effort that never really got started, because both will look like failure. Did they try valiantly but fail, or shrug and let failure happen? A lot of people in the blogosphere believe it’s the latter. I don’t trust the media enough to go along with that.

  139. 139.

    The Raven

    I think one thing progressives hate about Barack is he is doesn’t seem at all interested in the symbolic value of various options, but weighs their pragmatic value against the options.

    But there seems to be little pragmatic value in his choices. They are tactical successes and strategic failures.

    Sanders/Gore in 2012!

  140. 140.

    Shade Tail

    Feh. Mr. Taibbi is an excellent writer, and he’s correct more often than not. But he’s just re-writing history here. Obama hasn’t even pretended to change his mind on the tax cuts. He *did* fight to end them and lose (to the House Dems, of all people; they refused to push a vote). And Obama is still talking about how bad an idea the tax cuts are and that he feels they need to end. But once his own party back-stabbed him by refusing to help out, he decided his only remaining option to use the tax cuts as a bargaining chip to get some concessions off the GOP. And he actually succeeded.

    Is the tax cut deal a bad idea? Personally, I think it is. But it’s pretty easy to see why Obama felt he had to go this route ( *13 month extension* on unemployment relief!), and this refusal by so many leftists to understand that goes beyond beating a dead horse at this point.

    If the only way you have to criticize Obama’s part in the tax cut deal is by rewriting history and ignoring reality, then you’ve stepped firmly across the line into Faux “News” territory.

  141. 141.

    The Raven

    @John Cole: “I’ll refrain from comment until Sanders wins a primary for President.” It doesn’t seem very likely, does it? But it looks like it’s going to be President imPalin, anyway.

  142. 142.

    agrippa

    @FlipYrWhig:

    I see that.

    My reading is that the WH does not really push the limits, for reasons that are not clear to me right now. Maybe it is this reason, maybe it is that reason. We won’t know the truth until someone talks about it.
    I do expect people to be frustrated and angry. I have no problem with people criticising, harshly or not.

    I am, certainly, critical. Congress did not do what I thought needed to be done. And, I did not expect the sun, moon and stars.
    In 2012, I hope that we get more progressive members elected ; people who are braver, more dedicated, more focused. less dithering and less arguing with each other.

  143. 143.

    FlipYrWhig

    @Just Some Fuckhead: When you have a lot of hurdles in front of you, sometimes you have to leave the penalty box and take the corner kick, and then, who knows, you might stick the landing.

  144. 144.

    chaseyourtail

    Wow, progressives just love accusing President Obama of cowardice. Makes ’em feel real tough, I suppose. Personally, I think those who enthusiastically and continually throw around the charge of cowardice are most likely attempting to cover up their own inadaquacies and fearfulness.

    The decisions the president makes stem from pragmatism, not fear. And yet, the whiney, ineffectual, scared of their own shadow left just can’t get enough of calling a person who has the intiative to take on arguably the toughest job in the world a coward.

    Boo-hoo progressives, President Obama didn’t beat up the schoolyard bully for you so you try to smear him. How pathetic. Hey progressive left, if you really want to see a sniveling, pants-wetting coward just look in the mirror.

  145. 145.

    calling all toasters

    @lol: Obama never proposed more than $800 billion. What Treasury recommended never made it to any public discussion. And a third of Obama’s proposal was tax cuts– not as efficient a stimulus. Susan Collins knocked off only $100 billion, mostly aid to states (that Obama hasn’t made a peep about reinstating since).

    So basically Obama got close to exactly what he and Summers wanted.

  147. 147.

    Marc McKenzie

    @Sebastian Dangerfield:

    “As far as I know, none of these individuals or entities was in charge of the Department of Justice, the Marshals Service, or the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts—you know, the entities that actually make the decisions regarding the venue for criminal cases and the security that is required for orderly court proceedings.”

    Even so (and despite the fact that the government was ready to cover security costs and the fact that terrorists had been tried in NY before)–what do you want the government and the Department of Justice to do when the city basically tells them to pound sand? Are they supposed to just ignore them and do it anyway, or find another venue?

