The Party of Nihilism Cont.

It is even more noteworthy, beyond the media finally focusing on what is rather than what the Republicans would like it to be. The Sunday shows has been the medium for the right intelligentsia to unfold their new strategy. Now that they realize that they have done what all extremists are bound to do and that’s go one step too far. Now that the media has pushed back on their overreach they want to talk bipartisanship. Now that their failures are part of the context they say that it’s absurd to use perfection as the measure of successful policies. Finally the media has awaken to find the emperor naked and the GOP is scrambling to find a fig leaf or two.

I’m surprised members of the previous regime keep up their attacks on Obama, even in light of the fact that Obama has issued them a free pass on war crimes. However, I suppose they have understood Obama’s real weakness, his refusal to fight for the things he claims to believe in. Until he shows a willingness to do so, the bullies will continue to poke him in the eye and throw sand in his face knowing there are no consequences for doing so.

My only quibble with Obama is that he and his proxies need to hit back and hard at these sorts of idiotic “criticisms.” He did so with Cheney, finally, but I defer to “The American President” where Michael J. Fox argues that POTUS needs to speak up, because in the absence of a leading voice, they’ll listen to any nonsense out there because its there. He can’t assume that the American people can see through the noise – they clearly can’t or we wouldn’t have Sarah Palin and the media that loves to report her every emission.

Though I personally disagree with several of the tactics that the WaPo endorses, there is no doubt that the difference between the current administration and the last one is that adults are now in charge.

Playing word games or getting into arguments over whose ‘watch’ we can fault for particular attacks do nothing to improve our safety. Recognizing that the greatest danger comes from a rather small number of determined individuals and targeting our effort accordingly is the key to success. Lashing out at anyone who vaguely resembles our enemy OTOH only adds fuel to the fire.

Sorry Derek but that’s crap. The GOP is looking for a political hook to regain power and they would have done so whether or not progressives got their public option. And if you don’t think expending most if not all of his remaining political capital for health care is not fighting for what he believes in you need to question what you would be willing to do to successfully achieve you’re big picture goals or are you only capable of focusing on the trees? What part of success on health care, success on foreign policy, success on economy means in the coming years don’t you get? This president will be able to write his own ticket including going back to add a public option to the exchanges opening up in 2014. I wish progressives would be less knee jerk and more wide ranging in their views.

“As for Cheney, I hope the old torturer just keeps blabbing–and his daughter Liz as well–to remind that American public what we’re well rid of.”

Good luck w/ that, Joe. If the Republicans have proven anything in the past 30 years, it’s that they can get a large chunk of the public to believe just about anything, no matter how ridiculous, dishonest, hypocritical, or easily disproven.

I think it is too early to hope for a return to media sanity just yet, but it’s a start. At least WaPo stuck their toe in the water.

Dee quite frankly I’m getting tired of you constantly playing the concern troll. There are many of us who are not “centrists” like you, and could care less what centrists think of us. If the ideas of liberals bother you so much I would recommend using the scroll bar because I am not going to compromise my principles for anyone, including you.

Well, good for Hiatt, but he still has a long way to go to achieve any kind of credibility with me. This is the same editorial page where Liz Cheney earned her respectability (her “Seriousness,” if you will, Joe) as a pundit, her opinion being seen fit to print in one of the premier media outlets of the country because her father was a failed Vice President; where Sarah Palin was given unchallenged space to spew some talking points on climate change; and where Charles Krauthammer, who hasn’t had contact with reality in a good ten years, is still allowed to print un-fact-checked propaganda, the circular justification for printing his unhinged spew in the once respectable Washington Post being that he has a column in the Washington Post. And since Krauthammer wasn’t deluded or partisan enough, they brought in Michael Gerson.

I have no doubt that Katharine Graham is spinning in her grave at what Donnie and Fred have done to her paper.

And I am equally sick of litmus test carrying so-called progressives deciding what other people are based on whether or not they agree on a particular issue. And the fact that you don’t recognize that relying on name calling rather than making a cogent argument for your position, having an unwillingness to not even entertain the possibility that you could be wrong long enough to have a discussion and inviting those who don’t agree with you to leave the discussion is exactly what the wingnuts do on the right and makes you look more like a troll Derek honey than my words could ever make me, at least I gave you an argument, you chose to ignore it and have a tantrum instead.

