Get outside the bubble and people know the score:
There is gridlock because Republicans are determined to block any Obama initiative, 51 percent of voters say, while 35 percent say President Barack Obama lacks the skills to convince leaders of Congress to work together.
Asked another way, 53 percent say Obama is doing “too little” to compromise with congressional Republicans, but 68 percent of voters say congressional Republicans are doing “too little.” Ten percent of voters blame Democrats for gridlock, while 23 percent blame Republicans and 64 percent blame both parties equally.
If only these flyover country parochial morons could experience the persuasive power of cocktails at the White House, perhaps they too would understand how Obama has missed the opportunity for real bipartisan consensus.
NickT
27/35 = teabagger
8/35 = firebagger
Comrade Jake
This should go well.
PeakVT
…and 64 percent blame both parties equally.
Fuck David Broder and what did to this world.
The Red Pen
I don’t find those statistics encouraging.
I’m working as a government contractor, and the civilian employees are now enduring their furloughs. The rules are ridiculous (if you are on a business trip, you can’t expense certain things on a furlough day, for example), on top of the 20% pay cut the furloughs entail.
I know some of the people know the deal with Congress, but I also know several of them that would blame Obama personally for their fate. I avoid such conversations at work, but based on previous wingnuttery, I think my guess is accurate. It seems that the rule of thumb is: if the civilian employee hated Obama before the sequester, he or she blames Obama. If not, he or she blames Congress. Whether they blame Congressional Republicans further depends on their preexisting biases as well.
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
@PeakVT: It’s not that bad. Most people aren’t looking that closely. This is similar to all schools are bad, except for the one my kids go to. I suspect those people think the Congressperson they voted for, if they voted at all, is doing great.
KG
@PeakVT: eh, I think that’s just a natural reaction to when people don’t know enough of what’s going on, so they say “fuck em both”… like when the Yankees play the Red Sox
Hill Dweller
Republicans convened a couple of different meetings around the time of Obama’s inauguration, and agreed to block every piece of legislation by all means necessary. This has led to shattered filibuster records, repeated near government shutdowns, the debt ceiling becoming a bargaining chip, near default, and an unprecedented level of congressional dysfunction.
But the media only concentrates on Obama not taking Republicans out for a milkshake, and our side tends to focus on his purported lack of liberalism.
All the while, Republicans laugh about the country’s ignorance.
Xecky Gilchrist
Can we stop using the word “gridlock” for this? In gridlock, all the drivers are trying to get somewhere. This is deliberate obstruction.
peach flavored shampoo
Thems some weapons-grade ig’nant Americans, there.
NickT
@KG:
Metsbot!
cleek
now why would people think it’s a ‘both-sides’ issue…
just can’t get my head around it
Comrade Jake
@The Red Pen: What I’ve heard from people I know on the hill is that your average Congressional Republican believes the sequester was awesome, because they got the main thing they wanted (spending cuts) and aren’t paying any real political price for it.
Then there are even a few liberal pundits I’ve seen say, hey look – the sequester’s not so bad.
Of course anyone who is actually having to deal with the practical consequences of the sequester thinks it’s a fucking terrible idea.
KG
@NickT: I’m a west coast guy, Dodger fan, but mostly just dislike the whole “YanksnSauchs” thing. I’ve got no real problem watch most any team play, hell, I’ll even watch the Giants play (I’ll root against them, 9 out of 10 times)… but Yankees and Red Sox? No, just no.
Hill Dweller
@Comrade Jake:
Because the Beltway carried their water. People like Woodward said it was all Obama’s idea.
Even when Obama warned of the consequences, the media literally accused him of crying wolf.
NickT
@KG:
I was just kidding with you a little. I can’t say I really care which team does well in baseball. I guess I am just a bipartisan centrist Obot on those matters.
Villago Delenda Est
@Belafon (formerly anonevent):
My rep is Peter DeFazio. I know he’s not a fuckup. He’s no fucking Louie Gohmert, for example.
Ben Cisco
@NickT:
Alas, the thread was won, in one, ‘ere I saw it.
Cassidy
@The Red Pen: Happy Furlough Day! i took mine on Wednesday so I could have a day off in the middle of the week. I also went and got a new job.
Comrade Dread
Those numbers are still far too skewed in one direction for my liking.
I’m pretty sure Obama could promise to fund an open bar for all current Congressmen for life and they’d still filibuster/vote down a resolution saying, “I like puppies.”
Villago Delenda Est
@PeakVT:
WORD.
