This last summer, President Obama had an epiphany: Republicans are not going to negotiate with him. One might say that this realization came a little late. (And in fact, I did say that.) It’s not exactly clear why Obama thought he could persuade Republicans to compromise when Republicans had been saying that they wouldn’t compromise, that any bi-partisan support they provided would only make him more popular, and that their top goal was to defeat him. But he tried nonetheless, even offering House Republicans an absurdly generous deal to reduce the long-term deficit by $4 trillion, locking in most of the Bush tax cuts and reducing tax rates to low, low levels.
Republicans walked away from Obama’s Crazy Eddie Budget Sale, with tax rates so low he had to be crazy to offer them, and Obama saw his approval rating plummet in the process. He’s not trying to cut a deal any more. He’s trying to clarify his positions to the public.
I guess better late than never.
eemom
I wonder what will happen on this thread.
Southern Beale
GOP Stupidity, Now With Electrolytes.
I am glad Obama apparently had this epiphany. Maybe he should stop listening to his advisors who seem to have a “bipartisan” fetish and start reading some fucking blogs. We’ve all known this since the Democrats took over Congress in 2006.
Whatever.
Nevgu
BAHahaha! Concern Troll Cole trying to talk down to the president and armchair quarterback. Now THAT is funny.
Hey moron, this plan was laid out at least a year ago! You wouldn’t understand. You are going to vote for Bomney/Scarry anyways. Admit it you tool!
Lolis
@Nevgu:
If you want some real concern trolling look up Mark Penn’s piece in the Huffington Post.
bk
I lived in New York during the days of “Crazy Eddie” on tv, and moo ha hah!!!!
wilfred
“This last summer, President Obama had an epiphany: Republicans are not going to negotiate with him.”
I like that. Subsitute Obama with Palestinians and Republicans with Israel and bingo!
Glenn Greenwald already shit all over this latest campaign ploy of the Great Communicator, btw.
harlana
you mean, “Are Our President Learning?”
Short Bus Bully
Obama is a community organizer to the heart in the sense that he DOES actually want everyone to get along and thinks (hopes) in his heart that they can. There’s always a serious reality check when honest and kind people get confronted with the Crazy and the Evil.
I too wish that this reality check had happened earlier. It’s easy for me to say though, I’m bitter, cynical, and sarcastic and have been for a good long time now.
Chris Gerrib
I’ve said this before, but part of why Obama tried to do a deal was that he had to do a deal. Basically, he had to get Congress to affirmatively vote to raise the debt limit.
He doesn’t have to get a job bill. He wants a job bill and we need a job bill, but he does not have to get one. Thus, he can say “my way or the highway.”
harlana
@eemom:
at the very least, lots and lots of references to “emoprogs” and “firebaggers” i’m guessing
eponymous_coward
OK, this will sound like 11-dimensional chess, but I don’t care.
Look, the guy was elected on a platform of “I’m gonna try to be bipartisan, hope and change will get us past partisanship, etc.”. So he had to walk the talk. And he did. And the Republicans did what they did.
Now he goes back to the people and says “Look, I tried, and I am offering what I think a lot of you want. So either vote for me, or the other guy. Oh, and you might want to think about putting some adults in charge in the House, if you actually want to get any of what I am suggesting done. Otherwise, you might as well go full-on teabilly and have fun with President Perry, House Speaker Boehner and Senate Majority Leader McConnell.”
trollhattan
Oh goody, I kan haz my Chait fix again. As to whether the president can get any traction with steering the public to a realistic appraisal of Republican SOPs, it’s worth trying but good damn luck.
MaximusNYC
I just checked in at Firedoglake. Can you guess what their reaction to Obama’s proposal is?
(I’ll save you the trouble and not send any more clicks their way. “Obama hasn’t ruled out cutting Medicare spending, therefore HE IS EVIL AND THIS IS ALL A BIG LIE AND WE MUST KEEP HATING HIM.”)
Thoughtful Black Co-Citizen
Gosh, it couldn’t be you know, a case of carefully framing things in a way that it is obvious the Republicans are not just unreasonable, not just a little stubborn, but full on batshit crazy and dangerous with it.
Maybe John Chait can use his mind reading powers to tell us what ELSE Obama is planning to do.
Frankensteinbeck
Obama figured this out long ago and has said so. Until now they had guns to the country’s head with budgets and debt ceilings. Do you know how a hostage negotiation works? Do you know how any negotiation works? As long as you will ever expect to have to bargain with someone on anything ever, it pays to pretend to respect them and talk nice, even when you think they’re unreasonable assholes and you’re only trying to get them out of your way. With hostages, that involves pretending to give them what they want and pulling the rug out only after they can’t back out, because they will never knowingly compromise.
This is exactly what Obama has done from day one, and it worked. It worked really well, and got us through the hostage situations and even got actual compromises nobody expected during the lame duck session. Now, thanks to him slipping a budget deal in with the debt compromise, they no longer have a hostage. It still pays to be polite, but ‘confrontational’ is becoming a useful option. They have nothing he wants and could ever conceivably get anymore.
Norwonk
And isn’t it a remarkable coincidence that this epiphany happened exactly at the moment he began his reelection campaign?
Look, whether he is sincere or not, Obama pushing liberal ideas is far better than Obama echoing Republican talking points (which has been his custom for at least two years). But when the clock strikes twelve on election day, Obama won’t need your votes anymore. Just like Cinderella, he’ll change right back to his filthy old conservaDem rags.
