[A friend posted this on my Facebook wall. I tracked down the author and asked her if I could post it. She said yes. Enjoy. -ABLxx ]
********************
Over the years, I’ve been called a liberal as if it’s an insult. I’ve also been called a libtard, a Dumbocrat, a hippie, a socialist, a tree-hugger, a bleeding heart, a gay-lover, etc. And I’ve embraced each one. All these were directed at me from people on the right.
Now I find out that I’m an Obamabot. That’s someone who defends the current President of the United States, OUR president of OUR country. But this time, it comes from the left.
I embrace that word, too. But let’s examine what this “mean-spirited” insult actually means.
An Obamabot is someone who may disagree with some of the decisions our president has made, but at the same time, knows and understands why they were made. And we support him for them.
An Obamabot is someone who remembers how the president extended the Bush tax cuts to protect the unemployed from the GOP. Look it up.
An Obamabot remembers the hysteria from the left in April over the rumors that the president would defund Planned Parenthood as the GOP was demanding before they’d agree to stopping a government shutdown. An Obambot remembers those two words the president said to Boehner that finally put the issue to rest as Boehner demanded funds to Planned Parenthood cease: “Nope. Zero.” And Boehner was forced to back down. Look it up.
An Obamabot is perfectly aware of the president’s very long list of achievements and lauds him for them. And damn if we’re aren’t proud to say he’s our president. Look them up.
We also know a president can’t create jobs. That’s the responsibility of Congress, including a House that has struck down every, single job creation bill put before it and has yet to propose one of their own. Look it up.
I’ve been been asked about these issues over and over. These and Gitmo and Libya and why we’re still in Iraq and Afghanistan and why the president hasn’t helped the black community as if they’re some kind of segregated society and dozens of other things.
And this proud Obamabot has something to say after explaining all these things over and over and then over again: do some of your own research! And keep in the back of your mind that Barack Obama was a known centrist long before 2008. He was never a liberal. I knew that when I voted for him. Why have so many others forgot? Or did they just assume he was a liberal because of his skin color and never bothered to check? That type of bigoted ignorance is not his fault.
Why do so many complain that the president managed to get affordable healthcare passed while not closing Gitmo? Had the opposite happened, I have a feeling these same complainers would be whining about not having universal healthcare while he concentrated on closing Gitmo. As for federal marriage equality RIGHT NOW, are you kidding me? With a GOP-led House?
A robot is something that obeys commands. It moves in the directions it’s ordered. It has no ability to think and is incapable of locomotion on its own. All movement is automatic. Whatever “emotions” it displays are actually extensions of its controller’s emotions. If the controller says “Jump”, it doesn’t ask “How high?” It asks nothing. It just jumps to the height it’s programmed to reach.
An Obamabot thinks for itself. It’s intelligent and informed enough to look deeply at a situation and – while it may not agree with the outcome – it knows why that outcome was reached. It has knowledge on its side.
So to all the robots out there who let the media contort them and push them down a right-angled cattle chute as that same media uses terms such as “unnamed sources” and “our experts”, I ask them to take a long, hard look at themselves. They’ve forgot the past. They’re not doing their own research. They’re not thinking with an open and unbiased mind.
If any of that sounds familiar, it’s because – as we all know — that’s how the Tea Party works.
And feel free to call me an Obamabot. I now consider it a compliment.
by Leisa Simone, who’s looking forward to even more hopey-changey
[image via Conservatoons]
[cross-posted at ABLC] [also, see this post]
Ben Cisco
Nicely done.
__
Between this and the GOPers caving on the debt limit, this is turning out to be a good day.
cleek
i blame Obama.
for making me inclined to defend him against idiocy.
“megadittoes”, in other words.
Ash Can
Tee hee! This comment thread is going to spontaneously combust with people flipping their shit over ABL and her Obamabotry, and I for one will be LOLing all the way through.
kwAwk
My only bone to pick is that Obama had the largest democratic majorities in history in his first two years on office. Look it up.
Though of all the issues the Dems did and tried to accomplish in those two years it isn’t suprising the marriage equality got lost in the shuffle.
Jim C.
Great post.
eemom
shorter ABL: bring it on, fuckers.
tee hee
ETA: I see Ash Can got there firstest.
Joy
I am proud to wear that label too!
Donald
“And keep in the back of your mind that Barack Obama was a known centrist long before 2008. He was never a liberal. ”
Exactly.
General Stuck
Obama knows how to use the long knives. He just reads a little poetry first
gogol's wife
Proud to be an Obamabot or Obot or whatever you want to call me. He is a truly admirable man and we’re lucky to have him as president.
freelancer
Eff Yeah, #TFY!
Han's Solo
I would never consider myself any kind of “bot” but that’s because C3PO cheats at poker and doesn’t worry that I’ll pull his arms off like Chewy. I have a grudge against bots…
Seriously though, if what we are hearing about McConell and the GOP blinking is true, I think a lot of our firebagger troll types should apologize for being so fucking wrong all the time. The truth is, Obama is putting on a masterful performance despite the constant nonsensical reactionary carping from those who pretend to be lefties but insist they are staying home come election time.
Culture of Truth
Members of the Senate Tea Party Caucus left the meeting early and declined to comment on McConnell’s plan.
Several members of the caucus them later seen wandering the Capitol parking lot forlornly gazing pictures of Obama dressed an African witch doctor with a Hitler mustache.
“Good times,” one muttered. “Good times.”
Jude
Rock the fuck on, ABL.
someguy
So, in a nutshell:
I disagree with Obama but give him my unquestioning support because my free thinking allows me to understand why he did what he did.
Riiiight. Kinda like Hugh Hewitt’s independent thinking about All Things Bush gave him credibility as a pundit. Mmmmmm… tasty sandwich. Earthy.
Thymezone
I for one welcome our new Obamalord.
TheMightyTrowel
One of the nice things about living abroad. I can shut the crazy off when it gets too loud and the distance gives me perspective. Those of us with eyes open knew Obama would be a left-centrist compromising democrat, so no disappointment there. Even if it weren’t for DADT getting nuked and the ACA getting passed, I’d still be totally stoked to have a US president who understands irony and uses it.
cinesimon
Couldn’t agree more.
overeducated
HA!
I await the trenchant insight of the retard brigade who were insisting this morning that this was a terrible strategy on Obama’s part and how he sold us down the river…
low-tech cyclist
Y’know, I’m getting pretty tired of this.
No, Obama can’t freakin’ create jobs.
But he owes it to the citizenry – we, the people – to relentlessly say that that’s what the GOP-run House ought to be working with him on, so that there’s clearly one party that’s FOR doing something about jobs, rather than two parties that seem to have both forgotten about the fact that millions of Americans are unemployed or working part-time through no choice of their own.
It may be a long time before November 2012, but people’s opinions are already being shaped, just like they were two years ago for 2010.
When it comes to jobs and the economy, I want the Dems to give the people a choice, not an echo. It doesn’t seem like that should be asking too much. Ditto Social Security and Medicare.
But apparently it is, thanks in good part to our President.
catclub
I _like_ the Darth Obama cartoon.
Rome Again
Beautiful. I’m so glad to see this addressed also:
I can’t for the life of me figure this one out either.
piratedan
@kwAwk: and then Ted Kennedy died…. then Robert Byrd died and all you would have had to do was convince Evan Bayh, Blanche Lincoln, Bill Nelson, Joe Lieberman, and another four or five “hardcore lefties” like them to go along with it. You want some pixie dust to go with that delusion?
Dave
Please, I prefer to call myself a “General Electric Obamabot.”
Culture of Truth
Several members of the caucus were later seen wandering the Capitol parking lot forlornly gazing pictures of Obama dressed an African witch doctor with a Hitler mustache.
“Good times,” one muttered. “Good times.”
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Okay. I’ll do that while you do a little research on Ben Nelson, Evan Bayh, Claire McCaskill, Jim Webb, Blanche Lincoln, Mary Landrieu, Mark Pryor, Bill Nelson, Max Baucus and Dianne Feinstein. There are others, but get me a paragraph on each of these progressives, then we’ll move on to the House (Bart Stupak, Dennis Moore, Ike Skelton, Heath Schuler, Stephanie Herseth…..)
Anya
Oh, man. There will be blood, virtual of course.
Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again)
Right on, Leisa!
Thanks for posting it here, ABL.
cleek
@kwAwk:
and he had a super-majority in the Senate for a total of 6 months: 6 non-contiguous months, in fact. and without a supermajority, the Senate is perpetually hostage to the whims of the minority. so, not as formidable a majority as it could have been.
cinesimon
someguy – in other words, you have taken a nuanced viewpoint, and shaped it in your mind to the black and white issue you so want it to be.
Learn how to read. Then maybe go find a reading comprehension class.
pika
Yep. Knew it then, voted for him. Know it now. Thanks, ABL and Leisa Simone.
Pat
“I disagree with Obama but give him my unquestioning support because my free thinking allows me to…” Pretty much sums up the blatant disregard for reason on the part of the Loyalists. Unquestioning support has no place in a constitutional republic. Look it up.
GR
“Now I find out that I’m an Obamabot. That’s someone who defends the current President of the United States, OUR president of OUR country. But this time, it comes from the left.
I embrace that word, too. But let’s examine what this “mean-spirited” insult actually means.
An Obamabot is someone who may disagree with some of the decisions our president has made, but at the same time, knows and understands why they were made. And we support him for them.
…
An Obamabot is perfectly aware of the president’s very long list of achievements and lauds him for them. And damn if we’re aren’t proud to say he’s our president. Look them up.”
You know, substitute “Bush” for “Obama”, “left” for “right” where appropriate, and you pretty much have the patriotic drivel that wingers used for 8 years in defending THEIR guy. I appreciate the more detailed paragraphs defending Obama’s presidency, even though I think you are giving him too much credit for what has been accomplished and too little blame for what has been ignored or abandoned. Reasonable minds can and should differ.
But really, you need to do much better than “proud of OUR president” type language if you want to avoid coming off like a cult-of-ideology Bush supporter. Or maybe that’s the central point, in which case, color me unimpressed and unconvinced.
Linnaeus
One reason is that Obama’s centrism (if you accept that he is a centrist) actually gets downplayed quite a bit. He is more often depicted as a liberal whose instincts are curtailed by the factionalism in his party and by the radicalism of the Republicans.
catclub
Pirate Dan @ 21 kwAwk is chain yanking:
1937:
ALL DEM GOP
senate: 96 total, 75 DEM, 17 GOP, 4 other —
house: 435 total 333 DEM, 89 GOP, 13 other
Now THOSE are majorities to work with.
Anya
Jim, Foolish Literalist @ 24 – You forgot about Joe Lieberman.
Trinity
Most excellent.
I, Obot.
Davis X. Machina
Who wants the over-under? I’m taking 306 posts…..
Han's Solo
@low-tech cyclist: I don’t know if you caught this but the other day Obama stated that one of the reasons he wanted to pass the “Grand Bargain” was that Congress wouldn’t pass any jobs bill until the deficit/debt issue was taken care of.
I’m pretty sure Obama was right about that.
Republicans have managed to convince people that cutting spending will create jobs. I know, that is straight up stupid, but there it is. In a perfect world the media would realize that that is ridiculous, or when it is pointed out how dumb that is they would report it to the citizens. But this is not a perfect world and our media are a bunch of braid dead whores.
Tom Hilton
Yeah, well, he’s still the worst U.S. President currently in office, and the worst African-American President ever!
So there.
[/firebagger]
Bob
It seems to me that many progressives weren’t paying attention to Obama’s actual positions during the campaign. Instead they were projecting their own positions on this super charismatic and inspirational guy who as delivering us from the evils of the Bush administration.
A perfect example is the war in Afghanistan. Obama’s position during the campaign was that he would shift troops out of Iraq and into Afghanistan. How has his policy differed? How can liberals be disappointed in him for living up to his campaign promises? Even health care pretty much matched his plan all along, with the exception of the public option. I even think libs projected their own desire for single payer onto the public option, even though it was a very small part of the plan.
The one area where Obama violated his campaign promises was the closure of Gitmo. People have reason to complain. Still, it is one of those times where governing is a hell of a lot harder than campaigning.
aisce
ok…
because heaven forbid. what the what now?
fucking obots. calling the most liberal president in history a fucking centrist just because he asks you to. but you don’t take marching orders blindly. you forgot to call him a “pragmatist,” a “moderate,” and “the only adult in the room.” gotta keep that ratio up at all times.
shame there aren’t more “liberals” (who totally aren’t a-scared of being called that, nuh uh) proudly tying their cause to that of a successful president. how peculiar.
kdaug
@General Stuck:
Oh, that’s a yup.
Donald
“And keep in the back of your mind that Barack Obama was a known centrist long before 2008. He was never a liberal. I knew that when I voted for him. Why have so many others forgot?”
I singled out that part of the post because a fair number of people on both sides of the Obamabot argument seem to think he ran as a liberal–the disillusioned think he betrayed them and the Obamabots who think he’s a liberal fondly imagine he’s playing 11 dimensional chess and really agrees with them on everything, but just can’t say it.
To me, though, he always seemed to be a centrist who allowed a lot of self-deluded lefties convince themselves he was on their side. It’s what politicians do–why try to convince people who are wildly enthusiastic about your candidacy that you’re not quite what they imagine?
Swishalicious
Recipe for an ABL post:
1. Come up with an idea that is all about ABL, the person
2. Make sure it’s inflammatory
3. Remove all content that is close to edifying
4. Submit.
OMG GUESS WHAT!! I NEVER QUESTION THE PRESIDENT AND SO THERE ARE PEOPLE ON THE INTERNETS THAT CALL ME AN OBAMABOT AND DAMN RIIIIIGHT IN YOUR FACE YOU IDEALIST FREAKS!!!!
stuckinred
You are my horse if you never win a race!
Han's Solo
@overeducated:
Yeah, that won’t happen. The last thing the Firebaggers will do is admit they were wrong about Obama.
Judas Escargot
If you’re referring to this, it smells like a trap (it’ll be all debt ceiling, all the time in Congress for 2012).
Obama said yesterday that he’d veto any “stopgap” measures. And I still expect him to if that’s tried: Time will (obviously) tell.
As far as the “Obot” label goes… that’s just another stupid, content-free “Power-Word” intended to shut down debate at the brainstem level. Lefties should know better.