If he were still alive, he’d be the very first “journalist” to ride a tumbrel to his just deserts.
Roger Moore
@KG:
This. It’s not so much that I hate the Yankees or the Sox as that I hate the whole Yankees vs. Sox nonsense. The sports media fawns over their games as if it’s the only rivalry in the whole sport, and the games themselves are annoying to watch. Both teams have adopted slow, boring playing styles, so games take half an hour longer than average with no real increase in stuff worth watching. Dodgers vs. Giants games are way, way more fun.
gelfling545
Well, I’m sure one could say that the President “lacks the skills” to convince Congress to work together. I’m not sure anyone has or ever has had such skills given that a large number of the House of Representatives is determined to do no work whatsoever.
catclub
@Villago Delenda Est: Assumes tumbrels not in evidence.
Comrade Jake
@Roger Moore: This is interesting to me because I certainly can appreciate a time when this was true (say 2003-2006 or so). But now? It doesn’t seem like it to me.
Of course part of the issue may be that the Yankees are pretty damn mediocre this year. IDK.
jamick6000
@KG: yes
quannlace
In the Zimmerman trial, the defense’s closing arguments went on for three hours? Fuck. If I was on that jury I’d want to shoot him.
David Hunt
@Belafon (formerly anonevent): This is the exact reason why polls showing that the approval rating of Congress as a whole are lower than ebola’s mean absolutely nothing. No member of Congress cares what the public thinks of Congress in general. They’re worried about what their personal approval ratings are back in their home state/district and what that means for their re-election chances. It’s why I want to throw things when I hear about Congressional approval ratings.
gene108
Both sides are to blame equally.
If Democrats had quit obstructing God and Karl Rove’s goal of a permanent Republican majority, forever and ever and ever, in America, we would not have such a dysfunctional government.
Democrats could help end all this obstruction, by getting out of the way and letting Republicans run the entire government.
gene108
@Comrade Jake:
Isn’t that generally the way the world works?
WereBear
People blame “both sides” when they haven’t a clue, and this is how you can tell the percentage of the population who haven’t a clue.
In wedding videography, almost all the customers get the package in the middle. This is the first time they’ve done this, they hope it will be the last, so they just “split the difference.”
This is the common ground of ignorance. It lets them pretend to be informed, and a measured thinker, and it’s also the all purpose cynicism dodge. “Oh, I don’t have opinions, I just hate everything, so I can tear down anything you do like. HA!”
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
@gene108: I think you misspelled ruin in your last sentence. You spelled it “run”.
The Red Pen
@quannlace:
I think that’s legal in Florida.
Rob in CT
64 percent blame both parties equally.
That’s actually terrible.
These are not good numbers.
gene108
@WereBear:
I disagree. Obama opposing John McCain, in 2008, and Mitt Romney, in 2012, is no different than Mitch McConnell opposing all of President Obama’s appointments to the federal judiciary.
See. Both sides do it.
Cassidy
@The Red Pen: Only if you yell “Oh my God! It’s coming right for us!”
danimal
@Belafon (formerly anonevent): My congressman’s a corrupt jackass who’s who’s an , and will likely remain a member of Congress as long as he wants to be.
But if I move south a mile or two, I can claim this guy: twitter.com/RepMarkTakano/status/355338868146450433/photo/1
Cassidy
Gotta love the emoprog left. The right wing couldn’t have better mouthpieces.
danimal
Oops, messed up a link. My congressman: huffingtonpost.com/howie-klein/rep-ken-calvert-is-an-emb_b_327679.html
KG
@Roger Moore: plus, Dodgers-Giants means you get to listen to Vin Scully (assuming you have the Extra Innings package)
Omnes Omnibus
@quannlace: Christ. Did they try to do a point by point refutation of the prosecution case? I was always told that you use the close to tell a story that fits the facts elicited through testimony. You want that story to be the one that makes your client look good. So the client wasn’t belligerent with the police officer, he was coming home from a funeral, exhausted both mentally and physically when he was pulled over for a minor violation. And so on ….
Soonergrunt
@The Red Pen: well, Zimmerman isn’t black, so it’s only legal if the jury stands their ground with the real whites out front.
Roger Moore
@KG:
If you live in LA, you get to listen to Vin Scully all the time.
Mike E
@Cassidy: The ironic thing: GOP blurtings tend to be honest representations of their worldview (albeit bigoted); prog spasms are delusional, at best.
Davis X. Machina
@gene108: Rove is right. It’s not just ‘partisan politics’. It’s a low-grade civil war. You don’t compromise with an enemy, you endeavor to destroy them.
