Via NYMag, report by CBS News:
Asked what advice he’d give himself if he could go back to his first day in office, President Obama said Wednesday, “I would’ve closed Guantanamo on the first day.”
“I didn’t because at that time we had a bipartisan agreement that it should be closed,” Mr. Obama said at a town hall-style event in Cleveland, Ohio. “I thought that we had a consensus there that we could do it [in a deliberate] fashion.”
Instead, he continued, “The politics got tough, and people got scared by the rhetoric around it… The path of least resistance was to leave it open, even though it’s not who we are as a country.”…
See, that’s where the President’s community-organizer training led him astray: This is who “we” are as a country — not a rather unwieldy group of neighbors trying to achieve a workable concensus, but a vastly persuadable mass of idiots held captive by a highly motivated minority of plutocrats, grifters, and sociopaths.
Or, as NYMag more gently phrased it, “Rather than focusing on Guantanamo, he could’ve just told his past self to abandon any hope of bipartisan compromise.”
Cermet
But President Obama also decided to serve the 0.001% over the 99% or even just the middle class. That, to me, is a bigger mistake.
Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (formerly Mumphrey, et al.)
Long night. 7 year old daughter throwing up all night. Oof…
raven
@Cermet: bullshit
Baud
@raven:
That’s why we can’t have nice things.
NorthLeft12
I dunno Anne, I think people at large are showing themselves to be more vindictive, uncaring, and sadistic monsters than they are stupid or idiotic.
I have been reading “The Good War” by Studs Terkel lately, and people of that era [be they Germans/Japanese or Allies] had a very good idea of what was being done in their name to the other side and chose to mostly support those atrocities, until it became unpopular or personally dangerous to do so. Then they feigned ignorance.
I don’t see that people have changed much since that time.
raven
@NorthLeft12: You know the audio of many of those interviews are online. The ones with EB Sledge are really interesting.
Just One More Canuck
@Cermet: what do you mean? Can you give examples with specifics?
Zandar
Cowardly Democrats have been running away from Obama since day one and on no issue have they been more cowardly than closing Gitmo. I agree, he should have said “screw it” and done it anyway. There was never going to be bipartisan compromise with people who regularly went around the country making “Where’s his real birth certificate?” references anyway.
My only fault with the man is that it took six years to finally get to Entirely Bereft Of My Supply Of Fucks Obama.
Baud
@Zandar:
I can forgive him for the first four. I’m not sure Out of Fucks Obama would have won reelection.
WereBear
He couldn’t have done it day one. The prudent and sensible thing to do was wait until he was a two-term lame duck. Which he did!
I truly admire his superhuman ability to be prudent and sensible.
Cervantes
@Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (formerly Mumphrey, et al.):
Is she better now?
A trip to the doctor this morning?
Either way, a sincere gesundheit to the young lady.
Cervantes
The kind of thing a good and hopeful President should keep saying.
If only all our official acts could reflect “who we are as a country” …
Mustang Bobby
@Zandar: I think what truly pissed off the Republicans is that no matter how much they goad him, he doesn’t show his temper. This goes totally against their dearly-held belief that those people have no control, amirite? and then they could say “Uh-huh toldya.”
beltane
Is it still worth our time to monitor and mock Tom Friedman? He is now hearing voices in his recommending that the US forge an alliance with ISIS to destabilize Iran: http://www.juancole.com/2015/03/friedman-israeliran-derangement.html I would like to laugh at this, but he is the type of “genius” the other Villagers like to take seriously.
debbie
@Mustang Bobby:
And now he’s goading them right back, which they find intolerable.
Mustang Bobby
@debbie: It’s the Mel Brooks method: the best way to destroy your enemy is to laugh at them.
Baud
@beltane:
I got some type of popup malware on the mobile site at that link.
beltane
@Baud: That’s weird. It’s just Juan Cole’s Informed Comment homepage. http://www.juancole.com/
debbie
Am I the only one finding TPM too depressing to read beyond the home page? Just looking at these two stories (let alone all the others) is almost too much to bear:
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/penn-state-frat-nude-photos-satire
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/exclusively-white-people-stickers-austin
Belafon
“Rather than focusing on Guantanamo, he could’ve just told his past self to abandon any hope of bipartisan compromise.”
He really wouldn’t have gotten any more done, but he certainly would have looked more macho doing it.
ThresherK
@Mustang Bobby: There is a Bugs Bunny / Yosemite Sam dynamic at play.
(And I don’t even mean Yosemite Sam’s real-life doppelganger, at least all the time.)
