Commenter Davis X. Machina nails today’s speech:
Too little, too late.
He needed to resign. Preferably after ending all three wars, and an abject apology, but a flat-out resignation would have been o.k., too.
Let Biden or Boehner do the job—they have no souls, they’re politicians.
Power corrupts, with great power corrupting greatly. Resignation is the only way to show that you’re unwilling to be complicit in your own corruption. Think of the message that would send to power—that you refuse to play along.
A real progressive Obama would have resigned as soon as he was inaugurated—that way his complicity would have been strictly limited. O.K., you need to make the point that America is moving forward, by electing a person of color, but that’s made the day you’re sworn in—then you immediately resign, and go into the opposition.
But not in opposition in Congress—they’re complicit too.
Opposition in the streets.
And then BJ could go back to swapping recipes, cat photos, and dog-behavior-modification tips.
Linnaeus
Make that four threads now. This won’t end well.
eric
you know who else liked that post?…………yup.
AAA Bonds
You know what would be fucking awesome? If the Democrat who promised to keep us out of more wars and restore our justice system didn’t choose to involve us in another war and absolutely motherfucking wreck our justice system.
Too bad he was absolutely forced to do so by the weft and warp of History and Circumstance, eh?
AAA Bonds
NOBODY COULD HAVE FORESEEN THIS!
Moonbatting Average
Well, at least now I don’t have to read the fever swamp a couple threads down. Thanks for the shorter!
(It’s weird that I have to consider whether to get out of the boat, when getting out of the boat doesn’t even mean leaving this blog)
Nom de Plume
And then
BJthe entire left blogosphere could go back to swapping recipes, cat photos, and dog-behavior-modification tips.Nom de Plume, available for all fixes.
Guster
Weird that dKos and FDL like this better than Kevin Drum.
cleek
congress? what’s that?
i thought the President controlled it all.
Martin
@AAA Bonds:
Wow, he promised that?
Tip: fantasies are more satisfying when they are further from reality. Fantasize that Obama called for the Federation of Planets and then invented warp drive. That’d be much cooler.
Brachiator
Yes, because real progressives are all about sending messages. And prefer doing nothing if their vision of absolute perfection cannot be achieved.
Oh, Gawd. Yeah, progressives are taking it to the streets. Speak truth to power.
Shit, most of these delusional fools pee their pants watching Egyptians on teevee, actually in the streets protesting.
Saps.
demkat620
Am I throwing myself in to the briar patch by saying I liked it?
If we get this, oh hells yeah I would be a happy camper.
And I just caught Marsha Blackburn on Tweety and I’m telling you, the GOP is gobsmacked.
This was a good day.
Linnaeus
@Guster:
Whoa. Get out the blue kryptonite!
mr. whipple
@Guster:
I always thought his being hired by Mother Jones was like the Sex Pistols asking Barry Manilow to sit in.
WereBear
When I was a kid, I would concentrate on the One Big Present for Christmas. One year, it was a tape recorder. I had visions of a tape recorder with a cassette in it… what I got was a Say It Play It.
I was never sure if they didn’t take me seriously, or didn’t want to pony up for the real thing. But one thing I knew for certain. If I threw a tantrum and broke the Say It Play It, I was not going to get something better.
And my brothers and I did have fun making up our own radio shows.
John Cole
@cleek:
Obama does control it all. Until something good happens. Then it was Bernie Sanders and Dennis Kucinich motivated by a scathing FDL post.
mr. whipple
Oh goodie, that foolproof plan to convince the public: marching with paper mache’ puppets. Never fails.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@John Cole: It was mailing the scathers to congress that really did it
Yevgraf (fka Michael)
He shoulda come out in the beginning and announced that he was firing up FEMA reeducation training centers for white Christian conservatives, then pulled out his unit to waggle before pissing all over an American flag…
RSR
via Atrios: “of course, ultimately it’s the legislation that matters.”
Let’s see where this goes. The mantra of deficit reduction is getting old. It’s a ruse.
Also, Ezra says there’s reference to the Social Security ‘shortfall’ which again is a ruse.
Politics and policy are two different things. What is said in a speech to garner support is rarely the policy that emerges.
But between the camps that say everything is wrong and the camps that say everything is fine, the truth is undoubtedly somewhere in the middle.
Bob Loblaw
I’m going to ask a question I already know the answer to, but just for fun, does anybody actually care what was said in the speech? Or are you just all about what wasn’t said instead?
For the “reality based community,” I can’t help but notice these threads never ascend beyond meta. But what did Sully and FDL think?
Maude
@John Cole:
And don’t forget those commenters on those blogs who forced Obama to do it.
mr. whipple
According to him, we’re all supposed to be eating Fancy Feast by now. Amazing, given how he’s always right. About everything.
kdaug
Y’all know that feeling when you’ve got a grim smile on your face, and a sinking feeling in the pit of your stomach?
Yeah, like that.
(ETA: Not the speech, the reaction to it. Just to be clear.)
scav
Ahhh, the kind of compromise where a full 128% of the nation goes completely apeshit. 21st Century Blues.
jwb
@Bob Loblaw: And yet here you are, meta-ing the meta.
Jay in Oregon
@John Cole:
May I say that your attempt to troll Jame Hamsher and/or the Twitterverse is a thing of beauty?
http://twitter.com/Johngcole/statuses/58264433750843392
Bob Loblaw
@jwb:
When in Rome.
Sly
Beggar: Half a shekel for an old ex-leper?
Brian: Did you say ex-leper?
Beggar: That’s right, sir. Sixteen years behind the bell, and proud of it, sir.
Brian: Well, what happened?
Beggar: I was cured, sir.
Brian: Cured?
Beggar: Yes, sir, a bloody miracle, sir. God bless you.
Brian: Who cured you?
Beggar: Jesus did, sir. I was hopping along, minding my own business. All of a sudden, up he comes. Cures me. One minute I’m a leper with a trade, next minute my livelihood’s gone. Not so much as a “by your leave.” “You’re cured, mate.” Bloody do-gooder!
Brian: Well, why don’t you go and tell him you want to be a leper again?
Beggar: Uh, yeah. I could do that, sir. Yeah. Yeah, I could do that, I suppose. What I was thinking was, I was going to ask him if he could make me a bit lame in one leg during the middle of the week. You know, something beggable, but not leprosy, which is a pain in the ass, to be blunt. Excuse my French, sir.
Brian: There you are.
Beggar: Thank you, sir. Thank…. Half a denarii for me bloody life story?
Brian: There’s no pleasing some people.
Beggar: That’s just what Jesus said, sir!
retr2327
“Think of the message that would send to power—that you refuse to play along.”
After all, only dead fish go with the flow . . . .
jwb
@Bob Loblaw: You could lead by example.
freelancer
We are all Rumsfelds now…
Cris (without an H)
The comment is amusing, but I’d like to declare that I have always loved Davis X. Machina’s name. It’s among several regular commenters’ punny handles that crack me up, including Hunter Gathers, Odie Hugh Manatee and Wile E. Quixote.
Studly Pantload, Vibrant Trollbot for Obama
@John Cole:
Kindly not to be placing my man Bernie into the pustule-laden swamp that is any sentence with Kucinich’s name in it.
Kthxtoodles
Violet
Recipes are a wingnut plot to increase food taxes on the poor. Cat photos are just a shiny object meant to distract us from the Fancy Feast we’re all going to be forced to subsist on. Dog-behavior-modification is just a practice run for the soshulist, Muslin, re-education camps the Kenyan Marxist preparing for all of us.
danimal
Haven’t had a chance to see the speech yet, but I read it real quickly. Before Beese and McLaren get here, let me just say my first impression was that it was a solid speech that I can support. And just about what I expected, despite all the hyperventilating over the past week.
/ducks out the door
NR
It was a good speech, but I’m with Greenwald on this:
Mnemosyne
@demkat620:
The Republicans believe their own hype. All that stuff about how Obama is just as dumb as Bush or can’t speak without a teleprompter? They actually believe that.
srv
Obama can still redeem himself, a little Unitary Execute here, renditioning a Supreme Court Justice or two there, and pardoning Bradley Manning.
Why is it so hard?
Joe Beese
DADT repeal was actually Joe Lieberman. [And how embarrassing is it for you that Obama was out-liberaled by that sack of shit?]
mr. whipple
Bullshit.
DonkeyKong
ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha (sucks in wind for another round of laughs) ha ha ha ha ha ha DougJ!!!!! Strawman tasty!
MikeJ
@NR: Yes, the old, “just words” from the same people that complain about lack of bully pulpit.
August J. Pollak
Wow, you’re bragging that he didn’t?
Joe Beese
@NR:
Typical Greenwald… ignoring a fine speech and actually wanting outcomes.
What a fucking racist.
Sly
How dare Obama give a speech that only consists of words!
srv
@NR: Well, if he just went and gave up everything now, he wouldn’t have anything to give up in the campaign.
Of course, there’s always the Flag Burning ammendment.
Mnemosyne
@NR:
Is this the same Greenwald who wrote an entire column about how saying that the Republicans would wreck everything in their path was just fearmongering without once mentioning current events like Wisconsin, Michigan, Indiana, etc.? That Greenwald?
I just can’t get behind domestic policy prescriptions from a guy who doesn’t even live in the US.
Maude
@mr. whipple:
Fancy feast is expensive. We have to go with store brand.
I thought his post about the speech was downright snotty. And ignorant.
If he knows about economic matters, why doesn’t he understand what Obama was talking about?
How long before Atrios is back to: Somebody should do something?
MattR
@MikeJ: I never made that complaint about the lack of a bully pulpit. Does that mean that I can’t agree with Greenwald on this point?
NR
@MikeJ: You did not read what I posted. Try again.
Bruce S
“I always thought (Kevin Drum’s) being hired by Mother Jones was like the Sex Pistols asking Barry Manilow to sit in.”
Hey, I would have like Totally bought that f-ing album!!!!!
(Also, for what it’s worth Mother Jones was only like the Sex Pistols for about 15 minutes when they hired Michael Moore to edit. Just saying…)
Mnemosyne
@Joe Beese:
I see you’re still riding the “Obama was secretly opposed to DADT repeal!” pony.
