Gene Healy has written about what he calls “The Cult of the Presidency,” and I’ve written about his concept as well. It is a pervasive mentality that views the president as a kind of national father, responsible for everything that goes well or ill. The fallacies of the mentality are that it fails, first, to distinguish problems that are amenable to political solution from those that are not, and second, that it fails to recognize even within the political realm that the presidency is but one co-equal branch of government.
Basically every issue, good or bad, is blamed or credited to Obama. It goes from the big things, as we’ve seen here- Obama PWNED GADDAFI, to the bleating I saw on twitter this morning about Obama attacking the NY Attorney General (when the article mentions only Holder and another cabinet member), and it pretty much never stops. OBAMA IS RESPONSIBLE FOR ALL GOOD AND ALL BAD. The public option failed because OBAMA DIDN’T WANT IT (not, because, as you know, there were never the votes in the Senate ever). GITMO isn’t closed because Obama didn’t use the bully pulpit (oh yeah, Congress totally cockblocked him but whatevs). And so it goes from every issue, big or small, to the point that you see clinically insane stuff like this:
That’s right. Obama took a break from his rare days of vacationing bliss, forgot about the economy, the election, the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, the turmoil in Libya, and sat upright in his beach chair and yelled “SHIT! I forgot to lock the White House. And someone arrest those god damned protestors.”
For fuck’s sake.
Bulworth
Can’t worry about this now. Sully has just reported that Rep Paul Ryan is officially out of the running for prez. Gosh. Who will save us now? //
schrodinger's cat
What do you expect from the mostly lazy Punditubbies? No homework necessary, just their opinions of one person, great job if you can get it.
schrodinger's cat
@Bulworth: Saint Sarah
JPL
So has Jane booked anymore TV gigs? waa waa waa
gbear
I blame Obama.
General Stuck
Nope, the Libyan people did that, with some neighborly assistance. Obama largely just didn’t get in the way.
Villago Delenda Est
Obama is a busy guy. I doubt if he really has time to give a rat’s ass about Jane Hamsher and her cult. She’s not Valerie Plame. I wish she’d realize that. And Obama is not the vindictive petty asshole that the deserting coward (or the Dark Lord) was.
Let me be among the first to whine and bitch that the Ryan fucktard has taken himself out of the race. He would have been a terrific candidate to suffer a historic shellacking at the hands of the near sheriff.
Villago Delenda Est
@JPL:
and…..rimshot!
Mike Goetz
If John Cole strokes out, it will definitely be on Obama.
Bulworth
@schrodinger’s cat: Chris Christie!! //
Look we all know...
Look we all know that the credit for the current state of Libya goes to Ronald Reagan. He’s the guy that took the first bold action against that tyrant.
Look we all know...
Look we all know that the credit for the current state of Libya goes to Ronald Reagan. He’s the guy that took the first bold action against that tyrant.
taylormattd
I would hardly compare the minuscule number of people in the left blogosphere who said something over-the-top positive about Obama to our vast anti-Obama left blog overlords. Not really equivalent, IMO.
Mike Goetz
The only remaining shoes to drop now are Palin, Giuliani, and Pataki. And those are shoes with dogshit all over them.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
I would argue that Obama is ultimately if not immediately responsble for what his cabinet members do; i.e. people who blamed Obama for Shirley Sherrod’s firing were full of shit.
and kind of along those lines, even though I was against Libya, people who called it “Obama’s third war” or compared to Iraq just got on my fucking nerves
JPL
Did anyone read the blog? How many of those that commented think the Pres ordered her jailed? How many of her followers think the Pres knows who she is?
schrodinger's cat
I nominate Tunch. He is white and dictatorial, what more could one want in a GOP nominee?
ETA: Orange Tail is an added bonus it brings diversity to the ticket.
kd bart
Obama made me missed my train this morning. He obviously screwed with my clocks over the weekend.
NR
@taylormattd:
On what planet is this even remotely true?
DarrenG
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Except that’s not the argument she’s making. First three words of the tweet were “Did Obama order.”
She’s trolling a possible active role for Obama with no apparent evidence whatsoever.
Taylor Wray
Good post. I’d extend that observation to ridiculous statements about governors as well, such as “Rick Perry created 2 million jobs in Texas in the last 10 years.”
Tomjones
Yes, but you can’t prove he didn’t order them arrested, now can you?
Jenny
She’s funny.
The way she tries to gin up fundraising by pushing obama conspiracy theories is hilarious.
Pat
Does Obama usually fart out $200 million worth of Tomahawk missiles when he’s moving out of the way?
Shawn in ShowMe
@taylormattd:
The meme “both sides do it” is so alluring that even self-professed agnostics start to believe in it.
Tonybrown74
@Bulworth:
Sullivan cannot imagine himself going down on Christie, so no …
Jenny
Did Obama order the code red?!
Pat
Except when it’s not, as it has been since 2003 or so.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@DarrenG: meh. I give a fiddler’s fuck about Jane Hamsher, except as someone to mock heartily.
More pertinent I think are the people who talk about the Stimulus being too small or the public option as if Congress (the Senate) didn’t exist and had no role in those issues. Especially given the recent re-inflation of the PUMA bubble and the allegations of “hippie punching” by Obama because some twenty-something OFA employee picked an unwise (if accurate) fight with Krugman.
...now I try to be amused
Would it be any better if the head of state and the head of government weren’t the same person?
And — how can you forget? — he’s a fat cat.
j
Now, now. Mrs. Norquist clearly states “…
So she got that rumor from someone who heard from someone that someone “higher up” ordered he panties into a bunch.
Oh, but in the blockquote that she bolded it says
“…
So her inconsistency is still consistent.
