Obama was a bad President because he promised to make the system work for everyone and then didn't. Bush ran on being corrupt/greedy and Trump ran on being a resentful narcissist and both kept their promises. (h/t @atrios) https://t.co/f1VOenzbY1
— Matt Stoller (@matthewstoller) November 18, 2017
Why do we make the mistake of chewing on each others’ ankles, when there are “professionals” like Stoller to do that for us?
The horseshoe theory of politics states that theorists out towards the far end of opposing ideas eventually start to bend towards each other — thus, far-right authoritarians and far-left “purists” may have more in common with each other than with those of us closer to the center of the bell curve. And you didn’t even know that horses could wear clown shoes!
As for Atrios — whose post set Young Stoller off — IIRC, he’s an economist, and therefore disappointed in President Obama’s solutions to the Great Recession. I also think he’s wrong about how “history” will view Obama’s tenure. While he may have been unduly respectful of both the Republican opposition and his “centrist” so-called allies, I still think President Obama is going to end up in the Top Ten Presidents list if only for what his enemies chose to label Obamacare… among other things.
Obama left office with a near-60 percent approval and your take is that ***literally*** no one thought the country was in good shape?
— Ca 1 (@CAAttorney1) November 18, 2017
Lots of Dems think Obama tried and did the best he could, which kind of sucked but hey that's America. Some think he failed because of those mean Republicans. Some small number (me!) think he did exactly what he sought to do and it turned out horribly because his ideas were bad.
— Matt Stoller (@matthewstoller) November 18, 2017
At some level, it doesn't matter. If the person in charge is weak and doesn't deliver, voters won't forgive them. They don't care if there's a filibuster or whatever nor should they.
— Matt Stoller (@matthewstoller) November 18, 2017
Corner Stone
Hmmm…
cain
Matt Stoller can go fuck himself. Bad ideas? It’s not like the guy even had a window to actually implement any ideas given that Republicans controlled congress. That said, given that the trainwreck that was 2008/2009, he did pretty damn good in my reckoning.
Hunter Gathers
Stoller and Atrios are gurning wankers.
Corner Stone
I continue to remain curious how people conclude such a lofty outcome is definitely ahead after so short a time of being removed from office. All the people who were so very sure Obama was “Top 5 and all that” may be cooling their heels into the proverbial “Top 10 List” now.
Jerzy Russian
Christ, what an asshole!
Scamp Dog
At first I thought Stoller was snarking, but reading his other tweets suggests he was serious. I agree that Obama tried to making things better for everyone and didn’t achieve that lofty goal, and that Bush and Trump kept their “promises” to be awful, but I don’t think keeping Bush & Trump style promises is in any way a good thing. “Sure I’ll vote for him–he wants to make things worse, and I know he’ll succeed!” …is a dumb way of picking who to vote for.
debbie
Idiot.
ChristianPinko
TFW you realize that Matt Stoller’s 9:07 pm post wasn’t ironic snarking.
Atrios, now there’s a blast from the past! I’d forgotten about Eschaton. Stopped reading it when too many posts became literally monosyllabic or just linked to other Web sites.
khead
It’s not just Stoller. I was kinda ok with the first Atrios post bitching about Obama a bit ago. But this one?
Oh, hell no. Duncan needs to wake the fuck up and understand that Obama was the first black president. The first black president simply could not throw out pithy comments like Duncan or act like John Cole going on a fucking rampage at Balloon Juice over all the stupid ass shit in this country. Because the first black president simply could not afford to be seen as “an angry black man”.
So, can someone explain that shit to him and tell him to STFU? I mean, someone other than me. I’m just a guy who posts cat pics on the Internets.
Steeplejack (phone)
At first I thought Stoller was snarking at Atrios, but, no, he clarified his stupidity in subsequent tweets. Man.
NobodySpecial
Clearly Stoller shops at Hot Take.
khead
Sorry, was so irritated I missed the Atrios reference and hat tip by Stoller. I’ve been waiting all day to tee off on Duncan over that post.
Thoroughly Pizzled
So many people treat Obama (and the Democrats) as having unlimited power, so if they didn’t accomplish something it means they didn’t want it. Nearly every argument against the Obama years boils down to that.
