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You are here: Home / Economics / C.R.E.A.M. / Like they love PAC

Like they love PAC

by DougJ|  July 14, 20119:28 pm| 84 Comments

This post is in: C.R.E.A.M., Grifters Gonna Grift

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Sarah Palin’s PAC subsidized her family vacation (via):

Sarah Palin’s political action committee spent tens of thousands of dollars covering the costs of the former Alaska governor’s “One Nation” East Coast bus tour this spring — a trip that Palin (R) has repeatedly characterized as a “family vacation.”

According to a list of itemized expenditures filed by SarahPAC to the Federal Elections Committee and published Thursday, Palin’s committee spent nearly $14,000 on the “bus wrap” that festooned the family’s tour bus with images of the Liberty Bell, Constitution and American flag. The committee spent $10,000 on “logistical trip consulting,” $3,600 to the bus driver and at least $7,000 on lodging.

In other news, as ABL points out, Jane Hamsher is on the anti-Obama warpath.

Griters gonna grift. There’s an audience for anti-Obama Firebagging, there’s a bigger audience for leatherclad teabagging motorcycle mamas. That’s about the only difference. Let’s quit pretending otherwise, once and for all.

Update. I want to be clear here, I am not that much of an Obot these days. I read Krugman’s and Atrios’s criticism of how Obama has handled the economy every day and I agree with a lot of it. I am not confident the budget debt ceiling deal Obama makes will be a great one. I love Tbogg. But FDL’s attacks on Obama and his supporters are nuts, and they’re not worth taking seriously.

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Reader Interactions

84Comments

  1. 1.

    middlewest

    July 14, 2011 at 9:31 pm

    Blogpost title of the day.

  2. 2.

    Baud

    July 14, 2011 at 9:31 pm

    There’s an audience for anti-Obama Firebagging, there’s a bigger audience for leatherclad teabagging motorcycle mamas.

    If they went on tour together, it would be an amazing show.

  3. 3.

    a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)

    July 14, 2011 at 9:32 pm

    Of course grifters gonna grift, but where’s the outrage over a PAC paying for the “family vacation?” Other than here of course.

  4. 4.

    Mike Kay (Team America)

    July 14, 2011 at 9:33 pm

    Jane Hamsher is on the anti-Obama warpath. Griters gonna grift. There’s an audience for anti-Obama Firebagging

    Ya know what, Jane Hamsher is a useful idiot.

    She only serves to inflame obama supporters into making more and larger contributions. She’s the electricity that runs the ATM machine in Axelrod’s office.

    If hamsher didn’t exist, David Axelrod would have to invent her.

  5. 5.

    beltane

    July 14, 2011 at 9:34 pm

    Only $3,600 for the bus driver? Grifters really do hate the working man.

  6. 6.

    jane from hell

    July 14, 2011 at 9:36 pm

    Shocked, shocked I tell you.

  7. 7.

    JC

    July 14, 2011 at 9:37 pm

    I want to be clear here, I am not that much of an Obot these days. I read Krugman’s and Atrios’s criticism of how Obama has handled the economy every day and I agree with a lot of it. I am not confident the budget debt ceiling deal Obama makes will be a great one. I love Tbogg. But FDL’s attacks on Obama and his supporters are nuts, and they’re not worth taking seriously.

    That’s sums up my position, frankly.

  8. 8.

    hilts

    July 14, 2011 at 9:38 pm

    Posted this link in a previous thread, but since you brought up the Iditarod Dunce…

    Politifact fact checks Palin on the price increase of Slim Jims
    http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2011/jul/11/sarah-palin/sarah-palin-says-price-slim-jims-has-risen-169-per

  9. 9.

    60th Street

    July 14, 2011 at 9:39 pm

    But FDL’s attacks on Obama and his supporters are nuts, and they’re not worth taking seriously.

    They are worth mocking incessantly whenever they appear, though!

  10. 10.

    DougJ in Damascus

    July 14, 2011 at 9:40 pm

    Posted this link in a previous thread, but since you brought up the Iditarod Dunce…

    I loved that. I actually eat a lot of beef jerky so I already knew it.

  11. 11.

    Mike Kay (Team America)

    July 14, 2011 at 9:44 pm

    Krugman and Atrios have been long time obama critics dating back to the earliest days of the campaign. Surely, things would be better if we listened to Krugman and nominated Hillary or Atrios and nominated Edwards.

  12. 12.

    Baud

    July 14, 2011 at 9:44 pm

    I am not that much of an Obot these days.

    Ironically, I’m more of an Obot that I might otherwise have been because so much of the criticism Obama has received from certain lefty blogs has been so over the top and ridiculous.

