Ken Layne at Wonkette explains why “Everybody Doesn’t Love Obama Now“:
Bob Woodward’s new book, This Obama Guy Did 9/11, will be that thing everybody in Washington buys on Monday even though they read all the sad dirt today in the newspapers. Obama’s own supporters just bitched at him for 10 hours on Monday during a tragic town hall. The economy is probably going to be bad forever. This is why Barack Obama looks sad.
From those excepts, I can’t say whether Woodward is trying to encourage those old DFH rumors about his longterm CIA career, but I’m pretty sure we now know who’s responsible for Jeff Redfern’s “Red Rascal” fantasies…
***********
I couldn’t find a sufficiently raucous version of When the Ship Comes In, so y’all get some pleasant instead.
NobodySpecial
I have a good version of When The Ship Comes In!
The Clancy Brothers
Odie Hugh Manatee
Glad I’m not everybody. Like really glad.
Nick
BTW that poll is out
Nick
Also for those who argued using the “bully pulpit” to get the public behind a policy is what Obama should do, after 2+ weeks of using the “bully pulpit on tax cuts;”
http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2010/09/22/most-americans-want-all-bush-tax-cuts-extended/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+wsj%2Fwashwire%2Ffeed+%28WSJ.com%3A+Washington+Wire%29
Benjamin Cisco
Well, I hate to be the one to stomp all over the country haz a sad meme (actually, not so much), but a conservative acquaintance of mine tells me that he thinks that a GOP Congress would prove to be a slam dunk to a second term for the President. Further, he knows that Grandpa Walnuts and the Grifter Queen would have made things worse, and he doesn’t see anyone on the horizon on the GOP side worth being bothered with.
__
So you see, it’s not everybody! Yay!
SiubhanDuinne
Have you seen the brand new, Very Serious photo of Friedman over at the NY Times? (New picture of Roger Cohen, too, and they’ve given MoDo a dark background although I think the image is the same one they’ve used for years. Must have something to do with the 40th anniversary of the Times’ Op-Ed page, I’m guessing.)
blackwaterdog
Take the family and go back to Chicago. This country clearly deserves Bush.
Nick
BTW liberals, chew on this;
Legendary Washington Post reporter Bob Woodward’s new book “Obama’s Wars” hasn’t hit stores yet, but the New York Times’ Peter Baker got a copy and has published some choice excerpts. Some highlights, per Baker:
Yes, he’s thinking of you…for some reason
woody
Fyeieio: I’ve done a bit of the old foto-shop for the cause (well, it was my idea; a pal did the actual tech stuff):
My Anti-GOP Campaign Poster
Allison W.
@Nick:
Well that certainly won’t help his image. We need a warrior, we need someone who thinks with his gut. Grrrrr!
Allison W.
Obama’s Wars? – hmmm, kinda early, no? How long did writers wait before writing ‘bush’s wars’?
Allison W.
@woody:
that’s pretty good.
Nick
@Allison W.:
I know this is snark, but this is precisely how the media some of you would like to belief can be ignore, is covering it this morning.
This
becomes this
and this
stuckinred
Busted, down on Bourbon Street,
Set up, like a bowlin’ pin.
Knocked down, it get’s to wearin’ thin.
They just won’t let you be
Nick
@Allison W.:
Oh please, the media decided they were Obama’s wars and this was Obama’s economy the moment they called Ohio.
Nick
Another media fail. John Dickerson of CBS this morning talking about Christine O’Donnell. In response to her saying she won’t do anymore news interviews, he said “which is understandable since they would want to trap her and trigger a meltdown. She needs to focus on Delaware”
Imagine would the response would be if a Democrat declined news interviews.
jwb
@Nick: “just six points in likely voters.” I didn’t click through to see whether this was a head-to-head poll or if they included the other candidates as well. We’ll see, of course, but this is more confirmation in my mind that the polling is off this year.
valdivia
@ Nick
did the new poll include Lazio or did they too just ignore him?
Allison W.