Dee what has Obama done to bring the war criminals behind the Iraq war to justice, a war that caused the death of at least 100,000 innocents? He has done nothing. That is why those war criminals rejoice in kicking sand at him because they know he is a weakling. You were the one who brought up the public option, another sign of his weakness, because he once again bowed down to Lieberman, a back stabbing creep who actually ran against him. The only time Obama shows any back bone is when he lectures the Left. He has absolutely no back bone when it comes to the right or the crybaby centrists, who have gotten everything they want but still whine like stuck pigs at the very thought that liberals might get something they want.

It’s interesting that you attribute to a lack of backbone, the fact that Obama is doing exactly what he wants instead of what you want. He’s not calling ‘war criminals’ to account because he’s kept them all on in their current capacities. He’s listened to Lieberman about the Public Option because he genuinely doesn’t want a public option. He only show backbone lecturing to the left because he doesn’t agree with them on many issues.

In case you didn’t notice that’s precisely WHY the WaPo came to his defense this morning. They’re operating from the same playbook.

Paul during the campaign he claimed to be an agent of change, not a defender of the status quo. He also claimed to be in support of the public option. I made the mistake of believing him. I didn’t put words in his mouth, as you claim.

Richard B Cheney was responsible for a war sold on a lie that caused the deaths of more Americans than the 911 attacks, not to mention the dead in Iraq and the wounded in both countries. He also awarded contracts to Halliburton and other old buddies where there were no competitive bids.. The financial policies of the administration brought the country and the world to the brink of a depression. . And yet he is allowed to continue his falsehoods and distortions. His legacy is well represented by his daughter who repeats and amplifies his falsehoods and distortions and adds a touch of McCarthyism when she questions the patriotism of Colin Powell. Lliz does not answer question asked to her and if pressed , she erupts in anger. Perhaps the Cheneys should be sent to the same elementary school where Condi Rice was made to be accountable.
As for the Washington Post, it is sad that all the Katharine Graham stood for is being sullied by her successors.

When you have Mike Allen of Politico shilling for you, and publishing your statement in full without fact checking then you know that 5 Deferments Dick knows how to work the “Press” from his “undisclosed” location. I am waiting to see how fellow journaltsts will react to Andrew Sullivan’s critique of Allen’s way of doing his business: spokesman, stenographer or journalist? Someone got into Wiki and did a job on Allen: no journalist he.

The mistake you make is thinking that the thing Obama believes in, is as pedestrian as the things you focus on. Let’s take war crimes, you are not the only one who would derive great pleasure in skewering Bush–Cheney and company and watching them being led off in chains. But realistically, all this would do in the immediate is stymie the agenda and further divide the country and keep this ideological feud going in perpetuity. However, at his core, Obama believes in the transformational presidency. As a student of political history, it is evident that what the President is fighting for, with every facet of his being including his backbone is setting this country back on the progressive path it was pursuing until it was derailed in the late seventies when the Iran hostage crisis fueled the conservative movement and brought Ronald Reagan to power and the conservative revolution that followed. We forget that most of the gains made that fueled the growth of the American middle-class were made after the Roosevelt new deal and the decade following civil rights.
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What Obama is trying to do is to create a permanent progressive realignment. The reason the GOP is fighting everything so feverishly is because they know that if Obama is successful in establishing the foundation for universal health care, combatting terrorism and re-establishing our leadership in the world on foreign policy and most importantly, economically that they will see a repeat of what happened after Roosevelt and the new deal. You do remember that Americans, despite their previous conservative bent, made ROOSEVELT PRESIDENT FOR LIFE. Hence the constitutional amendment to prevent that from happening again.
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So Derek, while you might prefer that Obama be focused on your issues, I think he’s on the right track. If Obama can reestablish America’s belief in government that Reagan destroyed with a simple statement (government can’t solve the problem, government is the problem) at a moment of despair (the hostage crisis), then he will have ended the GOP’s ability to come back into power four or eight years from now and squander the Democratic gains as they did after the Clinton administration. If Obama is successful he will have curtailed conservative power for a generation. Oh my the things that we could accomplish in a generation if conservatives were truly marginalized? I’m sure even litmus testing progressives can see the merit of putting conservatives on the sidelines for a generation or at the very least will admit its a goal worth fighting for. After all once that is done you would see a resurgence of moderate Republicans who may not only have worthy ideas and have also been shut out by the outsized power of know-nothing conservatives, but would be less likely to oppose a movement to hold those responsible for war crimes accountable since we know that there is no statute of limitations on war crimes and murder.
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So tell me Derek, is the instant gratification you would derive from seeing your issues addressed immediately, regardless of how unlikely it would be to be addressed successfully more important than ultimate success by staying focused on the big picture and once permanently realigned having the power to then address all of these secondary issues and garner a successful outcome?

