You know, that Maddow piece really answered one question for me:  I’m sitting on the other side of the pond thinking: “what the hell is a debt ceiling?  Why would you have such a thing?”  The answer:  it was a historic thing that turned out not to be necessary that is now seriously fucking with the US economy, and thus the rest of the world. 

Thanks Republicans, for being so moronic as to be willing to risk a SECOND global economic meltdown!  The rest of the world thanks you (by which I mean, would be very thankful if you’d all fuck off and die).

Still angry about being rejected by America in favor of The Kenyan Usurper, the Republican Party waits in the bushes outside America’s apartment, equipped with a knife and gloves, just in case.  The Republican Party is determined to find out just what progressive ideas that slutty America is flirting with.  If the Republican Party can’t have America all to itself, no one can have her!

After a while, the Democratic Party innocently comes by to bring America the glasses it left at the restaurant that evening.  This enrages the Republican Party to the point that it slashes America and the Democratic Party to death.  Afterward, the Republican Party feels no guilt or responsibility for the death of America — the bitch dumped the Republican Party and so she got what she deserved.

Despite leaving behind decades of the most damning evidence imaginable, Karl Rove, Rupert Murdoch and the Koch brothers launch an incredible defense of the indefensible, and get the Republican Party off on technicalities.  The rest of the world knows the Republican Party did it, but there’s nothing they can do about it except shun it.

Meanwhile, America lies moldering in the grave dug by her “deepest admirer”...

Yeah yeah, Republicans are crazy.  In the meantime, a Democratic President has just proposed raising Medicare eligibility to 67, slashing Medicaid, and cutting SS in such a way that the longer you live, the less you will get every year, which will disproportionately hurt elderly women so you can eve call it a feminist issue.

When a Democrat proposes further destroying our already fragile safety net, sentencing millions of seniors to miserable and pain-filled old ages, and probable early deaths, I really get tired of hearing how bad the Republicans are.

Time to admit we all fucked up.  Obama is a disaster of the highest order.

I can’t believe what a @#^%$% BHO is either. He should’ve started with “Just raise the debt ceiling” but now I find out one of the gang of six plans means in 20 years, my social security benefit will probably have a real reduction of 25% since we’re going to pretend that inflation will never happen.

And remember, we already don’t include those luxuries like fuel and food in the inflation index already.

Shoulda voted for Hillary. If Obama were twice as tough as he is now, he’d be half as tough as Hillary. And Pelosi is twice as tough and effective as Hillary. Remember, she passed all the House bills, it was the “Democratic” Senate that stalled everything.

Where was the public opinion campaign? Why didn’t we see BHO flying around the nation on the “hostage America” tour where he would show the rethugs with a gun to the head of Uncle Sam?

BHO has some good qualities - like he’s clearly not a megalomaniac. But he’s just not a fighter.

Daisy:

Surely Dubya was a disaster of the highest order, if we’re going to start comparing.

Not saying I’m thrilled with Obama; I just want to make sure Bush receives the credit for getting us to the point where such things can be considered seriously.

More evidence that is past time to start treating Republican pundits and politicians as if they genuinely want to destroy America.

It seems like the leaders in the democratic party have bitten into the free market apple and are turning into conservatives that don’t hate women quite as much, unfortunately the alternative is bat shit crazy, can you say “president Bachma”?

@ #5.  Yeah Bush got us into a position where we elected a Democratic president who had the largest mandate of my lifetime to effect change.  And his change looks a lot like the shock doctrine. 

When bush tried to steal my SS the entire Democratic establishment, including the netroots, rose up and said no fucking way.  Who’s gonna tell Obama no fucking way?

All of the Democrats and liberals who are writing about how crazy Republicans are?

That’ll taste real good when you are 65, have no money for food, are sick, can’t get insurance, and are two years from Medicare.

The other issue with social security and Medicare is a lot of older white voters don’t seem to care that it is going away for the next generation because so much of the next generation is brown skinned and we all know they don’t deserve it.

“Surely Dubya was a disaster of the highest order, if we’re going to start comparing.

Not saying I’m thrilled with Obama; I just want to make sure Bush receives the credit for getting us to the point where such things can be considered seriously.”

Yeah, let’s not compare Obama unfavorably to Bush Jr., who, if not the worst president of all time, is no doubt among the bottom 5.

We needed (and still need) another Franklin Roosevelt, someone who had balls big enough to do the ugly job we were/are faced with in the aftermath of the Bush/Cheney crime spree.  Obama is not that man.

However, let’s not make it out to be worse than it is.  We didn’t have an election in 2008 that featured Franklin Roosevelt vs. McCain/Palin.  Even if Hillary had been elected instead of Obama, it’s far from clear that she would have been anything like as progressive as the nation needs.

I’m at my lowest point with this nation in my life, but I can’t, and won’t, lay all the blame for that at Obama’s feet…

John, I understand. However, solely, the keyword being solely, focusing on “republicans are batshit!! run for you lives!!” and not on Obama’s shock doctrine policies, well, how does that help us???

It gives Obama a free pass, and baby he is using it.  He’s using it to fuck me, to fuck you, and to fuck everyone.  He’s stealing our SS money and giving it to his criminal friends on wall street (to paraphrase george carlin).  He’s decimating the new deal and great society. 

If there’s not an uprising against HIM, and against his grand bargain, then he’s going to get away with it.  Bachman would be worse doesn’t cut it. 

let’s admit we made a horrible mistake here, and take back our damned money.  That’s our damned money!

Never forget that many of them WANT the world to end because they believe that they will be Raptured up and spend eternity with their magical sky-friend Jesus.

I don’t think it’s even that well thought out in many cases. Conservatism develops in the manner of religious dogma, but the accretion of tribal totems which must be repeated on pain of excommunication. That’s how tax increases became anathema, that’s how global warming denialism became entrenched. By now they’re so far gone that they can’t talk about anything without doing it. As soon as the debt ceiling became an issue all the tea partiers immediately turned whatever was the opposite of Obama’s position into a tribal totem, and that’s it. Consequences didn’t matter. They still don’t. They really think that if they assert default won’t hurt with enough authoritativeness, then it won’t; that’s because they’re not used to dealing with real things, they’re used to dealing with religion, where the only reality capable of pushing back if you get it wrong is community ostracism. They can’t tell the difference between being right and believing really hard in the same direction as their fellow sheep.

All the stuff about objective truth and the evident disdain you hear when one of them pronounces the words “true for you” (which how they think everyone who isn’t them thinks of their beliefs) is just overreaction to avoid admitting something they’d rather not. “True for them” is all they’ve got, they just think enough mental strain on their part will shift reality their way.

Mike, he’s the fucking President.  It’s his proposal.  Who would you like to blame???

man, if you are not going to hold him accountable then it’s over.

And I really give up on Obama people.  I really do.  Some of it is, and this is just my opinion - some of this is held over from the primary.  So many were so passionate about Obama that they really demonized HIllary and her supporters.  I was an edwards supporter, and man that shit between Obama and Hillary supporters was really ugly.  TOo many of those early Obama supporters simply cannot face the fact that they made a mistake in their passionate support of the man.  They were wrong about him.

Hey, after Edwards dropped out I reluctantly supported Obama over Hillary because I thought he’d be less of a war hawk.  I was wrong.  It’s really easy for me to say, becuase my support was always reluctant not passionate. I was never emotionally invested in this man. 