Villago Delenda Est
The irony of the graphic is that, for the umpteenth millionth time, the reactionary, racist shitstains are projecting their own faith based bullshit on to those of us who examine evidence in reality, not in some book of goat herder fairy tales.
Obama IS a centrist, but the wingtards, being total fucking idiots, think that being somewhere in the vague area between Clinton and Reagan is “soshulist”.
TWOFINGER
OBMAM NOT PERFCT. SO, ENEMEE. BETRYA MY CAUSE WITH MODRaHSUN. I GIVE XAMPLU: PUKBILK OPTION.
TWOFINGR POUNDUIT HATE GOOD. RIQKIRE PRFIKT!
Linnaeus
I think the reasoning was that they didn’t like the promise in the first place and hoped Obama would change his mind on this.
drkrick
The Dems had 60 Senators after the ’74 elections (GOP had 38 plus a right leaning Independent from VA and a Conservative from NY). The 111th Senate had a max of 58 Dems for a few months between the swearing in of Al Franken and the swearing in of Scott Brown. You can look it up.
cleek
@Judas Escargot:
yep.
hope Obama knows how to disarm it.
cleek
@Swishalicious:
FAIL.
Anya
GR @ 31 ~ Instead, non-cultist, cool progressives hate the President and blame him for every conceivable set-back and disappointment. They also demand that he attend every rally, lead every fight and vanquish every monster who’s against progress. And let’s not forget about the magical bully pulpit.
DonkeyKong
“Hey, listen, I want somebody good – and I mean very good – to plant that gun. I don’t want my brother coming out of that toilet with just his dick in his hands, alright?”-Sonny
Emerald
Also too, the Republicans filibustered every single bill, which is the first time that’s happened in the history of the republic.
Which meant that those great majorities weren’t enough, because we needed 60 votes in the Senate to pass anything, and we only had 59, including Ben Nelson, Joe Lieberman, et al.
As for the Stimulus, that was before Al Franken was a Senator (he was still in his recount battle) and before Arlen Specter flipped. So he needed three R votes for that, and they dictated away much of what Obama wanted, including aid to the states.
However, we did have an amazing majority in the House, which passed more bills than ever before. Most of which were filibustered in the Senate.
But none of that matters because shut up, that’s why!
Han's Solo
@Anya:
We should all be so lucky.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
I always say I’m still an O-bot because I was never an O-bot. He was never my new bicycle. Take Kucinich out of the equation and there was never a huge difference between any of the ’08 Dems in the primary, especially on domestic policy. The same is probably true going back to 2000 or further. A lot of pragmatic centrists who would, I believe, be more progressive if the electorate as a whole were more engaged and less easily panicked.
Lawnguylander
@kwAwk
This is not even close to true. Look it up.
MD Rackham
With regard to Obama being a “known centrist” and all the hand-wringing over why everyone didn’t understand that: The problem is your definition of “centrist.”
Someone who proposes raising the Medicare eligibility age, cuts and means-testing for Social Security, substantial tax cuts, and making the Bush tax cuts permanent, isn’t really a centrist in my book. Much more of right-leaning neo-liberal. That he did not campaign as.
Those who consider themselves loyal “Obamabots” need to stop deluding themselves with the “centrist” excuse and look at what was actually proposed in Sunday’s debt limit meeting. (And before you claim it was all a bluff, remember that the bluffer always has to be prepared to have his bluff called.)
drkrick
Does it count as violating a promise if it’s pretty clear he’d have done it if Congress hadn’t blocked the money? This isn’t something that could have been done unilaterally, and I don’t think even the most dedicated “clap harder” advocate can think Congress was going to be moved on this one.
BlizzardOfOz
OUR President. All hail our Dear Leader. Yeah, not cultish at all.
Guster
Can we please argue about the Halacha or Trinity, or something less faith-based than Obotism?
Tom Hilton
@Linnaeus:
I’m not sure the distinction (or, for that matter, the distinction between ‘liberal’ and ‘centrist’) really matters. As I see it, on most (not all) issues we’re getting policy that is about as liberal as is possible given the current (broken) political culture; the question of how the President arrives at that point strikes me as sort of a how-many-angels kind of question.
And the whole ‘liberal’-vs.-‘centrist’ kind of misses the point, IMO, which is that the President is demonstrably pragmatic. That is, he starts from broadly liberal values, but he’s not necessarily wedded to liberal means of advancing them.
freelancer
From your reading of this, you seem to have come to the conclusion that all support for Obama is unquestioned. You are mistaken. Also, calling those who do “Loyalists” while painting yourself as a protector of true democracy is cheap, not to mention foolish.
Joe
Hi, Joe here. I wanted to keep my comments at ABL’s shithole blog, but she immediately banned me because she’s a coward. So that’s why I’m here. She told several fibs about me, and I want to put them out there on the internets, mainly for the purposes of generating discussion as to what causes someone to become such a habitual liar.
First of all, I want to start by mentioning that one day on Twitter ABL accused me of being a “rape apologist”. I had no idea what the hell she was talking about, but needless to say, I was pissed, and demanded she explain herself. No explaination came. I tweeted at her several times over the next few hours waiting for her to apologize or else produce evidence for me being a rape apologist. Instead of doing either of those, she decided blocking me would be easier. (coward and liar)
This event, along with her endless defense of the Obama Administration’s pyschological torture of Bradley Manning, are the main reasons I so despise this person. And yet, she still fascinates me. I don’t know why, but I love torturing myself by reading her “writings”.
After she banned me from her site today, she, of course, started telling lies about me. The way she lies reminds me of the way Matt Taibbi described Michele Bachmann: “pathological, relentless, conscienceless lying… [she] lies because she can’t help it, because it’s a built-in component of both her genetics and her ideology. She is at once the most entertaining and the most dangerous kind of liar, a turbocharged cross between a born bullshit artist and a religious fanatic.”
First of all, she claimed a couple of times that I emailed her several times a day. The fact is, I had emailed this asshole a TOTAL of 5 times, the first email on July 7th, and the 5th email on July 10th. I can produce the email trail if necessary.
The second lie she told about me is that she blocked me on twitter because I made a racist comment to her. That’s just a lie. It’s a complete and utter fabrication, ala Michelle Bachmann.
She owes me apologies for all of these fabrications. But I know they’ll never come. Because not only is this woman a liar and a coward. She’s also shameless.
Liberal Sandlapper
Fuck the trolls. I agree with every word.
Han's Solo
Holy mother of pasta, FSM be praised, you won’t believe (because it isn’t true) what TPM is now reporting Boehner’s spokesman as saying.
As TPM put it:
Davis X. Machina
Any discussion of the ‘Democratic’ Senate that doesn’t take into consideration the fact that the only bloc vote they all take together is the one to organize the damn body and choose a Majority Leader is a waste of time.
This week we had Ben Nelson (D-NE) rejecting Kent Conrad’s (D-SD) budget proposal:
Kent Conrad, wild-ass liberal.
There are two labels in American politics. But there are at least three parties on Capitol Hill, Democrats who are Democrats, Democrats who are Republicans, and Republicans.
And everyone’s pretending we have a responsible (as the term is used in poli-sci) government, and a prime minister with a majority in Commons at his back, instead of a coalition government, and a Senate full of independent barons.
Given the 53 present members of the Senate Democratic Caucus, how many of them would see their popular vote totals go down in a general election if they ran explicitly against the White House? Less than half, is my guess.
drkrick
Hasn’t been a Democrat for years now.
eemom
@43
Recipe for a dumbass comment:
1. Smell bait.
2. Impale self on hook.
Villago Delenda Est
Only if you define “history” as something that started in 1980 or thereabouts.
I recall Rethuglican asswipes whining that they feared that the 1974 elections would result in “veto proof” majorities in the House and Senate…as a reaction to the demise of the criminal Nixon in the summer of that year.
The D behind the name is far less a guarantor of party discipline than the R is.
NR
And the Democrats let them do it.
The Democrats could have put a stop to the filibusters with a ruling from the chair (that’s Vice-President Biden) and 50 votes in the Senate. They chose not to. They chose to let the Republicans block all those bills–which means they didn’t want them to pass in the first place.
Judas Escargot
@cleek:
All he really has to do is veto anything half-arsed, with a “nice try, but I won’t sign anything that’s not a real fix. Now give me my 4 trillion dollars in cuts and revenue, bitches.” (Presumably he’d be more eloquent).
But I’m just a silly Obot, so what would I know? :P
Phaedrus
Let’s not forget Obama claims the right to assassinate you if he came come up with a good reason.
Seems centrist to me….
BlizzardOfOz
@Bob
Hey moron, did you hear he extended the Bush tax cuts for the top 1%? Opposing that was a pretty fucking big plank of his campaign. What about his (campaign) position FOR a “public insurance option” and AGAINST an individual mandate, which magically reversed themselves when it came time to deliver for his Wall Street patrons? Down the memory hole, eh?
If you had a shred of integrity, you’d just admit you support Obama because he’s a conservative in the mold of Reagan and George W. This crap about how Obama actually campaigned as Goerge Bush’s third term is just fucking insulting.
cleek
@NR:
holy shit.
drkrick
Proposed revision.
Martin
Lieberman isn’t a Democrat. Neither is Sanders. And you’re assuming that Nelson, Landrieu, Lincoln, etc. could have been counted on as reliable votes along with Lieberman/Sanders. Just that caucus of probably 6-8 senators was almost impossible to keep together. Hell, the Mainers were sometimes easier to bring along than Nelson/Lieberman was.
Mike Goetz
The Republicans’ way out of their box on this debt limit issue is to cede all Congressional authority to the President, reserving only the right to jeer when he exercises it. After very noisily walking away from $4 trillion.
This is incredible.
Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again)
Davis X. Machina @36
No mentions of FDL or firebaggers…I’ll take the under.
Swishalicious @43
Good reading skills, man.
Wait..You missed this?
Time to revise that list.
Donald
MD Rackham–
I dislike Obama and disliked him in 2008. But I think one could tell fairly early on that there were a lot of leftist/liberal people (some of them my friends and relatives) who had some wildly romantic notions about the man and his beliefs. Some of them still defend him. I’m not a regular here, so maybe the political line at this blog is that Obama is a centrist and everyone should have known that all along. In my opinion that’s correct. Even his famous anti Iraq war speech was couched in centrist pragmatic terms (he wasn’t against all wars, just dumb ones).
Lolis
OT: Holy Shit! McConnell just blinked.
Sly
Barack Obama is most certainly a liberal. A rough approximation of his political style and understanding would be “LBJ without the ego, for better and for worse.” He’s not Maxine Waters or Bernie Sanders. If he was, he wouldn’t be President.
In other words, Barack Obama isn’t a leftist. And, for a variety of reasons, the myriad distinctions between liberals and leftists are seldom recognized in the popular discourse anymore.
Martin
Yes. Please fax your credentials to John Cole or DougJ.
DonkeyKong
And it’s Kevin Drum for the win.
“Why isn’t Obama making it clear that Social Security checks will dry up if Republicans refuse to do a deal? Because that would put pressure on Republicans to simply cave in and raise the debt ceiling. But that isn’t what Obama wants. He wants a deal.” Kevin Drum
Hey kids, if you’re not in Washington eating $2500 veal dinners with the Presidents superpac buddies, nobody gives a fig what you think.
Anya
But he’s part of the phantom “largest democratic majorities in history”. He made up the 60 vote in the Senate, and he’s still caucusing with the Dems.
geg6
THIS.
Mother fucking THIS.
Han's Solo
@BlizzardOfOz:
Has anyone ever complimented your reading comprehension? I didn’t think so. For the record, as ABL pointed out, he had to extend the tax cuts or the Republicans would have killed unemployment benefits.
As to the public option, sure, he was for it, but the votes weren’t there in the Senate. Why is it so many of Obama’s critics can’t count to sixty?
You should have stayed in school. If you believe that you are a fucking moron.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
He said that this morning
they didn’t.
burnspbesq
If you are short popcorn futures, you probably want to cover that position right the fuck now.
The House of Commons is going to call Murdoch to testify.
cleek
@Donald:
name two popular liberal presidents who didn’t involve us, either through initiation/retaliation or escalation, in at least one war.
liberalism and hawkish foreign policy have never been mutually exclusive.
stuckinred
Donald
And the chances of an “anti-war African-American” being elected president are _____?
Davis X. Machina
@drkrick: Probably true. In Pleistocene times (my youth) there was a fourth parliamentary party, Republicans who are Democrats. They were not that rare in those days and some persisted until recently — Javits, Brooke, Cohen, Percy, Hatfield, Case, Jeffords, Chaffee, Cohen, etc.
ObamaBotMoFo2012
Classic case of false equivalency.
There was virtually no reason to defend Bush, on any front, other than the aid he gave to South Africa, there was clear evidence that Bush was a huge fuck up.
Not the case with President Obama. We’ve got a President who has gotten a LOT of key legislation passed: Healthcare reform, and the stimulus. When did Bush get major healthcare reform or a stimulus package?
“What has been ignored or abandoned”? Riiiiiiiiiight. It’s all Obama’s fault that the public option was abandoned, and not say, Joe Lieberman, Blanche Lincoln, Ben Nelson, Max Baucus, and of course, every single Republican who voted NO for pure political points. It’s so easy to blame the man and ignore the 535 motherfuckers who actually put the shit together.
Why the heck would he change his mind? We had the 9/11 mastermind alive and living out there, and because he (Obama) didn’t change his mind, that motherfucker that was responsible for killing 3000+ on 911 is dead and now sharkbait at the bottom of the sea. Just more example of these leftwing ignoramuses always thinking short term, as opposed to the much bigger picture.
Just admit it, you motherfuckers can’t stand the fact that President Obama has proven you guys wrong on every front. You guys can’t primary him, unless you count right wing nutjob Randall Terry, so essentially Obama is the Democratic incumbent and will be your Democratic nominee. What are you going to do, vote for Mitt Romney or Michele Bachmann? Or perhaps Cynthia McKinney, who has sided with Hosni Mubarak, Muhmar Gadaffi, and every other madman dictator out there?
Mike Goetz
@DonkeyKong:
Go back to bed. Your post would have made sense about 12 hours ago.
