At this point, the Warren appointment feels like a slap in the face.
Update. On the bright side, when Obama adds James Carville and David Gergen to his communications team after the November losses, the roll-outs will be a lot more effective.
by DougJ| 128 Comments
This post is in: Black Jimmy Carter, The Failed Obama Administration (Only Took Two Weeks)
At this point, the Warren appointment feels like a slap in the face.
Update. On the bright side, when Obama adds James Carville and David Gergen to his communications team after the November losses, the roll-outs will be a lot more effective.
Comments are closed.
Omnes Omnibus
Pre-firebagging or just trolling?
DougJ
@Omnes Omnibus:
Is there a difference?
TooManyJens
@Omnes Omnibus: It can’t be both?
mistermix
Yglesias beat you to it:
http://twitter.com/mattyglesias/status/24606028607
Frank
Yes, Obama is too deliberate. But so what we’ll get there. He’s doing more with less. Also he’s staying out of the limelight unless he has to jump in.
Not perfect but okay.
I wish okay were better. But we bought into the milquetoast but strong leader and I’m sticking with him because things get done, slowly but they do get done.
Dexter
Preempting the talkingpoints?
Omnes Omnibus
@DougJ: Hell if I know.
BR
She must have signed a secret deal with Rahm to sell us out. There’s no way she would have gotten the position otherwise. John Edwards would have replaced the Federal Reserve with Warren a year ago.
West of the Cascades
This really does seem pathetic, given the easy out Congress presciently gave for an “interim” appointment in the statute. It still leaves that position unfilled. Pretty dumb politics from any point on the spectrum, firebaggers to teabaggers.
scav
all of the alternately fainting onto a sofa today. How Austenian of everyone.
Mumphrey
Everything Obama does is a slap in my face. When he breathes, it’s a slap in the face. When he decided to get a dog, and it wasn’t the kind I have, it was a slap in the face. When he signed the health care bill that insures 30,000,000 or whatever uninsured people, it was a slap in the face, because it should have insured 30,000,009. When he came to my house and slapped me in the face, that was a slap in the face, too.
General Stuck
Too crowded under the progressive bus.
I have now abandoned Warren and withdraw my support for her nomination to run the new consumer protection agency, because she has been coopted by the left fringe firebagger movement, and therefore cannot be trusted by Obama. Ms Warren herself may be quite loyal, but we cannot take the chance, nor can Obama, It is the same with left wing fringe darling economist Paul Krugman. They speak for a group hostile to the Obama administration, and may even not masturbate, or, if so , likely not enough.
I throw my support, again, behind Brooksley Born, who has a proven record of standing up to the good ole Wall Street boys, and to Bush henchmen, when it counted. She knows how to run a government regulatory agency, and far as I know, she slaps her monkey with satisfaction on a regular basis.
eat shit progs. bwaaa haa haa
new term – slap the monkey
Violet
At least she’s involved. Better than her being out in the cold or being shot down in a bitter confirmation battle.
Fwiffo
It’s pretty stupid to create a new fake job for her and hope that nobody notices. It’s like “Oh yeah, I was going to promote you to manager and give you a raise, but instead I’ll promote you to double-secret manager in charge of special projects. No raise with that though…” Our consumer protection watchdog got replaced by Folgers Crystals.
Chris
Wow, so once the right nominated teabaggers to enough Senate contests that Republicans couldn’t take the Senate, Obama had permission to let the left twist in the wind again?
Also, the more Chris Dodd runs his mouth about DFHs being mean to Wall Street, the less effective I think that financial-reform bill is going to be. Right now, it’s at “waste of paper” and trending towards “pardoning the arsonists.”
DougJ
@General Stuck:
Don’t worry, she’ll be “frozen out” of the important decisions.
Loneoak
I will remain dissatisfied until Warren curb stomps Geithner in front of a foreclosed 3 bedroom tract house outside of Akron.
beltane
Are we supposed to be disappointed, because I am pretty f**king happy.
Has Elizabeth Warren taken a stand on masturbation?
freelancer
@beltane:
You know what? I think that’s coming up on CNN’s next segment.
J.W. Hamner
@mistermix:
Warren isn’t a big issue for me in any sense… but this does seem a very deflating and anti-climactic way to handle it. Maybe it’s the best way in a technocratic sense, but it seems like the optics are pretty weak.
DougJ
@beltane:
Obama said something about the right to whack but he walked it back later. You can read about it on Mike Allens’ twitter feed.
John Bird
Ha ha?
Seriously, though, the reasonable thing for people to do on all the Blogs of the BlogoSphere is to calm down and see what kind of job Warren actually got, because as of now we don’t really know. That would be the issue at hand, and it’s going to remain the issue at hand for quite a while until the bureau is established, so I’d hope people would refrain from both whining and gloating until then.
It looks ridiculous for people to say “See! Obama appointed her!” or “This job is a total fake!” Because he didn’t appoint her to the job of director, which is what the debate was about, but we don’t know that this job isn’t the equivalent – it may turn out to be the case. Hell, we don’t really even know what the director’s job is going to turn out to be, exactly, even with a description.