I think we’re fucked because so many were.  That’s on him.  He knew what his rhetoric meant to so many.  He exploited it and he exploited you.  And - He’s Going To Do It Again.

Right after he finishes stealing my fucking money and giving it to his criminal banker friends.

I can’t be asked to give up social security, medicaid, and medicare.

I have a severe disability and am fighting cancer. I need these things to live, to pay for my medicine and treatments, so I won’t be turned away from hospitals because I’m might cost another half-mil or more.

What the president, nay all these fuckers want is a blood sacrifice they can send up to whatever their economic god is, not for anything so dire as real economic collapse where they’d be running ‘round the streets screaming about the end of the world, but to appease their god so that their engineered collapse doesn’t wind up costing them a few percent on their capital gains and other pointless shit when their bungling has and will cost more lives.

Everyday, all day, for the last two years tears have streamed out of my right eye because of my treatments. This morning I feel that those tears are appropriate. Be they of rage, fear, hatred, sadness, or of something unknown, they are appropriate.

“the belief appears to be that if they—-they being white Christian conservatives—-can’t have complete control of the U.S., then the U.S. as we know it doesn’t deserve to exist.”

100% correct.

I really wish the Democrats and the POTUS specifically would finally just call their bluff.  Any parents should know that you don’t negotiate with toddlers.  If you give them an inch, they will take a mile.  They’re like that kid who holds her breath, threatening to suffocate herself.  Or that kid who refuses to eat anything unless you give him ice cream for dinner.  Just don’t give in and they will eventually eat or breath and not kill themselves.

Mike Ess @#2:  I enjoy all of your “in character” posts, but this one rises to the level of poetry…

“Second, he’s claiming the President is deceitful, a casual liar who will bring the nation to a crisis situation with his casual inability to ever speak the truth.”

Except I think it’s worse than that. As far as I can tell, he actually believes that Obama is lying about there being any crisis in default. And if he believes there will be no crisis, what motivation does he have to give ground?

But I agree completely with you about the implied racism. The “party on August 3rd” conspiracy theory is just one more in a long line of not-so-subtle suggestions that Obama is using the White House inappropriately, but really what did you expect from someone *like him*. It’s deplorable.

Is this fool accusing Obama of setting this deadline (which he did not do) so he can take off work to celebrate his birthday? I thought they didn’t believe he was actually born, just spawned from the devil They don’t seem to think there is any valid proof of his birth so how can he have a birthday? Another example of right wing cognitive dissonance.

Also a good example of how desperate they’ve become to deflect blame for default from themselves. If they’re down to playing the “Hollywood” card, things must be getting rough for the hardliners.

Progressives just don’t know how to answer criticisms like Daisy’s, because most of them don’t actually give a damn about the screwjob so long as it’s going on under the aegis of a man with a (D) after his name. That (D) makes him one of the good guys, so if he’s screwing you, then either you’re just not understanding things right or it’s totally because of something you did wrong first. That’s why there’s no such thing, for example, as a tea partier with a legitimate grievance, not even down at the very bottom of the tea party heap—at best they’re all dupes, and at worst they’re all vicious.

And I say that having voted for the fucker. Last time I’ll make that mistake.

In the 1980’s the GOP proposed radically changing welfare—the democrats opposed it, and in 1992 we elected a “democrat” as president who—radically changed welfare.

In 2005-6, Shrub attempted to radically change Medicare/Social Security—the democrats opposed it, and in 2008, we elected a “democrat” as president who—

Fooled me once, shame on you.  Fooled me twice, shame on me.

Obama this, Obama that, Obama ...
Give me a list of Democratic members of the house, the senate, or any Democratic governors, who are standing up to Obama, and telling him: “The Republicans are engaging in terrorism. Do not reward them with this sort of proposal. The Republicans have demonstrated time and time again they negotiate in bad faith. Do not reward them.”
Does the list contain the majority of Democratic house and senate members? Does it contain a substantial minority? Does it contain anybody at all?
The malaise of accomadationism, that was the principal theme of both his books, that was the heart and soul of his campaign, that continues to be the idol to which his administration worships, is not only his idol. It’s the idol of almost all the Democratic party’s leading figures.
I can empathize with those who wish it was Hillary in the White house instead. Probably she’d have a little harder. But that wouldn’t be enough; What we need is the majority of Democratic politicians fighting as hard as they can. The Republicans are out to destroy this nation, and without that, they will succeed.

Many people who have siblings that are more obnoxious, more abusive, and more demanding of attention will note that their parents will be more accommodating of the toxic sibling than the more stable, productive siblings. And that’s really what’s happening here. Obama and the Congressional Democrats are making the conclusion that although the republicans are crazy and sociopathic, their lives will probably be made easier by organizing themselves around Republican demands. Heck, outside of Nancy Pelosi, I get the impression that Democrats feel that their lives aren’t worth the headaches dealing with republicans when they aren’t in control, so that the preferred solution is to deal with Republicans in the majority, because at least they are happier in control.

My preferred solution is to breed a newer enervation of conservatives more comfortable in a subservient position, but I am not sure that’s possible in the near term.

Its funny how they feel the same way about climate change. Ok not ha ha funny but they think it will never happen and the people who are insisting that it will are bullshitters trying to get one over on them. The problem with climate change is the effects are delayed. This could be more dramatic. In the short run anyway, I’m sure climate change will be more dramatic in the long run.

On the culture thing I think its more like “You’re not the boss of me, You’re not my real dad”. Its like they used to love government when it enforced the rules that they were used to and it was the big daddy who dcided things and protected them but when government changed permanently and they had to share with their sisters and the brown kids things got weird and oedipal. They hate the new daddy, he’s a shiftless layabout who wants to trick them so they want to be rebellious while everyone else looks on thinking “what the fuck its an institution please get your fucked up psycho drama under control”

A clean debt ceiling bill will be passed after all the shouting is over. Probably the McConnell plan.

Yeah, llewelly, I get it, the President has no power at all in our nation and he’s just a helpless figurehead, so there’s no point blaming him for anything because there’s nothing he can do about anything in the first place. The poor idealistic dear, he just didn’t know what he was getting into.

Fucking bullshit. Don’t y’all know that nobody comes up in Chicago politics without knowing how to fight, and fight dirty? We elected him to lead, and if he wanted to, that’s precisely what he would be doing—he’d be far from the first president to have leaned hard on congressmen of his own party in order to gain their support for what the country needs, and as with all those who’ve done it in the past, we’d all have happily given him a pass on it so long as it brought in results. If he were such a fool as not to know that, I can’t believe he’d have been able to get himself elected, so I have no patience whatsoever with all these excuses which purport to relieve him of blame for refusing to do what he said he would back when he was out begging votes.

Considering the progressive irritation with Obama, is there any sort of movement to put forth a viable option come 2012 or are all going to sit on our asses and complain on the internet for the next year or so? I just want to make sure I’ve got things planned out.

Fucking bullshit.

The original comment, or your false-dilemma strawman?

Yep, there’s the thinly veiled extortionist threat that always seems to show up at about this point in the conversation: you better vote for the slightly lesser evil, and if you’re childish enough not to, then everything you get you’ve got coming.