Keep posting Joe, you have had the liberals on the run. I just love it when the in-fighting begins like we see above with Derek and Dee.
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Thank God that a newspaper has finally come to it’s senses and is rebelling against the liberal onslaught of biased news. Keep up the great work, Washington Post!!

You’re right 53 its only a start, but I’m just hoping its a start rather than just a momentary aberration. Nevertheless, all of the back tracking in the GOP camp today suggests that the village has been posing a few uncomfortable questions. I can only imagine the kinds of questions that would have had to have been asked in order to illicit a response on the right that decries the idea of holding Obama to a standard of perfection in the national security arena.

Rusty, did you actually read Joe’s post or Wapo’s editorial? And if the answer is yes, than I have to ask you Rusty, can you read?

Dee by litmus testing progressives I assume you mean progressives who actually have some values and principles, rather than people like you who apparently believe in nothing at all? I take that back, you do believe you are in possession of the truth because you are capable of falsely accusing real liberals of being extremists, and before you lecture me on insulting you look back at your posts and recognize that is all you have done. That is why I despise centrists like you. You have the morals of a snake and yet you think of yourself as being superior to all other beings. That is also why I have more respect for the far right than for so-called moderates. They actually believe in something and are willing to fight for it.

Thanks for the 2 unexpected swamp posts on this boring sunday.
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James Poniewozik has an interesting article today on media pundit activity. While it focuses mostly on potential runs for office, the comfort zone which they enjoy influencing politics from the outside and having no real responsibility for anything is relevant here. Cheney’s motives are suspect, even more so his precious daughter Lizzie’s, but defending his failed career is certainly lucrative and who can blame him. While I agree with the editorial, I am at the same time disappointed that the fool receives attention.

As for Cheney, I hope the old torturer just keeps blabbing–and his daughter Liz as well–to remind that American public what we’re well rid of.
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Except, of course, that we’re not well rid of them.
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The Cheneys continue to infect our discourse on a weekly basis.
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The government still engages in many of the practices that were pioneered under Cheney.
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Beyond a mild finger-wagging by a few pundits here and there, there are no consequences for the Cheneys.
They are allowed to do whatever they want, all the time, for the rest of their lives, because it would be uncivil to call them what they are.

“However, I suppose they have understood Obama’s real weakness, his refusal to fight for the things he claims to believe in.”
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I have know idea what Obama believes in. The disconnect between his campaign rhetoric on civil liberties, government transparency and special interests and his actual conduct in office is nothing less than jarring. And his failure to use the teaching moment of the Naughts [click/link] to drive a rhetorical stake in heart of “conservative” dogma is both damaging and dispiriting.
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However, this Post editorial (along with Klein’s Obama boosterism) is proof positive to me that Obama’s apparent centrism and overt (if not ridiculous) bi-partisanship is working perfectly and according to plan, on the Village. Now that he has them eating out his hand, I suppose we’ll have to wait and see what he does with their lickspittle to know who he really is.

Well Dee you may be surprised by this, I did read both Joe’s post and the editorial in the WaPo. I agree with both.
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Republicans who are attacking Obama on his “lack of doing anything” meme so far as terrorism is simply wrong. He is doing what he needs to do, however in my opinion, not enough. But, I will take what I can get from this President who also has been attempting to play it safe on both sides. Appeasement for his base of support, Liberals. And, justifying his actions to the right.
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Hopefully we will see Obama doing more to protect us, and less of attempting to be seen as “fair” and “politically correct” in his decisions.
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I also commend however those Republicans who are holding Obama accountable for his actions, and his in-actions. I still believe Obama should have come out much sooner than he did on the Christmas Terrorist.

Sorry should have been a comment back to Dee at 9.1

Dee:

However, at his core, Obama believes in the transformational presidency. As a student of political history, it is evident that what the President is fighting for, with every facet of his being including his backbone is setting this country back on the progressive path it was pursuing until it was derailed in the late seventies when the Iran hostage crisis fueled the conservative movement and brought Ronald Reagan to power and the conservative revolution that followed.
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What Obama is trying to do is to create a permanent progressive realignment.
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If Obama can reestablish America’s belief in government that Reagan destroyed with a simple statement (government can’t solve the problem, government is the problem) at a moment of despair (the hostage crisis), then he will have ended the GOP’s ability to come back into power four or eight years from now and squander the Democratic gains as they did after the Clinton administration. If Obama is successful he will have curtailed conservative power for a generation.