My hope, and my expectation, is that Warren’s being appointed as the interim head to bypass Senate approval, that the bureau will be given real power to regulate, and that she’ll be nominated once it becomes basically reelecting the incumbent and the Administration has established a popular reputation as a protector of financial consumers.
I do not extend the benefit of the doubt to anyone in power, however. The proof is in the pudding, especially when it comes to Washington stopping Wall Street.
beltane
@Chris: Chris Dodd is a big problem. When a Democratic chair of the banking committee acts on behalf of the big banks and not on behalf of the people who are getting screwed by the big banks it is an awful thing. What’s worse is that no one has any leverage over Dodd whatsoever.
jnfr
@West of the Cascades:
That was my initial response, but when I realized all we had was a rumor fed to Tapper, I decided to wait until something more concrete showed up.
BombIranForChrist
Obama is this rare blend of Clinton and Carter. He gets Triangulation from the former and a General Embrace of Weak Ass Shit from the latter.
General Stuck
@DougJ: maybe Obama could create a one woman agency and appoint Warren as Adjunct Director of the Universe . Might shut the weepers up for a week or two,
jnfr
@John Bird:
Or, in other words, what John Bird said.
HyperIon
@John Bird:
Yeah, i never understand the rush to judge.
eric
fewer people care about this appointment than voted for Ms. No-touchie. You want to make Obama more liberal, get hima more liberal senate and that means beating the teabaggers now and primary-ing the blue dogs later. two part approach that cannot be done all at once.
Odie Hugh Manatee
@General Stuck: “new term – slap the monkey “
Is that like “spank the monkey”?
Once again, Obama has thrown the bus under the shark he just slapped. How typical.
beltane
@General Stuck: Adjunct Director of the Universe is just another way of saying “In the Veal Pen”. Now take that shit sandwich and go eat it under the bus with the other hippie-punched progressive activists.
Uncle Clarence Thomas
I don’t understand how they forced President Obama to stop Warren from heading the CFPB so easily.
Nick
Doug — Are you fucking kidding us? Warren can now SET UP THE AGENCY, hire the staffers AND not have to go to radio silence as a nominee awaiting GOP benediction, which we all know will never, ever come. She can talk about the benefits of the agency itself on a daily basis. She can hold the new position for MONTHS before Obama has to make the director-naming official. Give us a freaking break. You related to Greenwald? Geezus, man. The firebagging virus has a latency period of about two-tenths of a second. Over at Kos, it took that long for commenters to start up with ‘yeah but Rahm will keep her away from the President so BFD.”
Omnes Omnibus
@Nick: You might be having a sense of humor failure. Just consider the possibility.
Midnight Marauder
That’s it! I’m voting for Meg Whitman now!
Omnes Omnibus
@Midnight Marauder: I yusta be a Democrat until Bill Clinton gave away the Suez Canal.
ruemara
@Nick:
C.H.I.L.L.
It’s politic snark.
We’ll see what we will see.
progressive whiners
HAHAHA….progressives will never be happy about anything. what a bunch of whiners.
“you mean warren is in charge of how the agency is formed and structured? NO SHE NEEDS TO BE DIRECTOR!! I DONT CARE IF SHE’S FILIBUSTERED!”
jeebus. i swear to god they will whine about anything the man does.
Mike E
@BombIranForChrist:
and Ben Vereen and Nipsey Russell. Too. And, also.
John Bird
@eric:
Personally, I’d rather not ‘make’ Obama do a lot of things that he should do anyway, clever dead-president quotes aside.
Whenever someone pulls that one out, it just reminds me that FDR could also be a total elitist dick sometimes, and also that when he wasn’t being a dick (most of the time) he was pulling every trick in the executive-power playbook to get a social security system in place. Which wasn’t necessarily the best thing in the world all the time either, but it sure puts that quote of his in context.
That being said, yeah, we need to get the conservative Democrats out of the Senate. I am not prone to hyperbolic fears for our country’s stability, but even I am feeling a little terror creeping up as we fail to secure Western civilization for ourselves, trading it off for shiny securities markets, public-pleasing executions, and chances to beat up the poor and defenseless.
General Stuck
@Nick: some advice. with Dougj, always assume snark or spoof, until it becomes clear via reflection.
beltane
Michelle Malkin calls Karl Rove “an effete sore loser” http://michellemalkin.com/2010/09/14/rove-bashes-odonnell-odonnell-supporter-at-victory-party-strikes-back/
No fan of Karl Rove, but I’d feel remiss if I didn’t point out that were it not for him, we’d likely be halfway through John Kerry’s second term now.
Munira
I find it strange that people would rather have her appointment languish in the senate and see nothing get done. This way she can start work right away and she can talk to the media as well. And she can still be named director down the road. Seems that some “progressives” are addicted to feeling picked on and can turn anything into a betrayal.
John Bird
@Munira:
Yes, but the question is: what does “start work” mean in this case?