Davis X. Machina
@DonkeyKong:
“Better fewer, but better” V.I. Lenin, On the Troll Question.
Swishalicious
@ 79:
are you under the impression that ABL has posted this paean to the beauty that is the Obamabot title because she isn’t talking about herself? So this is just a random post?
No. Of course this is All About Her, All The Time. There’s an ongoing pissing match in countless threads with basically two equally crazed sides (FALSE EQUIVALENCE!! EEEEEEK!): the “Obots” and the “DFHs”. As has been evident in just about every post of hers, ABL considers herself in the former category. And that’s fine! There’s nothing wrong with it.
But to post on nothing of substance, with the clear intention of re-kindling the totally vapid pissing match, is… well, par for the ABL course.
OMG DONT REED HURR POSTS IF U DONT LIKE ITTTTTT
Georgia Pig
Jeez, the hairs people split. Obama is a liberal, maybe just not the type some want. Let’s see, over the past 50 years I’ve seen Kennedy liberals, Scoop Jackson liberals, Hubert Humphrey liberals, etc. Quien es mas liberal? Fuck if I know.
Yes, if he forwarded the positions he takes now in 1972 he would be a Republican, but then Richard Nixon would be a Democrat if he took his positions from 1972 today and, God knows, Richard Nixon will never be a liberal in any cosmology I can come up with. We can never know, but if Obama had been a politician in 1972, he would probably would have held views similar to George McGovern. Obama arrives after Ronald Reagan, Bill Clinton and GW Bush. Which of those is he more like? Obama is a circa 2011 practical liberal. He takes the positions he does because they fit the times and job. I have little doubt that he believes in liberal ideals, in the notion of progress as a nation, not in a bunch of fairy tales about lost states of grace that animates conservatism. The guy is fucking smart as a whip, cool as a cucumber, a talented politician and a good negotiator, despite what some monday morning quarterbacks on blogs say. He’s a leader. In case you need reminding, that’s a good thing.
Han's Solo
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Actually they did, or are in the process of, caving and raising the debt limit. Your information is several hours old.
Check out TPM. The new compromise is that Obama will get to raise the debt limit without Republicans. Basically, they are caving big time.
stuckinred
Georgia Pig
And if we had Hershel we’d win the National Championship again!
Ash Can
@Swishalicious:
Except for the fact that she made it perfectly clear that she didn’t write this post, I’m sure you’re right. Sure. Really.
@Joe: You’re not doing yourself any favors. You’re coming here out of the blue and crying to a bunch of people who have no idea who you are or what you’re talking about, and it just makes you look like a whiner.
stuckinred
Swishalicious
quit your fucking whining, it’s too hot for that shit.
Strandedvandal
@64
Dude, did you really just run over here to tattletale on ABL because she was mean to you at her house? Wassamatter, her Mom wasn’t available?
That’s some pretty weak tea my friend. You should be embarrassed.
DonkeyKong
He said it once. Oh, I’m wrong. 300 million people have nothing better to do that pay minute attention to what the President said once or 7 months ago.
99% of the country doent pay attention to politics like we do. If you want to get through you say it over and over again. Do I really have to point that out……..yes, yes I do.
low-tech cyclist
You know, Obama may not have claimed to be a liberal, but he did claim to want to bend the curve in the public dialogue over the appropriate role of government in our civic life – towards a more vigorous role for government, that is.
And now he’s mouthing bullshit about government needing to tighten its belt just like American families are having to do, which is, ummm, the exact opposite of bending the curve towards a government that would actually help solve America’s problems.
Besides, you shouldn’t have to be a liberal to realize that it’s a huge waste for tens of millions of Americans to be employed or underemployed, and to look at some basic economics to realize that we’d all be better off in the long run to spend government money to put people back to work now.
As Krugman says, words matter.
Phaedrus
Since when is indefinite detention a liberal view?
ObamaBotMoFo2012
@cleek:
The “liberal hero” FDR detained Japanese indefinitely in WWII…. but yet, Obama is the warmonger and is “just like Bush!”
quickly
The tension is between this statement:
“Over the years, I’ve been called a liberal as if it’s an insult. I’ve also been called a libtard, a Dumbocrat, a hippie, a socialist, a tree-hugger, a bleeding heart, a gay-lover, etc. And I’ve embraced each one.”
and this one:
“And keep in the back of your mind that Barack Obama was a known centrist long before 2008. He was never a liberal.”
And then your response which is to uncritically support a non-liberal centrist as a supposed liberal constituent. And your surprise that someone further to the left might be a little underwhelmed by the left-most party’s leader.
The following qualifiers are offered because they seem to be de rigueur when writing anything critical of Obama on some peoples threads:
a) voted for him very happily the first time
b) extremely proud and reassured that he is our president
c) will vote for him very happily the next time
d) think he has made several mistakes that were partly brought on by an intransigent, right-wing congress that represents an increasingly fanatical constituency, as well as for the fact that his democratic vision is too centrist for my ideas about where I want the country to move.
e) all of which means that I can still criticize him and always be surprised by people who reflexively defend every. single. decision. he. makes.
Strandedvandal
@ Shishalicious
Reading comprehension, how does it work?
Han's Solo
Oh great God of two faced pandering, now John Boehner’s spokesman Michael Steel is claiming it was Democrats that were holding the debt limit hostage.
Dr. Omed
I think if Barack Obama’s mother Stanley Ann Dunham were alive today she’d be burning her Social Security card in front of the White House.
Martin
Agreed. He’s a pragmatist first, a liberal second. I think the entire kerfluffle with the left can be fairly simply reduced. Obama’s priorities:
1) Solutions
2) Liberal solutions
He’ll aim for 2) if he can achieve it, and settle for 1). The left’s priorities:
1) Liberal solutions
2) Shock doctrine that will force voters to come to their senses on 1)
That’s what the ‘kill the bill’ nonsense was. If they couldn’t get their way, then they’d just have to fuck the voters harder until they come to their senses. Structurally it’s no different than the priorities on the right. I think much of the exasperation with Obama comes from there being no conservative counterparts to Obama – there are no pragmatists on the right (actually, I think quite a few on the right are secretly pragmatists, but they don’t dare reveal that or they’ll be primaried in a second.). There are quite a few pragmatists on the left though, and they’re all unacceptable. The left wants a liberal Eric Cantor.
Tuttle
Trust your mechanic to mend your car …
Jim, Foolish Literalist
I think your mother got drunk before nursing her children.
Judas Escargot
@Sly:
Liberals thought they were voting for Black FDR. Centrists seemed to think he was the Black JFK. And wingnuts assume he’s Black Jimmy Carter.
They were all wrong: What we got was the Black Adlai Stevenson.
(IMO not a bad thing. Opinions differ).
Linnaeus
@Tom Hilton:
See, I think this is an example of what I was talking about when I wrote that Obama is often depicted as a liberal who is limited (as is any politician in a democracy) by the environment in which he works. So when I see the, “well, he’s a centrist, you shouldn’t have expected a liberal” argument, I think there’s a bit of goalpost shifting going on.
Which brings me back to what I think is the bigger project at hand: changing the political environment.
Ash Can
@burnspbesq:
And the hits just keep on coming. :)
Villago Delenda Est
I don’t know why we’re debating whether or not Obama is a liberal…we should be talking about how Republicans (and particularly the tea baggers) are not actually conservatives.
geg6
DonkeyKong @84:
Guess Kevin Drum doesn’t eat veal with the right superpac buddies:
http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2011/07/obama-no-social-security-guarantee-in-august-if-gop-doesnt-back-down-video.php?ref=fpblg
burnspbesq
@Dr. Omed:
Say what, now? Care to explain?
Kane
Also too, I embrace health care reform being called “Obamacare” by those who say it as a derogatory term.
Legislation that provides access to health care for tens of millions of Americans and protecting patient rights and ensuring that insurance compaines can no longer deny coverage to individuals with pre-existing conditions while at the same time reducing the deficit and reducing health care costs that put U.S. companies at a competitive disadvantage is a legacy that President Obama will long be remembered for.
A time will undoubtedly come when the very same republicans who are now using the term Obamacare as a weapon will be defending the current health care reform and attempt to take credit for it. They will claim that it’s unfair to call it Obamacare because they somehow had a hand in helping to create the legislation and getting the law passed.
Han's Solo
@Dr. Omed:
I think your mother’s cross species breeding experiments failed. Then again, she taught a half-jackass poop eater like you to type, so it wasn’t a total failure.
geg6
Oh, shit. Gotta run out to stock up. I can’t wait.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
That’s my prime beef with so many of Obama’s critics on “the left”. They spend more time talking about how much they hate Obama without talking about Republicans, Blue Dogs, the filibuster, mid-term voting patterns or any of the other factors involved in how we got where we are. There are several things I don’t like about Obama–emphasizing austerity over jobs, Libya–but the refusal of so many of the poutrage tantrum crowd to acknowledge any other factor in government keeps me in the O-Bot crowd.
J.A.F. Rusty Shackleford
I think a lot of the Firebaggers are Hillary-or-bust dead-enders.
And is there no more annoying liberal than the purer-than-thou? Like this shit:
I’m a Democrat and there is no way in hell I’ll ever vote for a Republican – and I’ll do anything to keep a Republican from being elected. If that means refraining from the constant, incessant bitching and moaning and Digby Downerisms than so be it.
If it wouldn’t suck so bad for me, I’d be all for purer-than-thou GR (and like-minded) living under a Republican Rule again. At least they’d be unsoiled and pure.
TK-421
I’m late to the party, but I’m assuming this is ABL’s eat crow post?
burnspbesq
@Villago:
They’re not. Just ask Sully, Bartlett, and Frum if you don’t believe me.
Pat
2003 Obama: “I am a proponent of a single-payer universal healthcare program.” “All of you know we might not get there immediately because first we have to take back the White House, we have to take back the Senate and we have to take back the House.”
Obama 2009: “And although there are a lot of people who are not satisfied with their healthcare, the truth is, is that the vast majority of people currently get healthcare from their employers and you’ve got this system that’s already in place. We don’t want a huge disruption as we go into healthcare reform where suddenly we’re trying to completely reinvent one-sixth of the economy.”
Obama would’ve fared well in the era of door-to-door sales, methinks.
ObamaBotMoFo2012
@ low-tech cyclist
The same Krugman who sang Hillary’s praises from the 2008 primaries and would be kissing President Hillary Clinton’s ass, had she been the one doing exactly what President Obama is doing now?
I’ve got you firebaggers figured out. A bunch of you are disgruntled PUMAs who STILL, for whatever reason, can NOT accept that Barack Obama defeated Hillary Clinton in primary season 2008. I was disappointed that the Green Bay Packers defeated my Pittsburgh Steelers earlier this year in the Super Bowl, but I’m over it, unlike you PUMAs with primary season 2008.
The rest of you are Libertarians/Republicans being dishonest with yourselves and masquerading under the “progressive” label. President Obama has done more to advance progressive causes on all fronts than ANY other President, yet you regressives want to roll that progress back so that you can continue to bitch and whine about how Obama is a right wing Republican DLC corporatist Wall Street puppet selling us down the river. A LOT of these so-called “progressives” are really in bed with Republicans, see Jane Hamsher and her partnership with Grover Norquist, Arianna Huffington and her partnerships with Andrew Brietbart, Newt Gingrich, and Darrell Issa, not to mention selling her blog to corporate AOL, and Glenn Greenwald and his partnership with CATO. And President Obama is labeled the corporatist right wing Republican by you firebaggers, go figure.
different church-lady
Swishalicious:
ABL:
Is there anyone in the class that can identify the error here?
Linnaeus
Well, a clear statement that he is not a liberal is right there in the post, so that’s not out of bounds to bring up. But yes, I’m definitely up for more discussion about the Republicans and what we can do to make things more progressive in this country.
Rick Taylor
People here have been counseling us to wait to see what actually comes out of negotiation before piling onto the president selling us out (wisely in my opinion). In the same vein, shouldn’t we should delay declaring victory and patting Obama on the back for his masterful performance until we see where this goes? I can’t see the Republicans passing this; the right wing would hang them in effigy. Happy to be proven wrong!
Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again)
Swishalicious @99
What, like the fire(bag) was threatening to extinguish itself?
BTW: Anyone mention that Marcy Wheeler is leaving FDL?
Davis X. Machina
@Linnaeus:
Funny, was reading an old Cosma Shalizi blog-post today for completely unrelated reasons, where he was asking the same questions after the 2004 Presidential election:
burnspbesq
@J.A.F. Rusty Shackelford:
“Digby Downerisms”
You win this thread. Check back later to see whether you win the entire day.
Pat
For those Loyalists who thinks we DFHs prefer the hideous HRC over Obama, you’ve graduated from starry-eyed infatuation to full blown delusion, and I’ve got some verdant Texas pasture land to sell you.
beyond left
Obama campaigned as a centrist and has governed like one. There is no mystery here. I did expect more rhetorical flourish and better definition of his view vs the radical right(is there any other kind now?) repub view of what ails the economy and how to fix it. He blew the stimulus by not at least starting from a stimulus that would be big enough to fix the economy, and then making far too much of it tax cuts and far too little infrastructure spending.
Obama would be a bit right of moderate repubs pre 1980.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Pat – July 12, 2011 | 4:36 pm · Link
Wow, he went from incrementalism based in political reality to incrementalism based in political reality? You sure did make your point, Pat!
Davis X. Machina
@Pat:
He’s a politician, and you’re guilty of a tautology thereby.
ObamaBotMoFo2012
Yes, President Obama did support single payer, but he did say that it would be a rational approach if we were to rebuild the healthcare system from scratch.
If you can explain to me how single payer would have passed in the House (a weak public option BARELY cleared the House), let alone got endorsed by “no public option” Joe Lieberman, Ben Nelson, Blanche Lincoln, Max Baucus in the Senate, then you’ll have a point. Until then, you’re just repeating the same debunked horseshit about how to get healthcare reform accomplished.
And that’s why you firebagging lunatics are made fun of… you guys propose extreme ends of legislation with no practical way of getting them accomplished, and you blame Obama and us “Obamabots” for pointing this out.
TK-421
Translation: Obama hasn’t changed his positions or broken any campaign vows, except when he has, but governing is hard so shut up.
