Maybe I’m wrong to be a little freaked out by this, but I am:
Clinton praised the Democratic victory in NY-26 yesterday but added, “I hope Democrats don’t use this as an excuse to do nothing.”
Ryan responds: “My guess is it’s going to sink into paralysis is what’s going to happen. And you know the math. It’s just, I mean, we knew we were putting ourselves out there. You gotta start this. You gotta get out there. You gotta get this thing moving.”
They parted with Clinton telling Ryan that if he ever wanted to talk about it, he should “give me a call.”
I loves me some Big Dog. Maybe all these fuckers start to drink the Village Kool-Aid once they’ve got enough scratch, I don’t know.
Update. Here’s where that great meeting of the minds took place:
Participants in Peter G. Peterson Foundation’s 2nd Annual Fiscal Summit to Include President Bill Clinton, Members of Congress, National Economic Council Director Gene Sperling, Governor Mitch Daniels, National Fiscal Commission Co-Chair Alan Simpson and Member David Cote, New York Times Columnist David Brooks and The Atlantic Business and Economics Editor Megan McArdle.
Omnes Omnibus
He could just be encouraging the boy to keep fucking that chicken.
BTD
Clinton was the Original “Mediscarer.” He is not making any sense.
Baud
Big Dog is a schmoozer. I wouldn’t think anything of it.
kdaug
Classic Clintonian triangulation.
hilts
Clinton gets some love from National Review
nationalreview.com/corner/268140/william-jefferson-clinton-right-daniel-foster
Jade Jordan
Clinton has always been a Republican in Democratic clothes. Repeal Glass Stegall, welfare reform, 3 strikes, bomb Iraq (made the war possible), and so many things that I am getting depressed thinking about it.
opal
I read that using Big Dog’s voice.
Hill Dweller
The as yet solved ‘doc fix’ was borne of the overzealous medicare cuts Clinton singed off on. I’m not sure he is the most credible person on this topic.
PurpleGirl
Although I voted for him twice — I wouldn’t ever vote for a Republican — I was disappointed by the various things he did that were more Republican than Democratic. He continues to triangulate almost everything.
ETA: I see most Democrats as just slightly better than Republicans in standing up for regular working people.
Lavocat
Who’s this Clinton guy and why is he still here? Yeah, keep yappin’, Bill. The Dems are in such great shape, thanks to you.
Tim, Interrupted
Uhhh…gee, Doug, ya think? Duh.
Just Some Fuckhead
I always hated Bill Clinton and now I still hate him.
John O
The Big Dog doesn’t hunt unless he knows he’s going to kill.
For all those quotes tell us, Clinton is just luring Ryan into getting his math and ass kicked. And you can bet your ass Clinton knows he can do it.
eemom
It’s worse than that. I heard him on NPR earlier going full metal false equivalency about how the deficit has become a battle between competing “ideologies” — repubs won’t raise taxes, Dems won’t cut Medicare — and that if both sides don’t move offen them thar competing “ideologies” and start talkin some good old Arkansas SENSE, the deficit is gonna kill us all.
Maybe he’s overdue for a blow job.
Just Some Fuckhead
He’s prolly just trying to score a hummer from cutie Ryan.
geg6
You’re surprised by this, from the guy who signed welfare reform, DADT, and the repeal of Glass Steagle? The guy who invented triangulation? That hired Dick Morris? Really? Seriously?
brendancalling
@Jade Jordan:
what you said.
i got suckered in 1992. never again.
hilts
“In 1993, Clinton groused that the bond market was turning him into an Eisenhower Republican”
h/t All too Human by George Stephanopoulos books.google.com/books?id=JqCRibrEoi4C&pg=PT304&lpg=PT304&dq=%22george+stephanopoulos…
crybaby peepants
@opal:
I…did not…repeal…Medicare…with that woman.
Hill Dweller
Clinton was the best Republican President in recent history.
lawguy
Clinton has always been a bag man for the corportions, he continues to be one. No change at all.
If you really admire him then you do not know what he did as president.
Just Some Fuckhead
@Hill Dweller:
Not if Obama can help it.
John O
It’s impossible in our system to get everything any individual wants. This seems sort of obvious to me.
He gets most of what most of us want. You move the ball forward incrementally because that’s how our Founders designed it.
gex
They’re all on the same team. It’s just that some of them want to throw a bone to the little people and some of them don’t.
jeff
Nobody has said Obama is worse yet? sigh.
gex
@Jade Jordan: DOMA, DADT…
Just Some Fuckhead
@gex:
This. Very rarely we get a reach around.
The Dangerman
As someone not yet 55, I know the math, too; the chances of getting private medical insurance for $6K/year is roughly zero. So, their plan means less medical care and more preventable deaths. Damn, that sounds like a real Death Panel to me.
John O
And he’s on record as regretting most of the stuff mentioned here.