And the answer is: wait and see.
eric
@John Bird: While it pained me greatly when I woke up and found that the networks were calling Bush the President and while i knew he and cheney were evil, I never truly feared for the fate of the nation the way I do now. it is a visceral sensation that the world I know is on a precipice and cant get its bearings. “We” are getting crazier and less rational and even more overtly hateful as a nation. I hope it is the fever breaking.
John Bird
@eric:
I can’t get happy over the Tea Party candidates, even if they’ve doomed the Republicans on a few seats this year. We’re still a two-party system and when a group carves out a niche in a party, they have a public platform until 1) the party gets replaced or 2) the rival party gives them a better offer. That semi-permanence is going to happen whether or not the media declares the Tea Party over after 2010.
I mean, Republicans are Americans. And that means a group of Americans are really into this race-baiting, shut-down-the-government shit, way more than usual and with way less constraint than the Gingrich crew, and if even one of these folks wins a Senate seat, we get a six-year-long, legislation-halting, very visible platform for what used to be the lonely position of a very weird Representative from a very weird part of Texas.
Steve
Legally speaking, there is absolutely no difference between this job and the so-called “interim director” job she was supposedly going to be given. Yglesias doesn’t seem to get it.
Anya
According to GOS commenters she will be under the thumb of “Mr Wall Street,” Geithner. But I cannot decide how to feel about this until I hear from Hamsher, Sirota or Cenk Uygur.
Mark
@Mumphrey:
Just to give a counter-example…My mom went out to phone-bank. The event was nominally to recruit callers for Boxer or Jerry McNerney, but it was run by OFA.
Now my mom is 60, been unemployed 18 months, lost her health insurance after 15, got rejected by every plan she applied for, sadly had to go to the ER after she cut her hand and it got infected and now has bill collectors chasing her. (Thankfully she can get on Kaiser through Healthy San Francisco now that she’s been uninsured 90 days.)
So she goes to the OFA event and eventually gets into a discussion with the O-Bots who are just as fucking stupid as Republicans. They didn’t understand why she didn’t just keep her Cobra (we get 36 months in CA) even though it would cost her $900 a month. What unemployed person has $900 a month for health insurance?
And of course people fire lots of platitudes her way about being unemployed.
FFS, Obama had a chance to do something, and he gave us a series of half-measures. My mom got an unemployment extension and the Cobra subsidy, but that wasn’t really what she needed. She needed a fucking job and fucking health insurance that didn’t cost $900 a month.
Obama’s two signature policies – the stimulus and HCR – were smaller than they needed to be because his opening gambit was to fold his hand – 1) making the stimulus smaller than he knew it needed to be, knowing full well the whores from Maine would trim it down for talking point; and 2) setting the price tag for HCR at $900M in the middle of American Stupidity Month 2009 when HCR was polling at its worst.
When you laugh about this shit, you’re laughing at the misfortune of real fucking people who didn’t get helped fuck all by Obama.
FlipYrWhig
@John Bird:
B-b-but, that’s not fair! I’m mad NOW!
The thing that gets me is, if, like me, you really like and trust Elizabeth Warren… why wouldn’t you be inclined to thinking that if Elizabeth Warren is happy with whatever this arrangement is, _you_ maybe should be too? I mean, if she didn’t like it, she could have told Obama to fuck right off. It’s not like she doesn’t have other things to do. If she’s down with it, I’m down with it, whatever “it” is, because, you know, she probably has a pretty fucking good grasp of it.
I think that makes me a WarrenBot.
BTD
I’m assuming snark, but what’s the problem with this, if you care about it (which I don’t)?
Isn’t it better that Warren is reporting directly to the President and not just to Geithner?
General Stuck
emo this progs. LoBLolllllllllipop!!
Poutrage Interuptus
FlipYrWhig
@Mark:
Oh, jesus, this is never ever going to end, is it? Could it be that just maybe Obama’s two signature policies were smaller than ideal because there are a bunch of conservative Democrats demanding that everything get fucked up because they don’t really believe in those signature policies and have to be dragged kicking and screaming in the direction of being even slightly less-than-worthless piles of human flesh over and over and over again? Because, you know, it looks to me like they do EXACTLY THAT EVERY GODDAMN TIME. And their price is that your mother feels pain, through no fault of her own. Which sucks. And there’s no alternative to it because they don’t budge because they’re not really even Democrats.
Omnes Omnibus
@Munira: Some people really wanted the fight.
Nick
@Omnes Omnibus: Um, so, just for the record, THIS Nick didn’t write that.
I know Doug was joking.
Chad N Freude
Tapper’s report is undoubtedly a spoof because he sources it to “a knowledgeable Democrat”. Such a being does not exist. And you all fell for it. Ha!
FlipYrWhig
@Mark:
If conservative Democrats had their druthers, he’d have given you a series of no-measures. Because they don’t care about you or your mother. And they’re a bag of dicks. And you have to work them and work them and work them to treat people remotely humanely, because, of course, Spending Is Bad and they don’t want to be like Those Other Democrats.
So _under those circumstances_, half-measures are probably the best that can happen, sorry to say, and it absolutely fucking sucks. But you can’t work around the right wing of the Democratic party because cracking down on them turns those seats over to the much-farther-right of the Republican party, and then you lose even your chance of for a _grudging_ half-measure.