@Nick:
Even Alvin Greene did more interviews
ChrisS
Well, let’s see 30 years of GOP making disastrous economic policies in conjunction with many democrats resulted in a weak economy dependent on the laughable trickledown theory & globalization/free trade. All of that has managed to gut the middle class, enrich the wealthiest 1%, and cut services/increase costs to the people who need them the most and can afford them the least. In response to this crisis, Obama mouths the same corporatist schtick while not doing anything to fix the situation. Talking about building solar panels in Des moines doesn’t do shit about 10% unemployment and falling wages while the GOP counters with tax cuts and decreased government spending, which doesn’t fix anything either but people can relate to it.
This the new economy, the old one ain’t coming back no matter how much Obama says it will if we just keep voting for democrats to do whatever it is that they do.
Nick
@valdivia:
they ignored him, but Lazio isn’t really campaigning and is trying to get off the ballot, I hear.
valdivia
@Nick:
thanks good info to have. still the poll does not put Palladino ahead which if it did just does not seem believable. I would want to see the same poll in two weeks to start freaking out.
Nick
@ChrisS:
this doesn’t even make sense. How can you say Obama mouths the same corporatist schtick in the first sentence, then completely contradict it in the next?
NobodySpecial
Nick sounds more like BoB every day.
So, do you actually get paid to come over here and spread the We’re Surrounded meme, or do you do it for free?
Ash Can
@Nick: As patently ridiculous as Dickerson’s remarks are, they made me stop and think. What exactly does “focusing on Delaware” mean? I recall someone here saying not too long ago that Delaware is a small state, and that personal politicking and contact with the voters was unavoidable. This rings a bell with me, now that I think of it; I recall visiting in-laws in Dover some years back and marveling at the fact that some state building or other (I think it was the governor’s mansion) was small enough to actually have a mailbox on its front gate. We were at some festival on the green by the governor’s residence, and the in-laws pointed out to us the gov and his wife, who were just hanging out with everyone, eating hot dogs and shooting the breeze. If taking questions from the media would “trigger a meltdown,” I can only imagine how little actual Delaware-style campaigning it would take to melt poor Christine down for real. (This is, of course, assuming she does enough of the campaigning it would take to get within 20 percentage points of Coons, which is by no means a given.)
beltane
@Nick: Christine O’Donnell is a never-employed, semi-homeless person who appears to suffer from severe ethical lapses and possible psychological issues. The only difference between her and media joke Alvin Greene is that O’Donnell is a Republican, which tells me the media is actively fomenting a Republican coup.
If progressives were serious about improving the country, they would stop bitching about Obama and declare war on the media instead. Sorry to say, the left in any country is only as effective as its ability to inspire fear in the rich and the powerful.
Nick
@NobodySpecial:
How much breathable air do you actually have in that bubble?
NobodySpecial
@Nick: Enough to know that publishing a poll with no crosstabs is fucking worthless.
TooManyJens
@Nick:
Oh, bullshit. Name three people who believe this.
El Tiburon
My disappointment on Obama has very little to do with the economy.
He came to power in a time when this country demanded a break from Republican/conservative/neocon policies. And he squandered this opportunity for a fool’s errand of bi-partisanship and doubling down on so many disastrous Bush policies.
Add in the entire Geithner-Sumers financial team cluster fuck and so on.
Sure, we got a bunch of progressive-te policies that ANY democratic president would have gotten. But Obama was supposed to be The Man. Instead he is just some dude.
Nick
@NobodySpecial:
Oh Jesus Christ, the crosstabs weren’t out yet when I posted it. I heard about it at midnight last night. It broke at 6:30
here douchebag
http://www.quinnipiac.edu/x1284.xml?ReleaseID=1504&What=&strArea=;&strTime=0
Nick
@El Tiburon:
See this is why people mock us for thinking he’s “the one,” Obama wasn’t supposed to be “the man,” anyone who thought so was delusional. He wasn’t supposed to be anything but a common Democratic President, which, as you say, he’s been. You’re an idiot if you’re disappointed because he hasn’t lived up to your unreachable expectations.
“The Man?” I mean seriously, c’mon.
NobodySpecial
@Nick: I’m talking about your post at #4. Not the one where the Democratic incumbent is still ahead and above the MOE. The one where TAX CUTS make all the difference despite the fact that it claims 4% think tax cuts are the number one thing to worry about right now.
Nick
@NobodySpecial: Oh you mean the one where I never said TAX CUTS make the difference, only that Obama’s “bully pulpit” barnstorming isn’t working like people like you think it does?