    Not trying to be harsh towards you (and frankly, it does rankle me that NYC is pretty much refusing to hold the trial) but if the government were to override the wishes of the city leaders, how long would it take before we hear the cries of “Dictatorship!!” or worse?

    I wish that closing Gitmo would be as easy as the stroke of a pen, but sadly, that hasn’t been the case.

  148. 148.

    Marc McKenzie

    @MattR:

    “And I wonder if that is part of the apathy with young voters in general. They focus on the craptacular similarities between their options and not on the differences in how crappy they are. I see that when South Park represents the options as a giant douche vs a turd sandwich.”

    Sad, but very true. I also had a friend who, back in 2000 was also voting for Nader and basically ran the “no difference between the two” line by me (heck, we were both young back then ourselves). What bothered me was that even after Bush began to take things apart–and also after 9-11–he still continued with “no difference between the two” even though the evidence against that was piling up higher than a Wendy’s triple-stacker.

    Also, history over the past 40 years has shown that the “no difference” line is, well, pretty much invalid. See the elections of 1968, 1980, 1994, and of course 2000 for proof.

    “But if you could figure out where to send prisoners upon their release, then Obama could close Guantanamo without dealing with Congress. (Granted this would require the release of KSM and others who should not be released, but Obama could make the argument that release is the only option when compared to unconstitutional, indefinite detention)”

    That is the tough one–and someone had also brought up the point that even if you put some of the detainees on trial, most of the evidence against them would be thrown out due to the fact that they were tortured.

    It is a tough nut to crack, and I just wish that people would at least look closely at what has happened–dig underneath instead of staring at the surface details. This isn’t going to be solved with a wave of a magic wand, sadly…

    Thanks for the replies–and for keeping things civil. Pretty tough to do in comment sections for the most part.

  149. 149.

    calling all toasters

    @Marc McKenzie: Dude, we’re already hearing the cries of “dictatorship.” But it’s true that he might lose New Jersey (which is less liberal than NY and has just as many indignant blowhard politicians) over it. I just wish he take some kind of stand, somewhere, sometime, in favor of the rule of law.

  150. 150.

    Marc McKenzie

    @Shade Tail:

    “Is the tax cut deal a bad idea? Personally, I think it is. But it’s pretty easy to see why Obama felt he had to go this route ( 13 month extension on unemployment relief!), and this refusal by so many leftists to understand that goes beyond beating a dead horse at this point.

    If the only way you have to criticize Obama’s part in the tax cut deal is by rewriting history and ignoring reality, then you’ve stepped firmly across the line into Faux “News” territory.”

    Someone ought to post this to HuffPo and DKos…this needs to be read by a lot of people.

    Whether it will change some minds though…that’s another story.

  151. 151.

    calling all toasters

    @Marc McKenzie: The sad thing is, we’ll never get to see the difference. You can’t have Gore and Bush President at the same time and compare them. But occasionally you get a pivot point: FDR after Hoover, Reagan after Carter. Now, with a once-in-two-generations possibility to change direction to the left, we have Obama, who has almost adopted “no difference” as his electoral strategy for 2012. I really believe the country was ready to make some serious changes in 2009– but BHO and Rahm and Summers either didn’t have the vision or the guts or the inclination.

  152. 152.

    mclaren

    @Corner Stone:

    Why are you even arguing with these ignorant sociopaths? They laugh when Obama refuses to prosecute Bush and Cheney for war crimes and they undoubtedly roar with laughter when American children become malnourished because we now have the highest rate of child poverty in the developed world. These people surely become giddy with delight when they read about Obama’s continuation of Bush’s tortures and they howl with glee when they see atrocities like Obama ordering the murder of a U.S. citizen without charges or a trial.

    Anyone who laughs at stuff like that is a Jeffrey Dahmer wannabe. Why are you even trying to argue with people like that? It’s as pointless as trying to explain to someone why icepicking puppies is a bad thing.

    If you have to explain, they’ll never get it.

  153. 153.

    mclaren

    @Brachiator:

    Obama may need to have his veto pen ready. But what does he do to get judicial and other appointments through a Senate that is set firmly against him?