Don’t know about you, Matt T., but I’m not going to bother voting next year, because it isn’t going to change anything; we know what we’ll be getting on the D side, and I’m nowhere near fool enough to imagine the R side is a viable or conscionable alternative. So fuck ‘em, I’m just gonna do my best not to pay attention to any of the nonsense and maybe we’ll turn up with somebody in 2016 who I don’t puke all over my shoes at the thought of voting for.

Care to make an actual point, Cat-on-the-Keyboard Gilchrist, or do you just want to get yourself off in public over how smug you are?

And before anyone takes my imprecision of language for ignorance or carelessness: yes, I’ll be voting in local races, and probably on the state level as well. But y’all can do the presidential shit without me this time.

I’m living through the result of progressives staying home because they don’t like their options.  Russ Feingold voted out of my state, Walker elected governor, etc.  I fully understand the anger that results from being told to hold your nose and vote for the lesser of two evils.  But with this crop of Republicans, the greater evil is frankly demonstrably more evil.

My biggest frustration with this ridiculous spending cut charade is that everyone knows where the money is.  The money we’ve spent on Iraq and Afghanistan and the Bush tax cuts would pay for any shortfalls and there is no reason to be cutting Social Security.  Close the fucking tax loopholes already so companies like News Corp won’t get away with paying less than half of the taxes they should be paying.  Get rid of subsidies to the oil companies—are they making oil any cheaper?

The problem is the Republicans have successfully framed the debate as a spending problem and not a revenue problem.

Aaron,

So you’re saying “Sit on your hands and complain, and not try to build some sort of viable progressive third option”? Good to know. Man, Ralph Nader and Ross Perot have a lot to answer for.

I’ll vote next year. I think people should vote, have a duty to in fact, mainly because for so long so many people weren’t allowed to vote and, indeed, had the shit kicked out of them for even trying. I won’t let a little thing like the irrevocably broken American political system keep me from exercising that very precious and hard-won right. But, as you say, it really doesn’t change things - on the national level, no; the local level is a much different story - so I take a chapter from W.C. Fields and always vote against rather than for in presidential elections. Might as well since it doesn’t matter and no one really cares.

Blitzgal, I already said I’m not staying home entirely; there are some people in my state who are worthy of support. But on the national level, what good does it do to vote for the lesser evil, when we’ve spent the last three years seeing very clearly that all the lesser evil’s going to do when it gets power is pander to the greater evil every chance it gets?

The Afghan War would have paid for two more Space Shuttle progammes.  But I guess the economists are right when they say real priorities are shown by what you spend money on.

I’m living through the result of progressives staying home because they don’t like their options. 

It wasn’t because they didn’t like their options. I don’t think they disliked Feingold. It’s that after the election of Obama, the entire party campaign apparatus was dismantled and sent into hibernation while the republican campaign organization ramped up into high gear. Progressive partisans will always vote. People who stay home are on the more apathetic side, and when the party doesn’t care about them, they don’t care about the party.

The midterm disaster happened in part because the Republican party cared and the Democratic party didn’t.

If you want to move the Democratic to the left there are ways of doing that. Getting pissy at the President isn’t one of them.

I’ve spent the last couple of years defending Obama to both conservative and liberal friends.  I expect him to be the Democratic nominee and I expect to vote for him, but I don’t think I can defend him anymore.  He has been too quick to give in on too many progressive issues, sometimes giving concessions to the Republicans even before the debate has properly begun.  I never believed that he was an actual progressive, his credentials with the DLC have always been strong.  He has done little to defend the country’s less fortunate, dragged his feet on gay issues, and caved to pressure on almost every issue.  I wish that some actual progressive would run against him in the primary, but that would probably only further divide the vote.

Progressive issues need to be fought at the local level.  We need to elect actual progressives to the House and Senate, but we need to also concentrate on state and local offices.  We need to concentrate on electing people who will work for our principles in whatever congressional district we live in.  Incumbent Democrats have to be challenged in primaries.  Every local office needs to be disputed from school board to the governorship.  People need to be registered to vote.  In states where picture IDs are required, we need to make sure people get them.  We can’t just roll over and quit because the President lets us down or Congress is corrupt.

Matt T., if I had the slightest inkling that any progressive who matters to power were actually trying to build “some sort of viable progressive third option”, you better believe I’d be marching under those colors—in fact, you’d see me right there in the first rank, banging away at a drum. So far, the closest I’ve seen in my lifetime to anything like that has been Ralph Nader, and please excuse me for laughing until I throw up at the idea that a movement with him at its head will ever amount to anything but the Nader Appreciation Society.

You’re telling me that, because there have been whole groups of people in the United States who have been denied the franchise, I’m somehow morally in the wrong if I don’t exercise it myself, despite my pale pasty dick-having self not being a member of any of those oppressed groups. Forgive my incivility, but what the fuck kind of sense is that supposed to make?

Aaron, my comment was meant to be more of a blanket statement about a lot of things I’m seeing and hearing in progressive corners.  I’m reading the comments here as I listen to yesterday’s Stephanie Miller and hear a caller say, “I voted for him last time but I won’t make that mistake again?”  It worries me.  Many of Obama’s policies anger me—his foreign policy in particular is pretty much Bush 2.0.  But I’m not interested in going into all the excuses for why we’re still in Iraq and Afghanistan.

As someone above said, we do need another FDR.  We need another New Deal.  Income disparity in this country is at its highest level since 1929.  Public education is under assault and I can’t help but think this is because the plutarchs would prefer their working class to be too dumb to demand more for themselves.  You’ve got the Supreme Court making decisions that give more power to corporations and relax the Fourth Amendment.

No, I’m not naive enough to think that Obama can fix all of this.  I know all politicians are owned by corporate interests.  This country is descending into feudalism and it scares the shit out of me.  I feel powerless but at this point the one thing I do have is my vote.  It’s harder for them to steal elections when more people vote.

Thread-jacked at comment #3!  Impressively quick work.

To return to Amanda’s actual post, the culture war seems half of the puzzle of the Republican party. I remember back in the ‘80’s and ‘90’s people used to say that the Republican coalition of fiscal and social conservatives was unstable and would fracture. That hasn’t happened, and in retrospect it’s easy to see why. 

Social conservatives want a crippled federal government because of its historical role in enforcing rights for people that are not white males.  Fiscal conservatives want a crippled federal government because of its capacity for redistributive taxation and its (potential) power to regulate the activities of investors, bankers and executives. Different motivations, but same goal.

Perhaps the debt-ceiling fiasco will finally yield a bit of a fracture.  As Amanda says, social conservatives literally want the federal government to disappear, because they are crazy fools. Fiscal conservatives don’t want that, and they’re already pretty happy with the Bush tax cuts, the squelching of the climate-change debate, and the government’s blessing on the white-collar criminality that wrecked the world economy three years ago.  So maybe they’ll start to get uncomfortable with their allies.

Don’t stay home, just leave the Presidential ballot blank.

And Progressives didn’t stay home; we’re trained like Pavlov’s dogs to vote.  9% unemployment destroyed turnout among young people.  It will again in 2012.

I don’t understand why people like Daisy think anyone to the left of Ronald Reagan should be Dennis Kucinich.  I give up on ignorant people like her.  Totally.  Grow up, clown-troll.  Most of the country is firmly in the middle, if not, slightly to the right.  They LIKE the idea of raising the retirement age (everyone working in the private sector got that memo 20 years ago - we don’t like it, but it is reality, and a whole lot of people will work an extra couple of years if it means keeping their pension or whatever solvent).