  13. 13.

    stuckinred

    July 14, 2011 at 9:45 pm

    (Reuters) – Ratings agency Standard & Poor’s has warned there is a one-in-two chance it could cut the United States’ prized triple-A rating if a deal on raising the government’s debt ceiling is not agreed soon.

  14. 14.

    SteveinSC

    July 14, 2011 at 9:45 pm

    That’s sums up my position, frankly. Mine too. It is hard to know what is maneuver, solid proposal, trial balloon, etc. I am withholding judgement until it becomes clear what we have here. It’s best to wait and see. (Apropos, I understand Obama’s “Justice” Department is appealing the DADT judgement.) So all-in-all, nous verrons.

  15. 15.

    srv

    July 14, 2011 at 9:45 pm

    DougJ, the nuanced unbeliever. The Kool Aide will be on your doorstep on August 2nd.

  16. 16.

    Cat Lady

    July 14, 2011 at 9:47 pm

    I’m becoming more of an Obot with every passing day. In a normal context where the opposition party is sane I’d agree with you and Atrios, DougJ, but Obama doesn’t have the luxury of dealing with just policy matters. The whole country is going through some kind of cosmic psychotic break since his election, and he’s been forced into being Commander in Chief of Reality. I’m glad he’s there, with falling knives in all directions as far as the eye can see. It’s all fucking nuts, and who else could maintain his preternatural calm?

  17. 17.

    Violet

    July 14, 2011 at 9:47 pm

    SarahPAC paid $7K for “Republican Presidential Travel.”

  18. 18.

    jane from hell

    July 14, 2011 at 9:48 pm

    @hilts, lols.

    Actually, that hit NC kinda hard. We’ve already run off the textile industry.

  19. 19.

    Just Some Fuckhead

    July 14, 2011 at 9:48 pm

    Update. I want to be clear here, I am not that much of an Obot these days. I read Krugman’s and Atrios’s criticism of how Obama has handled the economy every day and I agree with a lot of it. I am not confident the budget debt ceiling deal Obama makes will be a great one. I love Tbogg. But FDL’s attacks on Obama and his supporters are nuts, and they’re not worth taking seriously.

    Ok, I’ve put you down as a firebagger. Lemme know if that changes and I’ll update the fight card.

  20. 20.

    jane from hell

    July 14, 2011 at 9:48 pm

    or as we say down here
    R U N N O F T

  21. 21.

    60th Street

    July 14, 2011 at 9:49 pm

    Choot-Spawley!

  22. 22.

    Baud

    July 14, 2011 at 9:51 pm

    @Cat Lady # 16:

    I’m with you. I would love to live in a political reality in which I could with a clear conscious be a moderate Republican. Alas, twas not to be.

  23. 23.

    scav

    July 14, 2011 at 9:53 pm

    So, the bus was shrink-PACed in a skin of patriotism and filled with PACed lunches and six-PACs of fizzy drinks for a fun-PACed family vacation across (half) the U.S.of A.!

    Could be the opening trailer of quite a movie.

  24. 24.

    JPL

    July 14, 2011 at 9:54 pm

    stuckinred Darn commies trying to scare us again.

  25. 25.

    jane from hell

    July 14, 2011 at 9:54 pm

    Choots-Pah!

  26. 26.

    Mike Kay (Team America)

    July 14, 2011 at 10:04 pm

    understand Obama’s “Justice” Department is appealing the DADT judgement.

    Under the repeal law signed into law last December, DADT won’t be repealed until 60 days after Defense Secretary Panetta, Joint Chiefs Chairman Adm. Mike Mullen and President Obama certify that the readiness of the force has not been affected. To that end, all of the services are in the midst of training their forces for what will change when repeal occurs. Top Pentagon officials have said they expect certification to occur in mid- summer; that will begin the 60 day clock to repeal.

    On July 6, Marine Colonel Dave Lapan, a Pentagon spokesman, said in an e-mail that certification of the repeal of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” — required for the law to take effect — was just “weeks away.”

    Cases against gay service men and women were halted last October, rending DADT moot.

    Finalizing the end is only weeks away, and it doesn’t need to be interrupted at this point by courts, as no one is being investigated and no one is being kicked out.

    http://www.businessweek.com/news/2011-07-14/obama-lawyers-seek-to-re-impose-don-t-ask-don-t-tell-.html

    http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalpunch/2011/06/dadt-discharge-was-because-of-voluntary-outing.html

    That said Obama is virulent homophobe, conducting a reign of terror against gays.