    1) Make recess appointments.

    2) Veto every piece of legislation that comes out of congress until he gets every last appointment confirmed. “You want the government to shut down? Fine, let’s shut it down. Nothing happens until my appointments get confirmed. Nothing.”

    And before you start spewing lies about how irresponsible or impossible this is, we already have a data point on this one. Obama decided for 10 seconds to get tough with the Repubs about 8 months ago or so over his backlog of unconfirmed appointments, and when he threatened the Repubs, they caved fast. He got dozens of judges and lower officials appointed all of a sudden.

    The Republicans are bullies. Like all bullies, they’re cowards. Hit ’em hard once and they collapse into crying shrieking scared little girls begging for mercy.

  154. 154.

    mclaren

    @El Tiburon:

    Tell me again why HCR was such a big deal? It prevents people from being kicked-off for pre-existing conditions?

    Actually, it doesn’t prevent that. Private health insurance companies can still jack up rates by 300% if you have a pre-existing condition. Can’t pay? Oh, too bad, you’re off. Go die in the street.

    And if you can afford to pay? Well, you know, we understand that your child has a pre-existing condition and that’s why we as a private health insurance company simply refuse to offer insurance to your entire family. Too bad. Go die in the street.

    So Obama’s non-reform HCR bill clearly and emphatically does not prevent people from being kick off the insurance rolls for having a pre-existing condition — it merely changes the pretext under which people get kicked off for having a pre-existing condition.

    It mandates that everyone has to purchase insurance from an insurance company?

    That’s the big one. Everyone is now forced by law to pay premiums which will increase infinitely. No limit. The premiums will jut go up and up and up and up and up and up and up and up, year after year. $3000 a month? Gotta pay it, it’s the law. $10,000 a month? Gotta pay it, it’s the law. $100,000 a month? Gotta pay it it’s the law. 5 million dollars a month? Too bad, gotta pay it, it’s the law.

    What a fantastic windfall for the insurance industry and the medical-industrial complex, isn’t it? No cost controls and everyone is required by law to pay and pay and pay whatever the companies charge. Medical devicemakers can keep charging hospitals $1200 for cheap disposable plastic srugical instruments they pay $40 to manufacture, and no problemo! The insurance company has to pay! Doctors can keep charging $1500 for the exact same CAT scan that costs $45 in France with the exact same machine, and the patient has to pay. No problemo, infinite cost, and everyone has to pay — by law! The hospitals keep charging $5 per aspirin and no problemo! The patient has to pay!

    Kids can stay on until they are 26?

    As long as you can keep paying $5 per aspirin to that greedy collusive corrupt hospital run by greedy collusive corrupt doctors who are high-fiving each other and shouting “Bugatti Veyron, baby!” every time they bill aptient $100,000 for an appendectomy.

    My bet is HCR doesn’t change a goddamn thing. I mean, didn’t Obama admit what he passed was a Republican plan? Born from the Cato Institute?

    You are correct, sir.

    HCR did not change anything; it reinforced our stupid and wasteful health insurance industry.

    HCR did change one thing: it put the full force of the IRS behind grotesque corrupt collusive overcharges by thieving corrupt medical devicemakers and doctors and hospitals who operate by bribery and sweetheart contracts and non-disclosure agreements and lock-in contracts to prevent price disclosure and deter competition.

    In that sense, HCR represents the same trend as the bill that prevents college students from ever discharging their college loan debt through bankruptcy.

    This is all a form of debtor’s prison. Put the full force of government behind private enterprise gouging. Private companies overcharge the average citizen, then the U.S. government sends SWAT teams to burn down the citizen’s house when he can’t pay.

  156. 156.