There is no way America is going to turn away from spending money on flexing her military might to feed widows and orphans.  That is not how we roll.  But, we CAN step away from totally nuking every single social safety net - and make some painful adjustments to keep them solvent.  But if you think Paul Ryan’s medicare plan is Teh Awesomes because you are mad that Obama is not some black-shaft-liberal-morgan-freeman-god with liberal laser beams shooting out of his asshole, then cool.  Okay, so who is ridiculous again?

I’m sure the rightward tilt of Democrats has nothing to do with the political power of Republicans, so let’s continue acting like anyone who focuses on Republicans might as well be writing about fireflies.

Every progressive who stays home or leaves their ballot blank, I hope the bigwigs in the New Republic of Giliead pick you first to be a Handmaid.  Fuckers.  I am going to probably be picking cotton (because Michelle Bachmann read somewhere in the bible that that is what my natural duty is, as a dumb darkie, you know), but I will be happy knowing that the spoiled fucks who caused this shit will be more miserable.  Maybe getting forcefucked/impregnated by some guy while his wife reads bible verses about fertility and duty.

You’re telling me that, because there have been whole groups of people in the United States who have been denied the franchise, I’m somehow morally in the wrong if I don’t exercise it myself, despite my pale pasty dick-having self not being a member of any of those oppressed groups.

Oh, no. That’s just my argument to myself for why I keep voting dutifully every time the polls open when it’s obvious the Great American Experiment is pretty much a done deal, when less than half the voting-age population doesn’t bother to remember when election day is and the half that does remember seem to be more interested in having bragging rights over political opponents, and when the entire system has been rebuilt to ensure the rich get richer and everyone else can get fucked. It’s just that when I consider how many people would like to take away my right to vote and how easy it’d be due to generally apathy and historical precedent, hauling my ass down to the schoolhouse on St. Phillip Street is, absolutely, the very least I can do. I’m not here to lay a guilt trip on anyone and whatever you tell yourself to justify your actions is your own business.

I’m also not entirely sure the solution of demanding Obama become a benevolent dictator is what we really want.

the belief appears to be that if they—-they being white Christian conservatives—-can’t have complete control of the U.S., then the U.S. as we know it doesn’t deserve to exist.

Only the last 10 words of that are really necessary. If white christianist conservatives have complete control, then the US as we know it will cease to exist in any case. Some undertake war against the united states with bombs, guns and boxcutters, others with fountain pens.

Uh, if I can’t have my abortion parties where the hell am I supposed to get my “caviar” from? My guests deserve the best, dammit, and that means homemade and locally-sourced!

“I wanted an anarcho-communist revolution but I couldn’t risk acting outside the electoral system, so I chose to become a social democrat.

There was no viable social democratic party so I chose to support let-wing Democrats.

No Democrat on the left of the party could get a nomination so I settled for John Edwards.

John Edwards couldn’t win the nomination so I swallowed my pride and campaigned for Obama.

Obama couldn’t push forward his more progressive areas so he compromised with Blue Dog Democrats.

The Republicans wouldn’t vote for those compromises so the Democrats went for bipartisanship.

The teabaggers wailed about RINOs, the bipartisanship was eroded, the Democrats gave in to teabagger demands.

Sure glad I chose to be on the winners’ side.”

- A Leftist’s Lament

Obama’s approval rating among self described liberals is sky high. Some people need to get off the internet.

Y’all, didn’t I already say I’m not staying home entirely? And Blitzgal, you worry so hard about “them” stealing elections, but who in the presidential race, who even in Congress, do you honestly feel you can claim as part of “us”? I mean, who is there? More to the point, who is there who counts?

Jesus, Weezie Jefferson, at least I don’t have to worry too hard about taking people seriously when they tell me I’m strawmanning, if that’s the shit you get away with and don’t get called on it.

Was FDR a “benevolent dictator”? Then spare me that nonsense, too. We can talk about Republicans ‘til we’re all purple in the face, and it’s not gonna mean shit unless somebody can scrape up a counterweight to them, and by ‘counterweight’ I mean Democrats who fight, or at the very least Democrats who understand there’s a fight going on.

Hahahaha! Good one Weezie.

I genuinely thought BHO was to the left of Hillary. I also thought his dulcet toned voice would harnessed to the wagon of progressive causes.

But he could only be deep and world-historical in speeches about himself. Once the campaign ended, so did the ‘poetry’ as Hillary called it.

His prose is sucking. Why not fly around the nation making big speeches to big crowds about the “terrorist, hostage taking republicans?”

There’s really no constituency for slashing entitlements, but the rethugs are making lots of hay just playing the badass part. Here I see Marcotte’s thesis is true: They’re only doing this to stick it to the ‘uppity’ negro and all the resentment-fueled teabugger troglodytes are eating it up.

Oh, come on. If this were 1936 three quarters of the people on this blog would wail about how FDR is a cowardly sell out, and we should all go vote for Huey Long (or Norman Thomas, and a handful would be looking to the USSR).

Seriously, FDR a leftist? Only in the fevered imaginations of the DuPont family and their Liberty League.

I love how every time I mention stolen elections a progressive mocks me.  Just keep ignoring the mountain of evidence that’s been piling up since 2000.  And Kathy Nickolaus in Waukesha County just “found” the exact number of Prosser votes to push him far enough above Kloppenberg to avoid triggering an automatic recount.  And there was absolutely nothing hinky in the open garbage bags that were used to transport the county’s paper ballots to the GAB.

The reason I’m personally bringing up FDR is not because he was some magic leftist but because his New Deal helped drag us out of a Depression.  Our infrastructure is crumbling around us and we have a huge population of skilled workers who are unemployed because they’re no longer propped up by the housing bubble.  A decent stimulus program would put them to work and invest in this country’s future.  Would be a lot nicer than shitting that money down the military industrial complex.  I know it’s a pipe dream.

FDR spent a hell of a lot more money on bombs and tanks than infrastructure projects during his presidency.

Blitzgal, I’m not a progressive, for one thing, so don’t worry about that; it was a reactionary mocking you, if anyone was, and I wasn’t. I was under the impression you were referring to presidential elections when you were talking about theft—I still maintain that it hardly matters in that case, because neither side is interested in actually representing anyone’s interests save those of the power elite, but in a state or local election it certainly does matter and merits fighting over.

And I emphatically second what you say about FDR. Nobody’s looking for some dead old white guy to wave a magic wand. We’d just like to see something that’s, you know, at least equal to what progressive Democrats were doing seventy-five years ago.

If you don’t think you can vote for Obama in 2012, I feel you. And obviously none of us are going to vote for Republicans. But you may as well vote for somebody, rather than leave it blank. Bernie Sanders, perhaps? Alan Grayson?

Clearly what we need is someone who panders to Dixiecrats, helps sabotage new lynching laws, interns an ethnic minority in camps without trial, bombards foreign cities to smithereens with firebombs to deliberately inflict civilian casualties, who appoints one of the biggest Wall St. crooks in history to head the SEC and implements an austerity budget just as the economy is recovering. See how easy that is? Cheap and simplistic, but very easy.