Seriously, though- people are allowed to have opinions, and they’re allowed to be upset with the President and everyone else in Congress. This unending pressure to stop critiquing the President no matter what is tiresome. He’s a big boy, he doesn’t need “free thinking bots” to defend him on the internets.
Not all of us feel compelled to be part of a fucking pretend team, so stop feigning outrage when we don’t join you.
eemom
@ Temporarily Max 135
I did, I did!
Innnteresting, innit?
Amir_Khalid
@burnspbesq:
From The Grauniad’s liveblog:
It appears they can’t make the Murdochs testify to the committee after all, despite earlier reports. He might still appear to back Rebekah Brooks’ testimony, but I doubt that.
Georgia Pig
Stuckinred:
Fuckin’ A. Just give him the ball and watch him go.
geg6
Had not heard that. It’s about time. Talk about wasting talent.
aisce
it was a liberal president who ensured tens of millions of citizens would now have access to health insurance, and that the worst indecencies of that market be abolished.
it was a liberal president who exponentially grew our nation’s investment in green energy technologies, demanded new standards of energy efficiency across all industrial sectors, and reformed the requisite regulatory agencies to once again take the threat of global climate change seriously.
it was a liberal president who ensured that the federal government would no longer discriminate its citizens on the basis of sexuality, and would no longer be silent when the states themselves continue their policies of bigotry and contempt.
it was a liberal president who expanded access to college education for low income americans, and removed wasteful subsidies for private loan generators.
and it was a liberal president who sent a thousand americans to die in a waste of a war in afghanistan, even though he knew it was the wrong policy. because he used the proper policy in neighboring pakistan to surgically and systematically dismember al qaeda and its regional allies.
and it was a liberal president who oversaw the second weakest post-recessionary job growth in the last hundred years, dramatically underestimating the severity of the crisis and what would need to be done to combat it, and one who showed a shocking lack of ambition in reforming the systemic imbalances in our economy and policymaking institutions.
it was a liberal president who did these things. for better or worse. but apparently saying so is tantamount to racism. i’m going to say it again: accusing president obama of being a liberal (gah! horror of horrors!) is tantamount to “bigoted ignorance.”
the man is not a god. he fucks up. running away and hiding from that by calling him a “centrist” is juvenile. it’s the hallmark of those who demand the bar be artificially lowered, so they can always be “pleasantly surprised” that their faith is upheld. it’s a way of avoiding having to own up to policy failures that were not unforeseeable or unavoidable, and not driven by ideology but incompetence or simple incapability in the moment. it is, in fact, the opposite of this:
DonkeyKong
“Traveling through hyperspace ain’t like dusting crops, farm boy! Ever try navigating a jump? Well, it’s no mean trick. Without precise calculations we could fly right through a star, or bounce too close to a black hole; that’d end your trip real quick, wouldn’t it?” Barak “Solo” Obama.
Linnaeus
@Davis X. Machina:
I remember that post, actually. And it’s as true today as it was then. It’s pretty much always true – the “struggle” never ends.
Ash Can
@Amir_Khalid: Rats. Oh well. Maybe Brooks will decide to sing.
burnspbesq
@Amir Khalid:
They can’t compel his testimony, true, but there is no way he can refuse to testify without risking (a) the total and irreversible loss of the BSkyB deal and (b) prosecution.
If he’s competently advised, he’ll testify.
ObamaBotMoFo2012
Sorry, whining every time that President Obama is “selling us out” is not a practical opinion, nor is calling him “Compromiser in Chief/Capitulator in Chief,” nor is mislabeling him a right wing Republican, which your “progressive” talking heads have done on multiple occasions.
Heck, it was not too long ago that Rachel Maddow went on TV and outright LIED about President Obama’s position on what happened in NY and with gay marriage. She didn’t state it as her opinion, she stated it as hardline fact.
And I believe that’s the underlying thing here, many of you firebaggers project opinion as fact. If you want to believe that President Obama is a right wing Republican, that’s fine. Just don’t project yourself as speaking for “Obama’s base,” because you firebaggers aren’t the base. More like a base of do nothing retards.
Davis X. Machina
@Georgia Pig: Takes me back to my earliest teaching days, in Atlanta. I remember “Herschel is my kind of n**ger” graffiti. The assistant principal put the announcement of his signing up on the school’s Times-Square-style news ticker in the lobby.
TK-421
Oh, I can explain that one and I am very guilty of this practice. The reason why I don’t spend time talking about how bad Republicans is because I don’t see a benefit in trying to point out the flaws in conservative policies or thinking. They are, bluntly, lost causes.
President Obama and my fellow Democrats are not lost causes. I believe it’s useful to discuss why it’s wrong (on policy and politics) for a Democrat to embrace Hooverism, why it’s wrong for a “Yes We Can” Democrat to condone fatalism about unemployment, why it’s wrong and dishonest for any Democrat to imply or state there’s nothing the President can do about (fill in the blank). I believe it’s useful because I still believe Democrats can change their minds.
I don’t see the utility in talking about why Republicans won’t embrace liberal social or economic policies. Why? Because they’re Republicans, that’s why.
Sly
@Martin:
Pragmatism and liberalism go hand in hand, because liberalism (at least American liberalism since the 1930s) is a fundamentally technocratic approach to the central problem of democracy that plagued public intellectuals following WWI: How can self-government persist in an industrial age? Leftism attempts to answer that question less through technocracy and more through appeals to public pluralism.
A better analogy might be the difference between Walter Lippmann and John Dewey, though many might not understand the reference.
@Judas Escargot:
Leftists thought they were voting for the Black FDR, and we’re right (though because they’re generally wrong about who FDR was). Liberals thought they were voting for the Black JFK, and were also right. Plutocrats were nervous that they might be getting the Black Ralph Nader and were wrong. Conservatives were nervous that they might be getting the Black Vladimir Lenin and were more wrong. Centrists don’t exist.
Anya
I agree with this. I think the President should talk about nothing else but jobs in the coming months. Let’s hope our useless media will somehow pick it up. And I hope the Dems will have a unified message.
dogwood
Watching people tie themselves in knots trying to figure out what really goes on so they can attach blame and make sense of what is actually farce reminds me of the following exchange:
Det. McNulty: I got to ask you. If every time Snotboogie would grab the money and run away, why’d you even let him in the game?
Witness: What?
Det. McNulty: If Snotboogie always stole the money, why’d you let him play?
Witness: You got to, this America, man.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
They are lost causes with votes in Congress, and people vote for them, and they get more than equal time to present their bad ideas to the public wihout criticism or challenge, so it’s perhaps not a good idea to ignore them just to talk about how bad Obama is.
dave
This post is utter nonsense.
According to ABL I should not publicly object to Obama’s actions when I disagree with them. It is more important that I support them no matter what and shut up because these policies are the best we can do now. Obama campaigned as a centrist and I voted for him, therefore I cannot complain about his centrist policies. When I voted for him, I gave up all my rights to criticize any of his actions if those actions are consistent with his campaign rhetoric.
Words cannot describe how antidemocratic this attitude is. None of us are democratic party apparatchiks. We are all individual citizens with differing opinions as to the policies the country should adopt. It is not and should not be our role to sublimate our personal convictions to the goals of any politician or political party.
Yet ABL proudly does so. She objects to certain Obama policies but will not push those objections or make any attempt to sway public opinion or the president’s opinion on those issues. Instead, she squelches her own dissent and puts all her energy in supporting or excusing the president’s conduct against all who disagree with that conduct (even herself).
In a healthy democracy each citizen would vigorously advocate their individual policy views in the public sphere in order for those views to ultimately triumph in the marketplace of ideas. In ABL’s democracy, citizens don’t push their preferred policies when their party is in power and instead wait patiently for those polices to magically become received wisdom and accepted by the very politicians they have elected.
In ABL’s democracy it is more important for citizens to be savvy about the political realities, the constraints created by our political institutions, pragmatic electoral strategy, etc., than it is for them to make informed choices about the policies they support and then pressure politicians to conform to their policy views as closely as possible.
Now this is not to say that we should ignore pragmatism entirely. I am a pretty far left liberal and I voted for Obama knowing and accepting that not every one of my policy views would be pushed by this administration. I will probably vote for Obama again despite my absolute disgust at several of the policies he has pursued. But I am so sick and tired of being told to shut up and accept policies with which I strongly disagree.
I think that the policies I support, if enacted, would make this country a much better place for almost everyone. I am perfectly entitled to push those views and to criticize this administration each and every time it pursues any policy that I think is disastrous, misguided, or contains merely minor flaws.
I am not David Axelrod and therefore have the luxury of not caring about pragmatism or political savviness until the moment I step into the voting booth. Until then, I reject the notion that I should stand meekly by while the president pursues disastrous policies, just because he plays for the blue team and because he has done quite a few good things as president.
Phaedrus
I’m so old I can remember when illegal war wasn’t a liberal value
Davis X. Machina
@Sly:
They do — but at the very edge of extinction. Good news though — the last few breeding pairs have been removed from the wild, and there’s an aggressive captive breeding effort, led by the New York Times, Barnes and Noble, Williams and Sonoma, and NPR.
TK-421
I didn’t do any of these things. I’m sorry, what was your point?
Davis X. Machina
@Phaedrus: Old enough to have not voted out of conscience in ’64, and in ’68?
TK-421
Ay ay ay, I think everyone needs to stop and take a deep breath, because
Critiquing The President =/= Talking About How Bad Obama Is
Jesus, I don’t think these comments are helping kill the “O-bot” meme.
burnspbesq
@Phaedrus:
You were born prior to 1845?
cynickal
@ObamaBotMoFo2012
*TWEEET*
Penalty!
Projection! Fifteen Yards! Third down!
(You have no idea what Krugman would be saying. In fact, if you actually READ his work, any similar actions by any administration would receive the same cititcal analysis)
Phaedrus
Good point, Davis.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
A few days ago you were calling him a “coward” (among other things) and stating he had done “nothing” to promote jobs. You’re not gonna make me click all the way back to find that thread, are you?
drkrick
This, +1,000. People think we just need a liberal Reagan or a liberal Fox (or God forbid, a liberal Rush) and we can sweep in and establish the lefty millennium. It took YEARS of persuasion and foundation laying for the right to get the DC media wired, “liberal” converted to a dirty word and working class people convinced unions were the enemy and the bosses were their friends. Until the same kind of hard work is well underway on our side, occasional holding actions like the Obama and Clinton administrations are the best we can hope for. The kind of arrogant and ill-informed overreach we’re seeing from the Cantors and the DeMints can help get that project jump started, but they don’t eliminate the need for the work over the long haul.
ObamaBotMoFo2012
@dave:
Another firebagger heard from. It’s wonderful to watch you firebaggers get unhinged.
No one is saying or suggesting that President Obama is above criticism. He’s been more criticized than his predecessor for fuck’s sake!
What we are saying is that we are fed up of the bullshit from firebaggers like you, masquerading emotion as criticism. Just look at your fellow firebaggers going apeshit over this debt ceiling fight because they somehow KNOW that without a doubt, President Obama is going to gut Medicare and Social Security benefits to get the debt ceiling raised, even though he has said on multiple occasions that he wouldn’t touch benefits.
The same freak outs happened during the tax cuts/UEI extension battle from last winter, that 100% without a doubt, President Obama is going to gut Medicare and Social Security benefits.
President Obama doesn’t need advice from you Monday Night Quarterbackers on the sidelines, he has already gotten the Republicans to cave on the debt ceiling, they are his bitches. He didn’t advance this far in politics by listening to the carnival barkers like you.
Phaedrus
Trying again – I’m so old I remember when Obama believed that the states secrets defence was illegal
ObamaBotMoFo2012
@cynickal:
I don’t recall Krugman being as critical as he is currently towards President Obama towards President Bill Clinton.
I could be wrong, and if you can prove to me that Krugman was critical of President Clinton as well, then I will eat my humble crow. But from what I have gathered, Krugman is just mad that his candidate Hillary isn’t the one making these tough calls from the Oval Office.
TK-421
Yes, go ahead. I’m pretty sure you’ll find me saying things like “this Hooverist-Fatalist mentality is lazy, cowardly, and cruel,” you’ll find me saying things like “the Administration has not done everything it could on the economy” or “since the Stimulus has essentially done nothing to help the economy,” and I think you’ll also find that I expressed it in terms of the Obama Administration, not just President Obama. I think there was a “this isn’t about one person per se” comment in there too.
I don’t think I’ve ever said “President Obama is a coward,” which IMO is a completely different statement than the ones I’ve cited above. But, if you can find evidence of that, I will immediately apologize. Good luck.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Krugman loses his “objective critic” cred when he starts simpering about how he tried to warn us about Obama.
TK-421
I agree that the post didn’t really say anything like that, but I’m certainly getting that vibe in the comments. Just epinion.
drkrick
Leaving aside the fact that ABL didn’t write this particular post, the author was defending her own position, not asking anyone not to advocate theirs. In the process, she points out a lot of examples where the criticism of Obama has been ill-informed, or based on predictions of his behavior that turned out to be inaccurate. If that shoe fits, so be it. It’s hard to argue it’s not fair comment.
Elie
Proud to be an “Obamot”. Frankly, to support intelligent understanding of how to actually get things done in this very difficult political climate. Rather than the bullshit magic pony crap from the fake progressives. (Most of those folks are fakes — just pretending that they surpport progressives but are fronts for the republicans or self absorbed narcissists.)
Sly
@Davis X. Machina:
No, centrism does not exist. It has no political or practical values. It is a lie that people tell themselves in order to feel better about their own mediocrity or justify their anti-partisanship.
When I was a kid, I believed in God. Because I talked to God. Literally. Then I realized one day that the person I was talking to, who confirmed all my suspicions about how the world worked, was really my own ego. Basically, I was bullshitting myself. Then I reached what George Carlin called the Age of Reason.
That’s what centrism is to self-identified centrists. Its a narcissistic attempt to make sense of political reality without actually making an effort to study it. Its the political ideology of people who don’t pay attention to politics.
NamelessGenXer
Cue the whinetastic stylings of the Magical Sparkly Unicorn Brigade in 3…2…
“You dumb fucking Obamabots. If [circle one: I Hillary Kucinich McCain] were president, every single one of the economic and societal problems caused by thirty years of Voodoo Economics, and exacerbated by eight years of BushCo’s Blood-for-Oil wars, would have been completely solved in a matter of weeks.