What IS her deal, anyway?
eglantine
You’re wrong about Guantanamo. Obama announced in May 2009 that he would authorize indefinite detention and restore military commissions. He moved very slowly to release detainees, and then issued a blanket ban on allowing any of the Yemeni prisoners (over half the total) to return home. Congress did not enact major restrictions on releasing detainees until December 2010. Even then, Obama’s hands were not completely tied. It is a myth that Congress prevented Obama from releasing Guantanamo detainees. Good coverage here. http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/guantanamo-bay-how-the-white-house-lost-the-fight-to-close-it/2011/04/14/AFtxR5XE_print.html
askew
So, has Hamsher turned her arrest into a money-making scheme yet? Because that is really all she is good at – bilking naive progressives.
eglantine
You’re wrong about Guantanamo. Obama announced in May 2009 that he would authorize indefinite detention and restore military commissions. He moved very slowly to release detainees, and then issued a blanket ban on allowing any of the Yemeni prisoners (over half the total) to return home. Congress did not enact major restrictions on releasing detainees until December 2010. Even then, Obama’s hands were not completely tied. It is a myth that Congress prevented Obama from releasing Guantanamo detainees. Good coverage here. http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/guantanamo-bay-how-the-white-house-lost-the-fight-to-close-it/2011/04/14/AFtxR5XE_print.html
General Stuck
@Pat:
He might have. To keep production costs down. The dude is awesome like that. Call them austerity missiles.
Odie Hugh Manatee
@Jenny:
That’s my first thought; I smell another Hamsher fundraising drive coming. Maybe she needs an oil change and new tires?
@eglantine:
Keep fucking that chicken!
wrb
Daddybaggers
Daddyprogs
Daddyemo
Janesdaddy
there is potential
BGinCHI
Reminds me of the Eddy Murphy routine where he asks, “Who the hell would shoot the Pope?”
Then he has the wounded Pope calling heaven:
“Yeah, uh, Gene, it’s me, the Pope. Somebody shot me! Make sure this motherfucker goes to hell, alright?”
j
@schrodinger’s cat: Orange is the color of The Boner, too!
Tonal Crow
Aaaaand right back to Teh Stupid. I’m switching the channel for a few days.
Elie
@General Stuck:
LOL…. that’s a good one.. ” the Austerity Patriot” missile system. Runs on natural gas from Obama’s GI track”
Elie
@General Stuck:
LOL…. that’s a good one.. ” the Austerity Patriot” missile system. Runs on natural gas from Obama’s GI track”
schrodinger's cat
@…now I try to be amused: But is he capitalist?
TFinSF
LOL at the name of the jpeg.
El Tiburon
Oh come on now. Maybe I’m misreading it, but when the term “Obama” is tossed out, I think it refers to the Obama administration as an entity, not just the man himself.
So, yes, Hamsher’s headline was a bit dramatic, but, given all we know about how this administration, and yes, I include the AGs office a definite part of the administration, has acted, I think it is fair to inquire how high up did the order go for the arrest and detention of this protestors.
So, no, Cole, I doubt Obama himself ordered the arrests of these protestors. But did the word come from his administration? Fuck if I know. Perhaps not. But sure would like to know if it did.
taylormattd
@NR: The planet where Atrios, Jane Hamsher, Digby, Jeralyn Merritt, Huffington Post, Glenn Greenwald, and Daily Kos constitute an exceedingly large percentage of the left blogosphere?
Of course, if you come from the PUMAsphere, it is all just “somber, reluctant criticism” of a totally republican, gay hating, torturer, of course.
taylormattd
@Shawn in ShowMe: apparently so.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
If you go back and read Hamsher’s tweets from before the demonstration, the protesters were planning to be arrested, their intent was “civil disobedience”, to break the law and get arrested to make a point and get attention for their ’cause. Good on’em, though I’m not convinced of the effectiveness of this protest– I’ve seen a lot of arguments that stopping the pipeline won’t stop the tar sands project in Canada.
So for this histrionic nitwit to now pretend to be a victim of the most evilest presdinent ever is kind of stupid. But by indulging in this persecution fantasy, she makes herself seem very important to fifteen people on that blog.
Elie
@askew:
Yeah but her and the lefty blogs do a great job at instilling a general tone of demoralization to lefties. Between her crap an theirs, plus the MSM, you have surround sound negativity for just about every thing that the administration does. I have friends who are left progressives and can’t give any examples right off the top of their head of anything good done by the administration without caveating it with the talking points made popular by Jane and her ilk. So no, she is plenty influential — in the very very worst way for maintaining progressive energy for the fight we always have. She makes it easy for folks to give up and say things like, “well I will vote for Obama — what choice do I have!” — like he is the worst thing that has never done one damned thing in two years that we can tout and be proud of.
Its a crying shame. Think if the Republicans had a President that had accomplished as much from their agenda. They would never even think of saying “but, but, but”. Would they have a Jane Hamsher or PUMAS? Sure wouldnt.
ArchPundit
I ask you has anyone seen Jane Hamsher and Orlie Taitz in the same place?
Svensker
@Tonybrown74:
Did you have to say that? Did you? What’s left of my brain has been damaged severely!
Elie
Ya know, I have tried twice to eliminate duplicate comments and it hasnt worked (resulting in said duplicates)
I also don’t know why I am getting so many since I am only clicking submit once.
Oh well.
Sorry about the dupes folks…
Villago Delenda Est
@Pat:
Oh, I’d argue the “co-equal” part has been on the outs for say the last 70 years.
The Presidency, more and more, takes the lead on all aspects of policy, and gets the Congress to go along with it.
HyperIon
Personally I ignore any headline in the form of a question. It makes life much simpler.
Ozymandias, King of Ants
@Tonybrown74:
Christie should grow a beard then . . .
NR
@taylormattd: So Atrios and Digby are now anti-Obama? Daily Kos is now anti-Obama? And since when is HuffPo even a part of the left blogosphere?