  27. 27.

    jl

    July 14, 2011 at 10:16 pm

    @11:

    I think DougJ’s point was about whether Krugman’s analysis of economics is correct or not (edit that is, whether his school of economic thought is more correct than others), in terms of things such as facts, causal structure of the economy, and little details such as being able to predict the effects of current policies on future events

    There is a realty out there other political posturing.

    The fact that Krugman often has a political tin ear is besides the point in terms of the facts of how the economy works.

  28. 28.

    jprfrog

    July 14, 2011 at 10:22 pm

    Lenin coined the word for FDL and the like a century ago: infantile leftism. These folks are the spiritual heirs of the Weathermen who smashed windows in Chicago (Day of Rage, 1969) and gave the Goopers an image used to scare horses and little kids ever since. ‘Twould be nice if we could leave the tantrums to the infantile right.

    I know I sound like an old fart (because I am one), but I’ll say it again: check the history of how the German Left cooperated with the Nazis in destroying the middle “Nach Hitler, uns!”. They were right of course, but after about 60 million dead, and all they got was the Red Army, the NKVD, and the East German Stasi.

    The Naderites gave us Bush (the votes they got in Florida would have given the state to Gore without a recount). Will the Firebaggers give us Pres. Bachmann?

    Just think about that: Michelle Bachmann with access to the nuclear codes. This is a person who believes in the Second Coming as per the book of Revelation, and would then be in a position to bring it about, at least the first part: fiery destruction. I can think of things I would die for, but Jane Hamsher’s ego is not one of them.

  29. 29.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    July 14, 2011 at 10:28 pm

    I read Krugman’s and Atrios’s criticism of how Obama has handled the economy every day and I agree with a lot of it.

    I agree with Krugman’s economics, but his total and willful disregard for political realities is exhausting. If we lived in a sane world, the fact that Krugman has been right about everything for the last decade would give his voice more weight than the insipid, incoherent ramblings of Maureen Dowd or the smarmy, confused prattling of BoBo. But we don’t. Friedman, BoBo and MoDo are all more influential than Krugman. It’s a disgrace, but that’s the world we live in. For which I of course blame Obama.

    Atrios… meh. The mewling, petulant “Mr Hopey-Changey” crap pretty much ended that blog for me, about six moths after I gave up on the fetid swamp of his comment section.

  30. 30.

    Mark S.

    July 14, 2011 at 10:29 pm

    I also agree completely with the sentiments in the update. I don’t usually give a shit about Hamsher, but she’s gone over the bend. Maybe she can send some of her PAC money to Cantor.

  31. 31.

    Mike Kay (Team America)

    July 14, 2011 at 10:34 pm

    jl,

    I’m ambivalent about Krugman because he’s a notorious “free trader”. Most of the problems we have today is because people like Krugman supported sending our manufacturing base to China.

  32. 32.

    zmullls

    July 14, 2011 at 10:35 pm

    There’s plenty I’m unhappy with. But overall, to have someone this intelligent and thoughtful and *mature* in the oval office is a stunner. Even the Big Dog, loveable rogue though he was, didn’t have this steady character.

    On the one hand, I wish he were more of a confrontational pol, but on the other hand, I can see his argument for holding back and being non-confrontational. It works in the long run. DADT is going to be law, not because he did a big dramatic executive order, but because he brought everyone along to the point where it won’t be repealed or overturned.

    Yeah, I disagree with Obama a lot, but I couldn’t be prouder to have a President like this to disagree with.

    ETA: When I’m coming up to a stoplight, I can go fast until I get there and jam on the brakes, and get jerked back in my seat; or I can brake carefully and smoothly, and put just enough diminishing pressure so that when I stop, there’s no jerk back movement, just a careful stop. Obama likes to work the brake very, very smoothly, so by the time you stop, it feels inevitable.

  33. 33.

    J.W. Hamner

    July 14, 2011 at 10:42 pm

    I would like for Atrios and Krugman to admit that their preferred solutions are, in fact, completely impossible in our current political climate. Once they do this and start proposing options other than those requiring “flying ponies, faeries, and a handful of magic beans” then I’ll treat their criticism seriously. Until they do so they are just clowns acting out for attention.

  34. 34.

    Brachiator

    July 14, 2011 at 10:48 pm

    I agree with Krugman’s economics, but his total and willful disregard for political realities is exhausting.

    I think that Krugman’s criticisms are excellent, but his prescriptions are often a waste of time. And I agree big time about his disregard for political realities.

    But then again, in my perfect world, Obama would have a set of economic advisors who were not so steeped in any flavor of the conventional Village thinking.

  35. 35.