No, you are wildly mistaken.
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Obama is in no way attempting to put the country on a liberal path, he’s committed to the Third Way. He’s no more in love with FDR’s philosophy than Reagan’s, if we are to judge based on action and what he says. I know it’s hard, because sometimes during the primary campaign he was less than honest about it, but the philosophy is fairly clear.
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I think you are unfortunately confusing liberalism, i.e. FDR’s big, active state checking and countering the power of big industry & finance– with Third Way centrism, i.e. Obama’s big, active state working out power-sharing deals with big industry & finance.
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The alignment that Obama advocates has nothing to do with liberalism, and everything to do with centrism. While it is true that Third Way proponents believe themselves superior to conservatives, and use their power to limit the right (especially the popular right), that’s not at all the same thing as “setting this country back on the progressive path it was pursuing until it was derailed in the late seventies.”
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Conservatives aren’t comfortable with big government, we know this.
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Liberals are comfortable with a big government that has the power and willingness to intervene in the market on citizens’ behalf against colossal corporate actors. In practical reality, organizations like AT&T or Pfizer or AETNA function as mini-states, holding princely power over their dependent employees and consumers. We, like FDR, recognize that the Federal state acting in an adversarial role can and must mitigate that private power.
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Third Way centrists like Obama are also comfortable with big government, but not in the adversarial role envisioned by FDR. Third Way people see an opportunity for big government and big industry/finance to get together in order to plan and execute what’s best for both. Through this philosophy, all sorts of government actions that act primarily to prop up current private regimes and business models are undertaken. Some people have recently taken to calling proponents of this political philosophy “corporatism.” Third Way folks have recently taken to calling what they believe in “progressive policy.” It’s not hard to see why some folks are still confused about who is who.
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It really doesn’t matter if Obama will have “curtailed conservative power for a generation,” if he will have entrenched centrist power for generations more. There are some “solutions” that are far worse than conservatives’ non-solutions, Dee. There are actually some times when centrists are worse for the country than conservatives.
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If you like what the Third Way people, the “New Democrat Coalition” want to do to the country, that’s one thing, Dee. The conservatives are entitled to their political opinions, and the centrists are entitled to theirs, too. But don’t mix up liberalism with what the “New Democrats” like Obama are doing, because it isn’t at all what progressive policy looks like, it’s the Third Way centrism that Joe Klein advocates.
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Thanks for reading and considering this, Dee, and a special thank you in advance for not starting off your reply with an immediately antagonistic “Sorry, but X…“, or other such knee-jerk, bitter sarcasm.

Glenn Greenwald has an excellent post discussing the reaction to this failed bombing attempt and the media’s role in ratcheting up the frothing. He outlines how far the Republicans have strayed from the founders views, which they pretend to venerate.

I never thought I’d hear myself say this, but David Brooks actually had an excellent column in yesterday’s New York Times that makes several insightful and important points. Brooks documents how “childish, contemptuous and hysterical” the national reaction has been to this latest terrorist episode, egged on — as usual — by the always-hysterical American media. The citizenry has been trained to expect that our Powerful Daddies and Mommies in government will — in that most cringe-inducing, child-like formulation — Keep Us Safe. Whenever the Government fails to do so, the reaction — just as we saw this week — is an ugly combination of petulant, adolescent rage and increasingly unhinged cries that More Be Done to ensure that nothing bad in the world ever happens.

http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2010/01/02/fear/index.html

I’m ashamed to hear Lt. Gen. Thomas McInerney (ret.) say that all Muslim males between 18 and 28 should be strip searched. Guess he didn’t serve in a place like AfPak where there was a danger of suicide bombers – some even female.

Glad the WaPo is taking baby steps, but I’ll need to see a lot more before I believe in them.

shepherd, I don’t entirely disagree with what you have to say, but I do ask if you have a larger point as to an alternative. I am disappointed at some of the actions or lack thereof, but that disappointment is always lightened by the reality of a progressive administration relative to what we had. All things are indeed relative.

Iraq asks Blackwater employees to leave, will sue five guards
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Sorry for the off-topic post.

Ivy, I naturally don’t want my own reaction to the xmas incident to be seen as childish, hysterical, petulant, adolescent rage, increasingly unhinged, and all the rest, but contemptuous, yes. For failed intelligence apparatus.

Joe Klein definitely speaks for millions all over the world who have been denied respect of their basic human rights under the past administration.