Steeplejack (phone)
I am really looking forward to A.M. Joy tomorrow (MSNBC, 10:00 EST). Joy Reid was a guest on several of the shows tonight, and she is white-hot mad about the Republicans’ hypocrisy about Trump, Moore and “party before everything.”
randy khan
It’s hard to even know where to begin with these arguments. But I can say this: Actual Obama didn’t do a lot of things I hoped he’d do. Some of it was because of circumstances outside his control (starting with the gift of a big fat recession that G.W. Bush left him) and some of it was because he didn’t agree with me. At the same time, he did a lot of things I really wanted him to do, and he got us through the recession. His accomplishments far outweigh my disappointments, and anyone on the left who can’t see that just isn’t thinking about it correctly.
Chet Murthy
@Thoroughly Pizzled: “Only Democrats have agency”. H/t the LGM commentariat.
Ruckus
Matt Stoller is one dumb fucking asshole.
But then this is conservative wisdom.
Up is down, down is left, left is wrong, right is right.
Difficult to keep it all straight with all that insanity and grifting going on.
Hunter Gathers
I didn’t know that constant complaining would bring about the Glorious Worker’s Paradise.
Maybe if Stoller and Atrios bitch some more we’ll get Single Payer.
catclub
@randy khan: The only things that trump seems to be careful about are wrecking achievemnets of Obama. I await something foul in the relations of Dept of Interior to Native American tribes. Obama made huge strides in our relations with them. Now back to stealing their mineral rights and poisoning their children – also facilitating rapists who troll the borders between reservation and rest of US.
khead
@Corner Stone:
I’m curious to know if you think he will be remembered as a shit POTUS as being suggested by Stoller and Atrios.
martian
Stoller was on staff for Alan Grayson and has been a bomb throwing purity pony for approximately forever. Same as it ever was. This has been his deal since at least bygone blog Open Left. Him going to work for Grayson was one of the reasons Open Left got shut, iirc, not that it lasted long enough to make a mark anyway.
Jack the Second
At this point in Obama’s presidency, unemployment was double digits, more than twice what it is under Trump.
I think about 60% of the noise I hear from people complaining about Obama’s presidency (from the “left”) is whining about Single Payer (TM), but a solid 50% is “Obama made me think he was an ultra-pacifist but then he commanded the military anyway”.
I don’t know whether or not Obama considers himself a pacifist, but electing a pacifist President is one of the most cruel things you can do. You’ve heard about the trolley problem, flip a switch to save 5 people and kill 1 … it’s a thought experiment to most of us, but the President is literally standing in front of a row of switches he can throw, day in day out, except he doesn’t really know for certain which switches will save who and who will die if he flips none. But the President has to make that choice, day in, day out, knowing that people will die and he is literally one of the few people who can make a decision to change what happens.
Damn cruel thing to do to a pacifist.
Hitless
Sweet coconut louise. In the face of substantial opposition, Obama enacted health care reform worthy of the name reform, stewarded a us economy out if it’s worst situation since the great depression, ended dadt. All of this in the face of a well financed machine looking to bring him down in any way possible. He was so f@#@ing disciplined that wearing a tan suit was maybe the worst thing they could come up with.
Within the constraints and pressures of the us governmental system and with the makeup of the people in this nation, I have a hard time imagining anyone doing better, let alone doing so while being the first black president. Look at all the other presidents you can remember. Who was better?
People who think they know how Obama could have put a unicorn in every pot are delusional and I’ll waste my time in better ways than reading what they have to say.
Hitless
Sweet coconut louise. In the face of substantial opposition, Obama enacted health care reform worthy of the name reform, stewarded a us economy out if it’s worst situation since the great depression, ended dadt. All of this in face of a week financed machine looking to bring him down in any way possible. He was so f@#@ing disciplined that wearing a tan suit was maybe the worst thing they could come up with.
Within the constraints and pressures of the us governmental system and with the makeup of the people in this nation, I have a hard time imagining anyone doing better, let alone doing so while being the first black president. Look at all the other presidents you can remember. Who was better?
People who think they know how Obama could have put a unicorn in every pot are delusional and I’ll waste my time in better ways than reading what they have to say.