Look, I’m not a Bill Clinton worshipper by any stretch, but I sure did enjoy his time in office all in all.
hilts
Best Bill Clinton interview of all-time
h/t democracynow.org/2000/11/8/democracy_now_exclusive_interview_with_president
Martin
Clinton is right – something must be done. ACA does some of it, but more is needed. Dems can do this in a way that won’t fuck over the public, but they’ll have to fuck over some of their insurance and health care benefactors, or they’ll have to fuck over the rich. Doing nothing is going to be tempting.
Of course Ryan makes things worse, and I’m sure Clinton is clear about that.
martha
@eemom: Wonder if Harold Ford is anywhere handy? They’re quite a team.
moonbat
The fact that Obama has been excoriated every day he’s been in office for not repealing everything that the awesome “Big Dog” did while presidentin’ has enough to sour me on Clinton forever. If this mo-fo had been able to keep it in his pants and hadn’t been so damned worried about his “legacy”, Gore would have won it in a walk off. Instead we were stuck with W. for eight years that I will never get back. gah! Clinton can bite me.
beltane
This really isn’t a surprise, though it certainly is a disappointment. Bill Clinton used to speak approvingly of Bush’s BS as well. Every once and a while I get these reminders as to why I was so utterly opposed to Hillary’s ’08 campaign: I like and admire the Clintons in some ways, but part of me also despises and distrusts them.
Church Lady
I see that McMegan was there. I guess Doug’s invite got lost in the mail.
beltane
@eemom: It sounds like he wants to fill the void left by David Broder. Too bad the entire Beltway elite wasn’t raptured last week.
opal
I don’t hate Bill Clinton.
I just find it interesting that his successor’s occasional flaws have become such a passionate obsession for certain people.
Martin
Are there words in that sentence that only some people can see? Clinton doesn’t speak approvingly of Ryan’s plan, instead he’s saying that if the public is starting to accept that ‘something needs to be done’ that the Dems should put forward a plan to do something.
Medicare is out of money inside of a generation. Something really, truly must be done. Why does everyone here assume that the only thing that can be done is Ryan’s plan?
Just Some Fuckhead
@opal:
I’d say George Bush had more than the occasional flaw.
Hill Dweller
As I was saying on the thread last night, this country will eventually get to universal health care, and possibly even single payer, but it’s going to be after wasting trillions of dollars and thousands of premature deaths.
An industrialized health care system never has and never will work. The rest of the advanced nations on the planet have figured that out, but we’re slow to the punch because corporate America owns the government.
Lev
@beltane: I still have nightmares about Clinton’s speech when his library opened. “Am I the only one who likes both George W. Bush and John Kerry?”
Yes you are. Eh, I don’t think he’s a bad guy, and I’m glad he was president and was able to put Ginsburg and Breyer on the Court. Any presidency is a mixed bag, even FDR’s. You can talk about Lewinsky all you like, but to me his biggest miscalculation was thinking Al Gore was smooth enough to win the presidency.
moonbat
@Martin: Because something has already been done. It was called ACA and it brings or starts to bring costs under control. Buying into the whole “something must be done” narrative is exactly what the Republicans want because it implies that nothing has been done yet, therefore ACA can go by the wayside and awesome destroy Medicare Ryan plan can go forward.
fasteddie9318
@moonbat:
Bwaaaaa, I mean Clinton can fuck off, but Clinton’s approval ratings were between 55% and 65% all that year leading up to the election. It was Gore and Droopy Dog who decided to play moral scolds and ostracize Clinton from the campaign, one of only about a thousand things they utterly fucked up. People who make excuses for why that race was close enough to let the Supreme Court decide it often forget that Gore ran a fantabulously horrific campaign, brutally stupid in oh so many ways. He got sandbagged by the press for sure, but he also sat there and took it.
gex
@Just Some Fuckhead: And I think a lot of the bone-throwing talk is just for show from the “good” guys.
fasteddie9318
I see Yukster Troll is here to yuk it up with us.
opal
@Just Some Fuckhead:
Democratic successor. Inheritor. Follow-up.
You know what I mean.
beltane
Now I am having major flashbacks to Bill Clinton’s deplorable, hateful behavior during the 2008 campaign. Do we need to resurrect the old “I can no longer discuss the Clinton campaign rationally” tag?
I don’t know how Obama does it. If I were him I think I’d snap and give in to the urge to shout “F**k You!” and “F@@k you” and “F**k you, too” to all these assholes on both sides of the aisles.
Just Some Fuckhead
@gex:
Me too, but even if it was well-intentioned, the Steely-eyed Realists would never let us have anything nice.
moonbat
@fasteddie9318: He also got zero support from his former boss because they were all about setting Hillary up for a run in 2004. The Clintons have always been about the Clintons, the rest of the country can just go begging.
fasteddie9318
@Martin:
Because they’ve already done something about Medicare. It’s called the Affordable Care Act.
Just Some Fuckhead
@opal: Yes, but I wanted to make you work a little harder to get yer resentment on.
fasteddie9318
@moonbat:
Source?
If they were setting that up, Hillary sure picked a strange way of following through on it.
Martin
@moonbat:
It starts to bring costs under control. ACA kicks the problem down the road a few years. That’s about it. It buys time for more work to be done, but if it buys us 3 years and it takes 5 to come up with the next fix, then we’re losing. More needs to be done right now.