I’m not saying you shouldn’t vote for him, but please don’t be naive about this. You’ll hurt yourself.
Short Bus Bully
While we’re all cheering the final coupe de grace Evil gets to lay on Bipartisanship we should at least take a moment to recognize what we are cheering: The death of people coming together in American politics. This is not something to be proud of.
It says something about Obama’s humanity and love for his fellow man that he was able to hold out hope and fight for the REAL right thing for so long. It’s a sad day when even a great spirit such as his has to concede that America is too far gone to ever really come together. Perhaps it never will again.
All we have in front of us is fighting, anger, resentment, and open hatred. Obama was pushing for the everything that was the opposite of that. I think him finally conceding the fight is something we should all recognize as a great loss to the human race.
Linda Featheringill
I enjoyed the Prez’s speech today. It does sort of look like he has been enlightened.
I do sympathize with the man, though. It’s very painful to have to give up a cherished delusion.
J.A.F. Rusty Shackleford
Apparently it’s the “negative pressure from progressive critics” who are responsible for Obama’s epiphany.
Legalize
@Norwonk:
Yeah, and that’s when he really, actually, totally moves to repeal social security and medicare, right?!
Paul in KY
@Short Bus Bully: It’s probably not a good idea to have a President as sarcastic & cynical as I’ve become, so I hear ya SBB.
Maura Cavaleri
@bk: That is so funny, so did I! I about lost it when I read that, it shows our age but man, those were my glory days. Crazy Eddies, awesome.
Linda Featheringill
@Short Bus Bully:
My goodness Bully. What an empathetic comment. You’re going to ruin your reputation if you keep that up. :-)
You’re right, of course. It’s sad that Obama had to give up on being reasonable.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
GW Bush also learned from his mistakes Obamabots! Obama is worse than Bush! Primary him NOW!
Personally, I think the people who are learned are the public. I am sure Obama knows what the deal with is with the Republicans, he just has to demonstrate to the public the GoP are a bunch of wackaloons. Since the conservatives at work have been grumbling about the Republicans now I think Obama is succeeding.
Sister Machine "Gun of Quiet Harmony
@J.A.F. Rusty Shackleford:
It amazes me how much these people consistently think it is all about them. Talk about delusions of grandeur.
Maura Cavaleri
@eponymous_coward: This, exactly.
Sister Machine "Gun of Quiet Harmony
I am in moderation for no valid reason.
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
Actually, I blame Obama for not being sufficiently black enough to see that the Republicans were never going to think of him as anything more than their “boy”. He should not have expected to have been treated like presidents before him. (Yes, I am white.)
To be slightly more realistic, his refusal to triangulate like Clinton and then claim credit, but with the idea of splitting the difference to pass something, should have been the way things would work. It’s still all the Republican’s fault. What is he supposed to do otherwise? And even his “failures” didn’t work out to the Republican’s advantage when they went and looked back.
But now, at least, we’re probably going to hear him calling the Republicans by name.
ETA: This comes after the debt ceiling deal, which would have significantly hurt the economy. His line in the sand when the Republicans won’t generate a useful budget will cause a lot more problems for the people that need to be shown where their SS and Medicare come from.
Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony
My comment about being stuck in [email protected] is stuck in [email protected]?!
catclub
@eponymous_coward: “Otherwise, you might as well go full-on teabilly and have fun with President Perry, House Speaker Boehner and Senate Majority Leader McConnell.”
Of course, if they go the full-on teabilly. It is house speaker Bachmann and Senate Majority leader DeMint.
Anti-panic medication futures, anyone.
schlemizel - was Alwhite
so John & Mr. Chait are now firebaggers too? This is all a lot of the people on the left have been saying since day 1 – The Rs will not cooperate and we should act accordingly.
jomo
Obama played the GOP in the April budget impasse – might have though he could do it again with the debt ceiling battle. In hindsight he gets to talk about his opponent as having been willing to let the US default on their debt. He’s suffered – they have suffered more. Now he says “we’ve tried it your way – and you have shown the country that you are crazy” His opponents are willing to shut the government down over hurricane aid. It seems to me that all he has done by waiting is giving more rope to his opponents to hang themselves. He’s in campaign mode now. Expect him to be more on his game from now on.
schlemizel - was Alwhite
@Lolis:
NO
never listen to Mark Penn & never give clicks to WhorfingtonPost
Nevgu
@Lolis: FluffPuff is banned from all computers in my house. As are all Faux Noise websites.
cleek
@Norwonk:
no, not really.
up until last November, the GOP didn’t have the power to refuse negotiations. they were in the minority in both houses. then, they won big in 2010 and took office in January 2011. the debit ceiling thing started in April 2011 and it wasn’t until early August 2011 that the GOP’s real M.O. become obvious.
it took him all of four months – all of which were filled with what looked like tough but good faith negotiations until the last minute – to figure it out.
not bad, IMO.
Commenting at Balloon Juice since 1937
@Lolis: Mark Penn’s trolling at HuffPo is a work of beauty. I didn’t know whether to laugh or laugh harder.
cleek
@J.A.F. Rusty Shackleford:
idiots
Short Bus Bully
@Linda Featheringill:
Oh I’ll get back to being bitter and shitty in just a few minutes. Needed a couple of minutes to mourn the passing of the American Electorate’s humanity though. The small piece of me that still can hope for such things demanded it.