And I didn’t even get to the part where he collaborates with British Imperialism on one hand and one of the most monstrous tyrants of the 20th Century on the other.

Clearly, Ben D., what we need is someone who panders to Republicans, helps sabotage new social justice movements, imprisons American citizens in military jails without trial—not to mention arrogating unto himself the right to murder any American citizen at any time for any reason without anything remotely resembling due cause—who randomly blasts goatherds off mountainsides belonging to a nation which the US calls its ally, who perpetuates two wars acknowledged by everyone whose opinion you care about to be completely unjust and one of which has effectively destroyed what was formerly a sovereign nation in Iraq, who gives a free pass and several dozen shitloads of money to the biggest Wall Street crooks in history, and who (pandering again) implements an austerity budget without even waiting for the economy to start to recover first.

And I didn’t even get to the part where, for all FDR did wrong, he was still a far more domestically effective president than Obama’s ever shown any interest in being. Nice to see we’ve come so far in three-quarters of a century, don’t you agree?

mr_subjunctive, tell me: what good is that going to do? Really? It’s not going to mean shit to the outcome, and it’s not going to make me feel one damn bit better. So why do it? What purpose is there?

Ben D., in 1932 the choice was between Herbert Hoover and Franklin Roosevelt, not between Adolf Hitler and Jesus of Nazareth.

If Hoover had been given another 4-years to slowly strangle America, do you think that would have been better than electing the guy who wasn’t as progressive as a true liberal would have wanted?

Similarly, in 2008 we were given the choice between Barack Obama/Joe Biden and John McCain/Sarah Palin.  In that contest there was only one choice to make.

In 2012, we might very well have a choice between Barack Obama/Joe Biden and Michele Bachmann or Rick Perry or some other loony from the Reichwing.  Again, in that upcoming contest, there will only be one choice to make.

Is this a great time for progressives and/or liberals?  No.  Hell Nixon was more progressive than either side is these days.  But what can we do about it?

The Rethuglicans took their electoral defeats in 1960, and 1964 and decided they wanted political control so badly they would do anything to achieve it, no matter how low or immoral.  Hence the deal with the Devil that resulted in conservative Southern Democrats becoming conservative Southern Republicans.  Since 1968 they’ve been on an unbelievable (and unmerited) winning streak.

I suspect that Democrats could achieve the same thing as the Republican of the ‘60s did.  But if they started a Latte Party to compete with the Teabaggers, and exercised the ideological focus and ruthlessness as their fascist opposites, doing anything it took to get your political desires fulfilled — lie, cheat, steal, etc. — would you still want to be a part of that political movement?

I would not.  And I suspect that any leftist movement that isn’t as radical as the teahadists will fail.  Hence the dilemma we are all faced with…

#4 kingelvis,
I wanted Hillary ahead of time! The only way Obama got in was due to the 20-something vote.  Hillarys biography is also amazing! Now we have loser idiots like Bachmann running for president. She isnt what the suffrage fighters had in mind. No suffrage fighter wanted a woman who believes wives are to submit to their husbands running for office.

llewelly @ 24 amazingly, if that list were of promenent citizens, it would contain Warren Buffett, of all people.  Warren Buffett said the GOP in congress were a bunch of economic terrorists.  I think Bloomberg was the only tv news that showed it.

#9,
Seriously John Rove? Sounds a bit like hyperbole especially since those “brown-skinned” people are their grandkids.

I would not.  And I suspect that any leftist movement that isn’t as radical as the teahadists will fail.  Hence the dilemma we are all faced with…

Because ultimately, the purpose of being a liberal is to revel in your virtuousness while you lose while lamenting that you were just “too good” to win. It’s the Adlai Stevensen fantasy.

Try harder. The internment of Japanese Americans in concentration camps and wiping Dresden, Hamburg, and Tokyo off the map make GITMO and drone strikes in the Hindu-Kush look like tidily winks. Then there’s that whole Manhattan Project thing. Also I wonder how many American citizens Lincoln killed? Politics sucks, doesn’t it?

Mike—Oh I agree. Im being somewhat tongue in cheek here with FDR to make the point that if the Pandagon Commentariat were actually living in the 1930s rather than looking back at them they’d have a VERY different opinion of FDR.

Tyro, I’m all ears.  How can we have a progressive movement in this country that is successful without betraying everything that makes it worthy in the process of achieving that success?

The Republicans do it through massive amounts of doublethink, projection, and outright bald-faced denial.

Would you like Democrats to do the same, in the name of achieving un-Adlai Stevensen success?...

Aaron:

Maybe there isn’t a point. I’m looking at it from the perspective of, if the options at hand aren’t the options I want, and I can articulate an alternative, then I’m better off to articulate the alternative than I am to keep it to myself. I.e., it would make me feel better.

Matt @48 - at least you get to go to a school.  We used to go down town to the library, now we have to go to the function room of a damn church. 
That’s New England for you; they see no problem with making neighborhood polling places houses of worship where everyone has to go past religious posters and brochures to pick up their ballots, even if they are of a different religion or no religion.
To the people who though Obama was left of Hilary, yeah, I heard you and thought you were nuts back during the primaries.  Rosy glasses and willful ignorance are not limited to the GOP.

Considering the progressive irritation with Obama, is there any sort of movement to put forth a viable option come 2012 or are all going to sit on our asses and complain on the internet for the next year or so? I just want to make sure I’ve got things planned out.

Comment #29: Matt T.  on 07/21 at 12:54 PM

Green party, Peace and Freedom party, Socialist party if you have one in your state, or just write in Dennis Kucinich at least, especially if you’re not in a swing state but even if you are fuckit.

Wow, Ben D., I have to say, as a Mississippi native it’s awful damn rare for me to find myself in the position of telling somebody else there’s no point re-fighting the Civil War. Same goes for World War II, and by the way, why do you think I should have a problem with the Manhattan project, or with the nuclear bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki? At least FDR was doing something domestically. I’ve still yet to see a substantive argument out of you that I need to say the same for Obama, rather than the kind of “well, the guy you like wasn’t any better!” crap you’ve been emitting so far.

And I don’t buy your argument that if I lived in the 1930s I’d be looking at FDR differently, at least not to the extent you’re trying to sell it. Sure I would, because I’d have a better perspective on him, but you know what? My ancestors of that era, WPA work was the only work they could find. Given that that made the difference for them between eating and not eating, and given that had I lived during that time it’d have made the same difference for me, you think I’d have had anything particularly bad to say about FDR? Not fuckin’ likely. You’re right—I would’ve looked at him differently. I would’ve looked at him much more favorably.

mr_subjunctive, I don’t see a meaningful alternative within the system, and I don’t see a way of substantively changing the system save to let it collapse under its own weight and then see what the survivors and their collective inheritors can raise out of the rubble. State and local races still matter to me, because they have a substantive effect on how things go in the particular municipality where I happen to live, but on the national level, nothing seems to make a significant difference so I no longer see any purpose in playing along.