    MGLoraine

    July 14, 2011 at 10:48 pm

    Why are so many folks here always hatin’ on Jane? Because she’s dissatisfied with Obama? Because she won’t just shut up and be a good little doormat for the party establishment?

    Obama campaigned on policies which had a broad appeal to American voters, which is why he was elected. Where are those policies today? It’s not as if he tried mightily and was defeated in the attempt to deliver for ordinary Americans. The fact is that he REFUSED to make any attempt whatsoever to work toward policy goals which would improve the lives of most Americans, choosing instead to cater to the billionaires, banksters, Wall Streeters, war mongers, etc. Talk about grifters!

    And yet, we are all supposed to be happy with the Big 0 and push for four more years of right-wing corporatism and Reagan worship from someone pretending to be a Democrat? It’s not true that our only choices are Obama or some other lunatic Republican. There are some actual Democrats (like Russ Feingold) and independents (like Bernie Sanders) who would be worthy of the Oval Office. Insisting that we must all get on the Obama bandwagon because “a Republican would be worse” is just as blindly partisan as Mitch McConnell insisting that Republicans’ number one objective is to make Obama a one-term president. And deciding that Obama’s capitulations and betrayals represent the best we can hope for from our president is a capitulation on the part of those who espouse that notion.

    If you are all content with what you’re getting, and/or unwilling to demand more from those we elect to govern, then there can be no hope for a better future for those of us who are not already billionaires.

    OK, flame away!

  36. 36.

    Belafon (formerly anonevent)

    July 14, 2011 at 10:52 pm

    @Mike Kay (Team America): I wrote this in a DK article about Clinton: If she were the president, the right would attack her because of her vagina and would have accused every decision she made as being from Bill. And Fox would incessantly talk about the women near Bill. And the Republicans would still boycott everything she wanted to pass. And we know about Edwards.

  37. 37.

    FlipYrWhig

    July 14, 2011 at 10:54 pm

    @ JWH : I think the criticism is both that the solutions should be different _and_ that even if those different solution are completely impossible in the current political climate, Obama isn’t doing enough to _make_ them more possible, or to point out whose responsibility it is that they have become impossible.

    I see that point, but I think it’s kind of meta, for one thing; and, for another, when you need a deal, humiliating the people with whom you need to deal is not a good tactic, even if they totally deserve it.

    Plus, when a lot of the Democrats in electoral politics are more sympathetic to traditionally Republican views on economics, there’s not an easy way for Obama to say, “Here is what WE believe,” and then count on the fact that everyone who’s supposed to be on their side is going to be able to coordinate pointing their weapons in the same direction.

    If Democrats were more progressive, Obama could be more progressive. But they’re not, as we saw as early as the stimulus debate; and they startle easily. So just saying that Obama _should_ be more progressive because progressive policy would be better and smarter — a sentiment with which I agree — isn’t enough to get through the clogged arteries of the Democratic party that remembers its halcyon days as the budget-balancing, “fiscally responsible” Clinton years.

  38. 38.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    July 14, 2011 at 10:55 pm

    he fact is that he REFUSED to make any attempt whatsoever to work toward policy goals which would improve the lives of most Americans, choosing instead to cater to the billionaires, banksters, Wall Streeters, war mongers, etc.

    Yeah. Wall Street was a huge cheerleader for the Stimulus, the Detroit bail out and health care reform. That’s why they spent half a billion dollars to help the Dems keep the House. Oh, no, wait! that’s the complete opposite of what really happened!

    And John McCain, Lindsey Graham, Joe Lieberman, the Washington Post op-ed page, all huge supporters of Obama’s drawdowns in Iraq and Afghanistan. Not one of them suggested that Obama was endangering American security! Oh, wait, that, again, is the complete opposite of what really happened!

    Get it? That’s why we make fun of people like you and Jane. You’re amazingly stupid. And you live in, and rant and rave and fling poo from, a world built out of your own petulant fantasies and comical, petulant self-righteousness. Does that help you understand? Probably not. ‘Cause, like I said, you’re really quite stupid.

  39. 39.

    fasteddie9318

    July 14, 2011 at 10:56 pm

    I always enjoy how the theme of these FDL threads is “JANE HAMSHER IS A NOBODY RATFUCKER WHO DOESN’T REPRESENT A SINGLE FUCKING PERSON AND SHE MAY SINGLE-HANDEDLY BRING ABOUT THE BACHMANN ADMINISTRATION!” That would be some feat for a nobody.

    I suspect she’s worth mocking but probably not worth serious angst.

  40. 40.

    FlipYrWhig

    July 14, 2011 at 10:57 pm

    I think someone named MGLoraine just posted something, but somehow all I heard was calliope music.