Uncle Clarence Thomas
.
.
Until I see President Obama’s successful results listed in Politico, I give the entire speech a “Pffft!”
.
.
Nevgu
What Wrong On Everyting Cup Half Empty Cole doesn’t get and will never get is that this is all calculated. Not 11 dimensional chess….just chess. All moves are planned several moves in advance.
Cole will NEVER understand. Just not enough cow bell in that pea brain of his. His whole world view consists of whatever opinionated crap he chooses to read from websites like Salon…..lol!
eemom
@bk: @Maura Cavaleri:
Christmas sale in August!!
His prices are IIINSAAAAAANE!!!
Cris (without an H)
An interesting side effect of having media production centers is that we all become virtual citizens of those centers.
Which is to say, I’ve never lived anywhere near New York, and yet I grew up aware of NY-local phenomena like Crazy Eddie and “How’m I Doin’?”
cleek
@Norwonk:
do you really believe this, or are you just trolling?
’cause if you’re not trolling, this is seriously delusional.
MaximusNYC
@Belafon (formerly anonevent):
So you and Michael Moore and Bill Maher have it all figured out?
How dumb of our black President, not to do what we white folks think black folks are supposed to do.
Cris (without an H)
Even if this is true, I’d call that a positive side effect of the electoral system. If the threat of being removed from office is what it takes to make a representative do and say the right things, then the system is working.
Elie
@Frankensteinbeck:
This. Well said
I am always surprised that people do not see the goal and necessity of what he is doing. Its like our own side memorized the dysfunctionality and in some cases, illegality of the Bush and Reagan years and now think that is the way its supposed to be. Coercion is not a democratic model nor is belittling your opponent to make emotional points with the homies. That was the stuff you hated Bush for and now you want Obama to follow. That instead of saying, whew, we finally have a President who believes in representative democracy and is not going to abuse his power”. Instead, some of you want despotism.
Its really opened my eyes to some who call themselves liberals…liberalism, balanced acceptance of different views and representative democracy — is not what some of you want.
ppcli
I expect that he and his people have read the history of the “Dewey Defeats Truman” election. People remember that Truman made speeches against the “Do Nothing Republican Congress”, but the parallels go closer. Truman was extremely unpopular, and the Republicans figured that all they needed to do was to temporize, avoid doing anything, and avoid controversy. So they just agreed publicly in their platform that they were in favor of any popular parts of Truman’s platform, while scuttling any legislative action in committee. So Truman called them on it by recalling the 80th congress and demanding they take action on all the things the platform said they were in favor of. Of course they did nothing and Truman’s campaign motif gained steam. I think the same strategy is behind Obama’s tactic of piecing together a bill that consists of only things Republicans have publicly approved of. When they do nothing, he can say: How can they say they were trying to help people? They wouldn’t even pass a bill consisting of nothing but Republican proposals?
Truman’s speech accepting the nomination at the Democratic convention makes compelling reading, for those of you unfamiliar with it. And also it’s a reminder of the America that the Republicans want to bring us back to:
http://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/harrytruman1948dnc.htm
And here’s a sample from a different speech, in 1948:
Some people say I ought not to talk so much about the Republican 80th “do-nothing” Congress in this campaign. I will tell you why I will talk about it. If two-thirds of the people stay at home again on election day as they did in 1946, and if we get another Republican Congress like the 80th Congress, it will be controlled by the same men who controlled that 80th Congress–the Tabers and the Tafts, the Martins and the Hallecks–would be the bosses. The same men would be the bosses, the same as those who passed the Taft-Hartley Act, and passed the rich man’s tax bill, and took Social Security away from a million workers.
Elie
@Belafon (formerly anonevent):
Nah unh… you didnt say that? That Obama was not sufficiently black enough? Meaning what. State of being black meaning what?
Please expand, white girl.
wasabi gasp
Racist.
Maura Cavaleri
@eemom: I swear to God, he was a total lunatic, right. His commercials were like he was totally jacked up on something. Just thinking about him reminds me of that whole time period. Fun times.
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
@Elie: White boy. Actually, I was poking fun at the people whining about ABL posts, and calling the Republicans racist. I’m 100% certain that Obama has an idea of what they think of him. I also believe that Obama’s being black is just the weapon they use; it’s his being a Democratic President that boils their blood.
JC
@ppcli:
What do I know, but I think this is the only way to go. It has the added benefit of being true!
It’s good to see Obama addressing the truth of things, rather than pretending that Rethugs negotiate in good faith.
We have to do everything we can to let people know, the economy slowed down, when the Rethugs got back into power in the House. They were willing to tank everything, for political points.
So Obama needs to stay strong for the people. And people need to see him standing for them.
One year of blaming no change in the economy on the Republicans. I think we can get even the low information voter to absorb that!
Hoodie
Yeah, like Obama didn’t know that well before then. Pundits are really fucking morons sometimes. The 2010 election was the epiphany, if there ever was one. It made him realize that paranoid white folks — mostly on the right, but including a few on the left — will be all too willing to believe any idiotic, conspiratorial thing said about him. Add to that a torrent of rich wingnut money and Fox propaganda, and you can clearly see that Obama has been having to fight out of his weight class, relying on not much more than his own wits, seeing as even his own party is rife with prima donnas and quislings.
Gin & Tonic
You guys all recall, I hope, that Crazy Eddie’s (the company) went bankrupt because of the frauds of Eddie Antar, the owner, who fled to Israel, was eventually extradited and served 8 (?) years in prison? Maybe not the best example to use, although the TV commercials *were* entertaining.