Freddie
I loved it, myself. Very satisfying in terms of policy and close to perfect, I think, on tone.
mr. whipple
Some people said they wanted Obama to hit Ryan with the chair, and of course Obama failed by only doing so rhetorically. I wanted him to literally hit him with a chair.
Obama is such a wimp.
Fuck U6: A More Accurate Measure of the Total Amount of Duck-Fuckery in the Economy
NR: Too many words. Lives in Brazil. Wasn’t a good lawyer anyway. RACIST!
Martin
@August J. Pollak: No, but this ‘Obama promised to cure cancer’ bullshit gets tiring. I don’t know why the firebaggers don’t just give up the pretense of being reasonable and just demand to see his birth certificate.
Obama is being criticized for reneging on his promise of ‘I don’t oppose all wars. What I am opposed to is a dumb war.’ by not opposing all wars.
August J. Pollak
When all these straw men turn to gold we’ll end the deficit for sure!
Bob Loblaw
@NR:
This is so stupid. No Presidential candidate ever revealed so much of their actual, honest political philosophy on the campaign trail.
It’s like the Twilight Zone. The man goes out of his way to be the most accessible political mind in national Democratic politics in forever, and nobody bothers trying to understand him. Not even his supporters, let alone his detractors.
He’s a balance sheet President. It’s what he’s about. Remember what he said about Bill Clinton in the primaries. Remember what he said about Reagan. His goal is to lead a broad, shared coalition centered around fiscal stability and sustainability, which he hopes to hand off to a new, more progressive President who can do the things he cannot because of circumstances and race.
He is not a mystery. Not domestically.
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
@NR: Greenwald’s positioned himself so that when Obama runs into the crazy in the House, he can go “I didn’t believe a word of it.” To use the word of the week: Courageous.
Martin
@Mnemosyne: Beese has proof. He once caught Obama tapping his foot to an Eminem song. Total homophobe.
mr. whipple
And Obama still doesn’t know how to negotiate. He should have said he wanted to increase the deficit by 10 trillion, and then the GOP would say they wanted to cut the deficit by 10 trillion, and they could meet in the middle and not cut anything.
As is, we’ll end up getting only half a can of cat food.
quaint irene
I thought that was S. Palin’s specialty.
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
@Joe Beese: Wait, you mean the president doesn’t draw up legislation, but only signs it? And yes, I know he could have used the bully pulpit.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
was it Cole’s mockery of Hamsher’s tweet that summoned the Reinforcements for the Beese?
cleek
@NR:
wait, what? Greenwald is upset because Obama failed yet again to be the perfect Greenwaldian Executive ?
well slap my ass and call me Sally!
NR
@Bob Loblaw:
11-dimensional chess again, huh?
Or, to put it less snarkily: We have to move to the right now so we can move to the left in the future. Maybe Obama actually believes this, maybe not. But in any case, it doesn’t matter. Implementing conservative policy does not magically get us closer to implementing liberal policy. The only thing it does is hurt people in the short-term and further entrench the conservative narratives governing our political debate in the long-term.
Like I said–this was a good speech. But what matters is how Obama follows it up. If he fights for the principles he outlined today, he’ll be in good shape. If he meets the Republicans halfway (or worse), this speech will ultimately be meaningless and the 2012 election will basically be a coin toss.
Keith G
@NR: Now don’t be calling rain down on this parade.
NR
@cleek: Yeah, Greenwald just wanted a pony and he didn’t get it.
You people sure are unoriginal.
New Yorker
I’m sitting out the 2012 election or voting for Nader. It’s obvious that there’s no difference between Obama (who never got us the public option) and Bachmann/Palin/Trump/Huckabee.
America deserves the Ryan plan for not electing Bernie Sanders president.
cleek
@NR:
he?
are there, like, free-floating Republicans drifting around DC, and Obama steps out of his house once every few months to challenge them to an epic tug of war ?
or, is there an entire other branch of government, with its own rules and hundreds of members each with competing concerns, which is responsible for writing legislation, and the President is, at best a strong third party negotiator between competing factions ?
can Obama make a law forbidding run-on sentences ? no! fuck no! fragments, neither!
Mark S.
Shorter Clive Crook:
Bob Loblaw
@NR:
No, not 11 dimensions. Not even two. One. One path of action from which all else follows. Even though it’s pretty much the Republicans fault, unreasonable debt threatens and discredits progressive action in this country. It has to be resolved first. That’s what he believes. Liberalism can barely survive in this country when there isn’t any existential debt crisis.
Sko Hayes
Do you know that there are so-called progressives over at DKos that say we should not raise the debt limit.
Yeah, that’s the ticket. Let’s just fuck the entire economy over again just so Obama doesn’t “cave” to the Republicans.
Fucen Pneumatic Fuck Wrench Tarmal
sully just announced that his green card, was really just an amex, and he never liked it here anyhow.
cleek
@NR:
how the fuck can i possibly be “original” when describing a Greenwald post? the guy’s only got one thing to say.
BR
@NR:
Isn’t Greenwald frequently in a tizzy about symbolism? And now he says symbolism isn’t important, just results.
Somehow I’m reminded of Obama’s speech in Tucson, which Greenwald was curiously silent about.
Villago Delenda Est
@NR:
Don’t think this is true at all.
I don’t think the Rethugs can field anyone who can defeat Obama at this point. All their candidates (even Mittens, today with his lukewarm birfer denial, which failed to state unequivocally, without any wink and nod, that Obama’s American Citizenship is an absolute, undeniable fact that you do not “believe”, you “KNOW” with absolute metaphysical certitude, no ifs ands buts or other qualifiers) have to pander to the cretinous teatard slime to have any hope of winning the nomination, and then they proceed to run away from the base faster than Rickey Henderson moving from first to second in his prime.
Villago Delenda Est
@NR:
Don’t think this is true at all.
I don’t think the Rethugs can field anyone who can defeat Obama at this point. All their candidates (even Mittens, today with his lukewarm birfer denial, which failed to state unequivocally, without any wink and nod, that Obama’s American Citizenship is an absolute, undeniable fact that you do not “believe”, you “KNOW” with absolute metaphysical certitude, no ifs ands buts or other qualifiers) have to pander to the cretinous teatard slime to have any hope of winning the nomination, and then they proceed to run away from the base faster than Rickey Henderson moving from first to second in his prime.
MagicPanda
@WereBear: There were many Christmases where I got the lame version of whatever it was I’d asked for. One year, it was walkie talkies. Another year, it was a remote control car.
Now, I get to inflict the same joy on my daughter. It builds character.
johnny walker
Impressive speech, and it greatly exceeded my own far-left firebagging expectations. Is our Preznits learning? Now look, I’m not interested in firing up the old circumstances demand vs. put your foot down shitfest, so let’s go abstract: a politician told us he was putting his foot down, laying out a specific plan from which he would not deviate etc. What the follow-through will be is a matter of hope and inference, not fact.
I’m far more confident than I was this morning, and I’ll happily concur that this speech was thoroughly Insert Sports Metaphor Here-d, but we still have to see how this actually plays out. Here’s hoping the “I refuse” stuff from this speech was intended as a factual statement.
Joe Beese
@Mnemosyne:
Oh no, it was a passionate cause for him.
That’s why when it came up for a vote the first time, instead of lobbying senators, he called to congratulate the WNBA champions.
Got to have skin in the game, you know!
Suck It Up!
Did anyone hear the part where he said don’t expect his plan to be exactly like the final plan because this is a Democracy and other idiots, er uh the other party is going to have a say?
just wanted to see if anyone was actually listening. Its the lack of this skill that leads so many on the left to a meltdown every 2 weeks.
NR
@cleek: You know, I think I’m just going to make a list of the excuses that people around here use when anyone criticizes Obama. There are so few that it should be really easy. Let’s see:
1. Obama has a secret plan to advance the cause of liberalism in America, and everything he does is working toward that goal, so you should just sit down and shut up when he implements conservative policy because it’ll all be okay in the end.
2. The President is completely powerless to influence Congress in any way, and cannot exert any influence over policy making in the United States, ever.
3. The problem isn’t Obama, it’s your unrealistic expectations of Obama. You didn’t get your pony and now you’re just bitter. It’s not like his entire campaign was based around the promise of big, sweeping change from the Bush years, or anything.
4. Nothing Obama does matters because Jane Hamsher is a bitch/Glenn Greenwald is shrill/Daily Kos is just so darned unreasonable these days.
So it looks like you’ve chosen #2. In the future, you can just type the number in your reply and save yourself some typing.
les
@NR:
Not to let reality intrude, but isn’t it more accurate to say the situation requires us to stop running headlong to the cliff on the right, now, and nail something sort of centrish down, before we can do anything else? And before you can stop, you gotta slow down. There’s no magic instant reverse gear. Especially when a solid block of “Democratic” legislators are aiding and abetting the rush to disaster? The pendulum swinging toward fascist oligarchy didn’t start swinging when Obama was elected, has loads o’ mass and velocity, and nobody can just turn it around.
Uncle Clarence Thomas
.
.
There is simply no foreseeable limit to the self-satisfied, self-congratulatory, self-administered circle pop satisfaction of the mediocrity-revering, inadequacy-enabling, capitulation-justifying balloonbagger in full throat.
.
.
JC
Ah, a whole afternoon of snarky meta, with the frothy fizz JUST RIGHT.
Good times. Good times.
Midnight Marauder
@NR:
I mean, what is the fucking point then? What is the fucking point of anything if the man’s actual actions and words have no bearing on how you view and absorb his positions? Are you even reading the arguments you are articulating? This is so self-evidently moronic.
Woodrow "asim" Jarvis Hill
@BR:
Someone I find to be a lot more useful on Civil Liberties is Ed Brayton, who I discovered through his work bashing Creationists.
He HATES what Obama has done with Civil Liberties in America. But he also roasts the GOP over, well, just about everything. When Obama makes a good play, he’s not stingy with the praise, either.
He is, in short, even-handed and pretty honest in his punditry. Even when I disagree, I feel he’s coming from a honest and above-board sense of governance and law, and not just banging for a few more political points.