    FlipYrWhig

    I just re-read the Taibbi excerpt and, I have to say, this is just totally wrong:

    I can live with the president fighting for something and failing; what I can’t stand is a politician who changes his mind for the sake of expediency and then pretends that was what he believed all along. You just can’t imagine someone like Sanders doing something like that; his MO instead would be to take his best shot for what he actually believes and let the chips fall where they may, budging a little maybe to get a worthwhile deal done but never turning his entire face inside out just to get through the day

    What specifically is Taibbi talking about when it comes to Obama “changing his mind” and then “pretend[ing] that was what he believed all along”? On the tax deal he quite literally said the opposite, that he hadn’t changed his mind and continues to believe that some aspects of what he signed weren’t what he would want… but he had no choice because his priorities didn’t have majority support.

    My recollection is that he has said similar things about the stimulus and HCR: they’re positive, they’re steps forward, but they’re not the last word and there’s room for improvement. Frankly, I feel like Obama has done exactly what Taibbi’s paragraph says he would accept: he has budged a little to get a worthwhile deal done.

    Maybe Taibbi doesn’t like the deals he’s made or find them “worthwhile,” or thinks he budged more than a little, but his version of Obama changing his mind and then denying it… I don’t know where that comes from.

    Maybe he’s thinking of the “I didn’t campaign on the public option” kerfuffle, which sounds funny but had a serious meaning, i.e., that he campaigned not _strictly_ on public option yes-or-no but on comprehensive health care reform that included the public option as a component, and while he didn’t get that component, he got enough of what he wanted to call it a success.

    Are there other examples that the Obama critics would call to my attention?

    So his key distinction between Sanders and Obama is kind of a botch job. Which is not to say that there aren’t plenty of praiseworthy distinctions he, or anyone, could make between Sanders and Obama. And it’s not to say that there are things Obama promised on the campaign trail that haven’t come to pass. But IMHO the distinction Taibbi chose to emphasize has some issues.

  157. 157.

    mclaren

    @Marc McKenzie:

    Even so (and despite the fact that the government was ready to cover security costs and the fact that terrorists had been tried in NY before)—what do you want the government and the Department of Justice to do when the city basically tells them to pound sand? Are they supposed to just ignore them and do it anyway, or find another venue?

    Yes, that’s exactly what the federal government does, and it does it all the time. That’s called “democracy.” The minority have rights in our system of government but that does not include the right to veto the decision of the majority. So when the majority of the American people decide “We want X policy,” state Y can’t scream “No no no no no, you can’t put that nuclear reactor/terrorist prison/garbage landfill/nerve gas storage bunker here in our state!”

    That’s what democracy is. The majority make a decision and the minority who don’t like it must live with it. Don’t like that system? Emigrate to North Korea, where they don’t have that system of government.

    Not trying to be harsh towards you (and frankly, it does rankle me that NYC is pretty much refusing to hold the trial) but if the government were to override the wishes of the city leaders, how long would it take before we hear the cries of “Dictatorship!!” or worse?

    We’re already hearing cries of “Dictatorship!” and from an entire political party, the Republicans. Fuck ’em. Run right over ’em. They don’t like it, emigrate to China. This is a representative democracy, not the Empire of the Prima Donnas where any individual can veto anything the rest of the government decides.

    I wish that closing Gitmo would be as easy as the stroke of a pen…

    It is. Obama shuts down Gitmo by executive order. Congres reufses to fund alternatives. Obama says, “No problem, then I release the Gitmo prisoners into the streets. To ease their transition back to society, I’m setting up halfway houses where the Gitmo detainees will live for six months by executive order. Halfway house #1 is your house, representative X, since you voted against funding for an alternative prison or a trial, halfway house #2 is your house, repsentative Y, since you also voted that way, halfway house #3 is your house, senator, since you also voted that way…”

    The beltway pundits and the Republicans would shriek and howl and gibber that Obama is a traitor and evil and anti-American. So what? They’re already screaming those lies right now.

    And you know what the big payoff would be?

    After three week of living with these supposed “scary evil monster maniac terroists” in their houses, those congressmen and senators would discover, “Holy, shit, this guy living in my house who used to be in Gitmo is just a scared innocent cabdriver who got picked up by some Afghan warlord and sold under false pretenses to the Americans. He’s a s harmless as my pet kitten. Wow, I’m going to have to rethink this whole bogus `War on Terror’ thing…”

  158. 158.

    mclaren

    @FlipYrWhig:

    Rule of thumb: when you tell a lie, you want to make sure it’s not a laughably ignorant and foolish lie. Otherwise, you make yourself look not just dishonest, but stupid.