Linda Featheringill
@MaximusNYC:
I think that Belefon does not approve of Republican attitudes against black leaders. He is just sorrowfully reporting on what seems to be the situation.
Samara Morgan
aww
you meant crazy eddie the electronics dealer.
i thought for a moment you were comparing Obama to this crazy eddie.
Ash Can
@Enhanced Voting Techniques:
Bingo. While I agree that Obama really does take compromise seriously and values bipartisanship — because, let’s face it, that’s how representative government, by definition, must work — it’s the public who needs educating. People simply don’t pay attention. And I’m not talking about us politics junkies here. I’m talking about the millions and millions of great unwashed who look at a John Boehner or an Eric Cantor or fill-in-the-blank-with-any-Republican and say, “Well, he’s kind of a jerk but better the devil you know/what has the Dem guy done for me lately,” and hold their noses and vote to fuck over themselves and the nation because they simply don’t understand what they’re doing. If Obama can bring at least some of these people to their senses, he’ll have had a significant beneficial impact on this nation’s future in and of that alone.
Elie
@Belafon (formerly anonevent):
Okay. Sorry. My bad too on your gender.
I don’t know about you, but I frequently have problems picking up some types of deliberate snark and sarcasm… Maybe I am also a little bit more defensive than I need to be so just need to hold up.
Short Bus Bully
@Belafon (formerly anonevent):
If you’re a troll this is pretty solid stuff. Props.
If you’re not a troll this is the dumbest fucking comment I have heard yet today. Perhaps your response could up the ante?
Paul in KY
@Cris (without an H): The local version around my parts (and this dates me a bit) was a character up in ‘South Lebanon, OH’. Cash’s Big Bargain Barn. “Come save cash with Cash!”
I heard his commercials too many times to count back in my old days of watching The Cool Ghoul & Batty Hatty from Cincinnatti on Channel 41.
Short Bus Bully
@Nevgu:
/facepalm
We need better trolls around here.
Gin & Tonic
@Maura Cavaleri:
That was an actor, not Eddie Antar.
Paul in KY
@ppcli: I think the difference here would be that the modern Republican platform probably doesn’t have too many things that would dovetail with Pres. Obama’s priorities.
Martin
Realization? I don’t buy that. Obama has two modes – which he admitted to way back when he was elected:
1) President Obama: representing all interests
2) Candidate Obama: representing party interests
No point in Candidate Obama running around campaigning with no opposition, achieving nothing more than looking partisan and pissing off non-affiliated voters. No point in President Obama continuing to fight for all interests now that the clown car has pulled up and presented candidates to balance out Candidate Obama’s proposals.
We’re going to get the guy you voted for until Nov 2012. But Obama knew that the GOP was going to act like a bunch of shits back before he was even elected, and they dutifully did so, and drawing a contrast with them is now absurdly easy. The GOP really wants to go on record defending tax cuts for millionaires against the backdrop of the deficit crisis that they put front-and-center in the public thinking? Ok. Let’s see how that works out. And they want to deny a temporary payroll tax cut to boost jobs because anything temporary is interpreted as a tax increase? Sure, let’s have that fight too.
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
@MaximusNYC: See my response at #48. Actually, I just think a number of Republicans are racist, and the others are just using Obama’s race to their advantage, which might be different, but I don’t see how.
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
@Short Bus Bully: I’ll have to remember to write “/snark” when I write those. I should have remembered to point out I was pretending to be someone like that. My bad.
Nevgu
@Short Bus Bully: Always happy to hear from my furry little groupies. It inspires me to keep doing more of the same.
Thanks for the inspiration.
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
@Elie: It was my bad. Being one of the people who was defending ABL’s views in her posts, I should have been more obvious that I was snarking on the dark side.
Elie
Obama’s leadership strategy: (borrowed from King and Saul Alinsky)
1. Maintain your dignity
2. Call your adversaries to the highest principles they hold
3. Seize the moral high ground
4. Win by winning over your adversaries by revealing the contradiction between their own ideals and their actions.
Doing this takes enormous guts and a monumental amount of patience because people cannot be coerced to see or realize things before they do. Learning takes time. It works though. It works. Its the soul of any grassroots change. Also
Maybe the title to this post should be, are we learning yet, not that Obama is learning.
Citizen Alan
@MaximusNYC:
Crap, we need a new update for Poe’s Law applicable to the subject of Obama’s blackness. I honestly can’t tell the difference any more between genuine Firebagger racism and an Obot troll making fun of Firebagger racism without an emoticon!
HyperIon
Me, too. His prices were INSANE.
And thanks Gin & Tonic for supplying the follow up info regarding Inmate Eddie.
eemom
@Gin & Tonic:
now that you mention it, that does sound familiar.
Hope his ad agency got paid, at least.
There was another commercial in that general mold back then, for some entity that only sold goods to union members. “Hey Jerry, what’s the story?”
Ah, my ancient New Yawk youth….how its ghosts continue to haunt me….
Frankensteinbeck
Martin:
This is also true. As was the stuff about educating the public. When sweet talking is wise (most of the time), he sweet talks. When tough talking is wise, he tough talks. With the debt negotiations over and campaign season beginning we went from one to the other.