MikeEss, I’ve never been particularly impressed with you but you’re really stunning me now. I don’t give a shit whether it’s the Democrats, the Republicans, the Tea Party, or the resurrected corpse of Huey Long who does it; I want my people to have jobs. I want my people to be able to feed themselves and their families, to be able to hold their heads up and be proud, to feel like they’re doing something that matters—so that, for example, they won’t be so easily seduced by the fucking power elite into a “Tea Party” that leads them directly and viciously against their own class interests. I’m interested in results, and if the people providing them don’t carry the particular political in-group identification that you find most consonant—or if, for that matter, they don’t in the process of providing them behave with the sort of squeaky-clean adherence to the highest of principles, as is extremely easy for someone with a secure, well-paying job to advocate right now—I have to say I can’t be bothered to give the tiniest fraction of a fuck.

Sorry but you don’t get to be outraged by civilian casualties from drone strikes and then say wiping that deliberately wiping entire cities from the map is OK as long as good domestic programs are passed. That’s a nice story about the WPA, kind of like how my sisters job as a teacher was saved by Recovery Act money.

Would be a lot nicer than shitting that money down the military industrial complex.

The Military-Industrial Juggernaut employs a fuck-ton of people too.  The problem isn’t excessive military spending per se, it’s giving boatloads to money to people who’re already fabulously wealthy and eschewing taking taxes from them.  A 1950s tax rate would let you keep soldiers & bomb makers employed, build all the highways, hospitals, and schools you like, and ensure even poor kids go to college or whatever.  A 1990s tax rate can almost do that.  2000s, not so much.

Taxing the rich is a hell of a lot nicer than eating them, but the latter may come sooner than they think.

seeing very clearly that all the lesser evil’s going to do when it gets power is pander to the greater evil every chance it gets?

If you really believe this, maybe you should stay home on election day.

I wanted Hillary ahead of time! The only way Obama got in was due to the 20-something vote.

And we all know they don’t actually count. For some reason.

@Brian thanks for pointing that out. End all the Bush tax cuts (on everyone and wind down the wars and guess what? You’re damn close to a balanced budget *even with* our piggy military budget. Aside from Medicare costs (which is tied to skyrocketing medical costs) we don’t have a spending problem. We have a revenue problem.

You know there’s a lot to like about Hillary Clinton but I really see precious little evidence from her record to indicate that she would be a progressive hero any closer to FDR than Obama is. If someone wants to argue otherwise, I’d be sincerely interested in hearing it.

@ Weezie: I’m not sure that lobbing rape threats at people who don’t vote the way you like is necessarily a fucking awesome thing. In fact, I know it isn’t.

  I wanted Hillary ahead of time! The only way Obama got in was due to the 20-something vote.

And we all know they don’t actually count. For some reason.

Bean Slap also left off another *major* constituency of the Democratic Party that broke for Obama in the 2008 primaries but I’m sure they don’t count either.

“I don’t give a shit whether it’s the Democrats, the Republicans, the Tea Party, or the resurrected corpse of Huey Long who does it; I want my people to have jobs. I want my people to be able to feed themselves and their families, to be able to hold their heads up and be proud, to feel like they’re doing something that matters—so that, for example, they won’t be so easily seduced by the fucking power elite into a “Tea Party” that leads them directly and viciously against their own class interests.”

I agree.

“I’m interested in results, and if the people providing them don’t carry the particular political in-group identification that you find most consonant—or if, for that matter, they don’t in the process of providing them behave with the sort of squeaky-clean adherence to the highest of principles, as is extremely easy for someone with a secure, well-paying job to advocate right now—I have to say I can’t be bothered to give the tiniest fraction of a fuck.”

That’s a nice statement of support for amoral practicality. 

Now, what liberal/progressive/Democratic principles are you willing to burn to get what you want?  Who are you willing to throw under the bus?  How far down are you willing to go?

The Republicans at some point decided they’d be willing to chuck up every principle (except for lip-service support for the “innocent unborn” and stubborn agreement with Ayn Rand’s idea that self-interest is the only moral virtue), happily throw anyone with less than a 6-figure income under the bus (women, old people, and the disabled first), and accepted that there is virtually no depth to which they’d be unwilling to sink. 

Can you match them in ruthlessness, and if so, would you like what you became?...

The blame being thrown at the President for somehow not overcoming the Blue Dogs and Republican rulesmongering - which didn’t even happen to FDR - seems misplaced.

What, is the President supposed to do?  Anyone saying he should just have stood firm at a clean bill is just fooling themselves.

Ben D., Hiroshima and Nagasaki happened during a declared war, targeting a combatant who’d already shown that their rules of engagement included raping, torturing, and murdering civilians en masse, and before the surrender of the combatant so attacked. We’re blowing people off hillsides just for shits and grins, and yeah, that really is different.

Believe whatever you like regarding the WPA and my family, I don’t give a shit.

MikeEss, let me just throw that question back in your teeth: How many people are you willing to throw under that bus, solely so that you can maintain the flawless mirror-shine finish on your own squeaky-clean conscience? Or is it that, because they’re poor white people who talk funny and have bad teeth and hold opinions you find unsavory, you can chuck ‘em all without a qualm?

I didn’t say Hilary was a progressive hero; I said the people claiming Obama was, in comparison to her, were crazy and willfully blind.  Big difference.

What part of “drowning government in a bathtub” didn’t you get?

The Republican dream—which President Obama is championing, provided like the Republicans, it’s only big government that does stuff for the little people.

Never mind that the little people paid for their Social Security with their own money, that too must be handed to the rich according to our great leader.

Even Grover Norquist—the coiner of the bathtub-government-drowning—is now call for the end of the Bush tax cuts.

But I’d bet dollars to donuts that somehow—somehow!—President Obama and his corporate lackey Blue Dogs find some way to save those cuts.

After all, there will be shreds of Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid left to sacrifice during the next budget “crisis.”

Crista, FDR had the Dixiecrats which is why his civil rights record is so atrocious.

Anyway everyone should read this article the next time they think political blobs on the internet are a good sample of the opinion of the party base. m.motherjones.com/mojo/2011/07/obama-election-president-fundraise-2012

Some idiot upthread was handwringing, “But what else is poor, poor President Obama to do when out wrestled yet again by the Republicans and Blue Dogs!”

Why, what he’s done from the beginning of his term: set up the chess pieces so that he would be forced—forced, I tell you!—to shred the safety net!

Like that “Deficit” Commission for which President Obama handpicked those crazy ass Social Security shredders who have been publicly in favor of shredding Social Security for decades!

And so on and so forth.

There are none so blind as those who would not see, by which I mean the Obamabots, and not the Blue Dog President who has very clearly made his path known—at least, since he’s been elected.

Because ultimately, the purpose of being a liberal is to revel in your virtuousness while you lose while lamenting that you were just “too good” to win.

Seems awfully similar to the Nice Guy lament.

If you want to move the Democratic to the left there are ways of doing that. Getting pissy at the President isn’t one of them.
Comment #39: SomeGuy

So true.

Aaron, I don’t disagree with everything you’re saying here, but your contention that nothing seems to make a meaningful difference at the national level strikes me as positively ludicrous. As much as we have to rightfully complain about with respect to Obama, it doesn’t really take a hyperactive imagination to conjure up a vision of how much worse things would have been with McCain.

For instance, instead of the too-small and too tax-cut-laden stimulus package, which helped but not nearly enough, we would have gotten nothing, or worse, that batshit proposal of a five-year-spending freeze actually coming to fruition. Perhaps the Democratic Congress would have prevented the freeze, but perhaps not. At the very least, it’s hard to plausibly argue that the economic situation wouldn’t be substantially worse if McCain had been in charge.