“Don’t you know that The President can just use his [circle one: bully pulpit zombie army Vulcan mind meld Olivander’s magic wand] to bypass Congress and The Judiciary to make laws and prosecute the Bushies all by himself?
“In fact, Congress has nothing to do with solving problems, and who cares about them, anyway? I didn’t vote them in — in fact, I can say with 100% certainty that not voting is the most brilliant strategy ever devised for getting my magic unicorn of [circle one: single payer gay rights green energy policy ending Bush’s wars ].
“Sheesh…you Obamabots just don’t get it. He hates [circle one: gays women seniors polar ice caps] and I know that’s true because the commenters on FDL, dKos and RedState, every one of whom has a PhD in PoliSci, told me so, and that’s easier than thinking for myself.”
No. Fucking. Whiners.
ObamaBotMoFo2012
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
I believe that would be Krugman’s Clintonite side showing. As I pointed out, the man just can’t seem to accept that Barack Obama defeated Hillary Clinton in the 2008 primaries, yet he’s lauded among these firebaggers as a “hero.” Krugman has also admitted on more than one occasion that he is not a team player, so he has essentially admitted that he’s out to inflate his ego with his so-called “criticisms” of President Obama.
Anya
Krugman is the original peddler of equating Obama supporters with cultists.
Dan Carmell
I not sure who these terrible liberals are who are condemning President Obama, but I guess I am one of them. I am proud to have voted for him and I am almost sure to vote for him again in 2012. But I strongly disagree with my President on several issues, most acutely on issues concerned with civil liberties and the lack of accountability for those who destroyed so much of our economy (before Mr. Obama was elected). I am also concerned that so many of the actors and advisers curently directing critical economic issues for our country come out of the same Wall Street cesspool.
My criticisms do not change the fact that I feel Barack Obama is a very good person and able politician, someone with a heart. It’s a wonderful thing after 8 years of Bush Jr. to have a president who not only speaks in complete sentences but has command of the facts behind his words.
But this statement: “And keep in the back of your mind that Barack Obama was a known centrist long before 2008. He was never a liberal. ” does not change the fact that I disagree with the President on the topics I mention above. Denegrating those of us with principled disagreements with the President and his administration is as or more disrespectful to my right to express my political opinions as is someone being termed an “Obamabot”.
Let’s do for our President what another president, our own FDR, asked supporters to do: make him do it, make him move to our stance wherever we can. And when we can’t, let’s disagree respectfully. Let’s be mindful that we all are pulling toward the same goals–I hope!
Dan Carmell
Oakland, California
Sly
@ObamaBotMoFo2012:
Krugman is an academic. His approach to problems is to study it, arrive at consensus, and implement the agreed upon solution. In other words, he’s not a politician.
TK-421
Speaking for myself, what made me nervous about the debt ceiling “talks” was that were talks at all. A clean vote would have been ideal, and would have had the extra benefit of being just like every other debt ceiling vote in our history. The only reason why strings were attached to this vote this time was because both sides wanted it this way.
Atrios just called it “governing by crisis.” I might float the term “governing by hostage negotiating.” Regardless, this was a chosen battle, and that made me very nervous.
Howard Appel
ABL:
I hereby call you a “liberal, libtard, a Dumbocrat, a hippie, a socialist, a tree-hugger, a bleeding heart, a gay-lover, and an Obamabot.” AND I MEAN THOSE AS COMPLIMENTS.
Years ago, during the 2000 election season, I had occasion to be involved in legal negotiations with David Limbaugh, Rush’s brother. David knew that I considered myself a staunch democrat and, when he would “accuse” me of being a liberal, I would reply “David, I take that as a badge of honor.”
AND I STILL DO.
invisible_hand
i think the big difference is that in today’s narrative-driven, all-or-nothing, media world, every criticism is a “blast,” and every comment is a big deal. there is no problem in criticizing the president. hell i do it all the time. i disagree sharply with president obama’s continuation of pres. bush’s expansion of executive power.
however, i DISAGREE with him. i am not “disappointed.” i am not “crushed.” this is not a personal/emotional matter. this is political, which a priori involves me not getting my ideal and some people getting the short end of the stick, sometimes me.
a further fault line is that my criticism does not erase all the good the president has accomplished, especially with this insane opposition from the GOP (and sometimes his own party). my baseline is support for the president since he has accomplished some amazing things (see the list in the post), which does NOT preclude my ability to critique his governing and even protest when necessary.
i believe that the reason the GOP is able to steamroll us so frequently in elections is because they are better at party politics. they are able to make it about us vs. them. i actually believe that if we (the left) were more on the side of the president, we would be able to shift him more our way, since our voice would be stronger, our vote would be stronger.
ObamaBotMoFo2012
@Anya:
Really? I could have sworn it was Glenn Greenwald, Joan Walsh, or another one of the so-called “progressive” talking heads.
Well either way, Krugman is not a credible critic, as I pointed out, he is just out to stoke his own ego by attacking the President and ignoring the political realities the President has to deal with.
Elie
Holding aside Obama, there is a contingency of people who comment here who have a ABL strawman (or woman), that they enjoy flogging. Y’all just make up shit she says or apparently can read her mind and just know what she means even when it is clear she is not saying what you insist she is.
Balloon Juice now has at least 40% of people I think are fake progressives and self strokers who blow up comment threads with endless, wordy bullshit… frankly, I skip reading a fair number of you — you are just plain full of crap.
burnspbesq
@Phaedrus:
Re Obama and state secrets defense: link, s’il vous plait.
Elie
@186
I totally agree with your take on Krugman. Smart but arrogant self promoter. He has no real responsibility for anything serious so can fluff anything he wants…
dave
ObamaBotMoFo2012 :
Let me just note that you haven’t really responded to anything I’ve actually said, and have erected quite a lovely strawman. For the record, I haven’t visited firedoglake since 2006 and have watched this firebagger/obamabot argument continue like a slow motion horror show for the last several years.
Here’s the thing though. I am not going to let you take down that strawman. I am going to ride to strawman’s rescue!!
Lets grant, for the sake of argument, that the firebaggers are 100% wrong about Obama’s intentions with regard to Medicare and Social Security and that their reaction to this whole issue has been crazy out of control emotional.
My question to you is this: So what? Why does it matter to you that people wrongly think Obama’s going to cut Social Security and Medicare and are loudly voicing their objections to that possibility?
Are you in favor of cutting social security and medicare? If not, then what’s wrong with voicing that opinion clearly and forcefully? So what if the firebaggers aren’t savvy enough to understand that Obama playing eleven dimensional chess or whatever?
The whole point in a democracy is to advocate your policy preferences. I will readily admit that firebaggers are super annoying when they dial their poutrage up to 11 for every little issue, but I don’t really care because the important thing is whether or not I agree with the issue.
I am opposed to cutting social security and medicare. Everything else is irrelevant. If Obama cuts those programs I will be less inclined to support him. If he doesn’t then no harm no foul.
Davis X. Machina
@Sly:
And he knows it, and will tell you as much, and has, over and over again, when asked. Which is ok. There are jobs for all…
Which is why the incecssant “Krugman for SecTreas” din over at, inter alia, DemocraticUnderground.com, so disheartening. I don’t know Elizabeth Warren’s predilections, but when she doesn’t run against Scott Brown, a lot of hearts there will break.
Being a politician, above a certain shop-floor or town council level, is pretty much not a thing you do, it’s a thing you be, and not every bright, public-spirited person with right intentions and a gift for language is a politician.
Berial
Dan Carmell @182
I think you’ll find most of the posters here agree with you. It’s the ‘progressives’ that say they’ll never vote for Obama that seem to draw the most ire and verbiage.
I personally hate this administrations position on copyright and I think they are probably responsible for the 6 strike agreement between ISP’s and big media, but I’m still voting for Obama over whoever the Republican’s put up against him.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Chosen by whom?
Pat
*HUFF POST: The United Nations’ torture investigator on Tuesday accused the United States of violating U.N. rules by refusing him unfettered access to the Army private accused of passing classified documents to WikiLeaks.
Juan Mendez, the U.N.’s special rapporteur for torture, said he can’t do his job unless he has unmonitored access to detainees. He said the U.S. military’s insistence on monitoring conversations with Bradley Manning “violates long-standing rules” the U.N. follows for visits to inmates.*
And yes, even Bush allowed the UN access to Guantanimo detainees. Not that you’d notice.
ObamaBotMoFo2012
From what I gathered, they tried test votes on a “clean bill” and said test votes FAILED… in both the House and the Senate.
You’re right it should have been procedural, but Boehner, Can’tor, and the rest of the Republicans in the House as well as McConnell and the Republicans in the Senate decided to make this debt ceiling vote a battle just so they could blame it on President Obama. They demanded cuts, President Obama proposed giving them more than what they were asking for, now they are running away like cockroaches. Heck, President Obama has essentially said that if the Republicans don’t cut the horseshit, that he can’t guarantee that Social Security checks will go out on time, because the debt ceiling wouldn’t be raised… so President Obama is once again showing he’s the rational calm negotiator while the Republicans continue to play political games with people’s lives.
Bruce S
“Barack Obama was a known centrist long before 2008. He was never a liberal. I knew that when I voted for him. Why have so many others forgot?”
I knew that and supported Obama because he wasn’t the most “left” guy in the race. That “left” guy was a pretty transparent phony. But I was drawn also to Obama because of his background as a grass-roots organizer. In June of ’07 – when I was “all in” and I’ll bet that a lot of the folks here counseling “calm” and telling me that it’s okay that fucking Medicare “cuts” (!) have been put “on the table” in a deb ceiling debate were under the assumption that Hillary would be their candidate and “Obamabots” were tilting at windmills – I listened to Obama tell his supporters not to rely on him for the change. That it was about “making him do it.” I appreciated his pragmatism and his political skills, but I also know that before Obama took this current weight on his shoulders he was very clear that an energized grass roots pushing on core issues and a liberal agenda was the key to his ultimately succeeding in “change.”
I think it’s insulting to Obama – not the guy you hear at press conferences doing what he believes he has to do given the position he’s playing, whether one thinks it’s the best strategy or not, but the man who actually lives and thinks behind that “Presidential” facade – to simply cast oneself as an “Obamabot” and make “support” for the President the be-all of one’s politics. Total fucking bullshit. Weak. If that had been Martin Luther King’s strategy, LBJ wouldn’t have been in the position to push through a civil rights bill when he did.
These false dichotomies and getting incensed because people are vocal about keeping Medicare out of a budget debate that’s, frankly, driven by GOPer assumptions, signal the weakness and ineptitude of too many Democrats. I didn’t join the Democratic party because I wanted to subject myself to lectures tantamount to “democratic centralist” discipline or putting a personality central to the party’s goals that has, in fact, characterized the doctrinaire “Left” in past eras. I didn’t experience this kind of bullshit when Clinton did stuff that was “centrist” with which I disagreed. Why is it happening with Obama. He’s the President. Presidents aren’t boyfriends and they are subject to some very ugly political “realities.” It’s not my job to ratify “what is.” If the Tea Party crazies had operated under those assumptions about the GOP leadership, they wouldn’t have the power in their party that they wield.
Complacency is not a plan. I’ve been as strong a supporter of Obama as one could find – in $$, time spent knocking on doors – yes, in West Oakalnd – and in defending his accomplishments to doubters. But I also am the kind of supporter that recognizes Obama needs a stronger left flank if he’s going to be any kind of decent centrist, as opposed to a guy who has been forced into a corner. This “deficit debate” is a corner created by the right. That’s a fact. To remain “calm” in the face of that and put the whole burden on Obama’s skills is pathetic. It weakens Obama, among other things.
Glib finger-wagging at fellow Democrats who are vocal about issues and who don’t just follow a “the leader knows best” line is not helpful to either the party or the President. Folks need to grow up…
TK-421
I said it a couple days ago, but here we go again: this incessant need to get everyone to be a “team player” is really bizarre. Precisely what bond do I share with any of these people in DC? They are predominantly white, old, rich, narcissistic, and out of touch- why the hell am I supposed to be on this “team” when I share almost nothing in common with them?
I don’t know why people get off on “their team winning” in politics. These don’t look like teams to me, these look like a handful of players with millions of eager cheerleaders. That’s…not a team.
Everyone realizes that Suzy Pom Pom, no matter how much she blows Johnny U quarterback, still isn’t part of the football team, right?
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Kucinich? I’m not a huge booster, and he’s definitely kind of screwy, but I don’t think he’s a phony.
ObamaBotMoFo2012
@Pat:
Thanks for posting a story from Huffington Post, you know, the rag which Arianna Huffington sold to corporate AOL.
And Bradley Manning? Are you kidding? During a rough economy, you think that the majority of rational thinking folks are going to give a shit about a man who leaked classified intelligence that could have gotten us all killed?
Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony
Also, calling those who do “Loyalists” while painting yourself as a protector of true democracy is cheap, not to mention foolish.
Its also completely inaccurate. Our democratic system was founded on the idea that people would compromise to get stuff done. Ideologues on the left and especially on the right aren’t protectors of our democracy, they are actively undermining it.
Firebagger response…. blah blah blah ‘march in lockstep’ blah blah blah
Berial
Hey Dave @190 you stop beating your wife?
You see, having a complaint that has some basis in reality as opposed to the ones almost entirely in their heads is the reason people here have gotten quite annoyed with the firebaggers.
Some people having opposition to the president when he does something is rational and expected. Having opposition to the president when you imagine he did something, or he did something OTHER than what you are complaining about tends to draw a different response.
edit: Just want to add I don’t actually think Dave beats his wife. It’s just an example. Apologies if I gave any actual offense.
dave
Bruce S:
This.
Pat
Glenn-bots are more rational: “Obama is a full-scale advocate for cutting the crown jewels of the New Deal. Yesterday, The Huffington Post reported — based on “five separate sources with knowledge of negotiations — including both Republicans and Democrats” — that Obama had also offered to raise the Medicare eligibility age from 65 to 67.”
OK, he’s not the Black FDR, he’s the Bizarro-World FDR!
ObamaBotMoFo2012
I may be wrong, but I recall the saying “Yes WE Can.” “We,” meaning “we” as a team.