Tough talk is not always wise. It’s not even usually wise.
cleek
@Martin:
yup.
but we should all remember, too, that Candidate Obama is not really a partisan knife-fighter, either. one of the big complaints in libLand last time was that he was letting the daily news cycle churn away without responding directly and vigorously to every misrepresentation or attack. i general, he sticks to his broad arguments and lets the other guy flail away with the petty BS. and he campaigns much like he governs: with a clear desire to stay above the fray, to look the like only adult in the room. he doesn’t wallow in the minute bullshit that TV pundits and political bloggers live for.
get ready for another 14 months of people wailing “why won’t he fight back!”
El Cid
@Gin & Tonic: Not as entertaining as Big Bill Hell’s Used Cars.
Elie
@Belafon (formerly anonevent):
Yeah, but I know you…
I just get confused sometimes. And I just HATE being reactionary like that. Really embarrasing
Kola Noscopy
What a joke.
We are to believe that Obama finally “gets it” three years late, and it’s just coincidence that his “getting it” coincides with the campaign season?
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA…
Cole, do you and ABL really believe that Obama is as stupid and gullible as you pretend to think? That he is just now having an “epiphany” in these matters?
You Obots are ridonukulous.
Kola Noscopy
@Short Bus Bully:
Dear, innocent OBAMBI!
Emerald
Now that is an amazingly insulting statement. I’m not clicking on the link, so I don’t know who wrote it, but somebody please explain to me how an individual as moronic–truly pinwheel-eyed stupid–as is implied in that statement was able to become president of United States, much less the first black president, starting from being a state legislator only a few years previously?
That “he’s stupid” attitude is what gives the lie to nearly everything the emoprogs say.
Look, jackass, whoever you are, Obama knew before you did exactly what the Republicans are. I know you don’t care much about how actual legislation is passed, but it’s instructive to see that during his “concessions first” negotiating stage, Obama (with Pelosi) got more legislation passed than Carter and Clinton did in their 12 years, combined, including health care that both tried and couldn’t do. Something Obama did appears to have worked.
The thing is, he was negotiating with conservadems and only rarely with Republicans, who set a national record by filibustering ALL legislation for the first time in the history of the nation. Think Obama didn’t notice that? Is he too stupid? And by refusing to go into recess for the first time in the history of the nation, preventing Obama from making recess appointments. Think Obama didn’t notice that? Is he too stupid? And by, for the first time in the history of the nation, refusing a presidential request to speak to Congress.
Also too, note that the American people, in their wisdom, elected those bastards to control, by a wide margin, the House of Representatives. Over the past eight months Obama has beaten them down to a 13% approval rating.
But he’s so stupid that he thought up to now that the Republicans would negotiate in good faith.
Look in a mirror, jackass.
Kola Noscopy
@Short Bus Bully:
New BJ insult category: EMOBOT!
Shorter version: Obambi is just too pure and innocent for this cruel, cold world. Hoocoodanode?
Kola Noscopy
@J.A.F. Rusty Shackleford:
YAY US!
srv
I think it’s a little late to expect the DFH’s to save this Presidency, but we’ll try.
Kola Noscopy
@schlemizel – was Alwhite:
No, no, no…FIRST we have to waste three years TRYING to get them to cooperate to prove our pureness of heart.
EMOBOTS rule!
Short Bus Bully
@Belafon (formerly anonevent):
Oh shit! My apologies. Your snark was too deep for my simpleton mind to comprehend. So sorry for the shanking.
Kidgurry
“There’s an old saying in Tennessee — I know it’s in Texas, probably in Tennessee — that says, fool me once, shame on — shame on you. Fool me — you can’t get fooled again.”
Heez
Hahaha!
Let the rewriting of history begin.
Gin & Tonic
@eemom: Jerry Rosenberg, Jamaica Gas & Electric. Several years before Crazy Eddie.
Short Bus Bully
@Kola Noscopy:
I think just a simple FUCK YOU will cover it.
Mock all you like, I stand by that post you skeezy bitches.
huckster
You can pretty much substitute ‘Ben Nelson” or “Mary landrieu” or “Joe Lieberman” for “Republican” but I can see how that sorta spoils the narrative.
Scott P.
I’m still not sure how this results in better legislation from Congress, but it’s worth a try I guess.
boss bitch
You know Obama doesn’t have the luxury of talking shit and not having to produce something. People needed help, bills needed to be passed and I’m glad he got it done. You’d rather the rest of us get fucked over so that you can all brag that Obama doesn’t compromise?
eemom
@Gin & Tonic:
wow, you are GOOD.
Gin & Tonic
@eemom: No, old.
harlana
regarding the “emoprogs” and such, some folks should perhaps be aware that 8 years of a Bush presidency drove some, otherwise intelligent, reasonable people batsh*t insane so please don’t expect their/our reactions and behavior to be completely rational (or even democratic) at all times
this is why we demand ponies and such, PTSD and all that
just sayin’
boss bitch
All this is still true:
From the tax deal press conference:
I congratulate anyone who can so easily say that Obama shouldn’t compromise or should never work with Republicans. Clearly inaction has no effect on your life. There are millions of us who can’t say the same. And anyone cheering Obama’s current rhetoric better understand that he cannot sustain this for 14 months. He’s not a candidate anymore. He has to produce something some some months before the election or the people will lose confidence. So don’t think he won’t go back to negotiating w/Congress aka doing his damn job.
Calouste
@J.A.F. Rusty Shackleford:
So in other words, progressive groups suck?