Redshift
@Hunter Gathers:
More like the Glorious Wankers’ Paradise…
Thoroughly Pizzled
@Jack the Second: Trump has already killed more civilians than Obama ever did. This isn’t to say that I was happy with how Obama conducted the drone war, but the caricature of him as a bloodthirsty murderer was completely false, and the reaction against that probably contributed to the idiotic “Trump is a dove” talking point.
Butthurt Jordan Trombone (fka XTPD)
Atrios’ post reads like the fourth grade, bigly. And “Obama not just insufficient but shit” is dumb on the merits. Try to name five presidents better than Obama.
@Chet Murthy: Murc’s Law. An intramural corollary – “only Democratic leaders* have agency” – exists.
Corner Stone
@khead: I haven’t read either of Atrios’s assessments nor any recently by Stoller.
I think history will give Obama a fair reading at some point.
Butthurt Jordan Trombone (fka XTPD)
@Thoroughly Pizzled: (adapted from Aesop’s Fables):
“So, how’s the falconry biz treating you?”
“Oh, it’s been pretty good so far. I had this sweet peregrine that was the best bird I’ve had in a while – only problem was, every once in a while he’d pick off a few pigeons and other birds from the park.”
“I bet the local birdwatchers were mighty pissed, weren’t they?”
“Well, I can’t really defend him there. The funny thing is, though, that while they were dragging me hard,one group – my impression was they were a rogue faction – had also been publicly making noises about pooling their cash for a golden eagle as protection. Those guys finalized the deal just as I’d given my peregrine away.”
“How’d that work out?”
“Not good at all. Already the local pigeon population has taken quite a hit – 16 killed in one kit, 7 in another, and quite a few flocks wiped out altogether. He’s also been killing a lot of other bird species, and I’ve had to get him away from people’s pets once or twice. Shit, I had my peregrine for two years, and even then he only killed a pigeon 2, 3 times a month at most.”
“…how long have you had this eagle?”
“Nine weeks.”
Corner Stone
@Jack the Second: Obama never claimed to be a pacifist or specifically universally anti-war.
frosty
@Corner Stone: Right. IIRC, he was against dumb wars.
martian
@Jack the Second: People projected so much onto Obama and then got pissed off that he wasn’t really like their imaginary friend. But if you knew his history in Illinois, then you’d know that he was skilled at bipartisan legislating and known for it. He was able to get things done, and his Republican colleagues seemed to like and respect him. Seems like a different planet, those days.
People knew he gave a big anti-war speech that brought him to prominence with the movement. My husband was there. The repeated refrain, as I recall, was “not *this* war”. It was not a pacifist speech. Obama was always very measured, he said what he meant to say. People projected the rest.
Butthurt Jordan Trombone (fka XTPD)
@Jack the Second: You’re confusing pacifism with dovism and strict anti-interventionism – the difference being a pacifist or relative dove would flip the switches so as to kill the least people, but a “strict” anti-interventionist (re: the Pauls) would just throw up their hands and say Not My Problem. And one can be an anti-interventionist without giving a shit about morality or human rights.
Of course, if extreme enough pacifism basically becomes a crackpot position; see Gandhi on the Holocaust.
fuckwit
Oh shut the fuck up, Stoller, you are talking out your ass.
Mike in NC
Have to ask: who the fuck is this Matt Stoller?
LurkerNoLonger
I don’t know who this Stoller person is but he sounds like an asshole and we should all stop giving him a second thought, one is too many.
Butthurt Jordan Trombone (fka XTPD)
@Thoroughly Pizzled: Helping make “DROOOOOOOOOONEZ” a memetic metonym for “privileged lolbertarian bro’s pet issue” is one of Glenzilla & Young Conor’s more unfortunate self-owns.
Though IIRC, it was primarily Clinton and not Obama that got hit with the “bloodthirsty murderer” caricature.
martian
@Mike in NC: I remember him as one of the young gun crowd of the early blogosphere, before people started crossing over into traditional media gigs. Rather than a Washington Monthly column or whatever, Matt went to work in politics directly. Don’t know what he’s up to these days, seems same as the old days.
Edwin Mix
Name a POTUS in the last 50 years that was better than Obama?