If you’re not willing to be a team player, then quit getting in the way of those that do.
NamelessGenXer
@Dan Carmell
And if he doesn’t have the votes in the recalcitrant Congress to ‘do it’, what then?
No offense, but this makes it seem like you’d be open to either not voting, or voting for the Last Contestant Standing in the GOP Krazy Klown Kontest, which completely undermines your heartfelt plea for respect. Ask yourself this: if you vote for any one of those freaks and a few years later, your daughter/gradndaughter is found dead in a back alley somewhere in a pool of blood with a coathanger sticking out of her, whose face will you see in the mirror? Obama’s?
TK-421
As a tactic, this was suggested months ago (by Josh Marshall, IIRC). President Obama could have been talking about Social Security checks (and military paychecks and veteran’s benefits checks and etc.) months ago. But he didn’t.
Now, maybe he was right to hold his fire. I disagree, but I don’t know. Regardless, it is wrong to suggest these negotiations weren’t a choice made by both parties. This shit could have stopped months ago, and the fact that President Obama chose to negotiate made me very nervous.
Just to be clear, I’m not saying he was wrong to do it (even though I disagree), I’m just saying that the whole thing made me very nervous. I don’t see anything wrong with getting nervous about a Democrat voluntarily accepting strings to be attached to a debt ceiling vote. That sounds awfully risky, and hard to predict.
ObamaBotMoFo2012
@dave:
The point is, that you firebaggers continuously play the Chicken Little game with President Obama. “Oh no he’s going to do this, he’s selling us out!” and are consistently proven WRONG every single time.
It’s good that you’re against cutting Social Security and Medicare, where is your animosity towards the Republicans, who voted unilaterally to end Medicare? Thus far, all I’ve seen out of you firebaggers is consistently making President Obama the enemy when the real enemies are people like Boehner, Can’tor, McConnell and the Tea Party who are willing to obstruct just to stick it to President Obama.
Just so you know, President Obama has stated multiple times that he is not for cutting benefits on Social Security or Medicare, one of those times being during yesterday’s press conference, yet you firebaggers STILL project that “Oh nooooooes, he’s going to cut Medicare and Social Security!” You hear what you want to hear.
Bruce S
Jim at 198 – no, I’m referring to John Edwards, who most of the “professional lefties” among local Dems I’m aware of idealized because he had been able to write down on paper a pretty decent health care proposal. Never mind that he was an idiot on the Iraq war and was reduced to apologizing.
I don’t take Kucinich seriously as a candidate, but I appreciate his participating in the debate. We need guys like him, although I don’t agree with his purism or his simplistic foreign policy. (And FWIW, I’m actually generally supportive of the President on foriegn policy – he’s done what I would have expected based on his campaign “promises.” I’m not a wild leftist – just a liberal who follows economic issues pretty closely and has found the White House team to be less than wonderful in that area. I also am not such a cynic that I completely devalue the idea of bringing younger people into an energized pary, as we did in ’07-’08. Those are the people who I fear are demoralized who I value, not Jane Hamsher – again someone I’ve never liked. Although the vitriol she gets here – ad the use of her multitude of sins to paint people such as myself as “anti-Obama” – strikes me as simply an inversion of Hamsherite hysterics.)
I think it’s pretty fair to call Edwards a “phony.” I’ve actually had that sense of him as far back as ’04.
Pat
Loyalists, when do Obama’s stated principles come into this debate? Does he stand for particular ideas, or does he only stand to sign legislation? Are laws bearing his signature all he wants for a legacy?
Phaedrus
I’m always surprised that “yeah, the president can order me killed if he wants to, but we’ve got sucky universal healthcare now, bitches” is acceptable to some Americans.
JWL
To consistently equate lefty criticism of President Obama as an attack upon your own conception of our national interests is to sound exactly like a whiny, ever bellyaching, ever the victim, idiot republican.
Bruce S
“a man who leaked classified intelligence that could have gotten us all killed”
Wow! Let’s get hysterical and crucify Bradley Manning while we’re at it. Hell, the New York Times printed it, so they must be guilty of treason. Maybe you should go to work writing copy for FOX News. You’ve got the skills.
Danny
Thanks ABL and Leisa Simone for the f-cking truest words I had the pleasure of reading the last two years at least. Except Obama being “centrist”. I consider him a pragmatic progressive..
Jim, Foolish Literalist
It occured to me after I hit submit that that’s who you meant. Yeah, I agree. Let me say as a one-time Edwards supporter (even though I never thought he had a real chance). I was with now-firebagger Sam Seder, who said that he was supporting Edwards because at least he was talking about the wealth/income gap, and maybe supporting him could influence the party-wide conversation. I was wrong.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
It occured to me after I hit submit that that’s who you meant. Yeah, I agree. Let me say as a one-time Edwards supporter (even though I never thought he had a real chance). I was with now-firebagger Sam Seder, who said that he was supporting Edwards because at least he was talking about the wealth/income gap, and maybe supporting him could influence the party-wide conversation. I was wrong.
dave
Berial @ 201:
So if we heard from anonymous sources that the president is going to nuke Iran, we should just shut up and wait until he acts and then voice our displeasure?
I will concede that relying on anonymous sources is unreliable, but what is the harm in voicing objection to the policy before its enacted in an effort to prevent it from occurring? If it wasn’t going to happen anyway then there’s no harm and if it was going to happen, making it a big issue might prevent it from happening. Whats wrong with forcing Obama and the Democrats to clearly articulate their intentions w/r/t SS and Medicare?
Pat
Obot @207 *you firebaggers STILL project that “Oh nooooooes, he’s going to cut Medicare and Social Security!” You hear what you want to hear.*
Obama’s presser yesterday: “And it is possible for us to construct a package that would be balanced, would share sacrifice, would involve both parties taking on their sacred cows, would involved some meaningful changes to Medicare, Social Security, and Medicaid that would preserve the integrity of the programs and keep our sacred trust with our seniors,. . . I mean, it’s not an option for us to just sit by and do nothing. And if you’re a progressive who cares about the integrity of Social Security and Medicare and Medicaid, and believes that it is part of what makes our country great that we look after our seniors and we look after the most vulnerable, then we have an obligation to make sure that we make those changes that are required to make it sustainable over the long term. . . . With respect to Social Security, as I indicated earlier, making changes to these programs is so difficult that this may be an opportunity for us to go ahead and do something smart that strengthens Social Security”
What part of “meaningful changes” did you not get?
ObamaBotMoFo2012
And if he did, the firebaggers would bitch that he wasn’t focused on jobs, which ironically they are right now.
But let’s hypothetically say that he did this months ago, remember the entire media was focused on the Libya conflict, the Trump/birth certificate circus, Osama bin Laden being dead, Anthony Weiner’s penis problems, and the whole Casey Anthony circus. How would this benefit President Obama back then when we had all those media circuses going on?
Now that the Libya conflict has been turned over to NATO, Trump revealed for the opportunist media clown that he is, Osama bin Laden being fishfood, Anthony Weiner no longer a Congressman, and Casey Anthony being set free, the media can once again focus on President Obama and he is able to make his point that the Republicans are willing to play political games with the debt ceiling (hence why he said to CBS he can’t guarantee that the Social Security checks will get out on time if the debt ceiling isn’t raised). If it’s one thing President Obama has been good at, it’s timing his messaging. It’s more effective now with the US facing a default and senior citizens facing not getting their SS, they’ll see Obama as the reasonable one and the Republicans as playing childish games. It’s almost like the government shutdown crisis we were facing months ago.
travis
I have to admit, I was getting a little nervous. There is a fair chance that our president is smarter at politics than me. That said, I think the rhetoric he uses scares the shit out of some of us who are used to Dems bending over for anyone willing to play hardball. I can’t help wondering though, would a stiffer approach to those terrorists in suits and their moronic base have produced a similar result with the benefit of looking tough?
Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony
No, centrism does not exist. It has no political or practical values. It is a lie that people tell themselves in order to feel better about their own mediocrity or justify their anti-partisanship.
Idealogues never can believe that people can think without a defined political ideology. Of course, having a defined ideology is sometimes, not the product of thought and research, but a way to shut off thinking. After all, any human construct is going to be flawed. Being entirely too wedding to a political ideology blinds you to those flaws. For instance, I think Medicare is absolutely necessary. However, I do think there are serious problems with it as it currently exists. For one, it IS fiscally unsustainable in its present form. When you look at population trends and the continuing increases in the cost of care, I don’t think that can be credibly disputed. So, I want reform, not because I hate Medicare or seniors, but because I want it to still be there.
ObamaBotMoFo2012
@Pat:
Meaningful changes could most likely mean strengthening both Medicare and SS, making them more solvent, but NOT cutting or trimming benefits to either.
You have just employed a Rovian tactic: Take an Obama quote and spin it completely out of context to fit your view. If you had listened and paid attention to the ENTIRE press conference (as opposed to that quote/soundbite), you’d know that President Obama is NOT going to cut Social Security/Medicare benefits to raise the debt ceiling.
Like I said, you hear what you want to hear. Thanks for proving my point.
Bruce S
“I don’t recall Krugman being as critical as he is currently towards President Obama towards President Bill Clinton.”
Krugman agreed with most of what Clinton did at the time. But he’s a guy who has been able to learn lessons. He’s a technocratic neo-liberal who got some of the scales pulled from his eyes by the Bush administration. I’ve disagreed strongly with Krugman over Hillary – and I have no idea what – or if – he thinks she might have done better in the wake of the ’08 crisis, which ante-dates his support of HC. That said, Krugman is more right in describing the economic terrain and the best-case solutions – even given the political constraints – than the White House economic team has been. If all Krugman did was echo what Giethner or Sperling had to say and told his readers “This is the best of all possible worlds!” he’d be a shittier columnist than David Brooks. It’s Krugman’s job to criticize. Sometimes he may make it seem too personal – he did recently to my taste in one blog post – but we need Krugman for a bigger picture than we’re going to get from White House press releases. This is pretty elementary. I get the feeling that some folks are making it all about Obama – it’s not. He’s just the President. Presidents are terribly constrained. My suggestion is – at the risk of redundncy – that folks get off their asses rather than enjoy “calm” if they want to give the President the shot at great success he deserves and is capable of. But not if Dems treat him like he’s a fragile figure who always needs to be defended against aggressive liberalism on the ground. If he’s as smart as I assume he is – ten times smarter than me – he’s factoring the reaction of the most vocal among his “base” in his political calculations and no doubt wishes there was more of it – at least as loud as the insane Tea Baggers.
TK-421
First, that’s not how I understood it. I understood the “we” to be a simple expression of a community coming together to enact change that we all agree we want. You may think that constitutes a “team,” but I disagree.
A team does come together to achieve a common goal, yes, but it is also a collection of individuals with specialized skills and roles with obligations and duties to each other. An offensive lineman’s role is to block that guy so he doesn’t sack the quarterback, yes, but the quarterback has an obligation to the lineman to decide & throw quickly so he’s not given the impossible task of blocking a guy forever. Special skills, special roles, obligations to each other.
Second, given the intent of this post it’s kind of ironic you so flippantly decide I am “not a team player” and I should just get out of the way. That’s a pretty big leap to hear someone say “I’m not on this team” and conclude “he’s not a team player.” Do you see how the two statements are different?
ObamaBotMoFo2012
@Bruce S
Damned right I will crucify Bradley Manning. He violated the oath he took when he got into the service, which is to keep the country safe. One of those things to keep the country safe is NOT to leak classified material that could get his fellow soldiers and the country killed. He violated the UCMJ and he deserves every ounce of punishment he is getting. I don’t believe he is being tortured at all, even his father said as such… but I guess President Obama must have used his magical almighty brainwashing powers to make Manning’s father an Obamabot!
gwangung
I’m going to say that you are not wrong to feel nervous. On the other hand, a great deal of politicking requires knowledge that is neither generally known or obvious. This threading the needle by Obama is not unique; he’s done it several times before, with varying degrees of success. While it may make people into Obots if they trust him to get things done, it’s also relying on a past record.
The Raven
Since when is loyalty to a ruler a democratic, or Democratic, virtue?
SIA
@ General Stuck 3:44 pm “Obama knows how to use the long knives. He just reads a little poetry first”.
Love it.
Great post ABL.
Pat
#223 *you’d know that President Obama is NOT going to cut Social Security/Medicare benefits to raise the debt ceiling.*
Then why doesn’t he just come out and say that? Why all the wordplay suggesting the exact opposite? C’man people, “meaningful changes” in DC parlance can only mean reductions in benefits – what the hell does “strengthening” SS and Medicare mean anyway? How do you you strengthen (make more efficient?) those without reducing benefits? Just a slightly less-cruel version of Ryan’s plan for these entitlements.
ObamaBotMoFo2012
@TK-421:
dictionary.com definition of “team”:
–noun
1.
a number of persons forming one of the sides in a game or contest: a football team.
2.
a number of persons associated in some joint action: a team of advisers.
3.
two or more horses, oxen, or other animals harnessed together to draw a vehicle, plow, or the like.
I of course mean #2. We are involved in the joint action of supporting President Obama, and assisting him in getting the most progressive legislation he can possibly get.
As for roles, this is not a football game. We are not a football team, we are the grassroots. Our job/role is to fight back against the lies about President Obama and have his back during these difficult fights.
I stand by what I stated. If you aren’t willing to be a team player and help out, then get out of the way. Stay on the sidelines and complain with the other armchair Presidents.
Bruce S
“ObamaBotMoFo2012 – July 12, 2011 | 5:54 pm · Link
@Bruce S
Damned right I will crucify Bradley Manning.”
I believe that Manning should be prosecuted under the laws he violated. That said, you are characterizing him according to the kind of ugly hysterics I associate with the far right. You need to calm down. I never mentioned torture. Simply noting that you are being over-the-top. Apparently that’s your intent, with the “damned right” response. The assertion that his actions could “get us all killed” sounds like some Glenn Beck bullshit. I don’t think you are exhibiting much of a capacity for rational discussion of serious issues.
And I’m through with this.
dave
ObamaBotMoFo2012 said:
First: Stop callign me a firebagger. I have my own views which i have articulated here. If you can’t engage my arguments directly and prefer to fight straw then please just go pound sand.