Peale
@debbie: yeah. After almost 400 years of commitment to their cause, our racists still make basic errors in their hate jokes. I mean go through all of that time and effort to produce snazzy stickers, and no one bothered to proofread. It’s those little things they do wrong that start to add up and make me wonder if they might just be dumb asses.
Baud
@beltane:
That link worked fine. Not sure what happened before.
chopper
@Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (formerly Mumphrey, et al.):
oy, that happened recently with my 6 year old. a day at home and a new mattress took care of it. mild case of food poisoning.
Peale
@debbie: as for the Frat assholes, I hope what he meant was “those pictures of passed out girls we posted online were ‘staged'” because satire they aren’t.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@debbie: Why? Young men make lame jokes that seemed kind of funny at the time, drunk, in an all male environment, there is a surprise. And the second one looks like a snark against gentrification.
cmorenc
@Cermet:
Actually, his mistake was listening to Tim Geithner’s pleas that it would be disastrous if the Banksters weren’t given a soft financial pillow to fall on rather than the sort of tough-love everyone outside Wall Street thought was required. And thinking that he and the Dems had successfully won over the support of the financial sector in the election of 2008, and not wanting to upset that. In short, Obama forgot that he was elected to be the new Teddy Roosevelt, not the black Calvin Coolidge.
Paul in KY
@Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (formerly Mumphrey, et al.): Hope she didn’t get to the dry heaving phase. That’s rough.
Patrick
@Zandar:
Yup. Bernie Sanders comes to mind as one of tons of Dems who wanted to keep Gitmo open. Unbelievable and extremely disappointing.
Patrick
@Cermet:
I didn’t realize that the 0.0001% was in favor of ACA rather than keeping the status quo. I guess I am a 0.0001er then…
Cermet
@Just One More Canuck: Maybe bullshit as someone here say’s but the selection of the person to head Treasury was just a Big Wall Street type; and regulation by the SEC is and remains a joke – look at how many bank CEO’s fell for their illegal activities and that also falls on the Fed Justice Dept. The failure of the President to take the Occupiers as a real protest – like even acknowledge them at all? These are the prime ones that come to my mind …
Cermet
@Patrick: Some/many/most maybe do but I don’t see that connection with this topic nor my reponse – I was sighting something I THINK is a failure by the President that he should try and redo if he had another new chance to start over; last I checked, ACA was a success but then, relative to what I THINK is a point you are making is that we can ASSUME that most 0.001% and above oppose the ACA – I’d think yes but I’ve seen little direct proof so not exactly a point I’d make or defend. of course, cemorenc makes a very similar point that might be better than mine (OK, is better.)
Germy Shoemangler
March 20 is International Day Of Happiness.
debbie
@Enhanced Voting Techniques:
That’s not how I read either story. You must know more than I.
Emma
@debbie: I now have a limited window for reading news online, and a short list of purveyors. The Internet has given every bloody git a megaphone, but I don’t have to listen.
PurpleGirl
@beltane:
Tom Friedman… hearing voices in his [head] recommending that the US forge an alliance with ISIS to destabilize Iran:
What makes him think that ISIS would want to forge an alliance with the US. There are two great Satans after all… Iran and the US.
Kay
@cmorenc:
There was a local subtext to the Cleveland speech and it’s trade- specifically, the trade deal the White House wants. Trade is more important politically in this state than in some others.
The White House argument is that they will negotiate labor protections that will apply to all of the parties to the deal, sort of a “trickle up” idea, where countries with no labor protections will now have at least rock-bottom protections which will raise all boats…something something :)
But people here don’t see it like that. They believe that it will degrade US protections because it will have a leveling effect and all working people will be at the new lower level.
I just do not believe anyone in the federal government can convince them that the US will negotiate a trade deal that benefits US workers. They simply do not believe that, and they’re pretty persuasive because they can rattle off all the times they have been assured these deals will benefit them and it never happens- the upside never appears.
Patrick
@PurpleGirl:
I bet the next six months will be critical…
SRW1
@beltane:
Apparently, Friedman has somewhat belatedly come to the realization that the splendid Iraq adventure of Bush II was indeed a major strategic fuck-up that ended up strenghening Iran’s position in the region. To remedy that situation Fiedman wants Iran to ‘suck on that’ gun for a bit. That he has no qualms advocating to climb into bed with the murderous ISIS thugs reveals him as a man who has no ethics, respectively who can’t admit to the dark motives that really drive his ‘logic’.