  41. 41.

    Suffern ACE

    July 14, 2011 at 10:59 pm

    @MGLoraine: Jane talks, but what else does she do? What exactly is the plan? Obama talks, too, but he has the big chair. I would probably like someone different in the big chair, but what is Jane gonna do to get someone in the big chair who would do more what I want.

    Nothing as far as I can tell.

  42. 42.

    fasteddie9318

    July 14, 2011 at 10:59 pm

    Why are so many folks here always hatin’ on Jane? Because she’s dissatisfied with Obama? Because she won’t just shut up and be a good little doormat for the party establishment?

    Mm, nope, pretty sure it’s because she’s a fucking moron.

  43. 43.

    BR

    July 14, 2011 at 11:02 pm

    @fasteddie9318: It’s not just that. It’s that she’s a moron who is taken seriously by the media, and gives a bad name to progressives and the left in general. In most ways I think my political views are more radical / left / progressive than Hamsher’s but she and her ilk have captured the labels.

  44. 44.

    Trurl

    July 14, 2011 at 11:06 pm

    Let’s be very clear about where things stand.

    Obama is currently waging his very own war on an oil-exporting Muslim country in knowing violation of the War Powers Act.

    And now, far from the Republicans trying to blackmail him into cutting Medicare, he’s the one trying to blackmail them into doing it.

    And still the ‘bots choke down their shit sandwiches. “It’s not as tasty a sandwich as I had hoped but…”

  45. 45.

    RareSanity

    July 14, 2011 at 11:19 pm

    Only $3,600 for the bus driver? Grifters really do hate the working man.

    How long did the trip last? A week?

    Sounds like a pretty good gig to me…

  46. 46.

    Mike Kay (Team America)

    July 14, 2011 at 11:21 pm

    And Fox would incessantly talk about the women near Bill.

    We dodged a bullet on Clinton. There was yet another sex scandal waiting to be dropped.

    http://www.huffingtonpost.com/mayhill-fowler/bill-clintons-mistress-th_b_419307.html

    NYT and LAT had the story ready to go and would have destroyed Hillary to elect their buddy Maverick.

    http://www.huffingtonpost.com/bill-robinson/the-big-clinton-story_b_74391.html

  47. 47.

    NoFortunateSon

    July 14, 2011 at 11:27 pm

    Anyone ever find out what Jane did with that $280,000 she raised?

    How ‘come that isn’t a story?

    Grifters gonna grift, indeed.

  48. 48.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    July 14, 2011 at 11:29 pm

    @fasteddie9318: It’s not just that. It’s that she’s a moron who is taken seriously by the media,

    Is that true? I haven’t seen Hamsher on TV since the health care debate, can’t remember the last time I saw her name outside of a blog-spat, which can be entertaining but reach, IIRC, less than 10% of the electorate, people who already know what they think and aren’t going to be swayed by the ranting of a yahoo. Or of a fine, sensible person like myself.

    Hamsher and MGLorraine and the like remind me of a line from a movie: By insisting on their own uselessness, they affirm the system they think they’re rejecting. I’m tempted to say they’re electorally insignificant, them I remember 2000. Which was of course Obama’s fault.

  49. 49.

    J

    July 14, 2011 at 11:30 pm

    Things like this make me want to start a business or nonprofit or PAC to appeal to moronic wingnut rubes, and then sadly eat up 99% of their donations in “administrative expenses” (my salary), and donate like a buck to some wingnut cause du jour (freedom bulbs, maybe?).

  50. 50.

    BR

    July 14, 2011 at 11:36 pm

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist: I don’t watch TV, but I remember just a few days ago she was approvingly cited by WaPo in a “the left is unhappy” blurb in an article.

  51. 51.

    Mark S.

    July 14, 2011 at 11:36 pm

    I disagree that Krugman’s policy proposals are impossible to implement. Keynesianism isn’t some exotic economic experiment that’s never been tried; it’s been around for eighty fucking years and was the central economic theory for about fifty of them. Shit, when goopers argue that tax cuts stimulate the economy they are basically arguing for Keynesianism, though in a stupid and self-serving form.

    The problem is that Obama and other dems rarely try to make this argument. When they talk about tightening our belts and the federal budget is like a family budget and other stupid shit they are basically giving the game away to the Republicans.

  52. 52.

    Bubblegum Tate

    July 14, 2011 at 11:37 pm

    @RareSanity:

    How long did the trip last? A week?
    __
    Sounds like a pretty good gig to me…

    Yes, but it was a week with Palin. Surely that qualifies for some sort of hazard pay, as long-term close-quarters exposure to Sarah Palin is probably akin to long-term close-quarters exposure to turpentine fumes.