Marc
@Kola Noscopy:
I’m going to treat these frantic posts as the cry for help that they appear to be.
Obama is not following your script; it’s OK. Step into the sunlight and look for someone else to hate.
Donut
@Norwonk:
This comment is worth reading over and over and over. Obots, take heed.
I’ve probably posted it a dozen times if I have posted it 20, and yes, I realize no one gives a shit (no one give a shit about your comments either, though), but I am voting for and will donating time and money to Obama’s reelection campaign. But the rosey glasses are off. The guy is a politician. Hello? They almost all lie, almost all of the time. They all say shit they don’t really mean to get votes. He is no different, nor should he be.
Still, I imagine some of you will still think I’m a firebagger or that it’s wrong to be critical of the president. Whatever. Knock yourself out. At least if Obama wins we get another centrist, maybe two on the Supreme Court, we get competence, and yeah, we get a lot more benefits than I will take the time to mention here…but he’s still a lying politician who takes his base for granted. That’s a feature, not a bug, for pretty much 99.9% of federal politicians. And that’s okay.
Marc
@Calouste:
Nah. It’s just somewhere between amusing and sad that Digby has defined things so that she can never be wrong. If badobamthings happen, she predicted them ad nauseum. If badobamathings don’t happen, it’s because he was deterred in his evil appeasing soul by the furor kicked up by the electrons of online progressive righteousness.
Any other explanation does not compute, of course.
FlipYrWhig
@Scott P.:
It doesn’t. That’s the Hobson’s choice: Obama can either talk tough, draw contrasts, accept that nothing is going to come of it, and be prepared to run on how nothing came of it because Republicans blocked it; or he can speak in a more conciliatory fashion in hopes of something coming of it, knowing that what comes of it will be very unlike his wishlist, and hope to run on how he did the best he could. The “firebag” position seems to presume that tough talk will get him his wishlist. If fucking only. There are two tracks: tough talk, no action; or kind talk, little action.
FlipYrWhig
@Marc:
Yup. In short, there is no disadvantage in the blogosphere to predicting that everything will always be a tremendous disaster or betrayal. Thus everyone always predicts that everything will be a tremendous disaster or betrayal, then grudgingly accepts that when something _isn’t_ one, it was still totally right to be sure that it would have been, because corporatism.
cleek
@Marc:
to be fair, that wasn’t Digby herself. that was one of her co-bloggers.
Elie
@boss bitch:
This. Totally.
Insomniac
This is silly. So apparently, everyone and his/her cat/dog knew that the Republicans would not and did not negotiate in good faith, but Barack Obama had no clue? Seriously? This is the claim? Really? Think about that for a minute, because no matter what words you use, what you are actually saying is that Barack Obama is stupid. That’s what you’re saying. Couch it in whatever weaselly words you like, but that is really what is being said here. Several people on here have the right of it: Ash Can @ 54, Martin @61, Frankensteinbeck @15, Elie @43 & 66 among others. Think people, think it through before you go off half-cocked (again).
Uncle Clarence Thomas
.
.
@FlipYrWhig:
As I understand their position, tough talk will not “get him his wishlist” but it will advance progressive policies and illustrate to everyone the difference between government by, for and of the people, as opposed to government by, for and of the savvy businessmen and corporations who fucked everything up and continue to do so with impunity and without penalty. A little more research on your part would prevent these mischaracterizations – unless they are deliberate, of course.
.
.
Uncle Clarence Thomas
.
.
@boss bitch:
This is simply not true. It is not close to a universal health care piece of legislation.
.
.
General Stuck
Told you so
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
@Kola Noscopy:
Yes, we know that dear. I guess it is a refreshing change of pace for you to admit in such a public fashion what your 1st, 2nd and 3rd priorities are, but other than that: [yawn],[eyeroll].
Larv
Okay, how exactly will it do this? Game it out for me and explain how this is anything other than an underpants gnome scenario:
1) Obama is tough and uncompromising.
2) ???
3) Pure Progressive legislation!
What exactly is step 2? How does this take into account the existence of the Republican House and the fact that there aren’t enough reliable Dems (non Blue Dogs) to pass uncompromisingly progressive legislation?
Maybe you mean that it will advance progressive policies BY illustrating the difference between the two parties, but in practice that means not passing anything while you wait for people to notice. And meanwhile Fox News is telling their viewers that Obama is some combination of Joe Stalin, Benedict Arnold, and Malcolm X; and the rest of the media is doing the “he-said, she-said” dance. Forgive me for thinking that not everyone will get the message you think they should be getting.
El Cid
It might be significant that right now Obama actually is doing exactly that which people say he mustn’t do: he’s taking legislation which is very unlikely to pass with Republican support and using the ‘bully pulpit’ (I hate that fucking now-hackneyed phrase but whatever) to take an agenda directly to the American people.
Neither the jobs bill nor this new tax talk is aimed at receiving Republican support. It isn’t. And the rhetoric has been based on challenging Republicans to not be hypocrites.
It’s not like this is a theoretical debate about what someone thinks he should do — it’s actually what he’s doing right now.
JWL
Lincoln finally had his fill with southern intransigence after 2nd Bull Run (aka 2nd Manasses), although he waited until after the the Battle of Antietam had been fought before issuing the Emancipation Proclamation. That was effected in September, 1862, two years into his first term.
Obama intentionally stayed the expiration of the Bush tax cuts in 2010 in order to run on this issue in 2012. Think of Lincoln having waited until the Battle of Gettysburg to issue the proclamation…
got to run before finishing this deep thought….