Paul in KY
@SRW1: It’s all a part of the neo-cons/Zionist’s strategy of keeping the region (the non-Israeli part) as fucked up & chaotic as possible. Can’t ally against Israel if they’re too busy attacking each other.
Worked against the Indians.
LAC
@WereBear: a fact that is lost on Anne “InevitabilityHilary” Laurie.
The Moar You Know
If Obama really, truly, believed that, then he is much less intelligent than I’d given him credit for.
The GOP was going to play the scary terrorist card the instant that anything substantive was done towards closing that base, and that was as inevitable as the sunrise.
Germy Shoemangler
“The first day of spring was once the time for taking the young virgins into the fields, there in dalliance to set an example in fertility for nature to follow. Now we just set the clocks an hour ahead and change the oil in the crankcase.” – E.B. White
beltane
@Paul in KY: This is why Israel is doomed in the long term. The fortresses of the Crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem also seemed impregnable, and also had seemingly unlimited support from the West. It wasn’t good enough.
Germy Shoemangler
@The Moar You Know: He left it open, and they still play that card. Most of fox’s viewership believes (at least that’s what they say on message boards and facebook) that he’s in cahoots with the moooslims and means to kill us all.
beltane
@Germy Shoemangler: The fields around me are covered in several feet of snow. I don’t think the virgins would like it very much.
Luthe
@Cermet: While there have been a number of missed opportunities to improve how the other 99% live, any realistic student of 21st century American politics has to realize the 0.01% must be placated in order to accomplish anything for the rest of us. You can’t have progressive politics and policies without having politicians in office who will enact those policies. And unfortunately, getting those politicians into office involves begging the 0.1% for money. Which means throwing them a sop once in office. It is merely a question of what kind of sop and how large it is.
Our side at least throws sops for things that will benefit us all: e.g. clean energy loans, infrastructure banks, etc.
A Ghost To Most
@beltane:
Thanks for the link; it reaffirms my intense distaste for the mustache of douche
Paul in KY
@beltane: The crusader fortress did not have nuclear weapons.
ruemara
First comment is mealy bullshit.
I’ve never forgiven the majority of supposed Democratic heroes who voted against the Gitmo closure. They’ve had the luck of it that, just like the first comment, Obama gets the blame. Bernie Sanders swans about with his über progressive credentials, highly critical of Obama, yet only once has he been asked why he voted against Guantanamo’s closure. And he babbled something vague, and Thom Hartmann quickly moved on to the next caller. Obama’s not stupid, the fact is the level of destruction and general treason people have been willing to indulge in over and above anything we’ve seen before. No one would have expected the things being said and done. There was dissent, disagreement and obstruction, but not to this amount.
Mnemosyne (tablet)
@debbie:
After looking at the sticker story, it does look like it was meant to be a protest/satire about the increasing gentrification of the neighborhood, with fewer black people being hired by the local stores, not being treated well as customers, etc. The “joke” is that the gentrifiers are getting support from city officials for their discriminatory actions.
Kay
@ruemara:
Congress has gotten really, really good at blaming the executive, while decrying the expansion of executive power.
Congress has all the power they need to do just about anything. If they don’t want it, if it’s too risky to do their jobs, someone else will pick it up.
Cervantes
@Patrick:
Do you remember his reasoning, such as it was?
(It has been discussed here before, not to mention elsewhere.)
Cervantes
@PurpleGirl:
A cabbie in Pago Pago.
Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (formerly Mumphrey, et al.)
@Cervantes:
Seems to be better now. She’s been sleeping all day, and I got some sleep, too.
Cervantes
@Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (formerly Mumphrey, et al.):
Glad to hear it, thanks.
David Koch
@Cermet: is that why he reversed the Bush tax cuts for the rich?
you loony toon firebaggers/emoprogs, with your ODS and conspiracy theories, are pathetic and disgusting.
satby
@Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (formerly Mumphrey, et al.): Hope she feels better soon and that the rest of the day is all recovery mode for you all.
Kerry Reid
@Cermet: Why should anyone have taken Occupy seriously as a real protest movement — especially once it largely turned into a “right to camp” movement? They didn’t seem very interested in hanging in for the long haul — unlike, say, civil-rights activists who faced a bit more intense pushback from the powers-that-be.
Also interesting to me that Occupy didn’t get going until a black man was in the White House — even though the gap between haves and have-nots had been growing for years. I guess it wasn’t worth taking seriously until white people were affected. I mean — Clinton kicking poor kids off Medicaid as part of “welfare reform?” Not worth getting exercised about and hitting the parks!