Check your persecution complex at the door, please.
Ira-NY
The whole thing is so damn ridiculous it makes my head hurt.
The purpose of the demonstration was to encourgae Obama to stop the construction of the pipeline. Now, if you were intent on convincing Obama do do something, would you send Calamity Jane as your emissary?
Not to mention Obama wasn’t home and the better place to protest this whole tar sands operation is Ottawa.
TooManyJens
I missed this entire thing. Does anybody have a link?
Odie Hugh Manatee
@NR: “Daily Kos is now anti-Obama?”
No, they’ve been anti-Obama for a long time now. Is your last name Van Winkle?
TooManyJens:
Here’s a link to a “story” about it at Daily Anti-Obama.
FlipYrWhig
Do tar sands protesters call themselves “tar babies”? Yet?
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@TooManyJens: here you go. Greenwald is also on it.
MikeBoyScout
Why won’t Obama teach all 300 million Americans high school civics?
signed: No checks and disbalanced
namekarB
Over at Norbrook’s Blog is a pretty detailed account on how Jane skims a lot of $$$$ from the donations to those PACs she created. Well researched and aptly titled “Running out of sheep [to shear].”
askew
@El Tiburon:
The demonstrators set out to get arrested. The Park Service doesn’t allow anyone to protest by standing/sitting directly in front of the WH for security reasons. All protests have to take place across the street. This has been the case for years and all protestors know it.
Cat Lady
I’d love to take a poll of self-identified progressives with one question – do you have or did you have a good loving relationship with your father? By the answer to that one question I’d know instantly what blogs they read. It’s all about the daddy.
Elizabelle
@Elie:
re comment 49: We can call it the “Eeyoresphere.”
Somebody was wagging about setting up a domain name along the lines of melancholydemocrats.com or whatever last weekend.
I am real tired of the Eeyore Democrats.
Why are Republicans able to take that anger and misinformation and use it to motivate themselves and their base, and we see too many Democrats turning depressed and “Oh well. We deserve this. Why vote?”
Sometimes I really have to take a break from this blog when there’s too much of that vibe.
Triassic Sands
There is a flip side to the “Obama’s responsible for everything” exaggeration, which is not that he’s responsible for nothing, but rather that he deserves credit for “passing” health care reform, but no blame for not getting a public option. This view holds, in short, that when Congress passes something good, Obama gets credit, but when something fails it is the fault of Congress.
None of these are sensible views of presidential power and/or responsibility.
Did the public option fail because Obama didn’t want it or because there were never the votes for it?
In assessing presidential performance, a more relevant question is “Did Obama do everything a president could to get a public option included in the final PPACA bill? I think the answer to that is pretty clear.
NR
@Odie Hugh Manatee: Go over there right now and find me a single post on the front page that’s anti-Obama.
Go ahead. I’ll wait.
David B.
a number of the protesters actually wanted to be arrested, so whatever?
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Cat Lady:
Heh. That’s what I always think about Republicans (Dumbya, Mitt son of George, Capt John McCain son of Admiral son of Admiral) and NBC pundits (Russert, Brokaw, Tweety). Daddy issues explain a sad amount of our politics for the last twenty years.
ETA: forgot Rush Limbaugh III, who recently hired a new wife in his desperate quest not to fail daddy by dying without making a IV. And Pat Buchanan. God, they’re everywhere.
Odie Hugh Manatee
@NR:
Fuck off troll. Are you a schoolteacher or something, handing out homework on the internet and expecting results?
Anyone who thinks that DK is helpful to Obama or that the manic progressives there aren’t ripping into him daily…
has their head up their ass. Firmly and deeply. Is that why you want me to go find proof, you can’t see anything?
gbear
Nothing to add to this discussion other than Jane Hamshire’s theme song for the weekend. Hi Dad…
Ian
From the article
Totally. Yeah. Both sides do it.
Fucking moron
Ian
From the article
Totally. Yeah. Both sides do it.
Fucking moron
Ian
From the article
Totally. Yeah. Both sides do it.
Fucking moron
Elie
@Elizabelle:
I totally hear you and also do not know why this seems to characterize the left/progressives. And it seems many of us also do not know basic civics: the three parts of our government and the roles of each, that we do not have a monarchy, that complex change requires sometimes more than 2 years and by gosh, incrementally (whas dat?) Suddenly, all must be perfect right out of the gate and if not, give up, shriek “sell out!” at the top of your lungs and sit and pout. Never, NEVER accept that compromise is necessary and even essential in representative democracy..
I had the worst fight with my husband about this yesterday. He listens and reads a lot of MSM and they dutifully report (wonder why?) on how the liberals hate Obama. My smart husband is sometimes not very smart…
NR
@Odie Hugh Manatee: You made a claim. Back it up, or admit that you’re full of shit. If DKos is as anti-Obama as you say, it should be easy to find an anti-Obama front page post. So do it.
Elliecat
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
As I understand it, the complaint is that the protestors expected to be facing “post and forfeit,” be arrested, pay $100 fine and be released the same day. Now they’re being given jail time.
The irony is that apparently the Park Police are doing this to discourage demonstrations that might interfere with the events around the dedication of the Martin Luther King, Jr., memorial. The irony being that I wonder how many times King and civil rights protestors whined about not being able to just hand over $100 and go home after their demonstrations?
TooManyJens
@Odie Hugh Manatee: @Jim, Foolish Literalist: Thanks for the links.
arguingwithsignposts
@Elliecat: Well said. If you’re expecting to be arrested, you should also be expecting to spend time behind bars, as did the protesters at other large-scale events like the GOP conventions of 2004 and 08, or the various WTO events.
I think MLK wrote his letter *from* the Birmingham Jail.