For Derek and Dee (the Killer Ds?)
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Matt Bai wrote about this topic today-
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http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/03/magazine/03FOB-WWLN-t.html

“shepherd, I don’t entirely disagree with what you have to say, but I do ask if you have a larger point as to an alternative.”
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Not to worry, I’m used to that. And, no, there’s no larger point to be made about political choices. At best, they are always the choice of the lesser of evils.

Matt Bai is a moron.

“Obama’s apparent centrism and overt (if not ridiculous) bi-partisanship is working perfectly and according to plan, on the Village”
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That’s an interesting point, Shepherd. Someone should keep an eye on Broder.

Hysterical. Rusty thought someone had activated his “megadittos” button and he reacted like a typical conservative drone would.

formerlyjames, I clicked through and read Brooks’ column as well. I agree that the intelligence apparatus failed, but I also think we cannot expect that nothing will ever go wrong. I fly internationally several times a year and I certainly don’t want my plane to explode, but I don’t believe that yet more restrictions are going to make certain that it never will.

We spend a lot of money concentrating on the last threat – now it will be very expensive full body scanners and there seems to be increasing belief that they won’t detect plastic and powder explosives.

What will we do if the terrorists adopt tactics of suicide bombers in many U.S. cities – shopping malls, trains, bridges? Can you imagine the panic nationwide? I would be a lot less calm about that. Remember the DC shootings?

The National Security agencies now gather more information every day than the Library of Congress. How can we expect all that raw data to be perfectly processed? We need to spend money figuring out how to deal with that, not yet more security theater.

Sorry I got off topic – this was not really the point of Joe’s post. Have chores to do.

Paul-no not they can either run a real liberal, rather than the pretender in there now, or watch a third party come in and scoop up the liberal vote. Of course Obama probably thinks he can make up the lost votes with all his admirers on the right.

“Matt Bai is a moron”
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SZ-I don’t actually agree with his conclusion today but he has been probably the best mainstream political writer over the last year.
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But thanks for keeping it under 1000 words.

Broder’s unhappy because the HCR legislation isn’t bipartisan.
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No, I’m not kidding : link to old fool

Obama has not intervened with a heavy hand as the bill has moved through the House and Senate, but now it is time for him to act.

It would help a lot if he reached out personally to those few Republicans who might still want to improve the bill rather than sink it. And it would help even more if he shamed the Democrats into rescinding some of the crasser bargains they made to buy votes along the way.

The country would welcome even a few signs that this legislation has bipartisan support.

Then we could applaud its final passage and take our thumbs from our noses.

The centrists really are as un-reality based as the right.

“There are some “solutions” that are far worse than conservatives’ non-solutions, Dee. There are actually some times when centrists are worse for the country than conservatives.”

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Amen stuart. I couldn’t agree more.
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But, the question lies in how dangerous Obama is by trying to play in all three places at the same time, Liberal, Centrist and Conservative.
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I am beginning to think that all the time he takes on most issues of relevance, he is polling what the best reponse politically will be for him and his Administration. This is very dangerous. People see him as a “pragmatist”, but I see it as testing all of the senarios before he makes a decision. The recent increase in troops as a basis of this opinion.
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Rather than lumping him into this or that side, he is playing all of us as the fool. Enjoy!

Poor little kevin, did mommie take away your Captain Crunch?

Lets see, Obama ran on a number of liberal (progressive) positions. But he also ran on a policy of working together, of trying to end the politics of discord and stalemate. So now he gets blamed (by both the left and the right, interestingly) for trying to do just that. I do wish that he would prosecute Bush and Cheney – not just for war crimes and torture, but for being traitors – blatantly violating Constitutional rights is as traitorous as anything a leader could do. And it would shut up those who defend Bush and Cheney. But I understand why he does not do it, because it would be seen by many as a purely political move. I wish the Health Insurance bill had a public option, but, that can be added later. I find it sad that so many progressives are almost as critical of Obama as so many conservatives. Give the guy a chance.

I have no idea what that means.
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Congratulations on once again writing a comment no one else can understand. You’re batting 1.000 here.