I don’t think Dems would lose by pushing up the payroll cap. There’s a lot they can do to eek out another $500B and kick that yet more years down the road while they work on the next fix. But Ryan has created an opportunity here by creating a sense of urgency. If the Dems find ways to stabilize Medicare, it’s going to be hard for the GOP to say that it doesn’t need to be stabilized.
opal
@Just Some Fuckhead:
Fair enough.
moonbat
@fasteddie9318: 9/11 changed the whole electoral dynamic, remember?
fasteddie9318
@moonbat: Right, so much so that by 2004 Bush was a single state away from losing to a complete zero in a giant condom suit. No chance Hillary could have won that race.
moonbat
@Martin: And what do you think the chances are that the Dems can get a further fix out of Congress with the numbers in the House as they are now? We’ll be playing defense until, god willing, we take back the House. ANYTHING the Dems want is poison to the Republicans now, sense of urgency not withstanding.
Lev
@moonbat: I’m not so sure I buy it. Clinton wanted Gore in the White House, and didn’t set him up to lose. Much as it pains me to say it, I really think Gore made a huge mistake running a populist campaign in 2000. The economy was great, people were happy, and here comes Gore stirring shit up? He had no feel for it either, he’s not that kind of politician. He should have found a way to make the stiff, slightly boring but funny and endearing nerd thing work for him. From what I can tell, the Gore campaign was terrified of doing that.
moonbat
@fasteddie9318: Hillary wanted a sure thing. She thought she had it in 2008. With two wars in the offing, no one without a military background had a prayer in 2004 and even with it, you see what happened to Kerry.
fasteddie9318
@moonbat: You should ghost-write for Mark Halperin. This is all fascinating psychoanalysis.
James E. Powell
I’m not a huge fan of Bill Clinton, so I have no reason to jump to his defense. But I didn’t hear what most of you heard. All I heard and saw was a politician being political. And professional.
What did you expect? A sack dance? In your face Ryan?
That isn’t the way people in the upper echelons of power behave toward each other, especially in a public or almost public setting. They all behave as if the other person is reasonable, but simply disagrees. It’s, “we all want the same things, we just have differences in the means.”
This is especially true of Clinton, who is and behaves like an elder statesman. This is Peyton Manning talking to a young QB after the youngster threw three INTs and cost his team the game.
Martin
@moonbat:
Oh, pretty good. It’s a budget. Budget has to get passed. Can’t filibuster it, so we’re good in the Senate and WH. Dems can do it if they sell it to the public. They need to try. Plus, it’s campaign season – so even if they only get a bit of it, it’s still an issue they can campaign on.
moonbat
@Lev: The eternal tragedy of it though was that he was right. What this country need for the next 20 years is a big does of middle class populism. Gore’s whole “lock box” line on Social Security funds which he was absolutely lambasted for looks sort of prescient now after Bush raided SS like a piggy bank to pay for everything he didn’t want to raise taxes for.
moonbat
@Martin: Wow. I hope this reasonable budget process you foresee pans out. Last I read, the House GOP was threatening to blow up the whole economy if they did get to gut Medicare and receive a new puppy.
hilts
@Lev:
@fasteddie9318
Gore made his share of mistakes in the 2000 race, but I think it’s undeniable that the Washington Press Corps piled up on him in a truly disgusting manner and in several cases flat out lied in their coverage of him. On the other hand, George W. Bush was basically given a free pass by the Washington Press Corps.
moonbat
@James E. Powell: He may no longer hold the reins of power, but I think that anyone who has held the highest office in the land has to be cognizant of the incredible amount of suffering that would result if Mr. Ryan’s plan came to pass. Being chummy with those in the higher echelons doesn’t excuse giving a pass to that sort of callousness.
Doug Harlan J
@Church Lady:
Ha!
Martin
@moonbat:
Well, sure. That’s what they do. But at the end of the day they’re going to have to get a budget past the Senate and with Obama’s signature on it. I’m not sure that after the last shutdown threat, the debt ceiling threat, and the next shutdown threat that the public is going to give a fuck what the GOP wants. There’s only so many times you can go to that well.
hilts
@Doug Harlan J:
Which is worst, being a Ryanist, being a Mayan, or being a NY Mets fan?
moonbat
@Martin: Indeed, I am pinning my hopes on Obama’s vaunted poker playing skills. Still there is a difference between getting something halfway reasonable out of those lunatics and getting a progressive budget out of them. Remember, they think any win for the country is a loss for them because if the whole world isn’t in the crapper come 2012 they are toast in the general election.
moonbat
Dang, I am being moderated. And I thought I was playing nice.
angler
Which is worth more, Clinton’s robocall for Hochul in which the first thing he said is that she will “protect Medicaid,” or making nice with Ryan?
for the call
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Bubba loves to be loved, whether it’s Monica, Newtie going weak in the knees, George Senior and Battleaxe Bar having him to the seaside for lunch, the Beltway press hanging on his every word, or Randian Wunderkind Ryan paying court in order to be spellbound.