So if you want Greenwald w/o the drama, I recommend him.
joe from Lowell
@Mnemosyne:
I’ve been noticing that for years. They make up a line of spin for political effect and repeat it ad infinitum, and then they turn around and believe the thing they just made up (because the keep seeing it in lots of reliable conservative outlets), and then they base their political strategy on it.
I think it was the gloating about how much Sarah Palin scared liberals, even after the Couric interview and the Biden debate, that led me to first realize this.
WereBear
@MagicPanda: I was just trying for an analogy; holding my breath wouldn’t have put more money in my parent’s pockets.
Just wanting something doesn’t get you that thing.
Uncle Clarence Thomas
@NR:
.
.
Don’t forget the #1 excuse, which is that anyone who criticizes President Obama’s actions is, and must be, a racist.
.
.
Joe Beese
@NR:
Want me to ruin the suspense for you?
johnny walker
@John Cole:
Aaaaaaand right on cue. I don’t know why I was worried about firing up the shit myself when this whole thread’s one big troll.
Yeah, neat. And when something bad happens my stereotype of you says that none of it was Obama’s fault, Congress is mean, why aren’t we focusing on the GOP, etc. At least you finally seem to have dropped the constant frontpage complaining re: angry firebaggers in the comments section. Finally realize how much of that shit you bring on yourself by trolling your own blog, or just a coincidence?
I guess I shoulda known better than to hope that the BJ response to this speech could’ve ever been anything but, “Ha ha, fuck you firebaggers! /spike football”
Yeah, the speech rocked. Congrats on taking the typical american “ha ha my team rules neener neener” approach to it, assholes. You have dKos, FDL etc. praising it. The BJ firebagger brigade is generally supportive. So what’s the response? More cliched strawman bitching.
You guys have macros for this shit?
Suffern ACE
@MagicPanda:
Interestingly, they are reintroducing the Commodore 64 and still make cassette players, so you have two appropriate substitutes for things she might ask for right there.
Chyron HR
@Uncle Clarence Thomas:
Because that’s how O-Bots roll.
joe from Lowell
@mr. whipple:
Yes, and when you go to the car dealership, you should tell them you want them to pay you a thousand dollars to take one of their Accords home. That way, you’ll get a really good price, and no way they’ll just throw you off their property instead of negotiating.
Opening with a low bid is a good move. That doesn’t mean opening with a ridiculous bid is an ever better move.
Midnight Marauder
@NR:
Are you actually unaware that Congress can give a big “Fuck You” to the Executive Branch anytime they feel like? Because they are their own separate, yet equal, branch of government?
Are you really unaware of this?
johnny walker
@Belafon (formerly anonevent): Wtf are you talking about? The President routinely draws up his own legislation and submits it to Congress. If you meant that it has to be voted on, then say that instead. If you meant your statement literally then may I suggest a 100-level American Gov’t class?
@cleek: Great, great, consider the hair split. Let’s just form a compromise and agree that all of Congress gave a great speech today, how’s that?
Sometimes it’s just shorthand man. Sometimes you just want to type a sentence or two to sum up your thoughts without going into some formal preamble: “Having acknowledged that the United States is governed by a bicameral legislature in which there is often divided government; and in recognition of the fact that the President is not a dictator; and being that the United States is a Republic and a not a direct democracy…”
Cris (without an H)
Actual exchange:
[Salesman] Make me an offer on this new Toyota.
[My wife] $5000.
[Salesman] Be serious.
[My wife] I am serious. Agree to $5000 and I’ll pay cash.
joe from Lowell
@Uncle Clarence Thomas:
OK, does anyone still want to pretend that tea bagger sock puppets don’t pose as leftists on these threads?
JC
Joe from Lowell,
I’ve been thinking the same thing last few threads – it’s getting a bit over the top here, some close to obvious sock-puppeting going on.
Villago Delenda Est
@Midnight Marauder:
Yet, ever since the age of Reagan, they’ve pretty much failed to do exactly that.
I used to think that Obama wasn’t pounding the bully pulpit because, as a former Professor of Constitutional Law, he wanted the Congress to reassert itself against the Imperial Presidency. So he waited.
And waited.
And waited.
For the Congress to get off its duff and do SOMETHING.
Well, Nancy tried.
But Reid, being slightly less spineless than an amoeba, refused to force the Republican minority to actually filibuster. Just a threat to do so was all Harry needed to roll over like John’s canines on a sunny day. He should have made those fucking assholes stand all fucking night on the floor of the Senate, on CSPAN 2, reading the OK City phone book into the fucking Congressional Record, publically exposing them as the obstructionist assholes that they were, and many still are.
But, as I said, single celled life forms have more backbone than Harry Reid.
joe from Lowell
@Joe Beese:
Joe, you spent the last three days assuring us that this speech was going to include calls for slashing Social Security and Medicare.
What on earth gives you the idea that you have any understanding of American politics at all? I’ve never seen the slightest evidence.
Phoenician in a time of Romans
@johnny walker:
Yeah, the speech rocked. Congrats on taking the typical american “ha ha my team rules neener neener” approach to it, assholes. You have dKos, FDL etc. praising it. The BJ firebagger brigade is generally supportive.
Don’t care. Obama opens his mouth and words come out – but we’ve seen that before.
I now judge him on his actions – and he’s what used to be a moderate Republican. I don’t care what he speaks like.
chopper
so wait, if “words don’t matter, actual legislation does” then why were the firebaggers running around screaming that everything simpson and bowles said was totes going to come to fruition without a speck of actual legislation being even written up?
chopper
@joe from Lowell:
he’s going by the mclaren version of the speech.
joe from Lowell
@chopper: I love it that the speech was so good that mclaren actually had to make up his own speech to criticize instead.
johnny walker
Obama quotes:
“I refuse to renew [the Bush tax cuts] again.”
“I will not sacrifice the core investments that we need to grow and create jobs.”
“I will never accept cuts that compromise our ability to defend our homeland or America’s interests around the world.”
“I will preserve these health care programs as a promise we make to each other in this society. I will not allow Medicare to become a voucher program that leaves seniors at the mercy of the insurance industry, with a shrinking benefit to pay for rising costs. I will not tell families with children who have disabilities that they have to fend for themselves.”
Where does this dude get off? It’s a Presidency, not a dictatorship. Every one of those quotes should have been rewritten to acknowledge the reality of the situation, ie: “If I’m able to get Congress to cooperate, I hope to…” and, “Assuming things work out ok, it is currently my plan to attempt to…” etc.
And again: I thought it was a great speech, and if the eventual policy reflects the speech in the form it was given I will be thrilled. But damn, you all need to get over this thing where it’s strictly verboten to hold the President responsible for at the feet of the President. He made several specific, unambiguous statements regarding lines he was drawing in the sand. Yes, Congress is mean! So, you know, maybe he shouldn’t have made such unambiguous statements if he didn’t think it was fair to hold him to them. Is that really such an unreasonable proposition?!
ps.
“I will make specific decisions about spending after it’s complete.”
Whoa! WHOA! Doesn’t he know the House is responsible for determing funding? Who does this dude think he is?
@Phoenician in a time of Romans: So I guess you missed the part where my first post in this thread was me saying the exact same thing, only in terms that weren’t needlessly inflammatory?
Looking around the comment thread after that made my subsequent posts significantly crabbier and more confrontational, but yes, results are important too. You’d think that wouldn’t be such a hard thing to agree on, but then being needlessy dickish is just the way we roll around here.
soonergrunt
@cleek: {SLAP!} Hey, Sally!
You should be careful, you might be hit by the Greewaldian Word-shotgun. You know, 10,000 words to cover for the gaps in reality in an argument that could be made in 4,000. Of course, he lives in fucking Brazil instead of the US, and so not only doesn’t actually have any skin in the game here, but he’s out of range too, so you should be OK>
Woodrow "asim" Jarvis Hill
@johnny walker:
No, he doesn’t, and he can’t.
He has to submit a budget, but that’s not legislation. The actual budget law is created by the House, and only the House. They can choose to use his budget, or throw it away, or whatever; no law says they have to vote on anything the President sends in his budget.
He can ask for a bill to be written, but only a Congressperson in either branch can actually submit a law. That might sound like hair-splitting, yet it’s key — someone in Congress has to like a President’s idea enough to make it a bill. They have to do the work in drafting it, unless it’s certain that enough people like it that a bill the President’s staff draws up will be passed without change. That’s…extraordinarily unlikely to happen.
Dinah
“Power” does not give a rat’s ass about “sending a message” or any other quixotic gestures. And there won’t be significant opposition to anything in the streets unless we reinstate the draft.
WaterGirl
@cleek: I read that as:
Who could blame me, though, with all the talk about Sully lately?
NR
@les:
If this were true, we would have seen FDR enact more tax cuts and austerity measures upon taking office after Herbert Hoover. Thankfully, it’s not true.
There is no grand law from on high stating that you have to “slow down” bad policies before stopping them (to say nothing of the fact that in many cases, Obama hasn’t even slowed the bad policies down). Frankly, that whole idea is absurd. Obama was elected on a platform of CHANGE. Not “I’ll be just like Bush, but not quite as bad.” If what you are saying is true, he never would have been elected in the first place.
chopper
@joe from Lowell:
i tried to translate mcclaren’s post about it into english but all i got was ‘blackity blackblack’
NR
@Midnight Marauder:
Wow, you have serious reading comprehension problems. Go reread what I wrote and try again.
johnny walker
@Woodrow / 108
(reply button isn’t working)
And technically, lobbyists can’t submit bills to Congress either. I’m talking real-world implications. Show me theory on the map, etc. If the President either can’t find a single member of his own party to submit his legislation, or there are no members of his party in the Congress, then forget the theory: he’s screwed.
And yes, I’m aware it would be subject to a vote by Congress. That’s why I wrote the same thing in the post you replied to. Christ.
aimai
@mr. whipple:
Way too late to say how perfect this line is. But it is perfect. “Like the Sex Pistols asking Barry Manilow to sit in.”
aimai
Mnemosyne
@Joe Beese:
Ah, my other favorite meme from you: “He wasted time calling a bunch of GURLZ! When he could have been doing important things!”