Why would a big-R Republican in our small-r republican polity even try to govern that state, or play the traditional role of a loyal opposition? It would be somewhere between counterproductive and treasonous, because the government of the day is illegitimate, not least because it’s a republic.
The moral, correct thing do do is to take whatever steps are available to shut the illegitimate state down, and hasten the Restoration thereby. If pillaging the state makes it poorer and more likely to fall, then pillage away. That way you get rich and you’re doing the Lord’s work.
When the King-Emperor comes into his own again — as he someday must, because the Mandate of Heaven — the state goes back to being coextensive with the court. Real politics — courtiers jockeying for grace and favor, governorships abroad, and royal monopolies — can recommence.
At this point parliament can go back to its proper role — that of a talking-shop that occasionally votes the King credits for his vanity wars.
To the extent that with the GOP we’re not saddled with the last major Leninist parliamentary party in the democratic world, we’re saddled with 17th c. Tories.
The weirdest transformation of political terminology hasn’t been what happened to the word ‘liberal’ since John Stuart Mill — it’s what happened to the word ‘republican’. It basically means ‘monarchist’
Davis X. Machina
@Rob in CT: I didn’t think Jon Stewart’s audience was quite that large….
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
@danimal: I’m not talking about us. Notice in my second sentence, I say that the 64% are people who aren’t paying attention. I’m from Texas, with Ralph Hall as my congressman. They’re all Republicans. But, when I was arguing with a conservative about the government, his defense when I boxed him into a corner was “both sides do it.”
BobbyThomson
@Rob in CT: Yup. Directly contradicting mistermix’s thesis.
Jeremy
LBJ couldn’t work with this congress but according to morning joe and the rest of the beltway idiots Obama is not a good leader, uninspiring, and boring.
Villago Delenda Est
@Roger Moore:
LA has many problems, and many drawbacks, but this is not one of them.
johnny aquitard
@Xecky Gilchrist: Excellent point.
Villago Delenda Est
@Jeremy:
No one cares what the intern killer has to say.
Seanly
@Belafon (formerly anonevent):
That’s the same phenom as with Congress. I put about 0% stock in those “Congress less popular than herpes” type of stories. We can all hate Congress with the intensity of a thousand stars, but we overwhelmingly go with the incumbents. It’s always the other 434 members of the House who suck.
EconWatcher
@Soonergrunt:
It’s unfair to judge based on incomplete reporting, but I wasn’t impressed by the snippet of the prosecution’s rebuttal that was quoted in the press. The prosecutor apparently said, “There’s only two people who know what happened, and one of them is dead.”
I suppose he thought he was being clever by reminding the jury that Martin never got a chance to testify. But a prosecutor admitting that “we don’t really know what happened,” when he has the burden to prove the case beyond a reasonable doubt? Not smart.
Villago Delenda Est
@Davis X. Machina:
Aye.
Sideshow Bob nailed this one.
The Moar You Know
@Villago Delenda Est: Need some help here as you’re the resident tumbrel expert. I’m going to build one. Can I use modern materials: rubber tires, metal wheels, axle, maybe a metal body as well – or do I have to go old school with the wood wheels and axles? I appreciate tradition but wooden wheels are just a royal pain in the ass.
Mr Stagger Lee
I live between two bases, and yeah the sequester has kicked asses all over the place and they are starting the furloughs. People are pissed, yet you think by some of them, President Obama is the bad guy. My congressman Denny Heck is doing God’s work on who is the real villains, but some of these yo-yo’s are retired military who get their news from Fox and Conservative talk, and long as the VA(despite long waits) aren’t F&*^cked with will probably go tea-bag in 2014. I guess I could mock them when their VA and retirement bennies are sacrificed on the alter of the 1% when that time comes, but there will be those who pay who jhad nothing to do with this.
Tokyokie
@Xecky Gilchrist: Whether somebody’s tire blows out, leading to a multiple-car pileup, or a driver deliberately jackknifes a tractor-trailer rig, the result is still gridlock. The intent doesn’t affect the result, and unfortunately, most people just understand the result.
cvstoner
Also, because, you know, 85% of Congress is over half-funded by the 0.1%
Redshirt
@Roger Moore:
The Yankees suck, this is true.
But this years Red Sox team is awesome – fun, gritty, and fast! They’re fifth in all of MLB in stolen bases, just 5 off the lead.
This is not your parent’s Sox team.
Redshirt
@Villago Delenda Est:
Loki too!