Odie Hugh Manatee
@NR:
If you want to play that game then you are making a claim too. Prove that DK is not anti-Obama or admit that you are full of shit.
Your troll fu is weak.
One last note: Who appointed you the deciderer when it comes to whether or not something is or is not what it is (or is not)? You have some paperwork or a degree for that? No?
Fuck off troll.
Death Panel Truck
Is there any way our half-assed media can agree on the spelling of Muammar’s last name? MSNBC spells it “Khaddafy,” CNN “Gadhafi,” and other media outlets spell it “Qaddafi.” Even Wikipedia has its own version: “Gaddafi.” Some of them have their own spellings of his first name: “Muammar” or Moammar.”
Why is this so fucking difficult?
WordPress seems to think it’s “Qaddafi.” It’s the only version WP doesn’t mark as a misspelling.
Cat Lady
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
I think Republicans have daddy issues and mommy issues. It’s a psychopathology to be that proudly stupid and mean.
TooManyJens
@Death Panel Truck:
Because there’s no one agreed-upon way to transliterate Arabic to the Roman alphabet.
Elie
@NR:
I would assert that DKOS is largely not supportive of the administration and demonstrates it less on its front page than by allowing a huge number of anti administration diarists say the most ridiculous things and then amplifying their assertions over and over. I would also argue that many do not seem to know basic civics. Kos used to argue for the necessity of having blue dog democrats in states where it would be impossible to elect a more liberal democrat as a strategy for moving our national agenda forward – albeit incrementally, and more slowly, but that blue dogs would be better than the crazy cuckoos in the Republican party. He immediately forgets that of course when shrieking about why there weren’t the votes for the public option. Like how did he think that was going to play out and why was that reality Obama’s fault? He didn’t craft that approach — that was Howard Dean’s strategy and the approved approach that Kos was all ga ga about… till he wasn’t.
NR — you really have to be playing dumb.. DKOS has been on this path for quite a while..
askew
@Elie:
Yeah, Jane has a loud voice in the whining blogosphere, but she is speaking to a very small audience. It’s annoying to read, but I don’t think their whining has any impact on the Democratic Party as a whole.
MSNBC on the other hand, does impact the Democratic Party because it is the supposed “liberal” station and it spends almost all of its airtime on anti-Obama talking points.
Death Panel Truck
I think four different versions among the American media is more than a bit ridiculous.
Elie
@askew:
I completely disagree that she has no impact on the democrats.
You are right. Her direct audience as observed on her blog is small. But think how much that message is amplified, even in criticism, here. Think also that the MSM echo the criticism as evidence of Obama’s fail and people who do not “get around much” on the blogs hear these critiques made by the left on such outlets as NPR and the cable news shows. They don’t always think critically and take this shit at face value.
So yeah, you are right, she has a small direct audience. I would argue that she has a much larger impact through the indirect impact she has with other blogs responding or amplifying her critiques and then with the MSM who eats it up.
Why the left seems so open to it? Can’t answer for sure, but its a fact and drives me crazy.
TooManyJens
@Elie:
You can see the effect just by posting anything complimentary about something the Obama administration has done. I guarantee that if you have more than five readers, somebody will get in your face about how it isn’t good enough or it proves Obama is a corporate shill or whatever.
It’s not just that Jane et al.’s talking points get amplified, which they do — it’s that they are a huge barrier to getting any momentum going when the Dems do something right.
chopper
it’s great that crazy jane’s attempt at attention-getting is getting completely pushed aside by a bunch of actually oppressed people actually doing something about it. i’m sure they’re interviewing dudes in tripoli who are saying ‘screw our revolution, what about the real heroes like lt. choi?’
Jenny
If hamsher really was concerned about a tar sands pipeline, she wouldn’t be weaving self indulgent conspiracy narratives about arrests. If she really cared, she would be focusing on the pipeline and not…. wait for it… herself.
Elie
@TooManyJens:
Abso-fucking-lutely.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Elie: I think a big part of it is Americans in general have short cultural memories. During the recent PUMA re-boomlet I’ve been reading a lot of stuff about how Bill Clinton knew how to “handle” Republicans (failed health care bill, repeal of Glass-Steagall, DOMA, impeached but not convicted… all that is “handling” and “fighting” Republicans). You still see the occasional “How come Bush could do whatever he wanted and Obama can’t do ANYTHING?” I can’t remember who pointed out that outside of war policy, Bush was batting less than .500. The people who bitch about the stimulus and the public option can’t quite seem to grok the fact that it was Democrats who shrank all those bills. It is fucking exhausting.
FlipYrWhig
@Elliecat:
IIRC Thoreau specifically requested NOT to be fined and released when he was arrested for not paying his poll tax.
Omnes Omnibus
@FlipYrWhig:
IIRC that was rather the point of the whole thing. Didn’t he eventually write some kind of thing about it? What was it called? Tip of my tongue… Hmm…. Civil Disobedience, maybe?
cat48
According to The Hill they were arrested b/c they refused to move. If you protest on the WH Sidewalk, you have to keep moving & they chose to sit & yes, it’s all Obama’s fault!:
Elie
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
But WHY do progressives so easily fall into these pointless, self defeating, disempowering mind sets? Its like we are ready to defeat ourselves — as though the changes that we want are easy battles that should just be one-two-three. It is much easier being a Republican in terms of goals. All they want is tax cuts for the rich and spend what is left on the military and business pay offs. We supposedly want all those hard squishy things that are hard to “sell” — the payoffs are diffuse and the beneficiaries are the people rather than special interests who can “pay you back” right away. And we still fall for the bullshit!!! Instead of being ecstatic about having health care for almost everybody and limiting rescisions, we only focus on the absense of a single payer model — which is fine, but we got people the coverage folks! Single payer is just a way to deliver the coverage — we got the coverage.