Second: I have never voted for a republican in my life. In that sense, I oppose the “real enemies” you have listed. I don’t support partisan obstruction for obstruction’s sake which is what happens when the whole country is encouraged to treat politics like a sport in which they must choose to root for the red team or the blue team. As a liberal I obviously oppose 99% or more of the tea party platform.
Apparently unlike you, I am capable of opposing certain politicians’ policies without considering them “the enemy.” In addition, I am capable of criticizing politicians from both “teams” on different occasions and can understand that doing so does not ipso facto make me a supporter of the other “team.”
ObamaBotMoFo2012
@Pat:
Once again, he did during the press conference, but you choose to hear what you want to hear (or in this case NOT hear). Do you honestly think that President Obama is stupid enough to actually cuts Social Security and Medicare benefits to get the debt ceiling raised?
If so, you are in bad need of a brain scan. As I have posted, President Obama didn’t advance this far in politics by being an idiot and being naive.
Uncle Clarence Thomas
.
.
Note to Balloonbagger Newbies
You are currently experiencing a “balloonbagger circle-pop.” It is a periodic cumulative social display of preening personal loyalty to President Obama in all things by the hardcore center-right denizens of this blog. Each commenter tries to make his or her show of obeisance greater and more dazzling than the previous one. There is much cooing and mutual grooming amongst the faithful flock, with loud and terrifying exhibitions of wounded poutrage erupting should anyone – especially the dreaded liberals and progressives – voice the slightest principled policy disagreement, criticism, or observed deficiency or prevarication on the part of their revered leader. As with all cultists, they cannot be reasoned with and can only be mocked for sport. I urge you to be gentle with them, for they know not what they do and cannot control themselves.
.
.
TK-421
Chris Hayes (yes, that Chris Hayes) wrote a post a couple years ago relating his experience canvassing for Kerry(!) in 2004. He observed that a lot of those “undecided independents” that waffle and squint and hem and haw in the last few weeks of a campaign don’t stay undecided because they’re stupid or self-congratulatory. No, they remain undecided because they hate politics and voting is a chore, like doing the laundry.
At last an explanation that allows me to stop hating those fuckers.
Berial
dave @218
If you hear from a war hawk, anti-Pakistan bigoted source that ‘anonymous’ sources are saying the president wants to nuke Pakistan you probably should wait for your condemnation till you get more sources.
If you hear from firebagger sources that the president is attempting to sell the country to the Republicans and Wall Street for a couple of magic beans you probably should wait for some more sources before you get too upset.
Objecting to things you find objectionable is expected, however, if you keep objecting to things that NEVER HAPPEN then people are going to just ignore you much like they do the fellow walking down the street having a very vivid argument with someone that isn’t there.
What would your opinion be of me if every day you got an e-mail from me begging you not to kill yourself or stop throwing eggs at me? You’ve never had any intention of harming yourself and you haven’t tossed an egg since high school? Now I’m posting the same stuff on your blog and other blogs as well? I’m even posting how happy I am that I managed to change your decision and your actions. Eventually you’d like me to seek help and leave you alone right?
Making a big issue of things that were never going to happen anyway over and over is what gets me personally riled up. You’ve got a group of people that think THEY are personally causing things to NOT HAPPEN when nobody had any desire to do those things in the first place.
As for getting Obama and the D’s to clearly articulate their intentions w/r/t SS and Medicare I’m all for it, but unfortunately for you and me we probably won’t get anything like that till the horse trading is done with the current debt debate, because both sides are playing things close to the vest.
ObamaBotMoFo2012
@Bruce S
Of course you’re through, because you admitted that Bradley Manning is not the hero that you and the rest of the firebaggers portray him out to be.
I mentioned torture because the rest of the firebaggers accused President Obama of allowing Manning to be tortured, but they offered no proof whatsoever.
But yeah, Manning is a non-issue and damned right he will be prosecuted fully under the UCMJ and civilian laws.
Lydgate
Umm.. guys– you know that Krugman supported Edwards first, then switched to Hilary, and finally Obama. He wasn’t in love with any of them, but he felt that Edwards was speaking about the most important issue facing the US. I followed the same trajectory as Krugman. Yes, I was not all convinced of the Edwards’ sincerity but I thought at least someone isn’t peddling the “a rsing tide lifts all boats” snakeoil that Dems and Republicans had been trying to sell us for years.
And I am so going to agree with the commenter that finds this post incredibly undemocratic.
TK-421
Yeah…in which case criticism and disagreement and argument is to be expected and embraced. If you want to claim that some people are over the top, hysterical, unrealistic, etc., well…welcome to the team.
Trying to shut that down by guilt-tripping people because they are “not being a team player” isn’t really in the spirit of things. According to your definition, disagreement and criticism of the leader aren’t out of bounds.
Bruce S
“Bradley Manning is not the hero that you and the rest of the firebaggers portray him out to be.”
Don’t fucking call me a firebagger and don’t make false claims about my position on Manning.
I’m through because you’re a moronic bastard making wild assertions to bolster yourself when you’re knee-deep in right-wing bullshit posing Manning’s actions as an existential threat to “all of us.” As crazy as the worst “firebagger.” Go fuck yourself.
Okay – now I’m through.
The Raven
And also because they so seldom get what they want, the people they are voting on are often awful, and because it’s incredibly hard to be an informed citizen. Politics makes most people feel stupid.
Mass democracy is still very young in this world.
BTW, Chris Hayes article that TK-421 cited above: http://www.chrishayes.org/articles/decision-makers/
dave
Berial @ 237.
I pretty much agree with this wiht a few exceptions. I think on occasion the firebaggers are exactly as you describe and agree that it is very annoying. I disagree, however, that they are “always” wrong in their predictions and I don’t think any of us can know whether they haven’t had some effect on policy outcomes. In any case, I have had a pretty easy time ignoring them when they seemed prematurely unhinged and listening to them when they seemed to make sense.
In particular, I think that they have been spot on when it comes to the recession, civil liberties and the GWOT where all three branches of govenrment have been truly egregiously catastrophically wrong policy-wise.
cckids
@170:
Yes. Object & bitch about ACTUAL policies, laws enacted, decisions made, all you want. It’s a free country, democracy at work, & all that. But please confine your bitching & moaning to those, not the imaginary decisions & betrayals in your minds. Please, please, please stop all the drama & breath holding. Some of us have kids & have to deal with it in real life. Unless you are a 11 or 12 year old girl, knock off the melodrama, please god.
ObamaBotMoFo2012
So we are just supposed to sit back and let Obama be falsely labeled a Republican, a Wall Street sellout, etc etc etc, especially from talking heads who supposedly speak for us?
Sorry, I don’t want those fuckers on this team. Arianna Huffington, Jane Hamsher, and Glenn Greenwald are just three names I can think of who are actually Republicans falsely speaking for “Obama’s base.”
And also, calling Obama a right wing sellout Republican and his supporters “Obamabots” isn’t criticism at all. It is over the top hysterics based on emotion, and not facts.
I still stand by what I stated. If you aren’t willing to be a team player and help the President, get out of the way and stay on the sidelines complaining. My Pittsburgh Steelers may have had disagreements on plays during the Super Bowl, but they stuck together and lost the Super Bowl as a team. They didn’t make their disagreements public, nor did they rant or rave when plays didn’t go their way. They accepted defeat and are training hard to do much better this upcoming football season, THAT is what being a team is about.
Berial
dave @243
The problem I have with the ‘baggers’ being right about anything is this; If the president does 10 things in one month, and pretty much everyone agrees that 2 of those things were a compromise that they don’t understand or don’t like, the ‘baggers would crow about how right they were on those 2 things, but never mention that they were also complaining about the other 8 things he did as well.
What do the firebaggers think the president has done right? If they never give him credit or people never hear them give him credit then why wouldn’t everyone simply think of them as ‘the opposition’ because basically that’s what they are, just from a different direction.
Lydgate
So, question for the folks who are offended by this post (that would include me!): Do you frequent Firedoglake? Cuz I never do, and I imagine most of you don’t either.
dave
Defend this statement without also defending George W. Bush supporters.
The Raven
ObamaBotMoFo2012, #245: “just because you’re on their side doesn’t mean that they are on yours.”
ObamaBotMoFo2012
@Bruce S
Resorting to personal insults now.
Right wing bullshit? Manning violated the UCMJ, since when did following the UCMJ become “right wing bullshit”?
Damn right he could have not only gotten his fellow soldiers killed, but us killed, that’s why the UCMJ has strict punishment for any military member who leaks classified information to the public.
Manning was willing to potentially get his fellow soldiers killed, just to become a “hero” to the firebaggers. That to me is unAmerican, especially after he swore an oath to protect his fellow soldiers and the nation. If that’s right wing to you, you need a major brain scan. Manning swore an oath and he effectively said through his actions “You know what? Fuck this, I’m leaking all this info to become popular, fuck the oath I swore.”
I sure wouldn’t want to serve in ANY platoon with Manning, I’d be afraid of him using friendly fire, or even worse, leaking info to the enemy just to “be popular” with the Cindy Sheehan fan club. Again if that’s right wing to you, you need to have your head checked. And if the firebagger label offends you, it’s because you’re defending a man who sold his fellow soldiers out and disgraced the military, all in an effort to somehow blame his actions on the Commander in Chief.
Mike Sax
What do the FDLer say when he found a piece of lint on his shirt? “Damn you Obama! You promised hope and change.”
Check out a real liberal post which attacks Rethugs not Obama http://diaryofarepublicanhater.blogspot.com/
For some comic relief check out my own posts in the belly of the beast. http://my.firedoglake.com/descartes/2011/06/30/fired-dog-lake-ought-to-be-renamed-the-rush-limbaugh-lake-site/
I got a post today as well-feel free to comment often it’ll tsk the naysayers off.
http://my.firedoglake.com/descartes/2011/07/12/what-would-a-progressive-tax-code-look-like/
Origuy
The Huffington Post? Was one of those sources Deepak Chopra?
dave
Berial:
I agree. But putting aside their predictive abilities, what’s so intolerable about opposition from “the left”?
Lydgate:
Haven’t been to firedoglake since 2006. Labels are just what humans do to make sense of the world. ObamaBotMoFo2012 can’t conceive of the fact that individual human beings with differing backgrounds and perspectives can possibly disagree with ObamaBotMoFo2012 without being part of some enemy collective.
ObamaBotMoFo2012
@dave
Simple. Bush supporters were defending a known fuck up (C student, drove Texas businesses to bankruptcy as Governor, and cheated in Florida to win the 2000 election). Obama supporters(“Obamabots,” as you call us) are defending a good man (community organizer, self made, Harvard grad, humble and respectful).
But nice try at false equivalency.
Berial
dave @252,
There is nothing wrong with opposition from the left. There is a problem with being ‘the opposition from the left’ and pretending to be ‘the base’ of the guy you are actually in opposition to.
ObamaBotMoFo2012
@Berial
That’s the thing with the firebaggers, they NEVER give Obama credit for a fucking thing.
Did we hear any of them give Obama any credit for attempting to pass middle income tax cuts last winter? Nope.
Did we hear any of them give Obama any credit for attempting to pass the DREAM Act? Nope.
Heck they don’t give the man credit for good things that do pass, or in some instances they say “See? We MADE him do it, because we held his feet to the fire,” even though their tactics have been proven counterproductive and have done more and more to obstruct progress than to push progress.
They say they’re pushing? Hell yeah they are… they’re pushing for MORE Republicans to get elected across the board, just because they won’t assist the President and the Democrats in fighting the lies put out there. Saying they won’t vote for Obama in 2012 because “he is just not damned progressive enough” ends up playing straight into the Republican’s hands because they can make ads claiming that “Obama’s base is disgruntled and in disarray, it’s time for new leadership in Washington.” And unless these firebaggers quit playing these games, the independents and swing voters will fall for it, as was evidenced in the midterms last fall.
Just Some Fuckhead
@Uncle Clarence Thomas:
lolz.
I often think most of them should be viewed less as game analysts and more as cheerleaders with pompoms and cute little outfits.
El Cid
__
Not to mention that most of the time I don’t think an operative, justifiable, and empirically supported use of the term “base” is what’s under discussion.
Anya
ObamaBotMoFo2012@188 – This is Krugman in February 11, 2008
El Cid
I was supporting Obama, and I too though a lot of the burning, unquestioning glee and hero-worship I saw coming from people I knew was creepy.
It was those immature, unrealistic supporters who were most bitter that upon inauguration he didn’t become 600 feet tall and spread jobs throughout the land by telekinesis.
gwangung
I do think that charges of Obots isn’t useful. I think it IS true that Obama war-games all the possibilities beter than most current politicians, and he has better nerves to take risks than most people. This alarms some people that dont have e nerves or can’t war-game it out as well.
BombIranForChrist
Whoa what?
“Or did they just assume he was a liberal because of his skin color and never bothered to check?”
Really, ABL?
Disappointing.
Bruce S
Anya – unfortunately venomous idiots like “Obamabotmof2012” are validating what was in the context of that 2/08 moment a dumb accusation on the part of Krugman.
I don’t consider clowns like “Obomofo2012” – or the flaming asshole “overeducated” who accused me of fearing a “black guy with a muslim name” as President after I simply referenced Jay Carney’s quote about Medicare “cuts” from a WH press conference – “Obama supporters.” They are – in marked contrast to the President – self-centered, obsessive and infantile jerks on a rampage who can’t handle distinctions or differences without resorting to hysterical accusations and insane hyperbole. Nor can they debate issues, without devolving into jousting at straw men or sliming with a broad brush. This kind of pathological inflammation doesn’t serve either the President or the party. Such clowns have the political instincts of precisely the folks they make a grand show of opposing – attack dog tactics, name-calling, FOX News-style reductionism and enumeration of enemies in a context of outright distortion/falsification.
Pathetic stuff being bandied about here…
The Raven
ObamaBotMoFo2012, #255: I’ve given Obama quite a bit of credit over his administration: for his Supreme Court nominees, for his modestly positive environmental appointments, for some aspects of his foreign policy, and for his willingness to allow DADT to be repealed. His court nominees, especially, I think are very good. I’ve probably said this in BJ comments, even, though I’d have to dig to find the remarks.