Mike E
@Jeremy: LBJ led to the GOP Southern Strategy…life closed a door so the Repubs opened up a
windowportal to Dante’s Inferno.Obama’s ascendency begs the question: Who do you think runs this country? I knew the exact moment he was screwed, when he raised his right hand back in ’09. Being Janitor in Chief tending to the massive cleanup on Aisle 43, how does one take that on AND be a transcendent president?
That’s not a rhetorical question btw, I really wanna know.
Cassidy
@The Moar You Know: There is little you cna’t accomplish with a dremel tool.
Davis X. Machina
@Mike E:
You know. Arm-twisting. Fireside chats. The bully pulpit. Awesome speeches. Stuff like that.
Redshirt
I’ve become a pure single issue voter over the last 13 years, and that issue is: Stop Republicans. That’s it.
I don’t really give a fig about policies or this or that. Stopping Republicans is the only thing that matters, and until they are neutered or functionally irrelevant or through some magical alchemy, reformed into an actual political party and not a collection of nihilists and monarchists, stopping Republicans will remain my single issue.
Mike E
@Davis X. Machina: I think Rove, the GOP et all have constructed a much different chimera-Obama than the one you have in mind.
Davis X. Machina
@Mike E: Everyone knows what Obama needs to do, and have done. He just won’t listen to us — instead he listens to Rahm.
? Martin
@Mike E: I’ve always said, during the entirety of the Bush administration, Dems were constantly calling on Congress to exercise their power. The moment Obama was elected, it seemed every Dem completely forgot about the powers they previously believed Congress held.
Ms. D. Ranged in AZ
Yes, if only a cold brewski would do it! I’d effin buy ’em a whole damn liquor store.
The Moar You Know
@Cassidy: True, but I’m not building a model; I’m building a full size one. The idea of doing a four-foot wide solid wood wheel is rather daunting.
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
@Mike E: You’re transformative after the fact. “He was a transformative president.” Just like during FDR, Obama isn’t doing enough right now, he’s compromising, and he’s being weak.
Ms. D. Ranged in AZ
@gelfling545:
FTFY
Mr Stagger Lee
@Redshirt: I don’t mind the Red Sox-Yankee series when both teams are good, or a pennant is at stake, but JEEEEZZZZUUS KERISSST I resent this shit shoved down my throat, especially by ESPN or is it E(ast Coast)SPN? And CBS sports Network is Basically a New York Sports Network, I will dread the NFL season when it begins, another year of Buddy Ryan and the Jets, with how Bill Belichick will deal with the loss of Aaron (Hannibal Lechter or Dexter)Hernandez.
? Martin
@The Moar You Know:
Nah. They’re easy now. Band saw, drill press, a plate joiner, and a couple of 2x12s from Home Depot. Use 1/2″ rebar for the spokes. They only cost $1 each. I could have a pair of 24″ wheels knocked out in a few hours. Now, you would probably want metal banding around the wheels, and that becomes a bit of a pain in the ass. Router + welder should do it though. My HD even sells 1 1/2″ 1/8″ metal strips for landscaping. Fiddly to get them bent, but even that’s not that hard.
Mike E
@Belafon (formerly anonevent): I think FDR haters & über-Repubs have the right idea: screw the context; dig up that crippled bastard and grind his bones into dust.
Gotta hand it to ’em, they got ‘ruthless’ nailed down.
Joel
@Roger Moore: plus, dodgers and giants fans are much more likely to inflict life threatening injuries on each other.
Felonius Monk
It is delusional thinking, IMHO, that if only the unwashed millions would come to their senses and vote in the interest of the common good, then the ship of state would be righted in the waters and all would be well.
It ain’t never gonna happen. There are too many forces aligned against it — all working at cross purposes.
In another context, Charles Pierce over at Esquire wrote:
I find this kind of chilling and very disheartening. Although I’m not throwing in the towel, I am beginning to think that the other side is going to win — overcoming the perpetually stupid is an impossible task.
RaflW
@gene108:
Democrats could help end all this obstruction, by getting out of the way and letting Republicans run the entire government
Oh, no. That’s not how you do it!
The Republican plan is to destroy the government thru legislative inaction, while maintaining that its all the Democrats fault owing thems having the Senate and that blah in the White House.
If the Republicans run the government, then they get the blame. They just want the power and the payola, not the responsibility!
gene108
@Belafon (formerly anonevent):
I’ve had a both sides would do it argument with people, who are under the belief that Democrats will or have, in some cases, used the same tactics with the same frequency we are seeing now from Republicans.