I am so dissapointed and totally confused. How the hell do we do tough things if we run off in panic of self recriminations and “give up” after two years!! The republicans had 8 years of Bush and dominated a lot of the politics before that and Obama had to fix all of it by now…
Sko Hayes
@eglantine: One of Obama’s first executive orders was to close Guantanamo. He signed this order on the second day of his presidency.
The Senate voted 90-6 against funding the closing in May 2009.
Can’t do anything without funding from Congress.
kay
Eglamtine, did you read that piece you posted?
It describes a carefully planned unified bipartisan congressional effort to deny the cuban prisoners a trial in the criminal system.
This is the same Congress that likes to whine about a unitary President to cover for the fact that they will not do their job.
Weirdly, they were plenty powerful when they felt like doing the politically popular thing and keeping that prison open.
Funny how that works. US Presidents are all-powerful until congress feel like getting off their asses and blocking something. Then they magically find all kinds of power.
redshirt
@Elie: Too much thinking. Seriously – when you can see both sides of an issue, you’re prone to deliberate. Deliberation can lead to doubts. Doubt can be turned into defeatism.
Repukes suffer no such problems – Party HQ sends out the new daily talking points, and even if they contradict yesterday’s, everyone falls in line…
wrb
Even with this economy I think Obama would take those fools running against him, if it weren’t for the incessant dispiriting lies from those, dishones, lazy and/or stupid self-involved people who who claim to be to his left. I think it will be Arianna, Jane and the Janettes, and the rest of the daddybaggers, including those who post here that will provide the margin that turns the country over to the plutocrats and war porn addicts for good.
The evil that spreads from them is terrifying in both its banality and its grandeur.
Will a historian say, “The world was fucked here, by them?”
kay
New York has 2 Senators.
Perhaps they could rein in the executive branch on interference with their state AG.
Perhaps we could stop pretending that the President is an all powerful dictator.
We saw that congess can tie Holders hands, because they did that, on Gitmo.
Have they misplaced their power again?
Djur
“Allowing”? Last time I checked, anyone could create a Daily Kos diary. Are they expected to make regular sweeps to cleanse the site of despicable emoprogs?
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@wrb:
I always think back to 2000, and wonder beyond butterfly ballots, how much the “there’s no difference between Gore and Bush” contributed to “independent” voters deciding to vote for the guyyoudratherhaveabeerwith
Omnes Omnibus
@kay: Stop talking about the legitimate Constitutional authority of the legislative branch. It is confusing the narrative.
JWL
What utter horse-shit.
There is literally no outcome to any scenario in which knee jerk Obama supporters aren’t prepared to rationalize as the president having exercised the best possible judgement, but always with this single caveat: “given the circumstances”.
MikeMc
Are these guys protesting tar sands or the pipeline? Also, why?
cleek
There is literally no outcome to any scenario in which knee jerk Obama haters aren’t prepared to blame as the president having exercised the worst possible judgement.
funny how tautologies always work out, ain’t it?
Omnes Omnibus
@cleek: That one didn’t even need a caveat.
kay
Omnes,
Use your power!
Only with Congress does anyone ever have to say that.
They really have done very well at convincing the whole country that they are completely passive observers of the executive branch.
Until they want to do something. Then they are like a freight train coming, all focus and speed.
NR
@Odie Hugh Manatee:
I’m not making a claim. I’m saying you need to back up your claim. But since you’re full of shit, you can’t. So thanks for clearing that up.
NR
@Elie:
What assertions are these, and how are they amplified by the people who run DKos? Be specific.
Berto
Clap louder, Cole. I can still hear the Obama Administration fucking over the working class.
cleek
@kay:
nah. without the president, the permanently-aggrieved dipshit brigade would have nobody to focus their pure progressive pissypants poutrage onto.
and then nobody would know how pure their progressivity is!
NR
@wrb:
“I was totally fine with this shitty economy, but then I read this blog post!”
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@JWL:
Circumstances, also known as “reality”. We really can’t go out and make our own, Karl Jr
wrb
@JWL:
How utterly stupid.
And what an utterly beautiful, sublime even, demonstration of the theme of the thread.
Child in rags, huddled against her exhausted daddy in the culvert in which they sleep, because daddy has lost home, job and everything else, ice forming over them: “Daddy, me no like circumstances. Bad Daddy! Clap your hands! Circumstances go go away!!! Give me my pony now!!!”
Circumstances.
How unpleasantly working-class.
Sparkles to you.
Ian
@Odie Hugh Manatee:
You made the original claim. That means your suppose to back it up.
Think of the logic- X is Y. Someone disagrees and your response is- Prove that X is not Y.
Then calling them names and telling them to fuck off?
eglantine
@Sko Hayes, @kay
Thanks for your questions. The Congressional vote on May 20, 2009, blocking Obama’s $80 million request to shut down GTMO was a bad vote, but its significance should not be overstated. Obama had already decided to preserve the GTMO policy, as his big speech delivered the very next day (but obviously prepared in advance) made clear. In that speech he announced that he would authorize indefinite detention without trial and would restore the military commissions (designed to obtain easier convictions by circumventing due process protections). The real issue is not whether there is a prison in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. The real issue is whether the detainees, most of them innocent, will be kept in indefinite detention without trial, and whether the trials that are held will be real trials or show trials. It is wrong to lock up people without trial for the rest of their lives, and wrong to convict people in show trials, whether you do it in GTMO or Thompson, Illinois. Obama had decided even before the May vote that he would try to preserve GTMO by moving it to a different location, thus seeming to fulfill his January 2009 promise but violating it in reality. Congress’s vote did not stop Obama from releasing Guantanamo detainees, and that’s the crucial thing. It wasn’t until December 2010 that Congress raised significant barriers to the release of the detainees. Yes, I read the Washington Post article, and read it carefully. The facts are as I have stated them, though the article goes astray in emphasizing the largely unimportant question of whether GTMO itself will be shut down. Note that a major theme of the article is Obama’s failure, at repeated junctures, to lead on this issue, leaving many Congressional Democrats adrift; and his tendency to retreat when a single congress member says boo. The bottom line is that the innocent people in GTMO could have been released long ago if Obama had agreed to release them. Congress did not stop him. Only in December 2010 did it start to raise serious obstacles to the release of the detainees.