OzoneR
Is our Liberals learning?
http://thehill.com/homenews/administration/182409-liberals-pan-health-benefit-cuts-in-obama-plan
OzoneR
Oh please, none of this will ever get anywhere and when it doesn’t, the left will chastise him for not “fighting hard enough” to get it passed.
And we’ll forget this ever happened.
FlipYrWhig
@Uncle Clarence Thomas:
Ah, but it doesn’t. It advances progressive _rhetoric_ but it does not advance progressive _policies_. Republicans and a tenacious group of conservative Democrats have made it impossible to advance progressive policies on a scale that we would like.
So, given that, Obama can do one of two things: advance progressive rhetoric with a combative streak and an eye on the next election, sacrificing satisfying policy-making; or reduce progressive rhetoric and verbal combat, pick off a few of the leftmost conservatives in Congress, and make some unsatisfying policy.
He’s been doing the latter since Day 1, and exclusively the latter since Scott Brown’s election. He appears to be shifting to the former — which IMHO means that everyone on his team has given up on passing even the unsatisfying stuff that gets Left Blogistan all het up.
(Then there’s a separate argument about how when you negotiate you need to do it in a certain special way that Obama doesn’t, because when you do it the magical way you get more of what you want by faking out the other side.)
OzoneR
@El Cid:
I’m pulling a Corner Stone and bookmarking this diary so when this bully pulpitng proves to do exactly nothing to either pass progressive policy or up his approval ratings, I can swat you “use the bully pulpit” flies.
cleek
@El Cid:
yep. that’s because this is at least partially a campaign stunt, and the pulpit makes sense as a campaign tool. it makes almost no sense as a legislative tool when the opposition is as hard-line as the GOP currently is.
the self-proclaimed base (represented in this instance by comments at FDL) now says they don’t believe he wants any of this stuff because he knows it can’t pass. it’s all just a smoke screen!
the goalposts are faster than Obama.
OzoneR
@J.A.F. Rusty Shackleford: Many of us pondered that when the President does something good, the left would take credit that it was all because of them and not give him any credit for it.
It is, after all, all about them.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@cleek:
and when a good chunk of your own legislative allies are weak, stupid, scared, flat-out vindictive, confused or Evan Bayh.
FlipYrWhig
@El Cid:
But that’s a strawman argument. I don’t remember anyone saying that Obama “mustn’t do” the bully pulpit kind of thing, but rather more particularly that his doing so would not in fact make the agenda presented from the bully pulpit any more likely to pass. The debate was always something like this:
“Why is all this legislation so disappointing and riddled with sucktastic compromises?”
“Because there weren’t enough votes for something better.”
“But Obama didn’t even try to get the votes for something better!”
“OK, how would he have done that?”
“He could have used The Bully Pulpit and made his case to the people.”
“First of all, he did that, repeatedly. But, second of all, why would that work? Why would someone who didn’t support his legislation switch to supporting it because of The Bully Pulpit?”
“Well, maybe they wouldn’t switch their votes, but at least the people would know where he stood. But he doesn’t fight so you can’t tell what he really wants!”
“He probably wants roughly the same thing you and I want: better, more effective liberal policy.”
“But that’s not what he’s getting. Why is all this legislation so disappointing and riddled with sucktastic compromises?”
And around and around and around it goes.
OzoneR
@El Cid:
No, no one said don’t do it, we said it won’t work, might make things worse.
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
@El Cid:
My take: the real debate is less about what he’s doing than about when he should have started doing it. Obama’s rhetoric and behavior can be grouped into roughly 3 periods: Feb 2009 thru Nov 2010 he was working with a Dem majority (with all the Blue Doggy asterisks that implies, especially in the Senate) to get as much actual progressive (or at least Dem friendly) legislation passed as possible. Dec 2010 thru the debt ceiling hostage negotiations earlier this year he was in the unpleasant position of having to work with a GOP House and the usual suspects in the Senate and of having to pass must-have legislation to keep the govt running and minimize the damage the GOP could do to the country with the levers of power they had in hand. That period is over now, and so now we are on to campaign mode, in which his strategy is to run against a do-nothing Congress like Truman did in 1948.
I can see three sets of reasonable criticism of Obama: the first that he should have prioritized the economy and/or energy policy over healthcare during the first period to a greater degree than he actually did, the second that he has been late in the timing of his switches from one mode to the next, and the third that he should have been mixing all 3 of them up the whole time rather than using them in sequence. But apart from those debates over the details it seems to me that these three modes were each of them defensible adjustments to the mix of requirements, opportunities and dangers which presented themselves at the time.
Legalize
@Donut:
I love it. Other than a couple “centrist” judges, competence, and a lot more benefits than can be listed here, Obama still sucks ….
General Stuck
There is nothing mystical about this, as it all has been done before, by every American president running for reelection to a second term. And there has even been a date to loosely mark when the worm turns from a president of all the people, to one that is fishing for new votes and bucking up the base with red meats. And that is Labor day of the year before election year.
It is a matter of both tone and substance, notably the lack of a conciliatory angle to at least leave open the door to passing something with compromise with the other side. To do it like Obama did it today would be received as churlish and un statesman like, and un presidential before the marking of the start of the campaign.