Because, as we all know, Obama is completely incapable of doing more than one thing in a day, so if he spent 5 minutes calling the WNBA champions, it was completely impossible for him to do anything else at all during the course of that 24 hours.
DS
Did anyone read Greenwald’s latest pile of horseshit at Salon? For a former constitutional lawyer, he sure doesn’t seem to understand the powers that are actually enumerated in the Constitution for the Executive and Legislative branches of govrenment.
Dave C
Well, there’s at least one thing going for the President’s speech: Congressional Republicans fucking hate it.
aisce
@Bob Loblaw:
when did you become a voice of reason? if bob loblaw is the new wise center of the balloon juice community, we’re all in a lot of trouble here.
ironic too that after bitching about the meta nature of the comments about other comments about other commenters’ comments, this thread becomes about…glenn greenwald. and how he lives in brazil. nice.
aimai
I don’t get the weird triumphalism from people here. Look, the public received conflicting reports about how Obama and the Dems were going to choose to handle the Ryan Report and the Medicare/Medicaid/SS “problem.” People on the center/left really wanted the President to give a full throated defense of liberalism and of these key programs. Also, if he was going to do that, they want him to win again so he can fulfill the promises that he’s making. So, Obama got up and gave a great speech and its one that (almost) everyone on the center/left can not only get behind but really cheer for. Now, for some, its time to attack everyone who ever apparently lacked total faith that Obama would come out strongly progressive and defend progressive goals. I don’t know why that seems logical when I know for a fact (because Joe from Lowell and FlipyrWhig and numerous others assured me) that Obama was never a progressive and never promised anything progressive and all those people who thought they had voted in a progressive were just deluding themselves. We’ll never be Obama’s bestest friends like Joe from Lowell and etc…etc…etc..
Look, I’m thrilled. Obama gave a great speech and stood up for everything I and most people to the left of me wanted to see him stand up for. I’m happy and the rest of you should be too because now you can stop assuring us that the guy we voted for isn’t the guy we voted for, that we were suckers, fools, deluded, limp wristed cry babies for apparently wanting the very same things President Obama wants.
aimai
johnny walker
@Dave C:
If this was a mad-lib, under the blank spot would be a parenthetical arrangement of the phrase, “Thing or quality that does or can be claimed to exist.”
@aimai: Well here’s the thing: those of us who were afraid, paranoid, lacked confidence, etc. were doing so only out of a twisted and personalized hatred of the President himself. None of our concerns were legitimate, and in many cases we were saying things we didn’t even mean to concern troll or otherwise undermine Obama’s confidence.
It’s weird – usually when I get up in the morning and check the news, I’m pretty sure I have actual concerns based on longterm policy implications. But I’ve been assured repeatedly by this blog that this is not the case, so who am I to argue?
Oh, btw: We may think we liked this speech and were pleasantly surprised and maybe even a little fired up about it, but I’m pretty sure we’re lying about that too. Maybe someone will be along who can clear this up, possibly with references to various equestrian animals and etc.
emma
Joe Beese: Obama can actually walk and chew gum at the same time. Really. BUT if you have inside information about how the President AND ALL HIS SENIOR OFFICIALS work when they’re trying to lobby Congress, please give us the details.
cleek
@NR:
oddly, that’s not even close to what i said. so… um. no.
nancydarling
@Mnemosyne: @soonergrunt: I believe Greenwald lives in Brazil because his partner can’t immigrate here, therefore I call cheap shot. Otherwise, I agree.
Wolfdaughter
@Bob Loblaw:
Bob, if this were HuffPo (and I’m glad it’s not) I would fan and fave you. Thanks!
Bob L
@Phoenician in a time of Romans:
Let me correct that “Obama is father to the Right that Bachmman and Barbou combine. This speech (if you read the Obama code between the lines) is the opening shot in destroying medicate.
What the we progressive should have done was vote for McCain 2008 after we got Obama nominated. That way Obama would know he can’t take us for granted and we could be sure he would never sell us out as president.
FlipYrWhig
@aisce:
The Overton Window in action! Enough Joe Beese and mclaren and suddenly the point of equilibrium shifts! Now, if matoko_weasley becomes the vital center, _that’s_ time to panic.
cleek
@chopper:
because SHUT UP. that’s why.
Cassidy
@Bruce S:
To be honest, the Sex Pistols were only the Sex Pistols for about 15 mins.
joe from Lowell
@aimai:
I love the fact that I loom this large in your consciousness, but I’ve never said that. I’ve never thought that, either. I don’t use the word “progressive” because I think it’s a namby-pamby word by people too frightened of their own shadows to call themselves “liberals,” but I think Obama is a liberal and a great one, even if he’s not as liberal as me.
johnny walker
@johnny walker:
Equines. EQUINES. Not “equestrian animals.” Wtf would that be anyway, like a cat that tends horses?
Argh.
@cleek: Ok, so what’s the implication? What’s your conclusion? It’s a little cheeky to drop ambiguous snark and then bust on people who make the wrong inference for failing to adequately read your mind.
Is it or is it not acceptable to hold the President responsible for sticking to the many unambigous statements he made in the speech today? Serious question.
Midnight Marauder
@NR:
This is a rather astonishing comment from you considering that you totally failed to understand this comment directed at you earlier.
@Bob Loblaw:
You want me to read what you wrote again. It’s not a hard fucking argument to understand:
Where you go wrong is in thinking that I am accepting your framing of “we have to move to the right now so we can move to the left.” I do not agree with that. I do not buy in to the argument that a lot of people are making around here that President Obama is recasting Republican priorities in a Republican/conservative narrative. I think what you are seeing is a man try to maintain the status quo (which, in this instance, means not abolishing Medicare) while attempting to seize opportunities as they present themselves, and simultaneously create opportunities for his supposed allies to alter the dynamic of the policy conversation in this country.
However, those allies have proven themselves to be rather ineffective at capitalizing on such opportunities.
You would be one of those allies.
soonergrunt
@nancydarling: I don’t give a fuck what reason he has. He lives there because he chooses to do so. The why of that choice is completely irrelevant. His opinion about what goes on here has only slightly more value than the opinions of British, French, or other Europeans, and that value diminishes a bit every day.
cleek
@joe from Lowell:
the firebaggers have been doing it all day. they started hating their fantasy version before they heard the real one, then continued on with their fantasy because it gives them that deep, rich anger that they love so much, and which the real one just couldn’t provide.
FlipYrWhig
@aimai:
I dunno, maybe the “weird triumphalism” emerges in response to thread after thread of confident declarations that Obama was going to do something stupid and awful and capitulate like he always does and I don’t even need to listen to know how disappointed I’ll already have been by then.
Um, I’ve never said anything like that. I think he’s a progressive in principle whose tangible achievements and, yes, bargaining positions on the way there, have been constrained by conservative Democrats in Congress and in the public.
WereBear
I like it. I like it very much!
Bob Loblaw
Wait, I just became popular? Schizoid. Far out.
Wolfdaughter
@cleek:
Criticizing someone for being unoriginal isn’t a particularly strong or cogent critique.
I hang out on Salon and sometimes post. If Greenwald is writing about something other than Obama, I’ll read it and maybe the comments. If it’s anything to do with Obama, I have stopped reading him. He’s irrational and so are many of the people writing letters in response. Obama is far from perfect and I wish he were further to the left, but he has shit to deal with, and he’s trying his best to use it as fertilizer.
ranger3
@Mnemosyne: In fairness to Joe… women’s basketball is the worst idea ever. It’s about as entertaining as watching old people fuck. That’s why the WNBA has lost millions since it’s inception 15 years ago. It’s about as good an idea as the XFL, and should have been allowed to die a long time ago. But David Stern is David Stern, and so our long national nightmare continues.
johnny walker
@nancydarling: No shit? Greenwald’s gay? Apropos nothing whatsoever, I just think it’s great that I had no idea either way, nor even even stopped to think about it.
Ehh I hope my meaning is clear: nothing wrong with homosexuality, or even blatant identity politics, at the very least when the identity in question is an oppressed one. “Equality for everyone” is awesome, but a gay dude saying, “How bout equality for me?” just as great. Pluralism, no cliche is an island, etc. But even better would be that we don’t even think about it, that everyone becomes so equal that it becomes completely transparent and etc.
Ehh. Someday. Back on topic: Screw everyone who diagrees with me!
@Midnight Marauder: Trying to peel back the various layers of snark onion is making my eyes water, but I’m pretty sure the “have to move right to move left” thing was sarcasm.
bemused
@demkat620:
What did Marsha say? I missed it.
Keith G
Midnight Marauder:
Seems to me that NR is aware of this.
Managing relations with Congress and crafting a legislative agenda is one of the main ways that presidents get ranked, from #1 down to James Buchanan. LBJ worked deals. Reagan went over Congress’ head and spoke to the public, getting them to pressure Congress.
This is a skill set that common politicians must develop if they want to become great presidents. Obama has planted his flag on this issue. Let’s see how his skill set has grown. I hope when all is said an done, the final legislation is in the same zip code. The answer to that will go a long way in ranking President Obama.
Bob Loblaw
By the way, people are fucking lying their asses off. Six hours ago, Barack Obama was a centrist. Now everybody and their mom is lining up to tell us how “progressive” and “liberal” he is. All for not wanting to cut the deficit exclusively on the backs of the poor and elderly.
His desired plan to cut $100B in mandatory and discretionary spending annually for the next twelve years? Hey, whatever dude, he said some stuff about the military and tax expenditures too, so it’s cool.
…And I just flipped back to being unpopular again, didn’t I?
NR
Deleted.
Just Some Fuckhead
You shouldn’t make them feel bad. John will go emo again.@joe from Lowell:
Half a trillion will be trimmed somewhere from Medicare with a promise (uttered twice) to cut more spending (where?) if targets weren’t reached.
There was simply no reason to even bring up Social Security, unless he wanted to point out Simpson-Bowles were partisan idiots for putting it on the table.
Wolfdaughter
@joe from Lowell:
I’m pretty sure Mr. Whipple is doing advanced snark.
If I’m wrong, Mr. Whipple, then go ahead and try to defend what you’ve posted.