Emma
This is what comforts me when the rage gets too big: when the history books are written, Obama and Hillary Clinton will be in them. Stoller and Atrios won’t even be footnotes.
TenguPhule
@Emma:
At this point I’m hoping we’ll still get to write the history books.
Omnes Omnibus
@Corner Stone: He said he was against stupid wars.
TenguPhule
@Jack the Second: President Obama’s hair turned white from his decisions.
Our hair is turning white from Trump’s decisions.
Emma
@TenguPhule: History writes itself. Over and over again. You can try to write someone out and all it does is make scholars curious about the gap.
TenguPhule
@catclub:
You don’t have to wait, Trump already told the tribe he’s fine with them destroying their lands for short term profits because he’ll ignore all those pesky rules and regulations for them if its brought up.
That was last month.
TenguPhule
.@Emma: First as tragedy, then as farce.
I dunno if we’re going to be granted a third chance after blowing the first two.
(((CassandraLeo)))
@TenguPhule: At this point I’m mostly just hoping there will still be history books.
Aleta
Nothing of what Stoller says is a reason for him to say anything.
FlipYrWhig
Atrios has been bored and woebegone since 2003. He should go join Jane Hamsher and Jon Aravosis on the blogger-pundit “Oh Yeah That Was A Thing Once” farm upstate.
Stoller has never been more than one of those interchangeable white dicks with preppy names whose core gripe is that is there should be more leftists already and the fact that there aren’t that many and never have been must be someone else’s fault, probably Obots or neoliberals or The DLC. We still get a goodly number of those creeping up through the baseboards here on angsty days. The only one of those who ever turned things around to become a useful human being was Spencer Ackerman.
BubaDave
Obama disappointed me many times on several issues.
Obama was easily the best President of my lifetime, and in the top 5 in US history.
I do not get why it is so hard for so many people to realize both of the above statements can be true simultaneously.
Duane
@randy khan: lf all Obama did was lead us out of the reccession while avoiding a depression, that would have been enough. People tend to forget the seriousness of the situation. We were fortunate to have him there.
eemom
@FlipYrWhig:
I endorse this comment.
Except I’m not quite sure about Ackerman, who began his “career” at FDL and at that point at least was indistinguishable from the rest of the Hamsher brigade…..but who knows.
Omnes Omnibus
@TenguPhule: @(((CassandraLeo))): Get a grip. Relentless negativism is hurtful. For those of you need to express your angst, please remember that others need to feel that there is hope. (Hi Tenguphule) Don’t shit on them.
martian
@FlipYrWhig: I’m struck by how caught in amber people like Stoller and, say, Yglesias seem to me. I guess I thought they’d mature out of the eyerolling hottakes, but…no.
Which I guess is not as bad as where I see Greenwald these days. Goddamn do I question myself over my former good opinion of him.
Eljai
@Duane: Agreed. I think people forget what could have happened. The recession hurt a lot of people and it could have been much, much worse. People are willing to give a president credit if something good happens, but they don’t tend to give them credit for stopping something bad. That’s where the history books can help fill in the details.
Emma
@TenguPhule: Not really. History is. Stories we tell ourselves change over time. And yes, there is a difference.
Duane
@Hitless: Obama attended the wrong church, too. Religious freedom for some, not for others.
TenguPhule
@Omnes Omnibus: Give me a mulligan here. I’ve been trying to be the voice of moderation and reason for the last dozen or so threads and it was disturbing as all hell.
Omnes Omnibus
@TenguPhule: I will try, but you do have a history.
martian
@Duane: Yeah, that was some genuine economic anxiety going on in that election. Obama pulled our bacon out of the fire and then passed healthcare. And America said, “Thanks for the death panels! Have a Republican Congress for your troubles!”
So much lost potential when the Dems got punished instead of rewarded for Obamacare.
Duane
@Eljai: He never got the credit he deserved for leading us out of the recession. He should have been hailed a hero. Instead the Republicans pulled out their knives. Party before country ought to be the conservative motto.