It is time to draw contrasts once the bell sounds, and the prez gets the green light from the press and peeps to draw those contrasts in more partisan and absolute ways. It is also long established from all our other POTUS reelect campaigns, that the onus for both sides to pass shit is on hold till the next new congress. Though sometimes, some bills do get through, but usually not big ones.
You can go back to watch and listen to GWB for this phenomenon, and will see similar posturing changes from him, at this point, and all the other presidents before him.
Elie
@Legalize:
They don’t listen to themselves…
I guess that I am just curious about people who have such a sense of entitlement in the world. Dunno about you, but I can’t even clean my house without having to pull stuff out and mess things up before I put things in their right places. I have no idea how they think that all that needed to be done and “fixed” could be accomplished like flipping a switch and with no intermediate steps, setbacks or just time to accomplish….
El Cid
@FlipYrWhig: It’s a strawman argument? Really? What is the comment directly above mine?
Admiral_Komack
@Elie:
Thank you.
El Cid
@OzoneR:
Then don’t fucking tell me, tell Obama that you don’t think what he is actually and currently doing won’t work, because I didn’t advocate that he should do it.
El Cid
@OzoneR: You should even go further, and bookmark this on your head, because my comment pointed out what he was doing, not that it would work. God damn some of you people are some obstinate, thick-headed fucks.
It’s entirely possible that Obama has in mind more than the passage of a particular piece of legislation. Or perhaps he’s too stupid and short-sighted for such things.
I suggest you ask him. Because he could answer that, not me.
By the way, if you want to bookmark shit from me, why don’t you go back and bookmark the various occasions on which I quoted from and linked to major academic studies which show that Presidential rhetoric has quite a small effect on the passage of legislation?
MomSense
@#69 Elie Yes!!! Thank you for posting this!
@Martin#69 Exactly!!
Marc
@Legalize:
apart from better sanitation and medicine and education and irrigation and public health and roads and a freshwater system and baths and public order… what have the Romans done for us?
WaterGirl
@Emerald: Your comment was so good that I am quoting the whole thing:
SFAW
Gin & Tonic –
But just remember, you gotta show dem your union card or civil service card – and you’re IN!
No job creators allowed, just moochers and parasites! Class warfare long before it became popular!
Of course, we all called it JGE, ’cause we wasn’t as edumacated as you apparently is.
eemom –
You’re still young, to me.
FuzzyWuzzy
@Short Bus Bully: Wow.
Shade Tail
No, our President is *not* learning. He’s known this all along. It is certain cretins out here in the rogue’s gallery who need to (and still won’t) learn. All these people still refuse to understand certain essential facts:
1) The president can’t pass laws by fait. They have to go through Congress first.
2) For Obama’s entire administration, Congress has always been viciously obstructed by the entire GOP and a relatively large contingent of democrats.
3) During the past year in particular, the GOP has literally held the country hostage more than once, threatening severe damage unless they were appeased, which left Obama no choice but to be conciliatory.
4) The public at large expected Obama to actually *get things done* rather than indulge in empty partisanship.
Now that there’s no longer a pressing hostage crisis, Obama doesn’t have to be conciliatory anymore. Ergo, he’s not. It’s not going to be the least bit effective in actually getting anything passed, but the country isn’t facing immediate and dire consequences this time, so now he has the freedom to actually politic a bit. *This wasn’t the case* when he was fighting for an extension to unemployment benefits (which he got) or facing the first ever credible threat of the US defaulting on its debt (which he prevented).
Obama’s job is *actually governing the country*, and not just playing political games. It’s the whiners out here, the ones who refuse to understand that, who need to learn.
OzoneR
@Donut:
Most of us Obots got that in 2007. Welcome to reality.
Marginalized for stating documented facts
@Elie:
Actually, this doesn’t work. And history proves it.
George Lakoff has explained why this approach never works, using our current knowledge of neuroscience. It turns out that there exist reliable detectable objectively measurable hardwired brain differences between liberals and conservatives. This is not a matter of opinion; it’s been demonstrated with fMRI scans and PET scans.
Source: George Lakoff, “Why `Rational Reason’ Doesn’t Work In Politics,” 21 February 2010.
And here’s a Scientific American article (which references the original research paper, available as a pdf) on the same subject: The Ideology of No: New research into how liberals and conservatives think differently, 9 August 2011.
History shows that what actually works to produce social change is a two-pronged approach. Whenever you get serious social change in America, you’ve always got a radical group which subtly suggests that they might threaten violence (the IWW, the Molly Maguires, the Black Panthers, the Weathermen) and a conciliatory group following the strategy you’ve outlined (the UAW, the UMW, MLK, the peaceful antiwar movement).
Without the radical leftist group, the strategy doesn’t work.
Marginalized for stating documented facts
@Short Bus Bully:
Now you’re just being silly.
History shows that American politics goes through rough patches where people scream at one another and hysteria grips the nation, and smooth patches, where people get along and congress and the president function with collegiality and decorum.
If you want an example of one of the roughest periods in American history, take a look at the year 1798 when the Alien and Sedition Acts got passed by the Federalists, and Thomas Jefferson was regularly being described in American newspapers as a whoremaster banging his black slut Sally Hemmings. I mean…dude…in the newspaper.
And in the middle of these savagely vicious attacks on him, here — for a little perspective — is what Thomas Jefferson wrote to a friend in a letter:
Thomas Jefferson, letter to John Taylor, 4 June 1798.
Get a grip, people. Many periods in American history have been much worse than this, and we got through ’em. We’ll get through this one.