As another example, instead of two pretty reliable liberal votes on the Supreme Court, McCain would have pushed (and Congress meekly confirmed) two more justices in the Scalito mold and Roe v. Wade would indisputably be finished.

Obama is far from perfect, or even good or mediocre by certain standards, but that doesn’t mean that things wouldn’t be immeasurably worse if he’d lost, and with the clownshow the right is putting up in 2012, that will be even more true then. Nobody’s suggesting that we shouldn’t do whatever we can to push back against the fact that there’s no longer even a remotely progressive party in this country, but ceding the field and letting Michelle Bachmann take over the reins at this critical juncture is about as far from productive as you can get.

Even Grover Norquist—the coiner of the bathtub-government-drowning—is now call for the end of the Bush tax cuts.

He gave the Republicans who signed his pledge a way to weasel out of it; he still opposes ending them.

The problem with claiming that H.R. Clinton would have been so much better than Obama is the same problem as with claiming Obama was so much better than Clinton because of her vote on the Iraq War resolution. In both cases, the actions you woulda taken don’t count.

The #1 reason I supported Obama over Clinton was Clinton’s vote in favor of the Iraq War. She later claimed hey, it was 2003, who could have know that WMD was a fake issue? Total bullshit. Lots of people knew it was a fake issue. You could figure it out from just reading the papers. Obama, on the other hand, opposed the resolution, but (and here’s my point) he was in the Illinois Senate at the time. He didn’t have a vote on the issue and his opinion didn’t matter at the federal level.

So to me, Obama gets like half credit for that. He was against the war, but it was easy for him compared to a sitting Senator.

Likewise, we say now that Clinton would have been a great fighter for a sane economic policy, and I agree that up to now her actions and words may back that up, but isn’t it possible that that’s because she’s not the President? As a Senator, as a candidate for President, maybe not so much as a Cabinet member, but still as someone who is not serving as President, she doesn’t have the same political calculations as Obama does in reality.

So no, I’m not convinced necessarily that President Hillary Rodham Clinton would have been that much better, in practice, on economic issues than Obama is. We can’t really know because she has never held that responsibility in real life.

the GOP firmly believes that we need to destroy the country to save it. it’s that simple.

Aaron, there’s no one I’d be willing to throw under the bus, unless believing the Bush tax cuts need to be tossed is somehow equivalent.

In my neighborhood (a red/conservative part of SoCal) I’m surrounded by staunch Republicans (and maybe even some teabaggers).  If any of them lost their jobs, or couldn’t buy food, or were threatened by brush fires (SoCal headed toward fire season), or whatever, I’d hold my nose and help them, no matter how repellent their politics are.  That’s just the way I am.

I have my Republican and too-often-racist father living with me, despite my misgivings toward a man I have feared and hated most of my life.  I have my elderly mother-in-law living with me, and a few other stragglers who show up now and again.

For all my bluster I really have a soft heart.  Which is probably why I’d make a terrible politician…

Its funny, if you read the Freeper or American Thinker comment threads right now its like a bizarro world version of this thread where the American left is dominant and unstoppable, capitalism is about to be destroyed, the Republicans are squishy moderate sellouts, Obama is unbeatable next year (he will steal the election even if he does lose) etc.

Getting pissy at the President is indeed one of the ways to move the Democratic Party left.

It’s the only thing that has worked for the gays: to whom the President promised much, and tossed crumbs—or raspberries—until they called him out repeatedly over steps backward on DOMA, and the nonwork on DADT.

If you think DADT reform would have happened without Dan Choi and other gay service members—repeatedly—chaining themselves to the White House fence, you haven’t been paying attention.

“Yes, we are finally, hopefully, on the verge of ending DADT once and for all. And had we followed the administration’s and HRC’s plan, which was to repeal the legislation this year, in 2011, it would have never happened because of the GOP congress. Fortunately, GetEqual, Dan Choi, the Netroots and a number of others raised quite a public fuss and forced the President’s, and the Congress’, hand. We worried, publicly, early last year that pushing this off until 2011 was a fatal mistake.  We were dismissed.  So we acted up and things changed…

the only reason he’s no longer defending DOMA is because people like us beat the bejesus out of the President and DOJ for two years on the issue, while we were repeatedly told by the administration (incorrectly, as we repeatedly pointed out) that they legally had to defend the anti-gay law. While we’re of course pleased that the President is no longer defending the law, and no longer implying some kind of legal relationship between the rape of small children and gay marriage (yes they did), is it that difficult to understand how two years of stonewalling on this issue might just leave a somewhat bitter taste in some people’s mouths?”
http://gay.americablog.com/2011/07/lgbt-disappointment-with-obama-and.html#disqus_thread

If you’re not calling the President out on his plans to destroy the safety list every day in every way, then you can kiss those puppies goodbye when you need ‘em.

Try being fanboys for a pop star or movie star, instead. It will be much less damaging for the country.

Yep, there’s the thinly veiled extortionist threat that always seems to show up at about this point in the conversation: you better vote for the slightly lesser evil, and if you’re childish enough not to, then everything you get you’ve got coming.
Comment #31: Aaron

Extortionist?
Did you live through the last twelve years, or not?  For me, my spouse’s industry was crashed.  Then she got a job with a NASA contractor whose budget was supposedly ‘safe’ and ‘prepaid’ - which was then raided by the President. 

During this time, we eventually got back to her original pay level, but Republicans (those guys who get control when you don’t vote for the Democrat) changed laws so we’d have to pay $6K more in taxes, then $9K more in taxes, etc.  More in income taxes than any other couple with the same income and dependents - because we can’t be seen as married under Federal Law, and Dependents was changed to mean only biologic, adopted children and married partners.  So not grandma, or your uncle-in-law, or your spouse’s child.  And when comparing value of health insurance it’s not what you paid that you get taxed on - it’s what it would cost to get the same level of insurance individually.  You know, so the insurance I pay $2K a year for through a group plan at work would cost $10K as an individual?  That sort of plan?

You’re blaming me for the threats implicit in Republican positions.  That’s like arguing with the person trying to take the gun away from a shooter - why would you do that?

This isn’t a problem with Obama. It’s not a problem with the Democratic leadership. It is a problem with the American political establishment, and good luck changing it, because by and large they’re RIGHT. Politically. Not on policy, of course. But politically. Yes.

Both parties (however the Republicans have been running away from this. So read HAVE been) are in the bag. Not to corporate interests, believe it or not. Not to the rich.

It’s all about “swing voters”

That’s who Obama is courting here. And they’ll probably be pretty happy. They want cuts to entitlement programs..don’t like “lazy” people. They want low taxes and stable investments. They want their kids to be “safe” (I.E. sheltered). They want their local schools to be BETTER. (Good isn’t good enough. Great isn’t good enough. They want better than those people. They want the edge.) Etc.

The Republicans, for a variety of reasons is the default for this group. The Democrats have to try really hard to get them. And the American political establishment, that is, the media, consultants, etc. focus almost exclusively on this group.

But if the Democrats run away from this group, like the Republicans have…well, they’ll lose them to the Republicans, who are the “default” for these spoiled, entitled, brats.

Want to change the politics? Change the culture. No more, no less.

Yeah, sure, judy, you love to troll.  So what?