Jenny
@cleek:
Actually it would fall on Pelosi. PEople forget how much they dumped on Nancy in 2007, including primarying her with Cindy Sheehan.
Elie
@NR:
If you read my comment, I cited an example of Kos retrograding on a past belief and turning it into anti-Obama criticism (the issue on electing blue dogs).
I am not going to go to that blog and find the references. Who are you? What, I have to “show my work” to you?
get lost..
Dont want to read pro Obama stuff then skip my comments. I give you permission
Elie
@Jenny:
I forgot about THAT…
sigh
Elie
@eglantine:
Can you use paragraph spacing once in a while? Of course, type as you want — makes it easier to skip your comments
Jenny
@eglantine:
Like he did on Libya?
Like he did on DADT?
Like he did on START Treaty?
NR
@Elie:
Once again: You made the claim. You have to back it up. You’re claiming that DKos is anti-Obama. Show me some evidence. If they really are as anti-Obama as you claim, it should be easy to find.
All you’ve offered so far is some vague assertion about how Kos attacked Obama over the public option. But the fact is that while Kos pushed for the public option initially, when it became clear that the final bill wasn’t going to have one, he (along with most of the rest of the progressive blogosphere) supported passing the bill anyway and called it a great progressive victory. He abandoned the principles he’d pushed for earlier in order to help Obama get a legislative win. That’s not anti-Obama, that’s the exact opposite.
Once again: Give some evidence that DKos is anti-Obama. Your unsupported assertions aren’t convincing.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Jenny: thank you for mining through that shitpile to find the nugget of crap that shows that Eglantine is as fucking stupid as I thought s/he was
Jenny
Funny how Jane could never find a way to get arrested when Bush was president.
stinkdaddy
Did the public option die because Obama didn’t want it, or because the votes weren’t there?
The answer is “No. The public option died because Obama cut a backroom deal to eliminate it.”
Maybe he really did want it; I don’t care about splitting that hair, because he doesn’t get credit from me for wanting things. He certainly does get blame for cutting backroom deals while talking nice in public though.
eglantine
Jenny, you’re right. Obama has displayed courage on many occasions. So my “tendency to retreat” sentence is misleading. (I was just thinking about GTMO, and even there it was too much of a rhetorical flourish. I should have stated the point more accurately and modestly.)
My reason for commenting on this diary is that I wanted to correct John Cole’s suggestion that Congress prevented Obama from doing the right thing on GTMO and therefore that the GTMO failure is not Obama’s fault. That is misleading. Obama deserves a lot of blame for the GTMO failure, specifically for the fact that many innocent people are being kept in indefinite detention without trial.
I don’t want to get into the debate whether Obama is all good or all bad. I wanted to set the record straight on GTMO. It’s a narrower issue, but important.
Samara Morgan
There’s no one liek my daddy….
except Benny Benassi.
cleek
@Jenny:
oh yeah, we all know the type.
Morbo
@Mike Goetz: Obama left the door open for Tunch to get out.
OzoneR
@stinkdaddy:
Barack Obama can’t kill something that was never alive. Besides the reporter says this
Think is not confirmation, it’s an assumption, and to assume makes an ass out of u and me…in this case though, just you.
which is exactly why the bully pulpit bullshit is bullshit.
kay
Eglantine, if congressional democrats want to be leaders in this country, they are going to have to LEAD.
In Congress. Where they work. And where they have clealy defined constitutional roles.
This whining that Obama is leaving them ADRIFT is pure nonsense.
They want a public option. GREAT. Lead, and find the votes. Legislation is THEIR JOB.
OzoneR
@NR:
are you shitting me with this?
http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2009/12/kos-wants-to-kill-the-bill/31849/
OzoneR
@kay: I agree with kay. What is Obama going to do? VETO the public option?
eglantine
@Kay, I agree that Congressional Democrats should take responsibility. Their collective behavior on GTMO has been abominable. But Obama didn’t help. When they looked to him for guidance, the signals he sent were often confusing, vacillating, or unclear. The President also has a responsibility to lead. It goes both ways.
The more fundamental point is that the policy Obama announced in May 2009, and which Congress in no way imposed on him, was a policy of continuing indefinite detention and restoring military commissions. It perpetuated some of the principal human rights abuses that have made GTMO a global symbol of tyranny and injustice.
On many issues, I am a huge fan, supporter, and defender of Obama. GTMO is not one of them.
Jenny
@NR:
So Greenwald was a sell out for supporting the final version of ACA?
So Krugman sold out to help Obama get a legislative win?
I didn’t know that. Thanks for point that out.
By calling ACA supporters sell outs, you end up trashing St Glenn and KThug. And KThug was one of the hippies who called it, quote, “very good [legislation]”, unquote.
Talk about marginalizing yourself. When given enough rope, people like you always hang yourself.
cleek
@eglantine:
what constitutes leadership in this situation? either you approve of closing GTMO or not. or, if you don’t care about the morals: either you vote to give the ostensible leadership of your party a win, or you give him a kick in the shins. what’s the president’s role in this?
OzoneR
@eglantine:
LOL at the idea members of Congress looking for guidance.