  53. 53.

    The Raven

    July 14, 2011 at 11:46 pm

    “You spit, I bow,” cite.

    Hamsher is outraged and not quiet about it. Me, I croak. But loud or quiet, it’s likely that the USA are heading into a decade of depression and Obama has participated in setting it up. It is hard to face up to the magnitude of the failure, or know how to respond.

  54. 54.

    Mike Kay (Team America)

    July 14, 2011 at 11:49 pm

    I haven’t seen Hamsher on TV since the health care debate,

    She went on MSNBC a day before DADT was repealed and predicted the vote would fail. LOLZ.

  55. 55.

    murbella

    July 14, 2011 at 11:50 pm

    Dude…
    you are a bigger firebagger than Hamsher on Libya.
    You are the Mother of All Concern Trolls on Libya.
    Tell me why i should respect you again?

  56. 56.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    July 14, 2011 at 11:51 pm

    The problem is that Obama and other dems rarely try to make this argument.

    That’s because a lot of them don’t believe it. It was Democrats who shrank the stimulus, Democrats who killed of the infrastructure/jobs bill Obama proposed last fall. And the voters who put the people who really hate Keynesianism in charge of the House. Yes Obama has been making that stupid our-budget-is-just-like-yours argument, and I wish he wouldn’t, but he’s also been talking about infrastructure and jobs.

  57. 57.

    Mike Kay (Team America)

    July 14, 2011 at 11:53 pm

    Hamsher is outraged and not quiet about it.

    She so outraged, her advertising firm represents GOP candidates and BP Oil.

    jane-hamsher-republican-consultant

    keep fuckin dat chicken, Jane.

  58. 58.

    James E. Powell

    July 14, 2011 at 11:54 pm

    @FlipYrWhig:

    If Democrats were more progressive, Obama could be more progressive.

    This is the Big Problem and there was nothing Obama could do about Conrad, Landrieu, Lincoln, Baucus, the Odious Nelson, McCaskill, Pryor, Feinstein, or Loathsome Joe. None of those senators are progressives. Together with the Blue Dogs in the house, there was no way anything like progressive policy was going to happen even if the Republicans had not been filibuster happy.

    I am not saying this to let president totally off the hook. There were things he could have done, ought to have done, that he did not do. We will never know what the outcome would have been. And this last point is the most important one. We are in a contest with a Republican Party that has lost its way. The most important thing, even more important than closing Guantanamo or Bradley Manning’s comfort or kicking John Boehner in the nuts, is that Obama be successful enough to cruise to re-election.

  59. 59.

    Mike Kay (Team America)

    July 14, 2011 at 11:57 pm

    When they talk about tightening our belts and the federal budget is like a family budget and other stupid shit they are basically giving the game away to the Republicans.

    This isn’t new. Even the liberal Franklin Roosevelt ran on tightening the belt and balancing the budget in the midst of the Great Depression.

    I guess you could say, he’s as bad as FDR.

  60. 60.

    Mark S.

    July 15, 2011 at 12:06 am

    @Mike Kay (Team America):

    Yeah, and it worked it really well.

  61. 61.

    murbella

    July 15, 2011 at 12:07 am

    sry DougJ….that was meant for Cole.
    i blame the absinthe.

  62. 62.

    dogwood

    July 15, 2011 at 12:14 am

    I disagree that Krugman’s policy proposals are impossible to implement.

    No policy is impossible to implement. Round up the votes and we can have single payer on the president’s desk in 6 months. The problem with Krugman is that he has no influence with people in power. He might be right, but he’d rather be a smug bastard pissing from outside the tent, than someone willing to build the relationships you need to make a case to the people who hold the levers of power. Every major conservative pundit or columnist has a direct pipeline to the leadership of the Rep. party and the WH when applicable. The Rep. depend on these hacks for their talking points and more importantly they trust them. It would be great if the pres. could invite Krugman to the White House and establish some communication channels with him, but that can never happen because Krugman couldn’t be trusted.

  63. 63.

    El Cid

    July 15, 2011 at 12:17 am

    __

    I am not confident the budget debt ceiling deal Obama makes will be a great one.

    Wow, what a radical, defiant statement. I couldn’t hedge any more bets were I to employ Edward Scissorhands.

  64. 64.

    stinkdaddy

    July 15, 2011 at 12:22 am

    FDL’s attacks on Obama and his supporters are nuts, and they’re not worth taking seriously.

    There are people taking them seriously?

  65. 65.

    dogwood

    July 15, 2011 at 12:35 am

    The Raven @53

    But loud or quiet, it’s likely that the USA are heading into a decade of depression and Obama has participated in setting it up.