TenguPhule
@Duane:
‘
You mean its not already?
magurakurin
@martian: Yglesias, Stoller, and Greenwald were all Iraq War cheerleaders. just saying.
http://roguenationblog.com/2014/06/12/a-partial-list-of-people-who-shouldnt-be-talking-about-iraq/
Mnemosyne
@Jack the Second:
I picked up on that, too. There seems to be a whole group of pacifists (and isolationists) on the left who think that everyone who rose up against the Iraq war was a pacifist, and they’re still pissed off that many of us were “anti-stupid war,” not pacifists. Now we all have to suffer for their disillusionment.
Sister Golden Bear
Stellar seems to be bucking for the very definition of gormless.
Duane
@TenguPhule: I want to see red hats and other Trumpstore novelties with the trademarked phrase. Wear it Republicans, literally.
Duane
@martian: When Obama wanted to give a pep talk to our nation’s schools, I was surprised by the negative reactions. Seemed disrespectful to me, but I wasn’t aware of the “economic anxiety.”
Eljai
@Mnemosyne: I used to think of myself as a pacifist, but I realize I haven’t done enough self-examination. I do think that war should be a last resort and that we don’t discuss this enough, at least not in the major news outlets who are only too eager to rah-rah any military intervention. Yet, I have no use for people who blame Obama or attack Hillary as if she’s solely responsible for our country’s foreign policy for the last 50 years. Even the saint from Vermont is not a pacifist and he would have been forced into the same awful choices as his predecessors had he gotten anywhere near the presidency. I’m just tired of people on the left expecting one person to save us when the problem is bigger than that. We all have to get involved in order to change how we approach national security and we have to convince our fellow citizens to care.
prostratedragon
“Marejadilla (Wave),” solo piano
EM
Just off the top of my head Obama rescued the entire country from a depression, rescued the entire Auto industry, passed the most sweeping Financial regulations since the Great Depression, passed the health-care bill that got over 20 million new people health insurance, passed a stimulus bill that included the largest investment in infrastructure since the Eisenhower years, the largest investment education ever, and the the largest investment in clean energy ever. He took out Bin Laden, he got rid of Qaddafi, he kept us out of new Wars in Syria and Iran. And in the case of the latter he signed a nuclear arms agreement that took the nuclear capacity away from Iran without having to a fire a single shot. He overturned don’t ask don’t tell, and he appointed two Supreme Court Justices that ushered in the era of marriage equality. In addition, he put in place a complete overall our food safety laws, normalized diplomatic relations with Cuba, and along the way brought the unemployment rate down from around 11% to under 5%, and also oversaw the stock market tripling in value going from under 6,000 to over 18,000 by the time you left office. He overhauled how student loans were administered taking out the middleman, and increased Pell Grants to the greatest level of the country has ever seen. But seriously, I can go on like this for quite some time. The list of accomplishments is almost endless.
For that matter explain to me why FDR is praised so much. The man had majorities to the extent that Republicans practically weren’t in Congress and he did nothing on Healthcare and passed a social security bill that did not cover agricultural workers, domestic workers, black people, Latinos, the self-employed, clergy, Railroad employees, or survivors and their dependents. And in fact FDR’s original Social Security Act left out close to two-thirds of the country and he did nothing on Healthcare. LBJ took a total pass on single payer, And instead broke it down into two relatively limited programs. Medicaid in its original form only covered children and their primary caregivers. Adults who were poor got nothing. Medicare in its original form did not cover the cost of prescription drugs, did not give any benefits to survivors and their dependants, and did not offer any services to the disabled. and that was it.It seems to me that people like Matt Stoller seem to apply to different standards. One for white presidents and one for black presidents.
Eljai
@prostratedragon: Nice! Thanks for introducing me to Lisa Franken. Her music has transported me to a better place.
martian
@magurakurin:
Thanks for that link. Yglesias, I remember, but not Stoller. Greenwald wasn’t really known in the blogosphere yet, I think. He came in a little later as the go to civil liberties advocate whose links got traded around on all the blogs.
Josh Marshall was the “serious” centrist who most bothered me back then. I remember him promoting Kenneth Pollack. He still aggravates a little for the same reasons these days, he gets behind the curve instead of ahead of it on some things. Josh comes around and publicly reassesses his thoughts and opinions regularly, though.
I’m going to have to spend some time reviewing that list and looking at people’s arcs.
martian
@Duane: Well, by genuine economic anxiety, I meant the kind that scares people into voting their pocketbook rather than their prejudices. I believe that people really do know which side their bread is buttered on.