It remains the case that for me his failings in economics, finance, and civil rights outweigh these successes. As I wrote on my own blog a while back, “Progressives had hoped that Obama was going to be one of the great and rare presidents, who, like Washington and Juarez, have been able to renounce power for the greater good.” He has not been that. Yet our lives would be vastly improved under such a chief executive.
dogwood
ObamaBotMoFo2012:
I don’t understand the hero worship of Bradley Manning either. He’s not Daniel Ellsburg, who knew exactly what he was leaking to the press. Manning, perhaps rightly, assumed that he had access to classified material that could show government malfeasance. He didn’t find the stuff himself and leak what was relevant; he just leaked everything he had access to and let the chips fall where they may.
kc
@Obamabotmof2012
You’re like a mirror image of a firebagger, ya know.
Lawnguylander
@Bruce S
He did not accuse you of “fearing a black guy with a Muslim name.” You’re wrong.
manual
This is the saddest, stupidest post. Essentially, we are told to outsource our ideology – anchored in policy issues – for idolatry of an individual. It’s the same spiel we were told when Bill Clinton deregulated the financial markets and made savage “reforms” of welfare. It’s a corollary to the political science phenomenon of “rallying around the flag” during war time.
This is all wrong and is also what is wrong with the Democratic base. And if you think this is some firebagger rallying cry, well F U. I’ve actually participated in politics at the federal and local levels and understand compromise and constraints as much as anyone. But asking the millions of hard-working, poor, and most vulnerable citizens of our society to further “share the sacrifice” than they already have as there wages have been slashed and there communities left jobless and idle is perverse.
AxelFoley
Proud Obot here.
Obamabots wage their battle to destroy
The evil forces of the Republicons
Obots in disguise!
Danny
The Raven @ 264
“He wasn’t a new George Washington like I thought he would be”?
Got it! But maybe with time you’ll find he was actually pretty OK..?
Leisa Simone
Hello,
I’m the writer of the piece that ABL was gracious enough to post on her website. First, I thank you all for reading it.
Second, maybe a few people misunderstood. I never thought of the president as the second coming. I studied his politics long before the primary. I knew he was a centrist; I know I’m a liberal. A liberal means you study everything. A liberal is pretty much the antithesis of the Tea Party and the current “Intellectual Left”. I voted for him because of what I knew about him, not because I thought he would change. I found those things out by not just watching MSNBC or CNN or reading HuffPo. I did a lot of research. I vote with my brains, not my eyes.
I believe that others thought he was the second coming and now are disappointed because he hasn’t walked across water to wash their feet in appreciation for voting for him. Please remember: he said “hope and change”, not “loaves and fishes”.
Thank you to Balloon Juice for reprinting ABL’s post, and once again, my appreciation to you all for your time.
Leisa Simone
dogwood
The Democratic line in the sand: there will be no cuts to Medicare ever, period. The Repulican line in the sand – no tax raises on anyone, ever. The problem is the general public likes both of these positions. Polling might suggest that a large percentage of voters are ok with raising taxes on the wealthiest, but that is pretty meaningless in the voting booth. My neighbor is in favor of higher taxes on the rich, but she’ll never vote for a Democrat. Eventually, the rising costs of healthcare will make these 2 positions untenable. The money will run out and the public will have to take a side. I sure as hell hope they side with the Democrats, but I wouldn’t bet my life on it.
ken
You can’t know if you are an obamabot until the next republican president and you start complaining about things he is doing that you never complained about obama doing.
Mike Sax
Firedoglake in particular: what is the deal with those people? It all starts with Jane Hamsher. Her creepy “primary Obama” and “Obama is a Republican” buses in African American neighborhoods…
Everytime any Democrat does one thing she doesn’t like she starts up this drumbeat again.
Today the firebaggers were claiming that Sanders is being beaten up.
She conveniently forgets her “primary Sanders” moment during the HCR debate in 2009.
She was so hellbent on defeating what I agree was a far from perfect bill she even worked with the tea party people to see if they could make sure it failed.
Yes it had flaws but it insured 30 million new Americans.
pika
Two weeks ago, I posted on a friend’s FB wall that I knew I was voting neither for a daddy nor a savior. And I wanted neither, too. Yes, Leisa, yes. And I write this as someone who was really anxious this week wondering how things were going to play out.
burnspbesq
@ObamaBotMoFo2012:
It’s not impossible that Manning could have simultaneously committed crimes and performed a valuable public service. We do, after all, have a long tradition of civil disobedience in this country.
Anyone who wants to write a letter to the presiding officer of Manning’s court-martial advocating leniency in sentencing will have my full support and encouragement.
Marginalized for stating documented facts
I’m not a huge fan of Obots, but these relentless unjustified personal smears on ABL could really make me change my mind.
The Raven
Danny, #264:
Well…I didn’t expect that much. I’m a pretty cynical bird. But there were a lot of people, and not just progressives, who did hope that Obama would be one of the greats. That was what they heard in “hope and change.”
Obama walked into one of the worst situations that any President has begun his term with: only Lincoln and Washington, I think, faced more difficult issues. So far, I think, Obama has dealt poorly with some major challenges: jobs, housing, banking. (As I said above, I do think he’s done some good things.) Still…Lincoln’s generals nearly lost the Civil War. There are yet opportunities for Obama to rise to the many remaining challenges.
That said, I think this administration has missed many opportunities, and I do not think second chances will arrive in this decade
Tommy D
He inherited two wars, has expanded one and engaged in a new third one. This is a problem. I believe he has also expanded the National Security State. Also a problem.
The Raven
Mike Sax, #272: As far as I can tell Hamsher has never said “primary Obama.” Some of the commenters at FDL have said that, but I think none of the headliners (I haven’t checked them all, however.) She was just asked specifically in comments last week, and she didn’t say it, post. Back in 2010 she was asked by Lawrence O’Donnell on MSNBC if Russ Feingold might run be a creditable challenger, and she ridiculed the idea, saying “You might as well as me if I want Superman,” video (beware, really awful debateoid thing.)
Danny
I found the problem I think, right there :)
Hoping for, or even expecting “one of the greats” in advance of a new presidency – under whatever circumstances the country is in – is probably not advisable. Neither Washington nor Lincoln were unlucky enough to have to deal with such expectations.
Danny
@Tommy D
He also pulled out all (combat) troops of Iraq and he put a deal in place to hand over Afghanistan to the Afghanis by 2014. By the end of his first term we will have significantly less troops in Afghanistan and Iraq than at the outset.
Libya prevented an ongoing humanitarian chrisis and plausibly substancial massacres; was sanctioned by the UN, the global community & the Arab League, and enjoys actual popular support among muslims. Furthermore there are no boots on the ground, no american soldiers died (yet) and the cost is a miniscule faction of Iraq and Afghanistan.
Let’s remember the details – they matter.
AxelFoley
@Dr. Omed:
Are you Michael Moore, asshole?
AxelFoley
@TK-421:
Yes, yes you are ASSuming.
sixers
ABL is a apologist plain and simple. The main draw in her writing is in her recklessness and immaturity. She’s one of those people who thinks she’s fooling you even though its obvious to everyone in the room shes not. To pull out the “he’s our president” line after we all had to hear that shit for 8 years whenever you criticized bush acting like an idiot is so fucking tone deaf its hilarious. That’s the comedy I come to her posts for.
Shade Tail
manual:
And you know that because you read it?
Oh wait, you obviously didn’t, because this is pretty much the opposite of Ms. Simone’s point.
ABL
ABL Derangement Syndrome much?
I didn’t write this post, sparky.
i doubt you read the post, though. just saw my name, started frothing at the mouth, and decided to make your very important point heard. pavlovian, i’d say.
so ridiculous.
Admiral_Komack
@67. Joe:
Fuck off, troll.
Raven Basslady
Love, love, love this post! Proud to be an Obamabot!!!!
Binky the perspicacious bear
good Germans obey their leader even when they don’t understand his policies.
I still want to know why we have to live with Bush policies and declare them to be the new “Liberal.” Perhaps someone with magic telepathy can explain it for all of our edification. How does a constitutional scholar as president work-does he just know best how to subvert it? Not prosecute war crimes, financial fraud, domestic terrorism?
gwangung
Because asswipes like you are too goddam lazy to kick out the main impediments to progressives–Republicans. Obama ain’t your main obstacle—he’s just closest to your foot.
BlizzardOfOz
I would just like to thank all the Obots on this thread for bringing the weapons grade stupid as always. It’s weirdly cathartic reading the kind of sheer balls-out idiocy on display here, in the sense that it shows maybe we deserve the government we have, maybe it wasn’t just thrust on us forcefully by malicious oligarchs.
Raven Basslady
I think what bothers me most about Left-wing Obama-Haters is that they can *never, ever give me solutions.* It’s always the same old talking points. Primary Obama? Okay, so when we have a Republican controlled House, Senate and a crazed Tea Party backed President, what then?
Really. When you say, Obama needs to “use the Bully Pulpit, ” what exactly do you mean? I’ve seen an awful lot of his speeches– isn’t that what he’s been doing? Does he need to yell and scream? I honestly think there is *nothing* he can do that will ever satisfy folks who already just Hate Obama.
Those of you who Hate Obama– if you get your wish, and he’s primaried– and we lose… what then? What’s your endgame? What’s the grand plan?
Mike Sax
The Raven post 280. Ur right she never has said “primary Obama” as far as you know. Unfortunately you don’t know.
http://my.firedoglake.com/davidswanson/2011/07/08/the-theres-plenty-of-money-act-of-2012/
She supports primarying Obama through the New Progressive Alliance (NPA) who take credit for the infamous “Obama is a Republican” and “Primary Obama” bus ads targetd in African American neighborhoods.
http://newprogs.org/primary-obama-ads-roll-through-dc
Indeed she even called for the primarying of Bernie Sanders during the HCR debate back in 2009.
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2009/12/24/818660/-Primarying-Bernie-Sanders-is-gonna-be-a-bit-tricky
rachel
Plan? Who needs a plan when your heart is pure?
Danny
1. Primary Obama.
2. Move Overton Window.
3. Use Bully Pulpit.
4. ???
5. Profit!
BlizzardOfOz
@Raven Basslady
I’m guessing the bully pulpit only works if it’s not blindingly obvious to everyone that you’re completely full of shit.
BlizzardOfOz
@Raven Basslady
Sorry, but was that a serious question?… FDR created public works programs by executive order, so how about that? Or if that’s too much, uh, “change”, how about simply NOT giving $13 trillion to his Wall Street criminal friends, agreeing to fully extend tax cuts for the billionaires, then seeking to shaft American workers’ retirement fund that they’ve spent their whole working lives paying into? I mean … seriously? How about that?
Danny
@BlizzardOfOz
I’m gonna have to ask you to support that assertion dear Firebagger. Who did Obama give 13 trillion dollars to?
Bob
Dan Carmell–
Criticism where criticism is due coupled with acknowledging success is called being a freethinker and is a critical component of a liberal. You sir are neither a fire bagger nor an “Obamabot” and your opinion should be respected.
The Raven
Mike Sax, #294: I looked at all of your links. They do not support your statement.
The Kos link has a correction which removes Hamsher’s name. The FDL link isn’t her–it’s an FDL commenter whose name I don’t recognize. The New Progressive Alliance is also the work of commenters.
Jane Hamsher is no more responsible for the work of FDL commenters than John Cole is responsible for yours.
Admiral_Komack
@292. BlizzardOfOz:
Corny West, is that you?
The Raven
Danny, #281: “Hoping for, or even expecting ‘one of the greats’ in advance of a new presidency – under whatever circumstances the country is in – is probably not advisable. Neither Washington nor Lincoln were unlucky enough to have to deal with such expectations.”
“Hope is not advisable” would not have won the election.
Lincoln was reviled in his time. It may yet be that Obama will be ranked among the great Presidents.
Mike Sax
301 at this point your quibbling at best. To somehow pretend she is not with the NPA is just a stab at “plausible deniability.” If you follow the history of NPA you will see there is no daylight between them, FDL, and Hamsher.
Mike Sax
If you doubt this first know that NPA was formed in FDL not an outside group.
http://irregulartimes.com/index.php/archives/2011/04/25/who-is-behind-the-new-progressive-alliance/
Pat
*President Obama didn’t advance this far in politics by being an idiot and being naive.*
Exactly, he got there by us voters being naive idiots.
Admiral_Komack
I’ll bet Jane Hamsher is really pissed at Obama this morning.
Why, you ask?
Because she can’t get her hands on that 86 million.
Yeah, I said it.
Mike Sax
Also they were wrong about Obama wanting to out austerity the Repugs
Admiral_Komack
306. @Pat:
Who’s “us voters”?
Speak for yourself, naive idiot.
The Raven
Mike Sax, #304, I looked at that link, too. What is says is “It was organized through My FireDogLake.”
In other words, the diary section of FDL.
It then goes on to hint, without actually saying, that Hamsher is the organizer. This is disingenuous and casts doubt on the whole piece.
Give it up, guy. You’re trashing your own credibility with poor sourcing. She hasn’t said it, hasn’t even hinted at it, and she’s actually made fun of it. Maybe she thinks it, but I can’t read her mind, and neither can you.
Mike Sax
My credibility hasn’t been trashed nice for you to show concern.
http://my.firedoglake.com/metamars/2011/05/18/a-seriously-trouble-making-proposal-dear-cornel-west-and-new-progressive-alliance/
This is the piece and with it’s clumsy proposal for the “reedcuation of afro-Americans” you shouldn’t be worried about my credibility.
Wether you claim she has plausible deniablity is a distinction without a difference. It’s FDL who hatched this reeducation scheme and it’s her site.
RavenBasslady
I’m going to try asking this once more:
If, those of you who Hate Obama get your wish and through depressing the Democratic Vote, lose us the election, and we end up with a Tea Party backed Administration, what then?
What do you hope to gain by purposely trying to demoralize and discourage Democratic voters?
Will this strategy work in both the short and long terms for implementing Progressive Values in the US?
I really am very serious about this question.
I’m not saying don’t criticism Obama. Not at all. But trying to destroy the Democratic party seems counter intuitive.
Mike Sax
312: Luckily Raven B. their plan doesn’t seem to be working as Obama has raised almost 560,000 separate donations and 260,000 new donors, 98% of 250 or less.
Hey FDL how’s Operation Primay Obama coming along?