Elisabeth
@FlipYrWhig:
That’s what I don’t understand. She’s tough consumer advocate but Geithner will corrupt her. The agency was her idea but she won’t do the job that needs to be done by what is her baby.
Huh?
Nick
@Mark:
Except you mentioned
so you can’t really say she didn’t get help, she did, she just didn’t get everything she needed at once. You’re saying the help she received, whether it not be enough, is worthless. Welcome to democracy, where miracles don’t happen.
Mike E
@John Bird:
Social Darwinists proving the existence of evolution. Irony, RIP
John Bird
@FlipYrWhig:
Well, even if she has questions here, she is not going to tell them to go screw themselves; I’d assume from her work on the Congressional panel that she’d take any potential opportunity to introduce consumer protection into the works. And part of saying yes to this potential opportunity, since it’s a high-level federal position, is going to have to be to say that she is absolutely thrilled about every last iota of the decision as it stands.
I wouldn’t assume that she would refuse the position if she was unsure as to how it would turn out. I would assume, in fact, from her outspoken concern for the issue, that she would take the position even if she had doubts.
All of this is assumption, too, and so it’s not really any more valuable in determining the truth, but what I’m saying is that I can easily see a plausible scenario where an appointee takes a job hoping to do good but accounting for the possibility that she will be stymied. It happens daily at all levels of government.
As a side-note, I don’t give her the benefit of the doubt either; I am judging her by her positions on that panel as well as my passing knowledge of her work on two-income families.
eemom
Let’s just hold our firehorses here.
Somewhere today I read that Warren preferred a lower-profile role because she’s a…….wait for it……….REAL Washington “outsider.”
Lemme see if I can find it……
Tecumseh
I always hated the idea that Warren had to be nominated even if they knew they didn’t have votes because Obama had to suck up to the Progressive Base or had to been seen as giving the finger to the Financial Industry or what have you. If she wasn’t going to get appointed, why put her through all that crap? Who the hell would want to apply for a job to a bunch of Senatorial whores and intellectually challenged Senate Republicans if you’re not going to get it? If this is a way she can have some modicum of power and influence without having to go through some sort of show trial, then go team go.
Munira
@Omnes Omnibus: They want the fight more than they want the agency apparently.
AhabTRuler
@scav: I’d like to point out that the Austenian (and really all middle-class women) women had the excuse of wearing corsets, which does establish a precondition for fainting. I can’t help you with the modern examples.
Anya
I hate to state the obvious but we are a democracy, Obama does not run a totalitarian regime nor is he a dictator, despite what the teabaggers want us to believe. He is a head of an executive branch that has to deal with a fucked-up legislative branch. I am sure he would have liked a stronger HC bill and a larger stimulus package but he had to deal with drama queens, corporate whores, and temid allies and not to mention an unhinged oposition bent of apposing him. If you consider that reality, what he acheived is huge.
Clearly the HC Act is not perfect but it can be improved. Just think of the alternative.
Omnes Omnibus
@AhabTRuler: I am going to guess it is corsets as well.
jmy
I’d rather him do it this way now, than her having to wait a year before she can be confirmed by the Senate.
John Bird
@General Stuck:
Look, not to rain on the snark parade, but Nasiripour and Grim are also clearly speculating as to her potential future role in that article – and they’re honest about it, including in the part you quoted.
The story is also doing a little bit of pimping of Huffington Post’s July piece on the law, which pointed out this method of appointment of an interim head and implied that it would be pretty much the same thing as Warren becoming director, only without Senate confirmation. That’s not clear.
Overall, the article you quoted presents a more realistic assessment of the outcome, offering concerns from all sides about what this may or may not mean.
Superking
It would be nice if at some point the president decided to stop doing things half-assed. Maybe not all the time, but every once in a while, go full ass on something. It shouldn’t be too hard to convince him that even half-assing things should be half-assed.
Nick
@Superking:
You know what makes me laugh. The fact that Obama did exactly what the professional left told him to do w/ Warren if he was afraid she couldn’t get confirmed, DougJ puts up a joke saying it was “half-assed” and the firebaggers decided what they said he should do is, in fact, “half-assed”
Nothing will please them, no point in trying.
MoZeu
I don’t really know what most of you all are talking about. I assume the post is snark, by the tags. God help me if it isn’t.
They are not appointing a Director now. Period. The agency isn’t set up yet. Once it is, they may well appoint Warren if she wants it and if they feel they can get her confirmed, or may do it through recess appointment down the road.
For now, the Secretary of the Treasury has authority to set the agency up under Title F. The tasks at hand are more administrative than substantive for the present. Treasury is delegating to Warren to carry these duties out. That is just fine. There is nothing wrong with that, no tea leaves to be read, no tire tracks, no damned nothing, nada.
The statute does not contain authority for the kind of interim appointment of a Director that people seem to believe. Chris Dodd is correct about that.