When the rubber meets the road, he’ll most likely be a powerful voice against any assaults on the safety net, but I’m guessing a columnular pat on the head from Joe Klein or David Brooks (now that Broder lies a’mouldering in his grave) about how “Bill Clinton has taken Very Serious tone in approaching a bipartisan solution to our Very Serious entitlement woes….”” does more to stiffen Little Willie than any of those drugs the names of which would put me into moderation limbo. And if they said something about how Obama could learn from his example, Hillary would have to call the doctor after four days, much less four hours.
Emma
People, chill the effin’eff out. Clinton is a good ol’ southern boy. Schmoozing is second nature, and it don’t mean squat. AND he’s been mostly willing to get his arse out to help Democratic candidates when he’s been asked.
Al Gore’s big mistake was spelled L-I-E-B-E-R-M-A-N. He could have made use of the most popular Democrat walking around on two legs and instead he chose to play the moral card. Decency, policy wonkism, and $4.50 buys you a grande latte with cinnamon and chocolate sprinkles in American politics. Add to that the unremitting hatred of the Beltway Babies for someone several degrees of magnitude more intelligent than they were, a little Miss O’Connor hyperventilating, and Gore was toast.
A Humble Lurker
@Omnes Omnibus:
That’s what I thought too.
Jesse Ewiak
Yeah, I think people are overthinking this. Yes, we would all kick Ryan in the balls. Clinton doesn’t have that ability. So, he plays nice and if Ryan is really stupid, he even believes him.
Just Some Fuckhead
Why couldn’t he just tell Ryan he was dead wrong and better people than him fought and died for the shit he takes for granted and his elders deserve better? Clinton is like a hundred years old and Ryan is still wet behind the ears. He coulda unloaded on the little fuck and given our side something to rally around.
Why does our side always do this gladhanding, I’ll suck yer dick if you suck my dick bullshit when there’s real live hideous fucking consequences at stake?
Will
Nope, not wrong to be freaked out by that at all. I don’t know who Big Dog thinks he’s helping there…
Just Some Fuckhead
@Martin:
You need to get yer talking points straight, bitch. Only a few months ago you were telling us ACA was the most amazing thing the western world had ever seen, trumpeting it as some master stroke of technocratic genius, now yer telling us it’s a bandaid that’s already coming off.
eemom
the other thing is, the dude just loves to hear himself talk.
Just Some Fuckhead
Republicans: The Sky is Falling!
Democrats: *dismissive* No it isn’t.
Republicans: The Sky is Falling!
Democrats: *looking up* I don’t see it.
Republicans: The Sky is Falling!
Democrats: *checks science book* Is that even possible?
Republicans: The Sky is Falling!
Democrats: *feels raindrop* Oh my fucking god, the sky is falling, we gotta do something!
handy
@Just Some Fuckhead:
And the “elder statesman” defense rings hollow. Case in point all the former Bushies trashing Obama on Gitmo while patting themselves on the back for OBL.
There’s no blowback someone like a Cheney (or McCain for that matter) faces when playing attack dog. No, he just gets more microphones stuck in his face.
Just Some Fuckhead
@handy:
Clinton sure as fuck didn’t mind going attack dog on Obama for Hillary.
hitchhiker
@Emma:
Thank you.
If Ryan left that conversation thinking the Big Dog is his new bff, he’s an idiot. (Okay, we know he’s an idiot already, but that would be extra proof.)
We also know that Clinton outsmarted the Republicans after they had DNA evidence that he’d gotten his rocks off with someone not his wife right inside the west wing. He made them look like the fools they mostly are, then gained seats in the next midterm election, and then left office with an approval rating higher than Reagan’s.
Think about that.
The guy is neither stupid nor worthless nor a racist. He’s a complicated being like the rest of us, but he is NOT on the side of Republicans.
Jenny
I wonder how Clinton die-hards like Krugman feel about this?
handy
@Just Some Fuckhead:
The ’08 Primaries. Good times! When battle lines were drawn over whose centrist corporatist candidate would reign supreme.
One thing I know: Hillary sure as hell never promised me any damned ponies.
Jenny
@handy: John Edwards was the only True Progressive™
Just Some Fuckhead
@handy:
At least one of them was smart enough to pretend to be otherwise.
Anya
I am not a Clinton die hard, or even a fan. But i think ya’ll are ascribing more meaning to “call me” than it really deserves. I read it as an offering of meaningless pleasantries.
Dollared
@moonbat: Yes, and the blowjob really, really did kill Gore. In a world of .1% differentials, Clinton lost every middle American grandma, all at once. That’s a lot more lost votes than there were Nader voters.
The one and only time my mother ever voted for a Republican.
Hill Dweller
Clinton also said the US defaulting on its debt wouldn’t be catastrophic if temporary.
That is come crazy talk, evidenced by his people trying to walk it back after the fact.