These guys have the biggest egos on Earth, when they said “we need leadership or we need guidance,” what that says is “we need someone to blame for our fuckups”
Jim, Foolish Literalist
and I’d bet a kidney that those four provided cover for a good half-dozen others, but keep jerking off to your fantasies of persecution and betrayal by Obama
eglantine
@OzoneR. Many members of Congress want to know where a president of the same party stands on a particular issue, especially one that involves national security. The first impulse of many (obviously not all) Congressional Democrats is to coordinate and cooperate with the President. That is one reason why presidential leadership matters. As Jenny reminds us, Obama exercised such leadership on DADT, on the START Treaty, and on many other issues.
cleek
@stinkdaddy:
from the linked article:
anyone familiar with the ACA’s history should know what the Senate Finance Committee’s role was. specifically, what Max Baucus’ role was. you know Max Baucus, right? he is the guy who was responsible for writing the thing…
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@eglantine:
Congress? The House? Maybe. The Senate? You gotta fucking be kidding me.
OzoneR
@eglantine:
his signed an executive order closing GITMO, he proposed an Illinois prison to house the suspects, how could they not know where he stood?
NR
@OzoneR: Don’t play dumb. You know full well that Kos supported the bill in the end, and his website was a major focus for people who were pushing House Democrats to pass the Senate bill.
NR
@Jenny: “Sell out” is your term, not mine. I simply pointed out that Kos was pushing for a public option, but he abandoned that in the end so he could help Obama get a legislative win. And once again, that is not being anti-Obama. That is being the exact opposite.
Uncle Clarence Thomas
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After taking off his dunce cap this morning, Mr. Cole has decided to don it once again. Perhaps he is bald.
You are willfully misrepresenting the situation, although every issue that balloonbaggers approve of (such as letting all the torturers run free) is credited to President Obama, while every failure (such as retaining the Bush tax cuts) is blamed on someone else.
It’s his representatives and administration personnel, not him personally, as far as is known so far. Maybe you could read another article to get up to speed?
Only 50 were required. The ACA passed via reconciliation, as you will recall, thus making all the compromises with depraved Senate Republicans unnecessary.
I do believe the criticism is not related to the lack of bully pulpit, but to the lack of application of presidential power, at least before the cockblock.
You seem to think that he and his administration could not have instituted a policy against *all* future protests – or just some – years or months or weeks ago. His administration has proven to be highly vindictive against protesters, whistle-blowers, leakers, et al. Do you think that if his administration said, “When protesters show up, give them a ticket and let them go per usual” that would not be done? It was done for Republicans bringing guns to his speeches, after all.
No shit, Mr. Cole. No shit.
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Uncle Clarence Thomas
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Balloonbagger “Grifter” Logic
courtesy of Anya
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honus
@Death Panel Truck: If you can’t take four different spellings of a name you should move to Mumbai and drink a Bombay toddy. Or Beijing and get a Peking duck.
kay
@eglantine:
Congress is gaming us, and they’ve been doing it my entire adult life.
Sherrod Brown is my Senator. I think he’s great. But when he appears on MSNBC programs and whines that they President isn’t leading on the public option, I feel contempt. How close were they on the public option? 5 votes? What’s Sherrod Brown’s role in this drafting legislation/lobbying for votes thing? Shouldn’t it be ACTIVE?
I personally, were I a Senator, would not announce that I am powerless in the Senate, which is, after all, my constitutionally-granted area of expertise and power. I’d be ashamed to do that.
When Kucinich goes to a COURT to define a term in a law, I’m wondering why he doesn’t draft a definition. Obama is expanding “hostilities”? We have a FIX for that. A legislature can tighten up language. It’s what they do!
When Lindsey Graham and John McCain refuse to do their own job on Libya, and then release an op-ed that does the President’s job, I feel contempt. They’re enormously powerful Senators. Why in the hell are they jumping into the executive area? They didn’t do jack shit in their own forum on Libya (the Senate) so now they’re going to branch out into being President?
This is by design. They want all the power, but none of the responsibility. It doesn’t work like that. We don’t need 100 Senators acting as President. We need Senators who recognize and value the power they hold in the jobs they took. People who take responsibility for the legislation they draft and pass, and take the blame for what they don’t manage to pass. They’ve completely ceded their power on foreign policy. Now we’re going to give them a pass on domestic issues, too? Why do we need them at all?
kay
@eglantine:
And I can turn it around, too, eglantine. From Obama’s perspective, in this skewed all-powerful President-world we made up, Obama is taking all the heat for decisions, so he (naturally) wants all the power to affect the result.
I just don’t see how we get where we want to go with this approach. On the one hand, we’re saying “the President is too powerful!” and then on the other hand we’re saying “we hold the President responsible for all results”.
If the President has all the responsibility, isn’t the President almost entitled to all the power to affect the result? Is it any wonder the President grabs more and more, every year? If I’m responsible for all outcomes, don’t I want all power?
We have ONE popular mainstream media congressional historian. ONE. Norm Ornstein. Congress is a co-equal branch. Why don’t they merit understanding and study?
slightly_peeved
You recall wrong.
_Some_ of the ACA passed with 50; some passed with 60. Certain aspects could not be passed with only 50, as they didn’t satisfy the Byrd rule.
Things like the exchanges had to be passed with 60, and therefore with Lieberman’s agreement. And given some of the stuff had to be passed with 60, Lieberman said at the time that he wouldn’t pass any of it unless he was convinced that they wouldn’t then use reconcilliation to pass through everything he wouldn’t sign off on.