General Stuck
@John Bird: Seems pretty clear to me, somebody first needs to set up the agency and Obama picked Warren, who I oppose at this point. but ultimately don’t give a shit about. She will be director of that agency while it is being built, and the likely hood that if she wants the permanent job when and if Obama gets around to filling it and worrying about the politics of confirmation at his choosing, then so be it. So I don’t really care about speculation by anyone at this time about “what this means”, or any other readings of chicken entrails on the matter, other than I hope to gawd it keeps the wailing and knashing of teeth down to a minimum by our progressive overlords, at least till after the election. I remain skeptical that it will, however.
snarkyspice
@Mumphrey:
Seriously.
Jesus. Get a grip and put your man pants on.
@DougJ, You got what you wanted. But it wasn’t done in quite the way you wanted, so you’re going into Newt Gingrich “I had to sit at the back of air force one” poutrage? Never mind. It will be much much better when you have Republicans back in charge. Not long now!
John Bird
I do agree that saying this is a fuck-up because Obama didn’t absolutely capture the day with the announcement is really stupid. It’s akin to saying that he needed to go apeshit on BP, which is, in my opinion, saying to people in power, “Lie to me, baby. Tell me you love me.”
Not that I think Obama’s anger over BP wasn’t real – who wouldn’t be angry, being president when that mess happened? – but rather that if the criticism is that he didn’t convince the masses he was serious with a bunch of hothead speeches, the critic in question going to be caught between wind and water when someone with a bunch of hothead speeches comes along to actively screw us behind closed doors.
I’ve clashed with Yglesias about this before in his comments section. I think one of the great improvements of the Obama administration is its seeming indifference to the flair of noisy, no-substance media rollouts when it takes action.
I’d rather they stick to the facts, which is that they’ve appointed her to set up the bureau and act as its interim head, then play like they did something they didn’t, or didn’t do something they did.
Mark
@Nick:
By my count, my mom received $26000 in benefits that would not have normally accrued to her in good economic times. However, you might remember that even GWB passed an unemployment extension in 2001-02. So we’re looking at $15k in additional benefits because the Ds are in power. Whoop-de-fucking doo. That’s a drop in the bucket compared to her former (meager) earnings. But of course, Wall Street’s back to making all its coin. The presence of Larry Summers, Bob Rubin and Tim Geithner in the administration might indicate something about where Obama’s sentiments lie on that.
@FlipYrWhig
I’m the first to call out Fatfuck Nelson, Piece of Shit Lieberman, Nepotism Bayh, the morons from Arkansas, the corporate whores from Maine and Mr. Pink Leather Shorts, but Obama is far from blameless here.
To some extent, he just screwed up his basic political strategy – folding as his opening gambit on both the stimulus and HCR – but when I listen to what he says (instead of mind-reading) it’s clear that he’d be a Republican in any other generation. He gave us the Heritage Foundation’s health care plan. He really does oppose gay marriage. He’s not a pacifist, nor does he favor a reduction in executive power. When the president doesn’t believe in progressive policy, it most certainly won’t get implemented.
John Bird
@General Stuck:
Oh, okay. Personally, my concern here is meaningful protection for financial consumers, but to each his own. So, yes, it does matter to me what her job means, and what the appointment means for her nomination.
John Bird
@MoZeu: This looks like more of an answer to the questions I’m asking than I’ve seen elsewhere.
Can you point me toward where I can best confirm the limits of Warren’s abilities with the announced position, even if it’s just where I need to look in the law? Because I’ve been a little skeptical about the July HuffPost piece since I read it, mainly because it’s on HuffPost.
Nick
I’m Nick from Comment 33. I’ll call myself Nick in PA from now on. I say this: I sure hope I misunderstood. One never knows anymore. At least I don’t know anymore. Also I’m not alone.
General Stuck
he did what he did, and didn’t do what he didn’t do, and does that do justice to do goodism, or is it too bad he didn’t do what he could not have done, and didn’t, because no eggs do come from motherfucking chickens that do not yet exist . Do you understand?
John Bird
@General Stuck:
I take it what I wrote was unclear to you, but I’m guessing it has a lot to do with my typo of “then” for “than”. For that I apologize. Otherwise, I’m pretty much restating a bit of what you said earlier.
Nick
@Mark:
You know, anyone pretending $15,000 isn’t real money probably isn’t someone in need of it. I make that in 9 fucking months.
Right because the reason you’re mother isn’t getting free healthcare and wasn’t handed a job is because of Summers and Geithner. You’re firebag is showing.
Triassic Sands
@beltane:
Personally, I suspect Dodd is simply working overtime on his own post-Senate income prospects. I’d expect him to step into a lucrative position with high income and not much in the way of actual work. If my suspicion is correct, then his future benefactors have significant leverage on Dodd — and that’s bad for the rest of us.
Nick
@Nick:
The funny thing is this Nick (in NY) would’ve said the same thing if I didn’t already know DougJ wouldn’t say something like that unless he was joking.
General Stuck
@John Bird: Oh, I understand you perfectly. Looking to criticize the future, which is unknown, rather than accept the current victory for your cause, because all is not a fait compli. Even though all signs point to what you want being finally achieved. I guess somebody has to clutch those pearls.