Dollared
@Just Some Fuckhead: You choose: 1) for the same reason that German senior officers and British senior officers treated each other like fellow gentlemen in WW1, while they shelled, machine gunned and gassed millions of each others’ enlisted men, or 2) cause Pete Pete gave a few million to Bill’s Foundation.
Dollared
@Omnes Omnibus: Pitch perfect. I definitely would like to hear the Big Dog do his Foghorn Leghorn impression. “Now Sunnnnn, don’t you give up now on that Medicare voucher plan! You get back in there and call all them elderly ladies welfare bums! Get on national TV and do it alllll over agin! Ah’lll be rahhht behindjuuu!”
Ija
@Jenny:
Eh. Being for the wife does not automatically means he’s for the husband’s policies. Hillary and Bill are two different people.
James E. Powell
@Dollared:
Totally agree with you at 92 (I choose both) and 93.
AxelFoley
@Omnes Omnibus:
That’s the only positive on this I can come up with.
TuiMel
@moonbat:
Be careful what you wish for.
Bill Murray
@Lev:
\
well, except that Gore’s poll numbers did not start going up until he started going populist. i doubt he even gets close enough for the Rs to steal the election, without his populism
businessweek.com/2000/00_36/b3697054.htm
nytimes.com/2000/09/09/us/2000-campaign-democratic-candidacy-populist-pitch-helps-gore-woo-back-his-…
AxelFoley
@beltane:
Coming To America quote FTW!
Sly
Anyone who thinks, like Bill Clinton, that we’re currently facing a structural unemployment crisis rather than a cyclical unemployment crisis probably shouldn’t be taken seriously on most serious subjects. The ratio of unemployed to the number of job openings has always been high since the crisis began, so the notion that there is simply a skills mismatch (people just aren’t properly trained for all those new, wonderful job openings popping up) is simply dumb.
The problem is that people stopped buying as much shit as they used to buy, initially because of a massive credit squeeze. When people stop buying shit, companies that make shit start making less shit because, otherwise, they start losing money. Making less shit entails firing people, which translates into less people buying shit, and so the companies that make shit have to fire even more people. This “cycle of unemployment” is called… wait for it… cyclical unemployment. Not exactly rocket science.
Personally, though I never though Bill Clinton was dumb, I doubt the man has a thought in his head vis-a-vis fiscal policy that wasn’t put there by Bob Rubin. Who isn’t so much dumb, but is operating under an agenda that isn’t exactly utilitarian in scope.
Bobby Thomson
@moonbat:
Well put.
I have nothing to add, other than that Bubba stays bought.
Danny
@hilts:
/warning, rant ahead
I just want to give those two smug holier than thou *ssholes a big, fat kick in their f-cking teeth. There they are, two days before the election that was to give us eight years of George W Bush. And these clueless DFHs are carrying water for Ralph Nader and attacking the democratic president for 40 freaking minutes.
Can you f-cking choose your f-cking battles you clueless f-ckheads??
Because of idiots like you we got Iraq, we got torture, we got tax cuts for the ritch, we got the worst f-king recession since the 30s, we got cronyism and mayberry machiavellies and we got a bumbling f-cking moron in the white house for eight long years. We’re still trying to get out of that ditch. F-ck em. Get out of my party.
Just Some Fuckhead
@Danny: Lemme see if I got this straight, Danny. You wanna kick people out of your party that belong to the Green party?
You may wanna revisit your logic when you sober up.
Danny
@Just Some Fuckhead:
/rebuttal by means of more ranting
Correction: I wanna kick them out of the country; I wanna kick them into a ditch; I wanna “kick” some hot lead into their bodies; ….and I wanna kick them out of a space shuttle.
Sober enough yet?
Just Some Fuckhead
@Danny: Alright, let’s see if we can break this down a little bit more..
You don’t need the people you need?
Danny
@Just Some Fuckhead:
People that are so freaking deluded on strategy and what’s in the best interest of any progressive (moderate, conservative or full out old school stalinist) that they – in the last bleeding days before the 2000 election – think it’s clever to walk through a 50 minute laundry list of petty complaints against the sitting president of the progressive party explicitly calling in to get out the vote for Al Gore – such people are of no use to the progressive movement, or to the interests of any left leaning american.
It’s the same old deluded New Left b-llshit: the louder I complain at my leaders – at the absolutely worst occasions – the more Rad and hardcore does it make me. It’s a f-cking cancer, brought into this movement by college kids that didnt want to go die in a jungle in 1968. It’s stupid. It’s shooting ourselves in the foot over and over – The election of George W Bush in 2000 by a couple of thousand Nader votes is the perfect example. These two f-ckheads so obviously proud of sticking a laundry list of faux outrage that noone cares a sh-t about today to the president, while at the same time reporting on the very presidential election they helped loose for progressives being too close to call is the perfect example.
Those people are of no use calling themselves democrats and progressives. They need to be marginalized and shamed and kicked out.
I’m perfectly fine with people sticking up for principles and advocating them; keeping our own leaders honest and all that. But if you can’t f-cking choose your battles and first and foremost stick it to the Great Satan instead of the little devil you know and especially on the eve of the election that brought us Dubya, then GTFO.