    What specifically is Taibbi talking about when it comes to Obama “changing his mind” and then “pretend[ing] that was what he believed all along”? On the tax deal he quite literally said the opposite…

    Excellent. Your criterion is what people say, rather than what they do. So we must judge our public officials by what they say, rather than what they do.

    Good deal. Then according to you, George W. Bush was a stalwart defender of civil rights, since Bush repeatedly said “We don’t torture.” He said it, therefore we must believe it. Actions mean nothing, words are what we judge our elected officials by.

    Likewise, we must applaud Bush for his tax cuts for the middle class. After all, Bush repeatedly said back in 2002 that his tax cuts for the rich would primarily benefit the middle class. He said it, therefore we must believe it. Actions mean nothing, words are what we judge our elected officials by.

    Similarly we must judge the Iraq war a huge success and a great military triumph for America. After all, Bush and company repeatedly said that we were winning the war in Iraq. He said it, therefore we must believe it. Actions mean nothing, words are what we judge our elected officials by.

    At this point, FlipYrWhig, it cannot have escaped your notice that you are behaving exactly the way the pathological liars who defended the Bush administration behaved, long after it had become clear to anyone with a functioning brain that the Bush administration was a gigantic clusterfuck of epic proportions.

    You are telling exactly the same sorts of lies, FlipYrWhig, using exactly the same garbled scrambled logic, and you are urging us to employ exactly the same bizarre lunatic measures of success (judge people by what they say, never by what they do) that the defenders of the Bush debacle used.

    Let’s blow a hole in your shitshow fail parade from the Bizarro World and get back to recognizable reality.

    Out here in reality, the sum and substance of the facts remains that Obama campaigned on restoring the constitution — and the reality is that Obama has continued Bush’s practice of torture in gross violation of the eighth amendment. Of course, you’ll deny this, and as usual you’ll be lying, and as usual I look forward to providing hard evidence that you’re lying.

    Out here in reality, the sum and substance of the facts remains that Obama campaigned against rigged kangaroo court military commissions — and the reality is that Obama has continued Bush’s practice of rigged dishonest military commissions so unjust that head military prosecutor at Gitmo resigned in protest against the unfairness of the proceedings. Of course, you’ll deny this, and as usual you’ll be lying, and as usual I look forward to providing hard evidence that you’re lying.

    Out here in reality, the sum and substance of the facts remains that Obama campaigned against kidnapping American citizens and throwing ’em in a dungeon forever without even charging ’em with a crime — and the reality is that Obama has continued Bush’s practice of kidnapping American citizens and throwing ’em in a dungeon forever without even charging ’em with a crime…Obama merely changed the name of the practice from “extraordinary rendition” to “preventive detention.” Of course, you’ll deny this, and as usual you’ll be lying, and as usual I look forward to providing hard evidence that you’re lying.

    Out here in reality, the sum and substance of the facts remains that Obama campaigned against a mandate which forces every citizen to buy overpriced crappy insurance from a collusive private health insurance cartel — and the reality is that Obama has continued the Bush-era practice of forcing every citizen to pay for private overpriced crappy health insurance with infinitely increasing premiums and no cost controls, except that Obama has now used the U.S. government as the legbreaker for the health insurance loan sharks. Of course, you’ll deny this, and as usual you’ll be lying, and as usual I look forward to providing hard evidence that you’re lying.

    Out here in reality, the sum and substance of the facts remains that Obama campaigned against the abuses and crimes of the Wall Street thieves — and the reality is that Obama has not directed his DOJ to put one single major Wall Street criminal behind bars. Dick Fuld? Still at large, no charges filed. Jamie Dimon? Still at large, no charges filed. The Fabulous Fab? Still at large, no charges filed. Robert Rubin? Still at large, no charges filed. The list goes on and on and on and on and on. Of course, you’ll deny this, and as usual you’ll be lying, and as usual I look forward to providing hard evidence that you’re lying.