We have seen it here before, daily, on about everything Obama has done. Preaching about the one dead tree in the forest, and ignoring the canopy above. It is mindnumbingly familiar, and remains an almost complete mystery to me.
And seems to be a force of nature I am powerless to change. I accept that, but keep my bag of snark within reach at all times.
but you seem like a fairly reasonable worry wort, with a brain. So please carry on and not be offended by my combative nature that is directed mostly to others.
Nick in PA
Sometimes it’s like trying to glean post-ironic-post-snark-modern-snark-post-ironic posts. To me, at least.
John Bird
@General Stuck: Like I said, I do not give the benefit of the doubt to people in power. I am a Democrat, but growing up in North Carolina has taught me some valuable lessons about trusting members of my party because they’re members of my party.
I am skeptical, and I believe rightly so, of any effort to regulate Wall Street; I am very watchful as to the ways such efforts can get shut down, shunted aside, defanged, and demoralized, because this is the history of Wall Street regulation since before I was born, and Democrats and Republicans have traded nearly every instrument of federal power back and forth since then. Wall Street regulation has always been an issue with vague popular support but without media interest, and Wall Street has capitalized on this remorselessly.
We are just now emerging from this period, and the motivation to do so came from an absolute across-the-board failure to regulate as needed or enforce existing regulations, a failure greased with campaign contributions and staffed through revolving doors, and involving both parties to some extent, including people who are still in power, and including people who are still walking around the White House handing out advice. I think most Democrats can agree about that, even the last part, which makes the party’s biggest boosters wince.
So, yes, I am an intense skeptic of these current efforts. And no, I’m not prone to getting super-excited just because the person I want to direct the bureau is setting up the bureau. I’m happy, and as I said before, I do actually expect this to lead to a well-led bureau with teeth, because I don’t know if consumer protection is a loser of an issue for anyone anymore except the actual people on Wall Street. But I’m always aghast when they find a way to make their visions a reality.
burnspbesq
@John Bird:
“Seriously, though, the reasonable thing for people to do on all the Blogs of the BlogoSphere is to calm down and see what kind of job Warren actually got”
Correct, but that’s no more likely than Duke beating Alabama on Saturday.
burnspbesq
@Uncle Clarence Thomas:
“I don’t understand how they forced President Obama to stop Warren from heading the CFPB so easily.”
Maybe she didn’t want to be head of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.
Corner Stone
@Nick:
You make $400 a week? And you cover politics, finance, GLBT and some other category for some mythical newspaper?
Triassic Sands
@eric:
I don’t think Obama’s relative liberal-/conservativeness has anything to do with the makeup of the Senate. They don’t vote for him. I think his positioning is determined by his own core beliefs and the voters.
I doubt your strategy for shifting the Senate to the left will work. In most cases the Blue Dogs are from states (or districts in the case of representatives) that are unlikely to support truly liberal candidates. It is the same with the Right — O’Donnell, Angle, etc. are all less moderate than the people they beat, but also generally have less chance of being elected in November.
Thus, the way to get a more liberal Obama and Senate is to have a more liberal voting population, and I don’t foresee that in the near future.
Nick
@Corner Stone:
you’re so clueless about the world, you don’t know that local reporters/editors at community newspaper make peanuts? What did you think we made?
Nick
@burnspbesq:
you know who does? Viewers like you!
Corner Stone
@Nick: You have uninterrupted access to Wall St Titans and you work for a community paper and make $20K a year? And you live in NYC?
I mean, I don’t believe anything you say…about anything, but I would like to keep some of your lies at least in the “this planet” range.
Mark
@Nick:
Firebag? Nice name-calling. Come up with an argument next time.
Don’t pretend to know my circumstances. My mom had to move in with me. Lucky for her, she still gets $389 a week between unemployment and a shitty pension she was able to tap five years early. On February 1, the unemployment is done. She’s gone on 50 fucking interviews since she lost her job. She’s certainly never going to find a job with benefits ever again, and it seems pretty unlikely that she’ll have a real full-time gig ever again. And there are millions like her. That’s real fucking misery all around the country.
But of course politics are kindergarten, and Obama’s doing his best, so we shouldn’t be critical of his approach. We shouldn’t care that he was having David Brooks over for dinner all the time or that he hired Wall Street to fix Wall Street, and we shouldn’t draw any conclusions about the impact his corporate friends had on outcomes.
Chris
@beltane: That’s true – strikingly so – in such a way that it makes me think that Dodd’s not a loose cannon at all, but merely doing what the administration and Wall Street want done, and taking the PR hit for them.
Mark
@Anya: Obama may not run a totalitarian regime, but that doesn’t excuse his failures. He is, quite obviously, a conservative person, and in his need to see himself as “post-partisan”, he set the stimulus and HCR price tags too low.
The President of the United Fucking States of America (see post on what white people like) is the most powerful person in the entire world. And I think he has done an above-average job. But we shouldn’t excuse his failures. If he can’t outsmart Susan Fucking Collins, then we should recognize that.