Quiddity
@Uncle Clarence Thomas: You don’t understand. Here, the policy is to always go after Jane Hamshire even if bigger issues are at stake or in the news.
eglantine
@Kay. Everyone needs to take responsibility. That includes senators — I definitely agree — and also the president. Responsibility means adopting the right policy position and urging others to do the same. It also means obeying the law. I agree that senators often duck responsibility when it’s convenient. But if the president violates a law that Congress has already passed (War Powers Act), it’s not the fault of Congress for failing to pass a new law saying, really, you should have obeyed the law we already passed; it’s the fault of the president for violating the law. (Sorry, new can of worms opened.) As you and I know, it is extremely difficult to pass new laws in Congress. If a president breaks the law by creatively redefining words (torture, hostilities) and challenges Congress to stop him by passing a new law, that is an illicit arrogation of power and gross abuse of the Constitution. (But I agree with much or most of what you say.)
kay
@eglantine:
Yeah, well, but then I have to be willing to state with no adjudicatory process at all that the President “broke the law”. I’m not willing to do that. I don’t have any problem with anyone else analyzing the situation and reaching that conclusion, but I myself don’t make those statements. I don’t say what the law is. Interestingly, we’re giving a complete pass to those who draft these laws we’re always nattering on about.
A court isn’t the first place for a dispute between the legislative and executive branch to be settled. It’s the last place. Last resort.
You’re willing to give them a pass on “hard”? It’s HARD to pass legislation thru a diverse ideological body? No shit. Cry me a river.
Congress have been ducking their job FOR YEARS. We’ve now reached the ridiculous point where the administration had to set up an agency process because they are incapable of saying “NO” to Medicare providers/lobbyists/donors. That’s what the IPAB is in the health care law: a complete admission that Congress is broken.
We have CONGRESS setting up a “super Congress” for Christ sake. They’re dodging WITHIN that body.
How long before we admit all this, and stop relying on the President being a “good man“. We don’t have to rely on that. We have a co-equal branch. They are becoming all but irrelevant. It’s sad.
kay
@eglantine:
eglantine, members of Congress cannot say to me that we have a unitary President when they exercise their awesome power selectively.
They’re wildly effective at reining in the President, any President, when they goddamnned well want to be.
They pushed through legislation that was directed at the Ohio property recording system, for goodness sakes. Obama vetoed it, but there it was!
Flew through Congress, and right to the President’s desk, on a holiday weekend.
They cannot make a bullshit statement opposing Libya and then fund Libya.
They have the power to affect foreign policy, and they always have. That they have decided to abdicate that, for political and other reasons, does not mean we have a unitary “outlaw” President.
eglantine
@ Kay. I urge you to reconsider. It *is* your responsibility, as a citizen, to make a good-faith interpretation of the law. Just as presidents and senators have to take responsibility, so do citizens. The view you are defending here would lead to a vast and tyrannical expansion of presidential power. The president could redefine legislative statutes whenever and however he wants, citizens would muffle their judgment, and then it would be up to Congress to pass legislation that ought to be unnecessary. (“Yes, controlled drowning, electrocution, thumb screws are torture, we thought that was obvious, but now we’re spelling it out; yes, it’s assault whether you use a brick or a stone or stick or a club; yes, it’s hostilities whether you drop the bomb from the air or lob it from the infantry unit. Yes, it’s rape when you’re wearing a blue shirt and not just a green shirt. Yes, it’s a bank robbery if the actions are conducted on Tuesdays, not just Mondays.”) No constitutional system could ever function that way.
I do agree with you that Congress also needs to take more responsibility. But the president has to take responsibility, too. And that means obeying the law, not distorting it.
kay
@eglantine:
We disagree. I think your interpretation of presidential/congressional balance of power relies on the President being a “good man”. I think yours is the dangerous interpretation, because it’s entirely divorced from process. It’s subjective.
I think mine is more rigorous, less subjective, and less susceptible to imagining motive and intent.
You look at an imbalance of power and say one player is “grabbing”. I go back one step. Who left it there to grab? Why would I rely on the President (any President) not taking something? Because he’s “good”? I want to rely on the process- owner USING it. This won’t work if we keep pointing to and at the President. We cannot get there from here, relying on the process and procedural regime we were given.
kay
@eglantine:
I think it’s dangerous in so many ways, this widely adopted view. I love how Americans were disgusted with the “sausage making” on the health care bill. They wanted to avert their eyes from this terrible spectacle! Why? Because it exposes how their government actually works?
God forbid they should be forced to look at that reality, right? Better they rely on bold speeches on you tube, and campaign statements. Better they only see the grade school civics version of reality.
I understand hating it. What I don’t understand is pretending it doesn’t exist, and insisting on clinging to that.
eglantine
No constitutional system can survive if the players don’t make an effort to be honest and responsible. We cannot rely on process alone. No process will survive if everyone feels liberated to subvert the process. Constitutions are not machines: they depend on some element of good-faith participation. James Madison was right when he said, “Is there no virtue among us? If there be not, we are in a wretched situation. No theoretical checks–no form of government can render us secure. To suppose that any form of government will secure liberty or happiness without any virtue in the people, is a chimerical idea.”
You want members of Congress to show some honesty, virtue, and responsibility. Why not the president, too?
kay
@eglantine:
I don’t want them to show virtue. I don’t want to rely on them personally. I want them (both the President and Congress) to act within their respective spheres, and allow people to see and understand what they’re doing, and why they’re doing it.
I want someone like my Senator, Sherrod Brown, to OWN a letter he signs that lobbies to water down climate change legislation. He signed the letter because ordinary people in Ohio would have been hurt disproportionally by climate change legislation. All of the midwest liberal senators signed it. That’s a valid role for an Ohio Senator. What’s NOT valid is pinning the failure of climate change legislation solely on the President, and claiming a lack of leadership from the WH. Baloney. That’s not what happened. Liberal Democrats had concerns. I think those concerns were valid. So why pin the whole thing on the President? That’s not how it happened. But doing that sure takes the Senator off the hot seat, doesn’t it? Funny how that works.
eglantine
I sympathize with your complaint about Senator Brown. You and I both set high expectations for our elected officials, though I may set my expectations higher than you do.