    Out here in reality, the sum and substance of the facts remains that Obama campaigned against the grotesque Bush-era tax cuts for billionaires — and the reality is that Obama has continued the Bush tax cuts for the billionaires. Of course, you’ll deny this, and as usual you’ll be lying, and as usual I look forward to providing hard evidence that you’re lying.

    At this point, FlipYrWhig, you’ve told so many stupid lies that are so transparently obvious, you’ve completely lost any credibility you might have had. You’re desperately trying to convince us that the parrot is only sleeping, or that we’ve stunned him, or that he’s just being quiet, and we know that’s simply not true.

  160. 160.

    Ming

    @ThatLeftTurnInABQ: I think that’s a good point. I find it plausible that O is making the best choices under the circumstances, but even so, I think he should be out there selling these choices more than he has. He should spend a huge chunk of his time campaigning for what he wants. Be overexposed. Make use of those community organizing skillz. (Shorter me: what aimai said.)

  161. 161.

    FlipYrWhig

    @mclaren: Was somewhere in there an actual answer to what the thing was that Taibbi thinks Obama changed his mind on but then acted like he wanted it all along? Because I didn’t see it. I saw a litany of Bad Things Obama Did, but, you know, that wasn’t the question.

    ETA: Even if the answer was “Guantanamo,” and you described how he promised to close it but then didn’t, that might be _your_ complaint, but not _Taibbi’s_ complaint. Taibbi says Obama changes his mind and then acts like he always wanted what his new opinion is. To apply that to Guantanamo, Obama would have had to say, “I never promised to close Guantanamo, and in fact I love Guantanamo forever.”

  162. 162.

    FlipYrWhig

    @mclaren: I mean, feel free to beat up on Obama for whatever you see fit to beat him up for. I’m asking what Taibbi’s beef is. It’s not the same as yours. Yours is that he hasn’t done things he promised. Taibbi’s is that he chickens out, changes his mind, and then acts like he’s always believed in the changed position. None of your gripes match _that_ _particular_ complaint, do they? I don’t even know what you’re talking about with your stuff about “lies” and whatnot. My question is, what is Taibbi referring to?

  163. 163.

    brantl

    The speachifying by Sanders was great, don’t get me wrong. But everything comes down to votes, and we don’t and didn’t have them. Too many goddamn blue dog dems. I would bet any money that you didn’t have the votes in 2009 to change the fillibuster. Any takers?

    And without that, this wouldn’t have gone any differently. Period.

    President Obama doesn’t get to set law. He gets to execute the results of legislation, he gets to veto what he thinks is bad legislation, he gets to promote execution of his interpretation of what laws are on the books, and he gets to OK what he thinks is good legislation, and try to promote good legislation. That’s all.

    In the main, I’d have to say he’s doing that, to the extent that Congress gives him anything good to work from.

    I’m sick of this “Obama sold you out” shit. Look at how the Congress sold him out on Guantanomo, for Christ’s sake.

  167. 167.

    Sebastian Dangerfield

    @Marc McKenzie:

    Fair nuff. I wasn’t suggesting it would be easy, politically. But there are times when you need to have a plan and stick with it. Trying KSM is definitely one of those times. The idea that a Mayor, a couple of stray congresscritters can actually prevent the federal government from exercising its authority (indeed, duty) to prosecute someone for a heinous federal crime is just absurd and dangerous. You simply can’t let federal law enforcement be held hostage to some locals. Very very bad precedent. Suppose some whackjob municipality decides that they don’t like the idea of the feds prosecuting a local for an anti-gay hate crime, where said municipality is experiencing massive demonstrations and the like. Are the feds going to cave then as well? This sets up some very facked-up incentives.

  168. 168.

    Yepper

    @batgirl: Exactly, we have the government we deserve. Obama spent the last two years herding cats, and now the 40% who bother to vote in off-year elections have handed Congress to the Republicans.

    How is ANY of this Obama’s fault? Half the country believes he raised their taxes, and sponsored a government takeover of healthcare and the auto industry.

    It’s hard to soar with the eagles when you’re working with turkeys.

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