    Oh please. Obama had nothing to do with setting this up. He was a college kid when the country started the policies that led to this inevitable crack up. You’d have to be irrational or some naive teenager to believe something like that. But maybe you’re right, if Obama had just used his bully pulpit in the freshman dorm, he could have convinced the American people that supply-side economics, deregulation, and unrestricted free trade would not lead to a workers’ paradise. Geesh, please get some perspective.

  66. 66.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    July 15, 2011 at 12:40 am

    Massimo Calabrase, Objective Reporter for Time magazine, has an incredibly concern trolly post up asking– not stating mind you, just asking– if Obama is using the debt ceiling negotiations to create some kind of political advantage for himself. Again, he’s just asking, because that’s what people are saying, and that’s what journamalism is.

    President Obama has managed to claim the moral high ground in his battle with Republicans over raising the debt ceiling by appearing to put good fiscal policy ahead of short-term political considerations. By putting a bigger deficit reduction package on the table than Republicans were proposing the President forced the GOP to defend tax loopholes and tax breaks for the wealthiest Americans. Is Obama now trying to leverage that position of strength for political purposes? […] Is the President really willing to risk the U.S. defaulting on its debt just to avoid having to vote again on a bill before the Presidential election?

    So you see, O-Bots, if Obama would just use the bully pulpit…

  67. 67.

    Mark S.

    July 15, 2011 at 12:48 am

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist:

    Why wouldn’t Obama want to have this stupid debate three more times before the election? Isn’t negotiating with Boner and Cantor a reward in itself?

  68. 68.

    BlizzardOfOz

    July 15, 2011 at 2:13 am

    @Baud

    I would love to live in a political reality in which I could with a clear conscious be a moderate Republican.

    This should be BJ’s tagline. All I’m asking is that you all stop posing as “liberals”.

  69. 69.

    AnotherBruce

    July 15, 2011 at 2:23 am

    but that can never happen because Krugman couldn’t be trusted.

    This drops out of your paragraph like a rotten egg from a vulture’s nest. Why can’t Krugman be trusted?

  70. 70.

    The Raven

    July 15, 2011 at 4:46 am

    “The fact that Krugman often has a political tin ear is besides the point in terms of the facts of how the economy works.”

    Politics is a team sport, and about who supports who. Science, if it is anything at all, is about the truths of the world. Scientists in politics are called on to be honest about their disciplines, regardless of who that supports. It’s why Krugman has been right so much: he wants to be right, and works at it. Politicians want to be powerful, and work at that.

  71. 71.

    dogwood

    July 15, 2011 at 4:52 am

    AnotherBruce :
    Do you really believe if Krugman met personally with the president he would keep anything confidential? He may be a Nobel Prize winning economist, but he makes his living writing columns for the NYT, and that’s his first priority. There’s really nothing wrong with that; it just means he would have a hard time having a serious economic discussion with any politician who wouldn’t want to see parts of the exchange in the NYT. I can see where it’s easy to infer that I see Krugman as an untrustworthy person, which is not the case. It’s just that it would be impossible to know if Krugman were speaking as a journalist or an economist.

  72. 72.

    The Raven

    July 15, 2011 at 4:58 am

    “Obama had nothing to do with setting this up.”

    Oh, nonsense. Yes, there was a long setup. But there was a moment when a change of course was possible. Obama did not take it. He appointed Timothy Geithner to Treasury. He set up the deficit commission, and put Bowles and Simpson in charge of it. His own Attorney General has not acted against the vast corruption of finance.

    Now a coalition has formed around budget-cutting and tax-cutting. Nothing major is being done for unemployment, housing, and the banking can has been kicked down the road. As far as I can see, the depression is likely to go on for the next decade.

    The President is the most powerful elected official in the USA. He was elected with a vast mandate. He had many opportunities to make huge changes in the past three years. Instead, he participated in this disaster.

  73. 73.

    The Raven

    July 15, 2011 at 5:03 am

    Take a look at this chart of budget plans from Jared Bernstein, former administration economist, post. It does not paint a pretty picture of Obama’s negotiations over the deficit and budget. Bernstein is far more sympathetic to Obama than I am–after all, Obama was his boss–but he still paints this picture.

  74. 74.

    Rihilism

    July 15, 2011 at 7:16 am

    @BlizzardOfOz

    All I’m asking is that you all stop posing as “liberals”.

    Ah, yes, please, do tell us how we may or may not describe ourselves. Here’s a pose that I believe to be the most reasonable response to such an reasonable request…

  75. 75.