Protests of the Presidents’ inaction and whining that he’s the fault of everything are different things.  He’s not defending DMA because he had to legally fight it to a Federal level court.  He did, they lost, so he’s stopping.

If you want him to just make illegal choices, that’s fine - but face that you’re asking him to break the law and be no better than Bush was.  To embroil us in legal challenges from here to infinity, challenges we would lose instead of the ones we have today, which we’re winning.

And you’re also expecting him to somehow make the media compliant and actually rebroadcast what he’s said to them instead of continuing this 7 to 1 Republican advantage in repeating talking points and invites to speak on the ‘serious’ shows.

You’re dreaming, and being an asshole to the rest of us.  So I’m calling you on it.

I see a lot of people have very short memories. If anything, Hilary had closer ties with the very corporations who are pushing this, and, more seriously, was near enough unelectable. She arguably has less charisma, grace or flair than Kerry or Gore and was a horrible campaigner, which is the chief reason she lost to an unknown in the first place. No matter how bad Obama is, a McCain/Palin administration would be far worse.

Obama, on the other hand, opposed the resolution, but (and here’s my point) he was in the Illinois Senate at the time. He didn’t have a vote on the issue and his opinion didn’t matter at the federal level.

As an Illinois resident, and something of an Obamabot (though far from being the uncritical worshipper we are reputed to be) I think you can extrapolate Obama’s hypothetical U.S. Senate vote with about 90 percent accuracy by looking at Illinois’ senior Senator Dick Durbin. Obama was extremely differential to Durbin, they were very close political allies. Durbin was in fact in the U.S. Senate and did vote against the resolution, which was in accordance with the wishes of most Illinois residents. I find it difficult to believe Obama would not have done the same.

President Obama has presided over the effective end of the war in Iraq too, though liberals still like to cite the “three wars” we’re supposedly in.

Karmakin:

Or, of course, one could decide to become one of these “swing voters” by threatening to withhold votes. If you’re really unhappy enough with Obama to be considering not voting for him in 2012, then you are, pretty much, a swing voter, aren’t you? And unlike the entire political establishment, my vote is actually within my ability to control. It’s basically what judybrowni said at #104: if you want to move the President left, you have to show him there are consequences for him if he doesn’t.

It was a lie, from the beginning, that the President had to fight for DOMA: http://www.americablog.com/2009/06/obama-doj-lies-to-politico-in-defending.html

Instead of repeating the lies of Fox news and the Republicans, Obama might try the truth on the economy —7 to 1, or not, the President continuing the lies that gutting Social Security will curb the deficit, or that more disasterous government cutting will somehow cure the economy, is bolstering those lies.

As for whining, the Obama bots getting all pissy whenever their boyfriend is criticized is whining on a major scale.

Like I said. It’s not even a numbers game, it’s more a cultural game. Namely because most of the media/politicians come from that background, it’s the default for them.

Unfortunately, people on the left abandoning ship actually pushes the Democrats to the right in order to look for more reliable votes. That’s the way it’s always worked.

Karmakin:

So why show up to vote at all?

Well, I don’t know when reality will intrude on their lives, so this seems as good a time as any.

People actually expect to get social security? You Pandagon-folk are old…

typist, I don’t call fifty thousand soldiers, plus an “embassy” the size of Vatican City, an “effective end” to anything.

I like mr_subjunctive’s point, though I’m still cynical on the subject of whether or not the president will feel any need to give a shit. What, I’m going to send an email to .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) saying “hey, boss, you made a swing voter out of me, you’ve got a year and change to earn me back”?

Crissa, you’ve got a job with health insurance; I barely even remember what that’s like. It’s hard for me to feel the pain of your tax burden, you know?

Expansion: What, I’m going to send an email to [...] and expect it to matter a damn? Maybe if a hundred thousand or a million people were to do so, it might count for something, but I’m possessed of neither the mental equipment, nor the credibility, nor the spare time, to try to lead a hundred thousand or a million people. I could spit in the ocean for all the good it’ll do, and maybe I will…but it’s hard to feel like it counts for anything, when I can’t even see whether or not it made a splash.

More importantly who stole that motherfucker’s upper lip????

<em>Obama was extremely differential to Durbin</e>

Either you mean “deferential”, or you’re stating that Obama transmitted torque to rotate Durbin.

#87,
Typist,
I AM a 20-something typist! What I’m saing is they didnt know that much about politics and voted him in based on youth appeal. I didnt say they shoulnt have a vote just that it was more marketing and ‘rah-rah’ sentiment than actually being informed or assesssing his abilities. The rest of your post was sheer pathetic whiny hyperbole.

Phoenician, if Obama had done something like that, I wouldn’t deride the man the way I do.

A good example in the American context of what I mean is Lysander Spooner. He was a radical abolitionist and a Confederate sympathizer at the same time, and this was entirely consistent with his philosophy!

I guess we’re still at war in Germany and Japan with the huge numbers of soldiers stationed there too.

And yes I did mean deferential, twas a typo. You’d be hard pressed to find any major cases in 2005-8 in which Obama voted different from Durbin.

those of us from Texas wonder when the state turned into Oklahoma.

I always though that Oklahoma was just a branch office of Texas, just a continuation of the panhandle by other means. But what do I know, I’m from New Jersey.

I my sweet, sweet sparkle-pony progressives.  This is not about the state of the nation and a clear choice between centrism (which they correctly assess as annoying and not very liberal) and batshit crazy Republic of Gilead nutball wingnuttery.  This is all about them and their various navel-gazing bullshit:  “I am so fucking enlightened that I am too good for the American electoral system.  Take that, losers!  Plus,  I also only listen to bands that have less than four fans!  I am fucking COOL!”

I love my progressive hipsters.  They piss me off, but fuck it, I love the motherfuckers.

So, Weezie, do you actually get a paycheck from the DLC, or do you just keep your tongue stuffed up their collective asshole because it’s nice and warm there?

I mean, I’m just askin’.

And this coming from someone who whines that he’s just too privileged for anyone to have fought for his right to vote, but takes every other opportunity to remind all of us how privileged he’s NOT.  Are you a troll, Aaron?  I mean, I’m just askin’.

Truth be told, if anyone should exercise their right to vote, it’s white people (of which I am one), because they are privileged.  Because it is not up to minority groups to prop the rest of us up. Because it’s up to the majority to help equalize the disparities THEY created.

And, yes, before you go off on another long-winded rant, I do realize that you exercise your right to do that on the municipal and state level.  But, if you’re questioning the relevancy that the national level has on the world stage, it really seems hypocritical that you don’t apply the same question on the municipal and state level.  Hmmm….

Btw,  Weezie is right.  An accurate assessment of the state of liberal and conservative politics would require that one not only distinguish between the positive traits but the negative, as well.  Many, here, seem unable to do that.  They seem to be working on a rather unbalanced assumption.  No two goods are ever equal but two evils must necessarily be equally condemned.

Well, I for one think it’s very suspicious that Obama managed to be born on exactly the day when, 50 years later, he would be in a desperate battle with Republicans over the debt ceiling. Coincidence, or diabolically accurate planning?

You’d be hard pressed to find any major cases in 2005-8 in which Obama voted different from Durbin.

So, a Democratic senator from Illinois voted similarly to…another Democratic senator from Illinois.

And this is significant why?