Nick
@Mark:
I did and when you off name dropping Larry Summers who has nothing to do with healthcare reform.
Nick
@Corner Stone:
Jesus Christ dude, do you ever like leave the house? What the hell made you think print journalism is a high paying business?
I actually made more when I worked in TV, but I took a pay cut because I couldn’t find a job after I got laid off, but not by much…I didn’t make much more.
DFT33
@Corner Stone: uh dude, I hate to tell you this, but the average news reporter salary is around $30k a year. A reporter at a community newspaper in that relies on ad revenue (I’m assuming it’s a free paper), $20k sounds a bit low, but not by much.
Fairplay
@Corner Stone: I don’t normally agree with what Nick says around here, but I’m pretty sure he’s telling the truth about what he gets paid…community newspapers don’t pay much and often rely on freelancers and journalism students to fill its pages, because they rely on ad sales to pay the bills. In this economy, $20k is not surprising.
I think you need to lay off of him, you’ve been a real dick.
Corner Stone
@Nick: I just laugh at how many times you have said something like, “Tonight in the newsroom the lead was playing this way…”
And other garbage you have tried to use as argument by authority because you had some “inside” knowledge of how the media spins things.
So really it’s you and some old coot in a sublet sublease of a partitioned 600 sqft ass end of a warehouse. Maybe.
General Stuck
@Mark:
Really? I did not know that. Sissy meat is like Chinese, you eat a bunch and are hungry again in no time. No wonder Obama is so skinny.
Nick
@Corner Stone:
and yet I’m often right, so laugh douche, I don’t give a fuck what a worthless person like you thinks, no one here listens to you anyway.
Nick
@Mark:
No, not really. Sorry this is bullshit, the most powerful person in the world is the one who has the most money and employs the most people.
How do you “outsmart” Susan Fucking Collins? I mean, I understand you’re upset about your mother, but what did you expect? A larger stimulus to give her a job? She probably wouldn’t still have a job because, quite frankly, she’s too old and that’s a whole other issue altogether.
mclaren
@eric:
Yup. Uncle Sam’s fever has broken. Feeling much better now. Time for a good hearty meal now that the face-hugger has fallen off…
OMIGODWHAT’S THIS THING BURSTING OUTA MY STOMACH??!?!?!
Corner Stone
@Nick: “Before I left tonight I told Old Tommy the Janitor, ‘Tommy, things are gonna be tough for Democrats! I just don’t see how they can turn this around!’ Of course, Old Tommy looked at me and spit his chaw of tobaccy onto the floor as he usually did when I spoke to him. But this time I felt he understood me, and knew I was finally onto a real story at last!”
General Stuck
We warned you about dropping the brown acid Mclaren.
lol
@Mark:
I guess someone could link you to the interview with Obey where he talks about the administration trying to get $1.4 trillion for stimulus initially and how it got whittled down bit by bit by legislative realities, but that’ll probably just lead to more whining about how he should’ve shown leadership, made more speeches and pounded the table as if that would make Lieberman, Nelson et al into something other than raging douchebags.
Corner Stone
@lol: That’s not what that Obey interview describes.
Try again.
mvr
@Nick: Yeah. I think the disappointed reaction under-estimates Warren’s abilities as a populist politician. This way she can go on the Daily Show and say what she thinks in short sentences that are easy to understand. And Jon Stewart can point out that she made sense in case we didn’t already notice. And it won’t stop her from acting in an official capacity in the meantime. Then Obama can nominate her and dare the Rs to hold up the confirmation process.
This move could be part of a really effective response to a badly broken Senate, rather than the failure it seems given the way some of us are looking at it.
FlipYrWhig
@Mark:
I know this is like an article of faith with some people, but this “folded as the opening gambit” thing is really tired, mostly because — and I’ll probably be trying to point this out to the severed head in the jar next to mine, Futurama-style — it suggests that there’s a way to have tried harder or fought harder _that would have worked_. To me the evidence indicates that _no matter what strategy he undertook_, he was almost certain to get no more than he did.
Furthermore, and more importantly, if you want to argue that he should have fought harder, you also IMHO have to contemplate what the political scene would look like now had he fought harder _and lost_. You think people on the would-be left are demoralized now? Think of how demoralized they would be after a leave-nothing-behind push for HCR that fell short because the Lieberman/Nelson/Lincoln/Landrieu group _didn’t_ get what they wanted. Left critics of Obama claim that they would have appreciated a harder fight. I find that extremely hard to believe. And the huge proportion of Democrats who are _not_ left critics of Obama would be _even more upset_ because the signature effort failed, again, setting us up for 6 years of school uniforms, warning labels on video games, and a federal spending freeze.
Half a loaf sucks. Starving sucks worse. Starving because you demanded a full loaf, didn’t get it, and refused the half loaf because you read it was poisoned by Tim Geithner, that’s also pretty sucky.