Then there’s the “economic” anxiety that can’t cope with a gentleman who is Presidenting while black doing ordinary civic engagement like reaching out to schoolchildren. That was such a shameful episode.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Huh. I think we finally know NR’s meatspace identity
polyorchnid octopunch
Dude’s an asshole.
cokane
important to remember that the global recession of 2008 affected Europe as well. The US recovered faster and better for regular people than, iirc, almost all of Western Europe and certainly the EU as a whole. You’d think a supposedly trained economist would look at this comparative analysis to see if Obama did a good job or not. But you’d be wrong.
TenguPhule
@Eljai:
We’d need to reinstate the Draft for that to happen. Unfortunately some people who are selfish fuckholes refuse to learn any other way.
David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch
Atrios is the clown prince of the #EconomicAnxiety/Whats-A-Matter-with-Kansas crowd.
Unfortunately, people I subscribe to on twitter like to get into fights with him instead of ignoring him.
For most of the year he’s literally pushed Dems should be appealing to ….. wait for it… working class whites (especially in rural areas). No joke. His reasoning: suburbanites will never vote for Dems.
Of course, the landslide in Virginia proved him right.
David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch
It’s nice when you’re a rich trust fund baby: you can pine over marxism while watching the yoga channel.
Yes. Yes he was. He actually advocated for Romney’s win cuz it would… wait for it… usher in a glorious revolution.
When advocating for Romney’s win, he would argue the Supreme Court is not important. Which is easy to do when you are a rich, white male.
It’s always been about his hurt fee-fees.
David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch
Luigidaman
In my estimation, Obama fumbled.
At the start of his administration, because if all the financial chaos, he had a chance to truly remake the economy into the fair deal we all thought it should be for ALL of us, not just Jaime Diamond and the corporations. He fumbled. And we are all paying for it. A top ten president? Well, sure! There haven’t been that many good ones.
Ohio Mom
IIRC, one of Atrios’s biggest complaints about Obama is that the money that was supposed to help rescue underwater homeowners went instead to the banks. This was a pot of money Obama had discretion over, and on this point, Atrios is right. Lots of homeowners did not see the promised relief and are still in that jam. Their lives are permanently screwed.
But I am only relaying what I remember. I still read Atrios because I enjoy his humor and I still learn things from him. And duh, it doesn’t take much time out of my day to stop by once.
Now I don’t agree with his overall assessment of Obama, but I’m too old to be disappointed that either of them isn’t perfect.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
There anyone who seriously considers Bush or Trump good presidents? Bush was a non person even among the Right until Trump showed everyone what a useless president looks like. While I would agree that both Bush and Trump benefit from low expectations and the general way society seems to be geared to protect bad boys, I think the real question is what drugs in Matt Stoller on?
Matt McIrvin
In 2012 Stoller was saying he wanted Romney to win because it would have more progressive results than Obama getting reelected. He undoubtedly now thinks Trump proves he was right. This is his whole shtick, anyway.
Booger
Fine. But what does Jerry Leiber have to say on the matter?
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@Matt McIrvin: I assume Stoller sees Moore as progressive presidential timber then? I assume Stoller also thinks the way to win a fist fight is to lie on the ground and let the other guy kick the shit out of him.
I can see “keep expectations low because it’s better to surprise people than disappoint them” is a good political tactic, but Obama because of his place in history didn’t have that option. Stoller is being a pure blinded by the white twat and doesn’t get that there are and will be millions of black kids Obama had to be a role model for.
Citizen_X
Have these people missed that the Republicans who were opposing Obama have revealed themselves to be fucking literal traitors? How the fuck was he supposed to get around that little problem? It’s amazing he accomplished all that he did.
Matt McIrvin
@Enhanced Voting Techniques: It was “heighten the contradictions”/”at least you know where you stand” bullshit. Better to have a Republican asshole you can hate with revolutionary passion than a liberal who isn’t quite good enough.