These aren’t right-wingers, but people easily put off by politics or who were not happy with Obama and Congessional Democrats, in 2009, for issues both real and perceived.
Omnes Omnibus
@Felonius Monk: We got out of Olduvai Gorge. We got out of caves. We developed agriculture – and beer and wine. We developed a middle class. We developed a mechanism for sharing cat pics and pr0n. Humans are capable of getting through this and doing it right. Eventually.
Cassidy
@The Moar You Know: Where’s your sense of adventure?
Janus Daniels
@Davis X. Machina: Republican basically means ‘plutocrats and their sycophants’.
Jockey Full of Malbec
@Davis X. Machina:
If only the Czar knew…
RaflW
@Tokyokie: I’m gonna be pedantic but that actually isn’t gridlock.
Gridlock is where two intersecting streets have their flow blocked and cars cannot advance because the grid – the crisscross of streets in a dense place like Manhattan – are all so clogged that cars in one direction can’t clear on a red light to let the cross traffic cross.
In my experience as a NYC delivery driver in 1984, gridlock was often the result of selfish shits ( ie Republicans in this Congress) surging into the intersections on yellow/red with no obvious place to go but in front of your now-very-stuck ass.
“To hell with YOU getting home, I’m gonna f*%¥ up the works ’cause what I want matters more than you or 500 cars after you.”
Your modern GOP, reduced to ’80s NY selfishism.
Mike E
@gene108: I’d chalk this up to malignant cynicism, sorta like consigning NC to the slag heap because, Bev Perdue or something.
MikeJ
@RaflW: Don’t block the box!
Tone in DC
plus, dodgers and giants fans are much more likely to inflict life threatening injuries on each other.
LULz.
The phrase “battery chuckers” comes to mind.
Tokyokie
@RaflW: I take exception to your construction that traffic grids are exclusively the province of surface roads, but I’ll readily agree they’re often caused, or at least compounded, by incredibly selfish assholes. However, my point is that once one is stuck and not going anywhere, one’s concern isn’t who is culpable (even if one is in a position to make such a determination), but rather one’s concern is that one isn’t going anywhere.
Mike E
@Tone in DC: As a Phillies fan, I resent that.
[goes back to dusting collection of Santa beards, and vials of children’s tears]
MikeJ
@Tokyokie:
NYC had a big enforcement push. Put up tons of signs with the don’t block the box slogan cited above and more importantly, started writing tickets to people who entered an intersection when there wasn’t room to exit it. Things actually got somewhat better.
Tone in DC
@Mike E:
Moar LULz.
patroclus
If Harry Reid follows through with his plan to change the filibuster rules next week, Richard Cordray at the CFPB, the NLRB appointees, the EPA administrator, the ATF director and several other nominees will be formally confirmed within a week or so. I think this will be a good outcome and at least some mof the Republican obstructionism will have been overcome. I’m surprised that this issue hasn’t been discussed much on BJ, considering all the crap that Reid has taken for not doing anything in January.
...now I try to be amused
@Redshirt:
Amen. The GOP got a head start with their “Stop Democrats” single-issue voters. I suspect things won’t get better until they are outnumbered by “Stop Republicans” voters, ’cause that sort turns out for every election.
Woody
The NYT has a shining example of how Both Sides Do It on their frontpage right now – a piece about “broken down comity” that asserts that Republicans in the Senate are as powerless as Democrats in the House – AND states that Teh Deficit is a result of tax cuts and entitlement spending (no mention of Iraq or Afghanistan).
The Pinnacle of Journalism now prominently features writing by a C-minus civics student.
NR
The only thing that Republicans and Obama disagree on is the best way to implement Republican policy.
Goblue72
@KG: I know – it really sucks watching two historical, highly competitive teams slug it out against each other. I’d much rather watch a team that hasn’t won a WS in a quarter century.
Villago Delenda Est
@The Moar You Know:
As long as your final destination is the Place de la Concorde (or its North American equivalent..say Lafayette Square, or right in front of the Capitol reflecting pool) with several of our more senior female members of the commentariat in attendance, knitting, and the basket is wicker, I would think tradition has been satisfied and wooden wheels are NOT required.
However, flashy hubcaps for the wheels are probably a bit much, as would be whitewalls.
Hugely
@Villago Delenda Est: whats crazy I remember Scully when i lived in Socal in the 70’s – he seemed old to me then and now all I can say is “how is he still alive?… is he a vampire?”