Just Some Fuckhead
@Danny:
Great, if you don’t need them then why are you complaining in the first place?
Danny
@Just Some Fuckhead:
Look buddy, let me tell you a little story about life in a country where your opinions are marginalized.
You may look over the fence at the other side and see obvious loons hell bent on taking the country down the wrong path, and seeing them getting to go on tv ranting and being unreasonable and the village sucking up to them. You may hear them calling you a pinko liberal traitor. Maybe you know that even the guy that’s on your side will pay lip service to their lunacy, because he would be shouted down otherwise.
And knowing all that you may start feeling unloved, beaten down and that your b-lls and self respect is robbed from you. No one gives a shit about your opinions, but they’re out there sucking up to some clowns in 18th century clothes.
Why do they get away with it – why can’t I?
But then the brilliant idea dawns on you. There are people that care about what I think! My own team! I’m important to them! Because if I start fucking shit up for them they cant win.
That’s the shortcut out of marginalization. I’ll hold my movement hostage. I’ll bitch and complain about every little trivial complaint I have at the worst possible time. They have to take me seriously, even if I couldn’t get the country to take me seriously, because they need me.
So what if we lose? So what if the end result of my counterproductive behavior is that we all lose? So what if we’ve been losing again and again since 1968 until 1992 and kept losing some more after that, just because of people like me pulling stupid shit like this.
I’m still important within the movement, because I can hold the movement hostage. I don’t have to be as hurt and feel as small and powerless, because I had the power to do something: make us lose.
I prefer winning.
Just Some Fuckhead
@Danny: I appreciate you putting so many words into this but I still think yer underlying logic is inconsistent.
At any rate, it’s not the voters’ responsibility to offer up their vote unconditionally, it’s up to candidates to win that vote. If you can’t do that, you only have yourself to blame.
Danny
@Just Some Fuckhead:
Are you trolling me? “No because you’re wrong”?
I wasn’t talking about “voters”; I was talking about thought leaders actively pitching Nader on the eve of the 2000 election. And activists working for e.g. Nader and against the democratic party.
Voters have the prerogative to vote for whomever they choose. If they’re wise they’ll vote for a candidate that can win. It’s in their own best interest. Nader voters share just as much of the blame for putting Dubya in the White House as the guys who voted for him.
But what’s imperative is for the mainstream progressive movement to come down hard on all fifth-columners e.g. naderists, FDL, etc, before they do more damage.
That’s exactly what Bill Buckley did to the John Birch society and others, when he helped turn the conservative movement into a lean winning machine and they’ve been wielding power ever since.
So: I don’t care about your hurt feelings for voting Nader in 2000 or whatever this is about. If you know what’s good for you in the long run you’ll get with the program. If your hurt b-lls are of superior importance by all means carry on.
sloan
So far this is all off the record talk from Clinton. Until he actually comes out swinging in favor of the Ryan plan I’d think he was just playing this kid. Sounds like Bill is flattering Paul Ryan and letting him believe he’s smart and important.
“Let’s jump off a cliff, Paul … you first!”
The Raven
Doug, Bill Clinton was a conservative Democrat. Hilary, I think, is actually the liberal of the two, because of her feminism, and she is not very liberal.
But then, you hominids are usually surprised by what the candidate was saying all along.
Croak!
Just Some Fuckhead
@Danny: I didn’t vote for Nader in 2000, clown. I voted for Gore, twice.
And yer still fundamentally inconsistent.
Just Some Fuckhead
@The Raven:
lolwut?
Most of the Balloon-Juice community are former Republicans so Hillary is damned near a Socia1ist.
Danny
@Just Some Fuckhead:
You’re a transsexual turnip. You got something of substance to add, or just having fun watching me putting a lot of effort into this, not bothering yourself?
Just Some Fuckhead
@Danny: There’s no reason for you to be putting out all this effort. You’re building a beautiful expensive mansion on an unstable foundation. Your basic premise is at fault.
I’m not a turnip, but some of my liberal friends on Balloon Juice are so I don’t find it especially productive to be using this as a disparagement, especially coming from a person who claims to be all about building a winning coalition.
Danny
@Just Some Fuckhead:
What I’m talking about, once again, is about petty warlords holding the coalition hostage to massage their own egos – to the detriment of the coalitions ability to actually win something and effect real change.
You haven’t addressed any of that. If you ever feel like doing so – let me know.
Just Some Fuckhead
@Danny:
We got real change with Clinton – the party went hard right. Some people decided that was change they didn’t want so they voted for someone else. This isn’t rocket science. If you want to build a coalition, don’t do shit that pisses a bunch of people off.
Danny
@Just Some Fuckhead:
Did you listen to the interview? Any of the Democracy Now folks complaints still make a difference to you?
It wasn’t like they were making him account for “The Era of Big Government is over” while that was relevant.
There’s a right way to hold “our” politicians accountable. Getting people to vote for Nader and electing George W Bush is very poor payback because it’s not Clinton that suffers – it’s us. All of us. For eight years.