Butthurt Jordan Trombone (fka XTPD)
@Matt McIrvin: I was in 11th-grade AP Gov at that time, and for my prospective ballot I was leaning towards Jill Stein (thanks to a political compass-type test). Scott’s rebuttals of those Salon columns convinced me to switch to Obama, and got me into reading LGM regularly.
kindness
When I read that first tweet I assumed it was snark. As I was reading the last one I was thinking,’What an asshole this guy is’.
It’s like judging people like Sarah Huckaby Sanders did when she said ‘Al Franken is a terrible person because he admitted to sexual harassment whereas Trump is the awesome because he didn’t admit to it.’
AnotherBruce
Gotta say it again, Christ, what an asshole!
the Conster
@EM:
Thank you. Obama did all this without one Republican vote in a narrow window of Dem control- a Dem majority that included Blue Dogs afraid of their own constituents and Joe Fucking Lieberman.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Okay. Show your work. What would you have done that he didn’t?
Sherparick
@EM: I blame the lack of civic education because Stoller & Duncan apparently do not understand that Presidents don’t pass laws, Congress does & the laws you pass will only as progressive as the most conservative member of your coalition will tolerate. Rural white America did not go into a resentful rage the last 8 years because Obama was not progressive enough or ordered drone strikes on Yemen & Pakistan or did not close Guantanamo.
the Conster
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
He was a magic Negro. When you ask what laws the bankers were guilty of, no one can answer. Mortgage laws are governed by each state. When you ask any of these “Obama could have done [fill in the blank]” what it was exactly he could have done and actually how, **crickets** because they don’t understand how federal, state and local jurisdictional regulatory schemes and legal standing and process all fit together, to say nothing about their inability or ignorance of the politics of the time – the determination of Republicans to throw a wrench into every attempt of his to ameliorate anything.
the Conster
@Sherparick:
Exactly. Their ignorance is as deep and wide as Republicans. I have no idea what world they think they live in. They don’t know how anything works. All I remember is firebaggers blaming Obama for selling them out, when the reverse is true. He exhorted people to vote in the midterms, and instead they stamped their little feet, cut themselves and ran away from home because they thought Obama was going to go Shaft on all their enemies white asses then didn’t vote in protest on the advice of TYT and Ed Schultz, then blamed him for the backlash against Obamacare at a time when he was being birthered, Palin was screaming about death panels and the media was dutifully taking her seriously, and everything possible REpublicans could do to re-crater the economy, they were doing. Obama got no credit for anything. After the ACA got hung around the necks of every Dem who voted for it, Berniebros blame Obama for the Dems ‘LOSING 1000s OF SEATS’, because they’re a bunch of fucking useless idiots.
Brendancalling
I do not care for Stoller and Duncan is sometimes a little too left-purity for my taste (emphasis on “sometimes”). But my unpopular take is that Duncan is probably right. Obama had a small window to exercise real power and he didn’t. There are plenty of reasons/speculations as to WHY, but he didn’t.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
what does that mean in real world terms?
FlipYrWhig
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Something something banksters, usually.
Davis X. Machina
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Seized the commanding heights of the economy in production, finance, and distribution in the name of the workers. Naturally.
I mean, when you vote for a former University of Chicago law professor, that’s an entirely realistic expectation, isn’t it? And the powers of the executive branch can be infinitely extended. Bush Jr. taught us that.
Butthurt Jordan Trombone (fka XTPD)
@Brendancalling: Except that Duncan’s claim isn’t just that Obama failed to fully exercise his power here, but that said failure marks his as a poor – and by the language here, close to terrible – president. The latter claim is much stronger than the former, and does not seem to borne out by the evidence.
Was Billmon ever good?
cokane
@Enhanced Voting Techniques: even this disingenuous construction by Stoller isn’t true on its own merits. Tho, lemme remark that it’s basically a “heads I win, tails you lose” argument.
Bush didn’t campaign on being “greedy and corrupt” he ran on stopping “nation building” and “compassionate conservatism” both of which turned out to be way wrong.
David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Forget it
Jake, it’sChinatownPUMAtown.Tehanu
Who is this asshole, and why does anybody pay any attention to him? Is this some kind of contrarian trolling? Guys who sneer about “weakness” in others never convince me that they’re interested in anything but covering up what whiny, cowardly little sneaks they are themselves, with spines of overcooked canned asparagus.