By the way, I’ve never bought one single roll of Charmin, nor will I in the future, as long as it’s one of the products that the Kochs bankroll.
FormerSwingVoter
Wait, I don’t understand.
Why aren’t all the Beltway types falling over themselves to tell us how Brave and Courageous Obama is? And Serious! The Math Demands It! His plan cuts as much as Ryan’s does, but without the needless giveaways to the rich. It’s Serious! And Brave! And also Courageous! The Math Demands It!
Mnemosyne
@nancydarling:
There’s no law that says Greenwald has to write about US electoral politics, though. He could stick with the civil liberties stuff he knows well and stay away from electoral politics altogether.
My problem with him is that he seems extremely unconcerned that Republicans in the US are actually, right now, as we speak, doing really really scary shit. Yet he acts like it’s just fearmongering for people to point out to him that the Republicans are currently doing really, really scary shit like saying they can unilaterally dissolve cities.
My point is that it’s easy for him to scoff at this really, really scary shit that the Republicans are pulling and claim it’s no big deal because he doesn’t live here, so he’s not going to have to deal with the consequences of putting more Republicans in power.
He has an unacknowledged privilege that he seems to think makes him more qualified to talk about American electoral politics than those of us who actually have to live here.
Cassidy
Man, when did BJ get so damn emo?The only thing missing is eye/ guyliner and some Dashboard Confessional playing in the background.
cleek
@johnny walker:
i think it’s fair to hold him responsible for doing everything in his power to live up to the things he says he’ll do. the hard part is accepting that his power is actually pretty limited, when it comes to legislation. he can cheerlead, horsetrade, stomp his foot, use his veto threat (which is easily countered with “you wouldn’t veto this thing you promised your base, woudl you?”), make his case to the public, etc.. but at the end of the day, it comes down to what his party can get through Congress. and with a split Congress, an angry teabagger faction in the House, and a close Senate, the options seem pretty limited.
but to blame the president for everything Congress sends him is just silly.
eemom
@Bob Loblaw:
well Boblaw, *I* at least will always have a soft spot for ya. Ever since you told me you’re Turkish. ; )
WereBear
@Dave C: Now that I’ve clicked over there and read the articles, I’m astonished.
The Republicans think only of their own base, as many here urge President Obama to do. They are now coming out against Medicare, education, investing in our country; they’re against the idea of having a country at all. Because it costs too much.
I thought our President did a great job of explaining what he wanted; and what we should want, too.
Midnight Marauder
@johnny walker:
@Keith G:
Considering NR’s track record on this blog, I call bullshit on both of you.
Corner Stone
@joe from Lowell:
Aren’t you going to ask her what kind of facial hair you have when you haunt her nightmares?
Uncle Clarence Thomas
@joe from Lowell:
.
.
OK, does anyone still want to pretend that tea bagger sock puppets don’t pose as balloonbaggers on these threads?
.
.
DS
@Bob Loblaw: Are you high? Do you actually think that any budget that doesn’t include cuts on non-discretionary spending actually has a chance of passing? Believe it or not, there are not 500 Bernie Sanders’ in Congress that he has to deal with.
soonergrunt
@Mnemosyne: Thank you for being much more concise and well spoken on the subject than I was.
Corner Stone
@soonergrunt:
This is really the tack you want to take?
Danny
@Joe Beese:
Was pun intended? Are you hinting that O doesnt support gay rights and that it’s because he’s black and he’s only interested in basketball?
What are your thoughts on this then: is it possible for the prez to both like kfc and gays at the same time?
Corner Stone
@NR:
Thank you, very handy. Not an exhaustive catalog, but a good start.
priscianus jr
@mr. whipple:
Corner Stone
@cleek: Didn’t you get the dreaded “firebagger” moniker hung on you not too long ago?
Explains your zeal.
NR
@Midnight Marauder: Just to recap. I said:
To which you replied:
Your reply has nothing to do with what I actually wrote. I said that it doesn’t matter if Obama is implementing conservative policy because he wants to, or because he sees it as a necessary stepping stone on the way to liberal policy. The only thing that matters is that conservative policy gets implemented (see, for example, the extension of the Bush tax cuts) with all its attendant damage to the country. That’s not a hard fucking argument to understand, either.
And your comment about how Obama is creating opportunities for liberals is ridiculous. Obama’s implementation of conservative policies has taken away opportunities for liberals, not created them. Take, again, the example of the Bush tax cuts. By extending the Bush tax cuts, Obama took away $700 billion that liberals could have used to create jobs and make people’s lives better in any number of different ways. Whatever his motivation was, it’s the action that matters.
Cassidy
@Danny: Pssst! Get your black stereotypes right. Black people eat Church’s Chicken. White folks go to KFC.
Mnemosyne
@aimai:
It’s because we’re stuck with a bunch of idiot trolls like NR, Joe Beese, Master of Karate, mclaren, etc. who swore up and down yesterday that Obama was going to announce that he was killing Medicare, and now they’re back simultaneously (a) claiming they said no such thing and (b) continuing to claim that he’s totally going to kill Medicare because shut up, that’s why.
Unfortunately, other people with rational concerns end up getting lumped in with the Beeses of the world because the Beeses suck up all of the oxygen.
joe from Lowell
@Just Some Fuckhead:
So, we’re just leaving out efforts to reduce medical costs when we talk about his proposal for Medicare (and Medicaid), rather than reductions in services? Um, why?
Or to set the stage for raising the cap on the payroll tax.
magurakurin
@Joe Beese:
setting aside the fact that this comment is bullshit in that it implies Holy Joe did it alone and with nobody else…setting that aside…weren’t all
youthe pinheads in the GOS/FDL calling for Obama’s head after he refused to punish Holy Joe? I sort of saw DADT as Obama’s “Gandalf Moment” to use a lame LOTR metaphor in that he spared Gollum because, well, ya never know. But you know Hillary would have been better and Edwards would have been teh awesome(if he coulda kept his dick in his pants) Obama, meh…MMonides
I LOVE CARICATURE ON CARICATURE VIOLENCE!
Just Some Fuckhead
@joe from Lowell:
Does that make it money that magically won’t come out of Medicare?
Yes, I completely overlooked the 11 dimensional chess thing.
Mnemosyne
@NR:
In the meantime, of course, people on unemployment would have lost that income for several months at a minimum, but I guess having unemployed people lose their only income counts as Making Things Better for … someone.
cleek
@Corner Stone:
maybe. but if i did, i didn’t notice.
i have my issues with Obama, but they don’t have much to do with the legislative side of things (which i think is where the current issues live). it’s the war stuff that really bums me out. overall, i give him a B-.
johnny walker
@FlipYrWhig:
Seems like you’re gearing up to run the first couple parts of the pre-emptive despair -> better result than anticipated -> claim that lefty bitching is the cause script on people whose predominant response is that the speech was much better than expected, these proposals are highly supportable, etc. I often hear that we far-left nutjobs whackos won’t give Obama any credit for anything but there’s a hell of a lot more firebaggers giving credit to Obama in this thread than there are BJ mainstreamers acknowledging that they’re doing so. The bitching-goalposts seem to have shifted to “Well, yeah, but you expressed doubt beforehand” and “What’s with this ‘wanting to see how this plays out’ shit?”-level complaints at best, and flat-out baseless trolling like the comment Doug reposted at worst. You can put whatever rhetorical gloss you want on it with the “confident declarations” and whatnot, but that’s just a spun way of saying that people had doubts. That’s the new bar for unacceptable behavior, eh?
I skimmed a bit of this thread, read most of it. So maybe I missed it, but I honestly don’t see a single example of a Reasonable Pragmatist going, “You know what? We’re kinda being dicks here. For the most part the far lefties are getting behind it.”
joe from Lowell
@Corner Stone:
Not for one comment. She’d have to get into your daily obsessive habits to warrant that.
I appear to be just a faceless part of an undifferentiated Obama-ite horde to her, while you…you bring things to a whole other level.
Danny
Headline on CBS news: “Obama takes iron fist to GOP”. Didnt think i’d ever get warm, fuzzy feelings over something involving the phrase “iron fist”, but what do you know.
soonergrunt
@Corner Stone: Outside of a relatively narrow range of civil liberties-related subjects, he doesn’t know what he’s talking about. Are you stupid enough to think that his reason for living in Brazil, to be with his husband, has any bearing on that?
If he lived in Brazil solely to have ready access to Pinga, he’d still be an overbearing prick who doesn’t know what he’s talking about when he gets out of his area of expertise, who doesn’t have to deal with the actual reality of life in this country where we are but a faction in one political party.
joe from Lowell
@Uncle Clarence Thomas: Did you actually just write an “I’m rubber you’re glue” comment?
Really?
Anyway, your comment doesn’t even make sense, because unlike your “Nobody can criticize Obama without being called a racist” line, I don’t actually make arguments commonly found at Tea Party rallies.
Bob Loblaw
@DS:
So then you agree that this proposal is already a compromise to right-leaning conventional wisdom with a bit of an ugly side to it? Um, yes. It’s not all sunshine and puppies and saving social security.
You don’t cut two trillion dollars in government spending in a decade’s time without it being a bitch to liberalism. Especially given the high poverty, low industrial output, low wage growth, environmentally tragic society we’ve got going on. But like I said, the President has made it very clear, he is a true believer on an immediate resolution to the deficit problem. So it is what it is.
Keith G
@Midnight Marauder:
Uncalled for – though, this is a blog comment section.
joe from Lowell
@NR:
I’m going to make it out of black pipe cleaners and black construction paper, while listening to the Smiths in a darkened room.
Because I’m a person! I’m a person, with feelings, and nobody understands me in this stupid town!
Danny
@Cassidy:
Got it. Wouldn’t want to offend anyone through ignorance.
Corner Stone
@soonergrunt: Damn, maybe you should put on a pot of chamomile and locate your internal furry slippers.
Sorry the guy calls torture torture, and I apologize to you on his behalf.