Broder is slightly to the right of the “Centrists”. He never cared much for our first black, Democratic, centrist president. He’s a Republican.
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http://www.huffingtonpost.com/paul-begala/david-broder-is-a-gasbag_b_46923.html

Yeah, I’m not holding my breath.

http://michaelfury.wordpress.com/2009/12/28/let-the-right-one-in/

“As for Cheney, I hope the old torturer just keeps blabbing”

Yes, let us hope he is moved to unburden himself, Mr. Klein:

http://michaelfury.wordpress.com/2008/12/18/clock-stoppers/

PNNTO:
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I’ve been unhappy with Bai’s work for a long time, probably contemporaneous with his “Wanker of the Day” achievement at Atrios’.
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But this column contains glaring, ignominious falsehoods, either because Bai doesn’t know what he’s talking about, or because he’s dissembling in the service of his storyline. I chose “moron” to be charitable.

By the definition of the word as it came to be used in the early part of the 20th century, Obama is indisputably in the progressive tradition.

No, unless he means “progressive tradition” in the most indirect way –or it boils down to “got liberals to vote for him.” By that definition, Bill Clinton is squarely “in the progressive tradition.”
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But look how Bai goes on to define “progressive tradition”:

Like both Roosevelts and Woodrow Wilson, he has pursued financial regulation — radical by the standards of the last two presidents — that would seek to temper the power of the markets without controlling them.

No, that’s false in multiple ways.
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First, the mere act of “pursuing financial regulation”, while certainly not a conservative virtue, does not constitute liberal policy. Financial regulation the effect of which is to advantage and perpetuate the largest institutions doesn’t meet the trust-busting standard. Regulation that serves Third Way goals isn’t conservatism or liberalism.
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Second, what “radical” regulation is he talking about? The link he provides even describes it as such:

For all the apparent action in Washington, some acute observers said that it was much ado about little. The moves, they said, were tinkering around the edges and did nothing to prevent another disaster.

In the service of his column’s conclusions, Matt Bai takes the Administration’s proclamations at face value. Instead of evaluating their claims, he says “Voila! Safeguards accomplished!”, like David Brooks used to do when the Bush people came out with progress reports on Iraq.
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Third, the idea that FDR and TR were attempting to “temper the power of the markets without controlling them” is just plain ludicrous. Yes, FDR and TR were attempting to control markets. In the New Deal’s worst excesses, they went to extremes unthinkable in today’s political world:

Donald Richberg (high New Deal official)
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Unless industry is sufficiently socialized by its private owners and managers so that great essential industries are operated under public obligation appropriate to the public interest in them, the advance of political control over private industry is inevitable.[38]

FDR wasn’t f-ing around.
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This is what he said about big finance, just prior to effectively nationalizing the banks:

“Practices of the unscrupulous money changers stand indicted in the court of public opinion, rejected by the hearts and minds of men. . . . The money changers have fled from their high seats in the temple of our civilization.”[15]

Bai’s column goes on to say that angry liberals want to hear more language like that so that our vengeful hearts can be assuaged, but we don’t give a crap about tough talk, actually. The reason why FDR’s talk of money changers was valuable was because it was followed up with structural reforms that served this country well –right up until Obama’s Chief Financial Adviser Larry Summers engineered their repeal in 1999 under Clinton.
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Bai dribbles more nonsense like:

If today’s liberals are serious about calling themselves progressives, then they may yet have to give up on the ideal of a president who enthusiastically excoriates fat cats — settling instead for a leader who is serious and methodical about reforming their ways.

“If today’s liberals are serious about calling themselves progressives?”
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What does that even mean?
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Only in the mind of someone for whom “progressive” and “liberal” are two distinct things could such a statement make sense. Only in the mind of someone for whom Larry Summers represents a force for “serious and methodical” reform could it be that those the least “serious” could sound the most like FDR.
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It’s a shameful, egregiously error-laden column. I truly hope that Matt Bai looks upon this work someday with the kind of post-WMD eye that asks “How could I have been so wrong? How could I have taken everything at face value? What happened to being a journalist?“.
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But, since Bai seems so much more interested in writing personality stories (I mean, more Obama body-language analysis? Come on!) than knowing either policy or history, I doubt such introspection is likely.
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Thanks for reading and considering this, PNNTO, I really tried to keep this at a minimum of words.