There was a time when we got stuff done. That was the FDR, JFK, HT and LBJ years. Incidentally that was also before the New Left sank their teeth into the party and started pulling the stupid “nominate McGovern or we’re out the door” shit that your sentiments are a continuation of up to this very day.
This is a two party system we’re living in. There’s two choices. You chose the slightly better one or else suffer the consequences.
Just Some Fuckhead
@Danny: If it was a two party system, Nader wouldn’t have been on the ballot.
The truth is you want it to be a two party system so you can hold people hostage. It ain’t gonna happen so you’d better find another way. If you simply want the Democratic party to be the New Sane Republican Party (like most here) then yer prolly gonna run into some problems. I know it isn’t fair to you Steely-eyed Realists who know How Things Really Work and Why Everyone Else Is Always To Blame For Your Troubles but, as my old boss used to say, it is what it is.
Danny
@Just Some Fuckhead:
It’s a two party system if you wan’t to actually win elections and see your objectives made reality. Look at the record when your guys get to run the show:
– The Yippies at the Dem convention in ’68 handed the election to Nixon. Lovely things followed.
– The New Left got McGovern in 72 – we lost in a landslide and got our agenda discredited.
– Teddy’s primary challenge in ’80, he only managed to hurt Carter. Reagan won and the era of Movement Conservatism got started.
– Arguably Mondale and Dukakis suffered by being associated with all the New Left silliness that preceded them. Suddenly a “card carrying member of the ACLU” was something to be ashamed of. You can thank proposing to elect a pig president and bombing the pentagon to end the war in vietnam for that.
– Then when Clinton made democrats in the White House credible again – yes, by pivoting to the right on some issues – the remnants of the New Left were right there again, carrying water for Nader and getting George W Bush elected.
What is their track record? Presiding over the longest era of progressive decline in our history. And all through it the’ve been carping the same old refrain: “do exactly as we please at every time, we are the Tru Libruls”.
Just Some Fuckhead
@Danny:
Yes, you want it to be a two party system. Yes, you want to win elections so you can see your objectives made reality.
Other people may not want a binary choice between Republicans and Almost-Republicans. Other people may not agree with objectives that continue to further a rightist agenda. That’s the system we actually live in. We operate in the system we have, not the system we wished we had.
I think we could have a reasonable discussion about the best way these folks could advance their agenda but telling them they have to continually move right for thirty years so that they can one day move left is just absurd.
Danny
@Just Some Fuckhead:
No-one’s saying that. In fact what I was saying was that the maximalist position from the New Left was exactly what pushed the mainstream to the right for 30 years. You didnt address that.
What I’m also saying is look at the guys that’s been successful in setting the agenda since the 60s. That’s the conservative movement. Do they pull silly shit like Nader?
No. Talking about third party challenges is grounds for being banned over at RedState.com.
You’re continually chosing to ignore the point I’m making over and over again that what I’m against is doing counterproductive things that ends up hurting that very agenda you claim to care about. And you’re offering no alternative, except claiming the god given right to shoot yourself in the foot.
I’m not arguing that you shouldn’t have that right. I’m saying it’s stupid to actually go ahead and do it.
A clever way to achieve those ends would be:
– Build up an infrastructure to equal the one that conservatives have been working on since the days of Goldwater.
– Push progressive ideals directly to the american people.
– Work on constitutional reform to enable a true multi-party system where you can – without making the guy you like the least win – vote for a party that actually is fairly close to your opinions even if you’re at the moment in a 5% segment of the population.
But that’s not what you want; You want people to stage a symbolical protest by excercizing their right to have George W Bush elected president by voting Nader.
Just Some Fuckhead
@Danny:
I’m not ignoring what you think is your point. I’m simply telling you that some people, being people, will generally respond to “Walk right or run right” with “Why do we have to go that way at all”?
I already acknowledged it isn’t fair to you. My advice to you folks is to move a little further right, drop the pro-choice thing and enjoy your new supermajority. In the meantime, people on the Left will still be agitating for the things they want and voting for the candidates that propose them.
Danny
@Just Some Fuckhead:
Strawman much? I haven’t said walk right or run right. And that’s not what’s happened either. In fact the legislation actually signed by the Obama administration so far is the most stark shift to the left since the LBJ administration. I support that. I support “run left when we can, if we can’t – walk left”.
What do you support?
Who are “you folks”? Where are you in all of this?
Danny
JSFH:
And just to be clear, I’m not talking about voters being pissed at Clinton going too far right on some issues. I’m talking – once again – about people with a platform – like democracy now – encouraging them to waste their vote and be even more pissed.
There’s nothing that stops anyone from speaking up loudly for exactly the policies they think are the best ones, and be vocal that nothing less will be really satisfactory. Or taking that case to the american people. But while you do that you can choose to attack your enemy, or to attack your ally that you don’t think has performed to satisfaction. Doing the latter is stupid.
It’s this constant focus on “betrayal” – and making it personal instead of focusing on the prize – within the progressive movement that’s counterproductive. There’s no universal law of human psychology that mandates that. Social conservatives have lost for many years on issues like gay marriage, civil rights, and womens lib. Didn’t stop them from working their ass off getting republicans elected only because the republicans were an itsy-bitsy inch closer to them.