By your logic, every ex-pat around the world studying abroad, living with family, or doing it for work should STFU about their native country’s politics.
johnny walker
@Midnight Marauder: You call bullshit on… um, what exactly? “No man, you’re not unsure of that! You totally know!” Alright, given that you’re capable not only of reading my mind but finding certainty I’m not even aware of, please explain to me what my game is here. You’re blowing my mind. What is the possible benefit of putting up a front to the effect that I’m only somewhat confident I’ve worked out someone’s ambiguously snarky point?
What with the “Given NR’s track record” thing, I can only assume it comes from some amusingly self-centered assumption everyone spends as much time here as you. I recognize about 10, maybe a dozen commentors here by name, and two of them are m_c. Neither you nor NR are among them.
joe from Lowell
@Just Some Fuckhead:
Holy crap, is this for real? It doesn’t matter to you whether people are or are not receiving less medical coverage, only whether we’re paying the same amount?
I really don’t know what to say to that. It’s like a Reason writer’s parody of a liberal.
No you didn’t. You postulated the 11 dimensional chess thing, when you started speculating on the inclusion of Social Security in the speech.
And what’s this “11 dimensional” nonsense? Just how complicated a journey to you imagine it to be from talking about Social Security, deficits, and raising rich people’s taxes to the payroll tax?
Uncle Clarence Thomas
@soonergrunt:
.
.
Also too, his lust for killing civilians in war is far less than yours, but then again, you are the acknowledged boo-yah jarhead cheerleader of such activities around here, so you certainly can’t be faulted for your own perspective and opinions.
.
.
Just Some Fuckhead
@johnny walker:
I’m embarrassed to admit that I’ve simply been expressing my own opinion as one of three hundred million Americans with little or no power to affect an outcome.
In hindsight, I’d like to apologize to Obama if I caused him any unnecessary discomfort or insecurity. Keep up the good work, Lil Fella!
soonergrunt
@Corner Stone: No, just the overly self-important ones who don’t know what they’re talking about.
This blog could use less of that here, too.
And just like that, Uncle Clarence Thomas comes along to prove my point.
joe from Lowell
@johnny walker:
Doubt? I don’t remember there being the slightest bit of doubt from the firebaggers. Quite the opposite, I remember the same certainty one found in their statements about the futility of trying to get the Senate to repeal DADT.
Doubt would be nice. Maybe, in the future, Obama’s critics should avail themselves more of it.
aimai
@joe from Lowell:
Joe, you “loom large in my consciousness” because we are both from MA and we used to both post at LGM and I always really liked your posts until I “met” you here and you have simply routinely been an absolutely hysterical, angry, ranting, poster who spends days attacking other posters personally if we cross you on any topic from the Catholic Church to the bombing of Libya. Its not because I have some kind of secret thing for you. Its just that you are have a fairly consistent online personality so when I look for an example of that particular kind of assholery your name just pops into mind.
aimai
Midnight Marauder
@NR:
Sure, but then you are going to have to reconcile a lot of seemingly disparate positions contained in your statement. For instance, I think it’s a pretty relevant difference if President Obama is implementing “conservative” policy because those are his druthers, versus temporarily maintaining conservative policies while simultaneously using the opportunity push liberal programs. Moreover, where I differ with you again is that the onus is once again entirely on Obama to push through the liberal agenda, as opposed to, you know, other Democrats in Congress getting out in front and leading a sustain march in the name of liberal priorities.
Again, you keep talking about the extension of the Bush Tax Cuts without ever stopping to mention that both chambers of Congress saw Democrats FREAKING THE FUCK OUT about pushing that policy through. The fight over the Bush Tax Cuts may have seemed to just feature President Obama versus the entire Republican Party, but that damn sure isn’t how things should work.
I get it. The money could have been used to create jobs and make people’s lives better in any number of ways. And certainly, agreeing to a deal that makes something like this happen:
certainly doesn’t create jobs or make people’s lives better in any number of different ways.
The problem with your argument is that you are refusing to acknowledge that people actually did have jobs created and have their lives made better by things like the tax package deal and the Affordable Care Act. Neither situation may have been your desired outcome, but to argue that they don’t create jobs or make people’s lives better is demonstrable bullshit.
Cassidy
@Danny: Helps to be from the South. I’m not entirely caught up on my Mexican stereotypes, though. I have gathered, from living in Texas, that all brown people not black or Arab are Mexican. Although, everyone not Mexican or Black is Arab, so that gets a little murky. Talking to one of them (bigots) can be very dizzying.
Corner Stone
@joe from Lowell: See? She does know you after all!
joe from Lowell
@aimai: Wait wait wait wait…it is I who spend days attacking other people for disagreeing with me about Libya?
Seriously? You’re kidding me with this bullshit.
ETA: Seriously, the owner of this blog spent two days attacking me on the front page of his web site – two solid days – over a comment I wrote, which I discovered upon returning from the birth of my son, generating lengthy posts from numerous commenters who took the opportunity to rub it in, but I attack other commenters for days on end who disagree with me over Libya?
For real, you’re writing this about me?
Whatever, lady.
And since you’re finally starting to ring a bell, aren’t you the person who apologized for something you wrote about the Catholic Church and speculated that your comment was why I disagreed with you on another topic on another thread, to which I replied that I didn’t actually remember who you are?
Well, good job, loony toons. I’m sure going to remember you now. Yikes.
Corner Stone
@soonergrunt:
Agreed. The next time I dismiss a commentary due to where they choose to live I give you full permission to righteously humble me.
magurakurin
@Uncle Clarence Thomas:
that’s a fucked up comment. UCT, you have truly fallen to “total scumbag” territory with that one. Fuck you, man. That is an utterly false characterization of Soonergrunt, whose posts I have been following and reading on many blogs for quite some time.
You sir, are douche bag.
johnny walker
@cleek: But along the lines of what I was saying, every one of those situations was already the case before he came out today and unambiguously told us about a half-dozen or so specific things that he will absolutely “refuse” to allow. Again in seriousness: this comes across more like, “Yes, except when no.” Or in other words, it sounds like you’re telling me reasons why it’s ok not to hold Obama responsible if some of the stuff that he said he’d refuse ends up happening when I was really asking a yes or no question.
Thanks for the rhetorical restraint either way. You could’ve as easily just ripped out something about unicorns or etc, this being B to the M-Effing J and all.
elf
“He’s in love with giving speeches,” Priebus continued, “but he’s not really in love with following through with his promises and his rhetoric.”
The RNC Chairman stated this to Andrea Mitchell just before the POTUS gave his speech.
It was another great speech, this time by the man running for reelection.
Proving he can talk the talk. I want to see him stroll.
Corner Stone
Wandy Rodriguez you simply can not give up the cockshot to Soriano for a 3 run bomb in the 1st inning. Just.Can.Not.
Just Some Fuckhead
@Corner Stone:
Seriously? Aren’t you from Houston?
Midnight Marauder
@johnny walker:
Does someone need to be capable of reading your mind to disagree with your stated position? Is that really your standard? I do not give a fuck if you really believe the position or if it is just a front. I disagree with it based on my personal experiences. That’s it.
There are a lot of projections here, which is weird from someone decrying “self-centered assumptions.” So, because I indicate that I have a level of familiarity with a poster at a website I frequent, that somehow implies an inverse that you spend as much time here as I do? How does the logic work on that one?
And hooray, you only recognize 10 names! Is this where I apologize for having highly functional memory recall? Because I am more than willing to do that.
Corner Stone
@Just Some Fuckhead:
You’re right, of course. It’s impossible for me to feel humility, being from TX and all.
cleek
@johnny walker:
obviously politicians oversell. they have to because people won’t elect them otherwise.
but, i really do think it’s important to recognize the limits of what a President can actually do, before criticizing him for a legislative outcome. for example, Obama didn’t fail to close Gitmo, he tried, but was ultimately stopped from closing it by Congress. maybe he overestimated his powers of persuasion, or expected Congress would just comply. but they didn’t. does he get an F for the fact that the office of President can be trumped by Congress ? i don’t think so.
ditto.
soonergrunt
@Corner Stone: You may dismiss commentary for any reason you wish. I dismiss mainly for the ‘doesn’t know what he’s talking about’ thing. That effect is magnified with Greenwald, whose main source of information about life here today appears to be the internet, and who will not suffer for his wrongness as will the people who actually have to deal with the consequences.
srv
@Wolfdaughter:
Charmin isn’t Koch, I think you mean Angel Soft.
Uncle Clarence Thomas
@joe from Lowell:
.
.
No, I was attempting to “fight stupid with stupid,” stupid. Your comment made no sense, because it is a well-documented, natural-born, stone-cold fact that balloonbaggers regularly accuse African Americans, liberals, and progressives of being racists – because they dare to criticize President Obama for his actions. Check the archives and get back to me if you doubt my words.
In fact, burnsesq achieved a new balloonbagger low in this area recently by accusing President Obama himself of being a black-on-black racist because he used the term “comfortable shoes” – and everbody knows what that means… So either stand by your balloonbagger brethren or apologize immediately to African Americans, liberals, and progressives such as myself and cut the bullshit.
.
.
wasabi gasp
The squeaky wheels got all squeaky for nothing. Obama had a plan all along to lay it on thick.
dogwood
@NR:
This is a fairy tale. There aren’t enough liberals in Congress to pass such an agenda. Are you suggesting that Obama should have let unemployment insurance expire because the new teabagger congress was just itching to take power and use the increasing tax revenues from the expiration of the Bush tax cuts to “create jobs and make people’s lives better?” If you believe that than you are delusional.
Just Some Fuckhead
@joe from Lowell: See Joe, this is why everyone detests you, even people ostensibly on your side. There was no reason for Obama to include Social Security and the only reason he did is because Simpson-Bowles did. Even the liberal Ezra Klein thinks so:
But to you, that makes it look like Obama isn’t the most awesomest thing evah and so you have to devise an 11 dimensional chess theory to explain it. And then you accuse me of 11 dimensional chess. How much fucking sense does that make?
FlipYrWhig
@johnny walker:
Come on, man. There was total hysteria beforehand. Then that hysteria proved unwarranted. And yet, _still_, in the threads all around this one, there are dozens of people clinging to their hysteria. It’s not “I want to see how this plays out,” it’s “Mark my words, this will play out as badly as I predicted.”