No Derek — by litmus testing progressives I mean you and those like you who dare to assume that only the issues you care about are worthy to be driven by principals and values thus in your minds making you the only ones worthy of possessing these exalted virtues!
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In fact, while there is a part of me that finds your kind of clueless idealism passionate and endearing, I know without direction and the occasional reality check it can also be destructive. So I’m compelled to speak out about the possible excesses in your point of view including when you make a bogus argument which I believe you did. Now, in return you chose to make it a personal attack, which intellectually I understand since you were being forced to come to terms with the inconvenient righteousness of my position and had nothing to respond with that was even remotely akin to logic.
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Nevertheless, you’ll keep harping on my alleged political persuasion (I resent walking in anyone’s lock step so I must be and evil centrist), which you are not really privy to since 99% of my comments on this site are media criticism rather than politics. Although I have commented extensively about health care reform my comments have always been clearly couched as being driven by the pragmatism of the uninsured like myself who are concerned that ideologues feel this is an issue worthy of political gamesmanship despite failure being a likely outcome.
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Now, perhaps I could have ignored your attempt to paint me as a sanctimonious blowhard rather than engage your unprecedented hubris the moment you assumed that you were in a position to decide what it means to be a progressive, a liberal or anything else outside of what you might find facing you in the mirror. However, I found that I could not resist sharing the obvious. Beyond your ridiculous assertion that you and you alone are the arbiter of the right way to be a progressive, or perhaps you simply planned to plagiarize the GOP’s purging document that lists 10 issues upon which 8 must be answered in a like-minded fashion or be driven from the ranks with a hoot and a holler. You and your fellow believers seem to care more about following a prescribed set of tactics that enable you to commiserate with beers together and lament how the good fight was lost rather than to actually concern yourselves with art of politics that determine outcomes and progress toward achieving a shared goal. Yes, I could have simply ignored you but then I did discuss the need for direction to safeguard against destruction. How preposterous it is for you to claim that I insult you, yet the only insult I can find is your claim itself since it seems to be based solely on what you surmise I am capable of doing (they call that projection where I come from), not something that you are accusing me of actually doing. Funny, how it’s your words that claim liberals are extremists, a term that I reserve solely for wingnuts in my rants. In fact, I have not accused liberals of anything, or are you saying that liberals and litmus testing progressives is the exact same thing? Below are the words that capture the mindset that inspires me to compare you to the unscrupulous far right and the words are clearly yours:
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“Because you are capable of falsely accusing real liberals of being extremists, and before you lecture me on insulting you look back at your posts and recognize that is all you have done. That is why I despise centrists like you. You have the morals of a snake and yet you think of yourself as being superior to all other beings. That is also why I have more respect for the far right than for so-called moderates. They actually believe in something and are willing to fight for it.”
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Derek, perhaps you are unaware that your words are antithetical to Liberal principles, which by definition requires tolerance of alternative views.
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Now lastly we’ve come to your final accusation that I fancy myself superior to all things. Of course if what you said were true, and I promoted myself as above all else and superior to you then it would have not been my intention and I would apologize. But I don’t really think that this is the case. I think that your perception of my thinking I am superior is being drawn from your recognition that I presented a superior argument, which frankly wasn’t very hard to do when you don’t present any argument at all. As a fellow human I don’t blame you for being a bit angry that despite your great passion you cannot credibly deny the logic of my argument and now want to kick yourself for coming to the table lacking at least a semi-cogent theory to defend your beliefs. But simply resorting to name-calling may help relieve your immediate frustration it won’t serve you well in the long term. Ultimately, we are all on the same side. And just because I’ve decided to take a longer view doesn’t mean I am your enemy. I can only hope that you learn a lesson from the right you claim to admire, as Republicans will surely find out this year that shrinking their party down to core conservatives may have one them a few national news cycles but in turn reduced them to a regional power waging war from a handful of southern states. Live to fight another day Derek. You can hate me for wanting to win the war instead of just the occasional skirmish, but in the long run that’s going to be what turns out to be best for both of our agendas. And I’m confident in time you will figure this out if you haven’t already.

Is this where one comes to comment or where we come to argue? As a card carrying Liberal (and proud of it) and I straight forward Christian,I see merits on both sides of the main disagreements in this section. I want health car reform and I think abortion is murder. Therefore my responsibility is to insure”I” don’t have one NOT make sure the rest of the universe doesn’t have abortions. Morals and religion are personal NOT for public consumption! I also think lying and stealing are wrong so I don’t do that either. That said: After 8 years of my beloved country being led by the dumbest, most dishonest group of politicians in our short history, I think Mr. Obama is a cool, very pleasant change. I was beginning to think that if I had to put up with the hypocrite/fake Christian, money grubbing, lying and stealing Republicans another year I would just lie down and stop breathing. These people are enough to make you start cussing and never want to stop!