These defections that we deal with all the time are all about us allowing them to happen, there’s no necessity there at all.
Just Some Fuckhead
@Danny:
Maybe it isn’t RIGHT to you but it sure as hell is to them. Do you see that? Can we agree on that?
Just Some Fuckhead
@Danny:
I’m failing to see the difference between voters agitating for what they want and groups of voters agitating for what they want.
Danny
@Just Some Fuckhead:
Perhaps, but if an actor like Jane Hamsher was publically ostracized by the movement for pushing those lines less people would think that. People are open to being influenced. Can we agree on that?
Danny
It’s about a movement tacitly approving actors within the movement to influence other people within the movement into doing things that hurts the movement. Following?
Just Some Fuckhead
@Danny:
The movement you keep talking about is the New Democrat (Sane Republican) movement. There are people on the left that are not a part of this movement.
Just Some Fuckhead
@Danny:
Yes, I am sure we can come up with a list of folks that aren’t idealogically pure enough to consider themselves leftists. This doesn’t change anything.
Danny
@Just Some Fuckhead:
No I’m not. You’re ignoring everything I wrote about the New Left and the track record of the New Left, and about the move back left that started with Clinton (very modestly) and continues (not so modestly) with Obama.
You’re free to disagree, but since you offer no alternative view of our recent history you’re not very credible (yet).
You haven’t even staked out your own position in all of this.
Saying that “people feel like the Dems are republican light so therefore it’s wrong to try to convince them that Dems arent republican light” is circular reasoning at it’s very finest.
Danny
@Just Some Fuckhead:
The major problem with Hamsher isn’t (only) that she’s counterproductive. The major problem is that her community is based on peddling flat out lies.
Just Some Fuckhead
@Danny:
I’m not ignoring it, I simply don’t agree with it. The recent healthcare bill, as an example, was the brainchild of Republicans and the health insurance lobby as an alternative to the liberal (not!) HillaryCare. Whee, twenty years after Republicans thunked it up, we passed it. This isn’t movement towards the left, it’s movement further right.
Again, this does nothing to advance your argument that people on the left with strong convictions about important policies and candidates available who champion those policies should vote for your preferred candidate because you think some other one is even worse.
If you wanna get yer two minute FDL hate on, feel free: I’ve got other stuff to do.
Danny
@Just Some Fuckhead:
These are stock FDL complaints. They’re not true. Democrats are overselling Obamacare as “moderately republican” to defuse the accusations of “socialism” and “radical change”, weak minds fail to see that.
Fact is PPACA pays for expanding single payer through Medicaid and subsidizing HCI for people who have none today by taxing the rich. It helps 30 million people. Sure it’s not single payer, it doesn’t include a public option, but it helps poor and working people by taking money from rich people.
That’s a step to the left as compared to what we have today (those very same people get NO help). It may not be as big a step to the left as you’d like, but if you’re gonna argue that you’re gonna be moving goalposts.
It refutes your implication that I was persecuting poor ole Jane only for not being Kosher enough in my view. Peddling lies to people who doesn’t know better is not the only way to stick up for your “strong convictions”. In case you didn’t know I hang out at FDL too, I know what I’m talking about.
I’m sorry for you if you’ve been sold on the snake oil of “moving overton windows” without a credible game plan to do so; If you ponied up a 1000 bucks to get your Gosprey Circle badge while lining Jane’s pockets (and perhaps your own) – I’m sorry for you.
Fact is, Jane’s not doing anything different than what DFHs have peddled ever since their heyday: some dope for the dopeheads for their own benefits. All the rest of us looses out in the long run though.
If you’re interested I’ll be happy to provide you with numerous examples on how the FDL gravy train is based on outright lying and just general cluelessness.
I always want to get my FDL hate on. You’re free to go do whatever, you started this exchange, not me.
Danny
Ah well my response got stuck awaiting moderation for some reason…
Just Some Fuckhead
@Danny:
Aw, darn.
Danny
@Just Some Fuckhead:
It might change your life, but as alway: it’s your own choice if you wanna stick around and be enlightened.
Danny
I only called you a horsefucking childkiller so I can’t see what that’s all about?
Just Some Fuckhead
@Danny:
Here’s yer argument in a nutshell:
“Vote for us or die, sucks to be you.”
I get that, I really do. I’m simply telling you other people may not and that doesn’t mean there’s something wrong with them.
Danny
@Just Some Fuckhead:
Yer just trolling are you? Wait for my post, it’ll be good I promise.
Just Some Fuckhead
@Danny:
What is yer obsession with trolling? I responded to your stupid initial rant. We went back and forth for a long time. Stop questioning my motives and thank me for being in a slumming mood.
Danny
Well in that case, this
Is not “my argument in a nutshell”, since
a) I’m != The democratic party
b) I wrote a whole lot of stuff that you’re just ignoring.
I think you got stuck on “snark”. I’m being serious; sue me.