So often there’s such _certainty_ about impending doom and betrayal. It’s kind of comical.
Yes, we all need to see how this plays out. That’s why there shouldn’t have been so much caterwauling yesterday about how it obviously _would_ play out.
johnny walker
@soonergrunt: Wait, I thought the argument was that people shouldn’t listen to Greenwald because he lives (part-time, btw) in Brazil, therefore has no skin in the game. If he’s simply clueless, who gives a shit where he lives? Is this just a matter of throwing crap at the wall until something sticks?
You got me! I submit! I’ll stop occasionally reading Greenwald and sometimes agreeing with portions of what he says on some subjects!
jwb
@Corner Stone: You have to admire the elegance of the knife twist at the end.
Just Some Fuckhead
@Uncle Clarence Thomas: Just don’t use the N-word like Chyron HR because that is a banning offense, unless yer Chyron HR.
FlipYrWhig
@cleek:
“It’s not that he didn’t succeed, it’s that he didn’t try very hard! Which you can tell by the fact that he didn’t succeed!”
“He needs to fight more, even if he loses! And when he loses it’s proof he didn’t fight hard enough!”
Etc.
cleek
@dogwood:
i think there was one very good reason.
ask around to your non-political friends what they think of SS. odds are good they’ll say “it won’t be around when i retire.” if Obama can get it into peoples’ heads that he’s going to ‘fix’ it, to ensure it will be around for their retirement, he’ll have scored a tremendous victory. and given that the fix won’t need to be all that dramatic, it will be mostly a sales job. easy, but potentially huge, victory.
Uncle Clarence Thomas
@soonergrunt:
.
.
Thanks. I dismiss yours because you don’t know what you’re talking about. And, like you, I won’t bother to use any facts or logic to support my opinion, I’ll just open my yap and blow hard. Consider it an homage.
.
.
cleek
@FlipYrWhig:
sadly, i fall victim to the :if he would’ve worked harder!!” bug myself, from time to time. but, once i cool off, it usually turns out that, no, he really couldn’t have done much. a President has a lot of power, but only in very specific areas. it’s hard to keep them straight, when disappointment hits.
soonergrunt
@johnny walker: Dude, I don’t give a fuck if you worship the ground upon which Greenwald walked last time he was here in the states.
I don’t read him because he doesn’t know what he’s talking about a lot of the time, but presents himself as if he does. Now, I know that there are quite a few bloggers and commenters who do the exact same thing, and I’m sure somebody around here thinks the same of me, but his particular incompetencies are magnified by the facts that he doesn’t live here and see it, and as I’ve pointed out in every one of these posts, he doesn’t have skin in the game, which is merely another way of saying what I said in the very post to which you are replying.
I could keep to one vernacular, like “doesn’t have skin in the game” if you really need me to, I suppose, but I bought this thesaurus, and I’m trying to get my money’s worth out of it. They say that if you use a word properly six times, you’ll have it in your vocabulary forever. I only need to use ‘vernacular’ four more times.
Bob Loblaw
@FlipYrWhig:
Come on, there are barely dozens of people total who even post on this site.
Admit it, you lot are up in arms over a whole seven posters, none of whom you ever respected to begin with. Are you really telling me that mclaren or Joe Beese are worth all this energy?
Just Some Fuckhead
@FlipYrWhig:
ZOMG! I just relived the whole horrible ordeal! Someone was upset with the President and it seemed soooooooooooooo unfair. Are you a child?
FlipYrWhig
@cleek: I might say instead that there’s always more he could have _tried_, but I’m usually pretty well satisfied that he knows when more trying has become futile.
Corner Stone
@johnny walker:
No, it’s ok. You can quote from and/or agree with GG if he’s talking about homer sexual issues.
But if he’s talking about manly things like warfare and humane treatments related to and of, then you should righteously dismiss him as a know nothing Brazil lover.
I kinda feel bad for GG actually. If he had just known that all the critique he was doing during the Bush administration needed to be shut off once their guy was doing it…well, hell, he’d probably be at the tops of their rec lists still. Poor bastard.
cyd
@magurakurin:
So Joe Lieberman is Gollum? That’s actually not bad.
FlipYrWhig
@Just Some Fuckhead: You more than anyone regularly lash out about how boring it is to keep having the same argument. Yes, it is boring. I am guilty of it myself. But, come on, having to go around yet. again. on the topic of why Obama doesn’t fight hard enough, that’s fucking tired by now.
soonergrunt
@cyd: whose finger is he going to bite off on the way down?
Just Some Fuckhead
@Corner Stone:
There’s no reason he can’t laud Obama with praise prior to criticizing him, and then use passive voice and not be accusatory and finish it off with more praise and the caveat that Obama is helpless in the face of his enemies and it could be worse if Sarah Palin was President.
GG isn’t even fucking trying to get along.
DougJ
@aimai:
It is a great line.
johnny walker
@FlipYrWhig: Oh granted dude, there was absolutely hysteria! I’m on SSI and the Medi series (caid and care, collect em all!) and I can describe to you the hysteria because I was it. But perhaps for that reason I tend to be a little more generous in my assessment, ie. that there was hysteria because people were scared shitless that the last vestiges of the safety net were going to be tossed in the middle of a future historical comparison for all-time bad economies, not because a bunch of swaggering lefties are all hopped up on hatred of the president for its own sake. It honestly kinda blows my mind to hear you describe the same people as both “confidently declaring” entitlements were gonna get nuked and hysterical, or “excessively or uncontrollably fearful.” Think this is cog dis or merely a mixed metaphor?
I’m talking whether or not people were afraid Obama would cut entitlements, not were they being jerks about how they expressed it. I have no idea where Cenk or Maddow or Sam Seder or Hamsher or whoever are coming from (and the only person I’ve even seen a response from yet is JH) but when I see some random person expressing this fear, I tend to think that I tend to think that their primary motivations are worry and uncertainty, and that crapping on Obama for its own sake are secondary at best. YMMV, but given that the vast majority of discussion in these are sorts of threads are varyingly-hostile takes on whether some specific compromise was the best course of action as opposed to whether it took place, I’d hope that regardless of whatever particular paintjob we want to put on the way we’re going around expressing our concerns, the idea that a lot of people were honestly terrified that some kind of deal was going to get cut that made very significant concessions toward the Ryan approach to next year’s budget and not just trolling is something people can grant.
And anyway, we’re still just a few hours away from the speech, which again was very good! But it’s going to be awhile before we know what happens. We aren’t outta the woods yet. I don’t know you or your personal take on this stuff very well, but I would think at least a few of the regulars here would be pretty stoked to see some of the lefty boogiemen they’re always trying to slay giving the President credit for a good speech. That we allegedly never do so under any circumstances is one of the most-often repeated complaints I see here.
I’m not aware of any factual disagreement with the idea that we still have to see the Congressional and Presidential follow-through. Fair enough right?
Just Some Fuckhead
@FlipYrWhig: Sorry Flip, I just don’t have any capacity to understand the Obama protection racket.
dogwood
@cleek:
I think you’re responding to someone else. I didn’t say a thing about Social Security. But you make a good point.
LGRooney
Okay, I’ll bite.
Hot Kale Salad (serves 3-4 as a side or 2 as a prime)
Slice two cloves of garlic very thinly and mince a third. Throw them into a 4 qt. pot with just enough olive oil to coat the bottom of the pan on medium heat for 2 min.
Toss in 4-5 handfuls of chopped up, still dripping kale and stir for about 2 minutes. Cover after mixing well and let cook for another two minutes.
Throw in 2.5 tsp. of toasted pine nuts and 3 tsp. raisins. Stir all together and add 2 tsp. of balsamic vinegar. Stir. Cover for 3 minutes.
Remove from heat and distribute to plates or bowls. Sprinkle a little fresh shaved parmesan on top of each serving and serve.
johnny walker
@joe from Lowell: #228 would go to address your point as well, sir. Couldn’t get the edit in.
soonergrunt
@Corner Stone: He was never at the top of my rec list.
You know, sometimes, people just don’t like reading somebody who writes like an asshole for the purpose of writing like an asshole, and they don’t realize that they guy is a professional asshole until they read something ‘assholish’ for lack of a better word about something the reader actually knows something about.
There’s not much of a functional difference between Greenwald writing about warfare or military justice and getting most of it wrong but being a dick because he thinks he’s got the corner on a bigger moral of some type and some winger like a right-to-lifer getting all of the medical facts wrong but absolutely certain because he thinks he’s got the corner on a bigger moral of some type.
And as long as that kind of behavior gets a pass, you get people like Uncle Clarence over there shitting on the carpet and grinning at his own coolness like he does on a daily basis here.
dogwood
@Just Some Fuckhead:
That’s funny, neither does Michelle (he’s running a gangsta government) Bachmann.
FlipYrWhig
@johnny walker:
I think some people have a well-rehearsed hysteria _act_.
I don’t know what will actually happen in terms of policy. It’ll probably involve lots of compromising and frustration that make nobody happy.
And some of us will say, “Well, that’s too bad, but it’s probably something close to the best that could be made of the situation,” and others of us will say, “Well, that sucks, and I’m not going to pretend that I’m satisfied.”
Then we’ll have another fight about whether we should be assessing what happens under Obama with respect to what we’d _like_ to happen or with respect to what seems _possible_.
And then after that we’ll have another fight about why some people are so willing to give up on pushing what’s possible in a better direction.
And then after that someone will post a dog picture.
johnny walker
@Just Some Fuckhead: Haha, I was trying to say “confidence in Obama” or etc. But whatever, the idea POTUS reads the BJ comment section isn’t significantly more magical.
cleek
@dogwood:
oops. that was for JSFH.
FlipYrWhig
@Just Some Fuckhead: I don’t think it’s protecting Obama as much as wanting Obama Deed X to be assessed against other deeds that could have realistically happened, rather than against what the Republic Of Me totally would have done. Which just leads back down the rabbit hole of what “realistically” means, which is why the same fight keeps flaring up.