Ailuridae
Its always nice to be that the “true progressive” FDL crowd around here are, without fail, classist ass holes.
jmy
It’s not even worth arguing over anymore. The individuals who claim to be the liberal base are never going to be satisfied w/ anything this president does, plain & simple. After Nov. ’08, many came away w/ the attitude of “we have our president, so now we can do what we’ve always wanted.” They failed to understand that to do the things that they wanted is a lot easier said than done & that their would be many obstacles to the changes that they seek. That despite this new president and his bright ideas and the excitement he gave politics, he still had to govern and still had to rely on Congress to legislate. Instead of going for the big pass down-field, he’s going for the first down. I believe Obama understood, more than his liberal counter-parts in the media/blogosphere, that this wasn’t going to be easy, and things weren’t going to happen fast; we were going to have ups & downs; that despite the Democratic advantage, he couldn’t rely on certain Dems to vouch for certain legislation, and would have to get some Repubs on board; that he would have to compromise all in the hopes of getting one step closer to what we all want.
So now what do we have? Instead of liberals going out there, getting excited for the mid-terms, and vouch for candidates & getting others involved, everyday we have one big pity-party about something that Obama did that they didn’t like. It’s getting pretty pathetic
Uncle Clarence Thomas
@Ailuridae:
> Its always nice to be that the “true progressive”
> FDL crowd around here are, without fail, classist
> ass holes.
Hey, that looks like a great argument. Let me give it a whirl (correcting spelling and grammar along the way):
“It’s always nice to see that the “true balloonbagger” BJ crowd around here are, without fail, classist assholes.”
Wow, that really works! Overtime! ! Thanks a LOT! ! !
The Raven
Yeah! Let’s treat her as well as Christine Romer! That’s the ticket!
Croak!
Ailuridae
@Uncle Clarence Thomas:
Except, you know, in this very thread we have an FDLer mocking someone for not making enough money. Much like Jane when she looks at 40B a year going into Medicaid in PPACA she doesn’t think thats progressive. Thinking that expanding medical access for the poor isn’t progressive is pretty plainly classist (and classless) to me. YMMV though
The Raven
Thank you Larry “math is hard for girls” Summers. I don’t think she’ll take it lying down, though, which promises to keep us corvids very happy indeed.
Croak!
Glenndacious Greenwaldian (formerly tim)
@Mark:
Mark, you make to much sense to make any head way with the BJ regulars. Just so you know…
Mnemosyne
I can’t imagine why Obama would put off trying to get a Senate confirmation for Warren and instead have her work on setting up the agency when her biggest opponent, Dodd, is leaving the Senate forever come January.
It must be because he wanted to poke the firebaggers in the eye. No other possible explanation, right?
Uncle Clarence Thomas
@Ailuridae:
> Except, you know, in this very thread we have an
> FDLer mocking someone for not making enough
> money.
Except, you know, you’re deliberately leaving out the context of the balloonbagger’s bragging about how much money he supposedly made. So I guess your “class” is “misrepresenting hater.” Not good.
> Much like Jane when
Again, you know, tenth-wit, you deliberately left out the context, hoping to capitalize on the lack of balloonbagger “class,” honesty, and work ethic. Again, not good.
“Class” adjourned. I judge you wanting, and not good, and therefore you fail. You may now pound the pavement, or pound your pud, I care not which.
mnpundit
Hey, when Josh Marshall and Matt Yglesias are both ripping on you for this then you know you’ve got a good compromise: everyone’s unhappy.
Ha.
Ha.
Ha.
Ailuridae
@Uncle Clarence Thomas:
Except Nick never made a post claiming he made a lot of money, dumbass. Like a lot of the FDL limo liberal his antagonist has no idea how people actually live so he assumed that because Nick was a reporter he was well off. And then mocked him when he revealed he wasn’t.
You’re a dim bulb. There is no context in which expanding Medicaid to the working poor is not progressive. It may be bad politics but asserting it isn’t progressive policy (as Jane and her employees routinely do) is to misunderstand what progressivism is. And it can only really be a conclusion one reaches from an immense amount of class privilege. The same kind of person that would think its A-OK to talk about how Obama is worse than Bush while shitting on somebody makeing less than 20K a year.
So, yeah. Go fuck yourself.
Quiddity
With Elizabeth Warren away from the real levers of power, I suspect her tenure will be similar to that of Volker’s. He is in an advisory role as well, and not having much impact.
Texas Dem
Exactly. She will be the temporary head of the agency while Obama “searches” for a permanent head, which I suspect will take quite some time. Meanwhile, she can set it up and defend it in the media; and as we all know by now, the woman is more than capable of defending herself.
The unbelievable selfishness and stupidity of progressives never ceases to amaze me. Part of me can’t wait for next year, when lefties will be running for their lives from an angry and vengeful GOP congress. Half a loaf is always better than nothing, and I don’t know why it’s so difficult for progressives to understand that. Did you guys really believe Obama was some sort of messiah, and that he could walk on water and solve all of the nation’s problems in only two years? Are you guys really that stupid???
Rick Taylor
Atrios seems cautiously happy about the decision.
FlipYrWhig
@Quiddity: I don’t think this is the same kind of case, because part of her role is apparently going to be to _build_ a new “lever of power.”
The Raven
David Dayen over at FDL offers a measured, “wait and see” response:
…Hope?