Ok here douchebag
http://www.cnbc.com/id/39268766/
Allison W.
@El Tiburon:
Oh so now ANY Democrat could have gotten those policies? – except they didn’t, he did.
Reminds me of the garbage I started hearing a few months after he won the presidency – ‘oh ANY Democrat could have won’
Nick
@TooManyJens:
Well for starters, the dude who posted about you who keeps mocking me about it and his two friends Fuckhead and Corner Stone.
NobodySpecial
@Nick: Those aren’t crosstabs in any way, shape, or form. It’s worthless for use in comparison to how Obama using the ‘bully pulpit’ has changed attitudes. It’s also worthless for anything other than a bird cage liner if you print it with no discussion of who they surveyed, where, and how they broke down.
But you print it as gospel, because you hate ‘lefties’ so much you want them to ‘suck on this’.
Look, just show us your Bircher ID and get it over with already.
Kristine
@Nick: I really want to know what happened over the last few days, because I swear on Monday all the polls showed that letting the +250K tax cut expire was a winner for Dems.
I’m starting to believe all polls are crap no matter who commissions them. They’re noise. The overall trend *may* indicate something, but no one is sure what, so they twist numbers to make them conform to the narrative of the day. The narrative of the news cycle.
Nick
@Kristine:
It could be because they asked the question differently, but that’s not the point. The media does these polls for a reason, which ties into the second half of what you said, to figure out how to best frame the narrative to help Republicans and conservatives. However the questions is asked to get the best results for Reps is how the media will frame the narrative.
But, as Nobody said, it’s an issue only 4% care about, so it’s difficult to really gain momentum on it if you don’t have the media’s backing.
NobodySpecial
@Kristine: It’s CNBC, home of the ‘spark’ of the Tea Party, Rick Santelli. They do a pretty good job of bashing Obama daily with the right wing talking points. Them putting out this poll without crosstabs means it’s a crap poll all right, but it serves CNBC’s, the GOP’s, and Nick’s interests, so up it goes with a Star of Truthiness.
Nick
@NobodySpecial:
Yes it does serve my interests, that being to prove to you THE FUCKING MEDIA IS THE ENEMY and there’s nothing the President can do about it, which you enjoy denying.
I mean seriously, you’re so fucking desperate to not have to accept the media is our enemy that you’re trying to frame me as some right wing troll.
Nick
Shorter NobodySpecial;
[puts fingers in ears] LA LA LA I can’t hear you LA LA LA! Obama sucks
NobodySpecial
@Nick: Well, no, I accept that the media is the enemy of Democrats AND that you’re a right wing troll.
And yeah – you’re the one here claiming that Obama is a fool for using the bully pulpit and he’s no good at it (obviously, in your post, because he’s not moving people at all), and yet I’M the one who’s chanting ‘Obama sucks’.
Have you earned your McCain golf balls yet?
Nick
@NobodySpecial:
Bullshit douchebag, you’ve been mocking me when I keep trying to tell you to aim your fire at the media for months. You mocked me in this very thread, saying I was saying “We’re surrounded” and now you’re saying you agree with that.
no, I think he’s really good at it, the country is full of idiots, something you don’t seem to understand.
NobodySpecial
@Nick:
I’ve been mocking you for months because you’re a leading member of the Nothing Can Be Done Committee. Dems can’t message; the media hates them anyways, so don’t try. Dems can’t enforce any kind of party discipline, so don’t try pushing Democratic legislation, because they’ll just fail. Especially if it’s progressive legislation, because it’s doomed from the start and this country is too center-right to allow the tiny tiny minority of progessives to get anything done, even with a Democratic supermajority. So just shut up and let Ben Nelson run the country, because you don’t count.
That’s been your shtick for forever around here. For hating on both Clintons like you do, you sure like to use their Third Way tactics and surrender a lot.
FlipYrWhig
@Kristine:
It’s all in the language. Consider health care reform. People were overwhelmingly for it. Then Republicans went to work finding things to pick at, and their media people ripped it up one side and down the other. Death panels will kill your precious snowflake baby! It cuts services for seniors! Suddenly, support isn’t looking so hot.