Just Some Fuckhead
@johnny walker:
Can we take a chance he doesn’t? I don’t know about you but I would be personally mortified if Obama’s 2012 concession speech singled us out at Balloon Juice.
johnny walker
@FlipYrWhig:
And then some other people will post something that they’re pretty sure means the same as the latter set of folks, but they’ll use the wrong language, miscalibrate their sarcastm slightly or etc. to do so and will literally be flayed alive, crucified, and then roasted on a spit and eaten by the first two groups. Scuse me a sec…
ATTENTION: THIS IS A JOKE. I AM ATTEMPTING TO SATIRIZE LEFTY EMONESS, BJ AUTHOTARIANISM AND DEMOCRATIC INFIGHTING SIMULTANEOUSLY. THANK YOU.
Ok, snark aside I hope my point is clear though. Everyone on this board is cracking wise pretty much constantly, and sometimes we end up yelling at each other based almost entirely on saying the same thing with different words. Someone who says “This sucks and I’m not gonna pretend otherwise” and someone who says “This is a fucking sellout, we got rolled” are both expressing displeasure. That’s still the case even if the latter guy tacks on, “Go figure though, President’s a secret Republican.” The main point is still “Fucking compromise deal!” but now there’s a bit where they’re talking “Why was there a compromise deal?” tacked on that kinda confuses the issue. Maybe the difference in language indicates it’s a matter or degree, but it could also mean the latter person does a worse job of responding to fear, or that they’re like me or, to go out on a limb, Cole: bombastic hotheads with anger issues.
Just Some Fuckhead
@cleek: All he needed to say was it’s solvent until 2037 and Republicans only brought it up because they want to take our social security trust fund and give it to their wealthy friends on Wall Street.
But ya know, he didn’t just bring it up to make that point without ever really making that point. He actually mentioned it as one of the four things, along with Medicare, Medicaid and National Security that is killing us.
Mnemosyne
@johnny walker:
I have definitely noticed some similarities between most of the people who are convinced that Obama is going to kill Medicare/Social Security: they’re mostly people in their mid-50s who lost at least half the value of their 401(k)s in the 2008 crash and either got laid off or got very close to it. They have suddenly realized that all of their plans have gone awry and the only thing standing between them and dire poverty is Social Security and Medicare.
I understand the worry. I just don’t understand why they’ve fixated on the idea that Obama is going to kill Medicare and Social Security even though he’s repeatedly said that he won’t rather than fixating on, say, Paul Ryan, even though Ryan is completely upfront about his desire to kill Medicare and Social Security.
You’d think they would blame the people who are actually endangering it, not the guy who’s trying to save it, but I guess that’s not how human nature works.
johnny walker
@Midnight Marauder: Oh I get it! So your point is that based on your personal experiences with someone I don’t know from Adam, you don’t believe that as a few-times-a-month reader of the comment section I wasn’t entirely sure whether or not said person was being snarky.
Uh, riiiiiight. The issue here is that you said I was full of shit based on your familiarity with him. See if you can follow this complicated exchange:
A: I’m not sure, but me and this other guy both think this third guy’s joking
B: I call bullshit on you both.
Why didn’t you just tell me you’ve been drinking?
Jc
Okay, some funny chuckles. But I’m bored now, going in circles. So, more menu posting, that takes less than 15 from beginning prep to done. I’m busy all the damn time, and need more practical quick to fix meals.
Thanks LGRooney!
Jc
People on BJ are bombastic hotheads with anger issues? Huh – who woulda thought?
But are they FUNNY?
If it makes me laugh it’s all good. Hell, if george carlin was a wingnut, I’d probably followed him into wingnuttery, that’s how easy a mark I am…
dogwood
@soonergrunt:
I’m not sure it’s moral superiority so much as a sense of superiority in general. Blogs are full of smug assholes who pose as activists. They behave like assholes because they feel entitled. They are useless in any political movement because they are too self-absorbed.
Joe Beese
@Bob Loblaw:
I certainly don’t think so.
Needless to say, I hold J-Low’s political thinking in as low an esteem as he holds mine. But you never see me making it personal like he does.
Coming across people on the Internet who disagree with me just doesn’t get me that worked up.
dogwood
@Mnemosyne:
I think is might be as simple as this. They don’t like the guy. Never did, never will. They’ve always had one foot in the Rush Ihopehefails Limbaugh camp.
johnny walker
@cleek: As far as the low-info voters go, constantly promising the moon just isn’t working out very well for either party, and the degree to which the unreasonable expectations are increasing the rate at which people are ready to toss anyone who doesn’t provide instant satisfaction appears, anecdotally at least, to be increasing rapidly. Just saw a PPP poll that says indies are *already* ready to go back to Dem control of the House, which I’m sure they’ll then be ready to hand back to the GOP by the time the next Congress is sworn at this rate — incidentally, I think independents are the real group of “Unicorn! Now!” mofos, the more typical application of that stereotype to leftybaggers notwithstanding.
Among the political junkies, how are we supposed to know which ironclad unambiguous statements are the ones we’re supposed to actually hold him to. We can sit around and read Politico 24/7 to try and pin down what’s a bargaining chip and what isn’t, but in the process we’d either go insane or become centrists. (But I repeat myself.) So that’s out. I’m willing to give credit for difficult situations only to the point that I perceive the President as having put up a fight — I get that’s a position that annoys people around here, but the alternative is a situation in which whatever does end up being traded away can always be spun as the part we should’ve known better than to count on, yknow? I’m not just gonna go, “Well, Obama’s a good guy and I trust him. I’m sure he did his best.” I have no idea if Obama is a good guy, and I don’t trust him. He’s a politician. That’d be crazy.
@Mnemosyne:
Seems to me they’re fixated on both. And, you know, there was a really scary couple days there; like I was saying just now, asking people who’re already scared outta their minds and reeling from the shutdown thing to look at a headline that says OBAMA TO PROPOSE CUTS TO MEDICARE AND SOCIAL SECURITY and show a level of sophistication to where they’re gonna process it the way a strategist would is unrealistic. We’re long past the part where there’s a party that disagrees with cutting entitlements; now the conversation is strictly about how, and how much. There’s a reason people are scared.
@soonergrunt: Then why were you wasting time talking about Brazil? Whoa, Deja Vu… no really, “He has no idea what he’s talking about” is about 18 orders of magnitude more potent an argument than “He lives in Brazil,” even when you threw in that hilariously persuasive bit where you said cock in Portueguese. Ha ha, ‘cuz he’s gay! I get it!
@cleek: Right, but what fix is needed and what fix we’ll get aren’t necessarily the same thing.
Joe Beese
That’s easy.
1. Obama has a proven track record of caving on firmly stated positions – i.e. telecom immunity. And twice as long a record of doing so in the face of Republican demands – i.e. the Bush tax cuts.
2. The existence of “Simpson-Bowles” is proof that Obama wants to cut Social Security.
3. Paul Ryan’s plan has no hope of passing the Senate and Obama’s plan does.
soonergrunt
@dogwood: Again, I don’t think there’s a functional difference, but yeah.
Mnemosyne
@Joe Beese:
Too bad Obama got absolutely nothing for “caving” on the Bush tax cuts, like the START treaty, or an extension of unemployment benefits, or the repeal of DADT.
Oh, wait, that’s right — you don’t think the DADT repeal was “real” because it didn’t go into effect at midnight the day it was signed and recruiters didn’t pound down Dan Choi’s door to re-enlist him. I guess we may as well not have passed that law at all.
Are you talking about the “Simpson-Bowles” PowerPoint presentation, or the “Simpson-Bowles” deficit commission report? Contrary to what you seem to think, they are not actually identical.
But, hey, if you want to oppose ideas like single-payer healthcare and raising the cap on Social Security taxes because “Simpson-Bowles” recommended it, you go ahead and shoot yourself in the foot while you scream about the evil Republican plan to force single-payer healthcare on Americans.
Given that Obama’s plan seems to be to strengthen Social Security with tax increases and bring Medicare costs down while improving service, I’m not sure what your problem with that is. Is it because only the Ryan plan will “heighten the contradictions” enough for your liking so you can enjoy watching your fellow Americans suffer for the crime of not listening to your pontifications?
Joe Beese
@Mnemosyne:
He also said a public option would be the best way to go. I say he was lying; you say Congress wouldn’t cooperate. Either way, we don’t have one.
Even if you think Obama is fighting for us and his plan will be neato, what makes you think he’s going to be able to get it through the House of Representatives?
Greenwald is right, as usual: Nice speeches don’t mean shit now.
Uriel
@Bob Loblaw:
Sometimes you find perspective in the oddest places….
Cat Lady
@Uriel:
Once in a while you get shown the light
in the strangest of places if you look at it right
pattonbt
@Just Some Fuckhead: Kind of jumping in here on this comment for no particular reason….
The same could be said for the opposite “I just don’t have any capacity to understand the Obama FAIL racket”.
Anyone who doesn’t have capacity for a little bit from column A and a little bit from column B is pretty much screwed from the get go.
Just Some Fuckhead
@pattonbt:
I don’t understand that either.
Hermione Granger-Weasley
@Freddie: i loved it too. He actually used the words “social compact”.
/she said in a voice hushed with awe
dogwood
@Mnemosyne:
Why argue with people like Joe? I told you earlier – they don’t like the guy. That’s the premise from which everything else flows. It’s really about persona not policy. Notice they spend as much time talking about how he does things as what he does?
The good news for all these disheartened Dems is I think Mitt Romney has a fair to middling chance of becoming president, and he’s got a persona for every constituency and every occasion. To bad he’s a Mormon and you can’t have a beer with him.
Karen
@Joe Beese:
Why did you have to go there? You’re only showing what a true racist you are by throwing that in out of nowhere.
What a fucking PUMA! And you’re a pathetic one, getting your feeble little jollies on Balloon Juice by slamming Obama about everything, even things that have nothing to do with him. Just go to FDL and spare us.
Take your negative energy, your insults, your hatred and shove it up your ass you scumbag.
Karen
@Karen:
The words “What a fucking racist” were Joe Beese’s not mine. I’m sorry it posted wrong.
Corner Stone
@Karen: Jim, Foolish Literalist…is that you?
soonergrunt
@johnny walker: Pinga is a type of Cachaça:
Cachaça
Do try harder next time.