    Rihilism

    July 15, 2011 at 7:38 am

    As to the Krugman/Atrios debate, I read both. I don’t agree with everything they say anymore than I agree with everything Cole or anyone else on his blog has to say. However, IMO, Krugman/Atrios/Cole et.al. criticisms of Obama are, for the most part, constructive criticisms. Certainly, there is a great deal of frustration that gets expressed in these criticisms, but I get the impression from all of them that they want Obama to succeed and are not interested in the intraparty warfare that some of the more irrational and irresponsible players on the left are purveying…

  76. 76.

    OzoneR

    July 15, 2011 at 8:04 am

    IMO, Krugman/Atrios/Cole et.al. criticisms of Obama are, for the most part, constructive criticisms.

    My issue is that Krugman’s criticisms are the exact opposite of his criticisms back during the campaign, when he basically made the argument that Obama would be too caught up in his own rhetoric to make the hard decisions and compromises needed to govern. Now he’s complaining he’s making the hard decisions and compromises but not using rhetoric. Krugman got what he wanted with Hillary Clinton in Barack Obama and he’s still criticizing him.

    Here’s what he wrote after the Ohio primary

    More broadly, I suspect that the Obama mystique – his carefully created image as a transformational, even transcendent figure – has created a backlash among those unconvinced that he’s interested in the nuts-and-bolts work of fixing things.

    I think a lot of Krugman’s criticisms are meant to inflame those he hated during the campaign, Obama supporters whom he saw as deluded. I can’t really take him seriously because Obama is everything he wanted (and for that matter I wanted) in Hillary.

    What’s made me into an Obot is not some delusional obsession, but because I got him what I wanted in Hillary. So did he, but he has to be an asshole about it.

  77. 77.

    OzoneR

    July 15, 2011 at 8:09 am

    But there was a moment when a change of course was possible.

    No, there never was that moment

    He was elected with a vast mandate.

    He barely won his own party’s nomination and then won a general election by a smaller margin than Bush I, Reagan, Eisenhower and FDR. 53%-46% is not a vast mandate.

  78. 78.

    Joe

    July 15, 2011 at 8:25 am

    Grifters gonna grift! Dam right!

    Oh wait, you weren’t talking about Obama’s 2008 and 2012 campaigns?

  79. 79.

    Rihilism

    July 15, 2011 at 8:34 am

    @OzoneR

    As I said, I don’t agree with everything Krugman/Atios/BJ has to say. Most of my agreement with PK centers around his economic arguments, though I firmly believe that Obama’s ability to enact sound economic policies are severely limited by the lunatics in Congress he is forced to deal with…

  80. 80.

    OzoneR

    July 15, 2011 at 8:48 am

    As I said, I don’t agree with everything Krugman/Atios/BJ has to say.

    Whether or not he’s right about Obama now, if he is, it’s a stopped clock scenario. He wanted a president like this, he got one, and I just think he likes to goad all those Obama supporters he hated during the campaign.

  81. 81.

    Paul in KY

    July 15, 2011 at 10:22 am

    MGLoraine, just as we can’t get Micheal Moore, Noam Chomsky, or Che Guevara elected President, we can’t seem (in the current political climate) to get either former Senator Feingold or current Sen. Sanders elected President either, IMO.

    I will note that Sen. Sanders would have to change his registration from Socia1ist to Democrat to even be eligible to run for President (as a Democrat).

    Edit: Used the bad ‘S’ word & I’m in moderation!

  82. 82.

    Paul in KY

    July 15, 2011 at 10:26 am

    Murbella, who commented ‘i blame the absinthe’.

    I thought a good Muslima refrained from intoxicating beverages ;-)

  83. 83.

    The Raven

    July 15, 2011 at 12:50 pm

    OzoneR, #77: “No, there never was that moment”

    There was never any hope, in other words.

    This is a poor, sick defense of the man who ran on the slogan “Hope and Change.”

  84. 84.

    The Raven

    July 15, 2011 at 12:57 pm

    Dogwood, #71: “He may be a Nobel Prize winning economist, but he makes his living writing columns for the NYT, and that’s his first priority.”

    WtF? He’s tenured faculty at Princeton. He has a steady job and solid retirement savings. He’s also a successful author. The NYT columns, so far as I can tell, are a small part of his income.

    “Do you really believe if Krugman met personally with the president he would keep anything confidential?”

    He has met with Obama. Early on in the Obama administration he was invited to dinner at the White House. And of course he knows Obama’s economic team professionally. He’s never written about those meetings or his contacts anywhere I have seen, which bespeaks some intense self-discipline.

    WtF, man? The arguments you make no sense.

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