If you poll something like, “Do you think rich people should pay more in taxes?” you’ll get a lot of Yeses to that. If you poll something like, “Do you think anyone should pay more taxes during a recession and after a wave of crushing debt and frivolous spending?” or “Would you favor a tax hike of billions of dollars per year?” you’ll get a lot of No’s. The policy itself isn’t a winner unless it’s talked about the right way. I actually think Obama does a good job talking about it. But way too many other Democrats get all tied up in knots. No policy is a winner without packaging. Republicans are adept at repackaging good policy as an outrage to right-thinking plain-spoken folks. We need to beat them and throw them on the defensive, rather than letting early poll results do all the reasoning we’ll ever need.
Nick
@NobodySpecial:
hating on both Clintons? Did you take your medication today?
DJEr
@NobodySpecial:
Well honestly…he’s right. The last year and a half prove it. I have to agree with Nick, I don’t think there’s anything that can be done, and that may be why there’s such an enthusiasm gap.
Nick
@NobodySpecial:
No, you mocked me when I suggested we take on the media. I never said “nothing can be done,” I can “we need to take on the media,” which you mocked me for just a few days ago.
Xenos
Damn. Such precious expectations. I just wanted Obama to get elected, and never expected him to get 90% of his agenda done. Sure, a lot of it is weak tea, but for a time Obama, and the Democrats, put a stop to the downward spiral of the country. Yeah, it would be great if he took on the banks and the military-industrial complex, but he did not run as a revolutionary, and probably would have been taken out in some sort of coup if he had tried to pull it off.
Now maybe the US really does want to go down the toilet. Whatever the media and the marketing geniuses do to perform their magic, if people are dumb enough to by the political equivalent of a Ronco Cheese Straightener, this is not Obama’s fault.
The current situation would be far worse with anyone other than Obama. I am just happy he is willing to run for a second term.
eemom
More Red Rascal strips:
http://www.gocomics.com/doonesbury/2010/04/06/
I love that story line. Trudeau is a genius, as always.
eemom
@Xenos:
Srsly. If I wuz him, I’d call a press conference and perform a cover of “Take This Job And Shove It.”
ChrisS
Because it’s the same thing. The wealthy elite know they’re cutting labor in the neck. Obama is telling labor (and the middle class) not to worry because he’s got a band-aid which is cutting their taxes and government spending, and a green revolution us going to come and make everything all better by putting Americans back to work. Except China is going to manufacture all those solar panels.
Meanwhile the status quo chugs along and the middle class continues to disappear.
Kryptik
@DJEr:
Same here. Nick’s tone is growing a lot rougher and much more belligerent, but the point is valid all the same: unless we can take on the media and right course through there, we are eternally fucked.
Instead, our leaders want to cower in the face of the all-powerful, omnipotent narrative.
Corner Stone
@Kryptik: Nick’s been using a lot of sockpuppets lately. People who have never commented before and never comment again after. But they mysteriously explicitly agree with Nick that one time they comment.
Not to say you are one, but IMO DJEr is. The Google has no record of a comment to BJ from that handle.
Kryptik
@Corner Stone:
Bleh. If that’s the case, then my respect for him is quickly plummeting. That said…I still find it hard to argue against the Media-blame angle, and it continues to be one that Democrats seem to refuse to fight, at their own peril.
Maybe I just need to go away. The whole political situation here is making me chronically depressed by how hopeless it looks if you’re not out and out Teabagger.
Comrade Darkness
On an wholly different topic. Does anyone have any idea why the leadership of the commonwealth games let things get this bad this late in Delhi? They should have given them real deadlines a year ago and moved the venue 10 months ago to a recent host. This is crazy.
Corner Stone
@Kryptik: He sockpuppeted me the other day in a different thread, IMO.
And DJEr may indeed be a lurker or new commenter and just decided this was the time.
But I find the repeated coincidences a little telling.
And while I agree the media is driving damaging narratives, I disagree that there is somehow a way to “focus our fire” on some amorphous group of unelected and ultimately unaccountable pundits et al.
IMO it’s a distraction and misleading.
AxelFoley
@blackwaterdog:
This. So very much this.
Tom Hilton
There was this bit of helpful perspective in the first comment at Wonkette:
Okay…no question the President is getting a raw deal, too much blame and not enough credit from every side, but that has to make up for it.