With 2 wars, the economy, health care, new regulations for wall street, closing guatanomo and jobs, jobs, jobs Mr Obama does not have the luxury to prosecute the last bunch of thieves and crooks who stole half our country, let alone the huge group of draft dodging chickenhawks who lied us into war so they could steal all of the defense finances. There are only 24 hours in a day and the man does have to sleep and at least say hi to his family every now and then. There is simply too much on his plate. His name is Barack Obama not Superman or God!

In the New Deal’s worst excesses, they went to extremes unthinkable in today’s political world
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I meant FDR and his administration, not FDR and TR.

shepherdwong:
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I think you’re probably right about that.
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More precisely, Broder can’t imagine a world in which all of the little people out there aren’t Republicans.

“…I hope the old torturer just keeps blabbing ..”

Especially with rants like this one. When he shows us he is still obsessing and fuming over the current administration’s decision – made over half a year ago – to stop using his phrase “war on terror,” he appears to be “going off his rocker.”

Dee I hope you don’t believe that the longer your post is the more truth it contains. I don’t even know what you are talking about any longer. You are simply rambling on like a mad man. My original argument is war criminals like Cheney are not afraid to kick sand in Obama’s face because they know he is a weakling who will do nothing about it. After all, he let them get away with committing crimes, that resulted in the death of thousands of people. If you think I’m a naive idealist because I believe in the rule of law and it is more “pragmatic” to let war criminals walk free, you are not a centrist, you are one of the nihilists that Klein keeps referring to, although I’m sure Klein has no idea what nihilism really means.

Dee,
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You’re acting like this is all about you.
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Please, peace out. I promise you that the louder you shout, the more people will stop listening. Turning yourself into Joe Klein is not going to help anybody.

PNNTO:
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Here’s Digby on Bai : link to Digby on Bai

Stuart, perhaps you should read a little more about Roosevelt, because his progressive era had an awful lot of grassroots help and he in fact opposed social security and had to be dragged into supporting it, although it didn’t cover nearly the amount of people it covers now. You do know that Federal employees were exempt until the late seventies and it didn’t have a number of provisions that it has now, the same with mediare later on it was not neatly the expansive program it is now. I think you’ve forgotten that it was Eleanor who was the great progressive Roosevelt.
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It is easy to hitch our wagons to revisionist history and as a student of politics if there is one absolute that exists it’s that labels rarely define anyone as well as it defines those doing the labeling. You’ve decided Obama is a certain thing based on specific political tactics he has used to get from point A to point B, while Roosevelt you judge based on historical outcomes, that tells me that you are doing a lot more parroting of views than actual research into how those views are being formulated. If you did you would find that Roosevelt wasn’t nearly as progressive as you think and Obama isn’t as centrists as you think. Perhaps a more thorough reading of Obama’s books would provide a greater understanding of how he formulated his strategy. This president has been talking about a transformational presidency for some time and he is determined to get there but he knows that he has to ease the country into transformation because if he jolts them to much the pendulum will swing back in the other direction so fast it will make your head spin.
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The idea that so many progressives believe that there is such thing as progressive tactics and are actively trying to create such a paradigm is amazing. There is nothing third way about health care reform, Truman couldn’t do it, although it was the logical next step after Roosevelt’s new deal. The country wasn’t ready then and it is barely ready now. It is certainly not ready for a single payer system, although ultimately that’s where we will end up but in the mean time we will do it incrementally like everything else in our history regardless of whether you hail from a generation more accustomed to instant gratification. You will find like the generations that came before you that the older you get the more aversion there is to change. This is but an interim system for the public where few are progressives but progressives seem to think they are this huge voting block capable of handing out election victories all by themselves. Sure you can be a third party just ask the GOP how that worked out for them — We got Clinton and their boy lost. Face reality, a winning majority in this country is either a coalition or a movement. Now progressives can continue to only hang around with other progressives and continue to seem themselves as a bigger slice of the electorate than they actually are, but they are sooner or later going to find out the hard way that if we could have what we wanted with just progressive votes we would have done it already. Medicare wouldn’t have been limited to seniors, originally Johnson wanted it to include everybody, couldn’t get it done even with 67 Democratic Senators okay so get a grip.
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The left went through this in the seventies when we did the purging thing, and the progressives only thing and we spent an awful lot of years in the wilderness where the likes of Nixon, Ford, Reagan and Bush got to call the shots, ran up huge deficits, didn’t invest in any infrastructure and pretty much drained this nation of everything it had going for itself so they could return this country back to the guilded age before the new deal. And if they get back into power that is exactly what they will continue to do. Sure we had Carter for a few years and Clinton for eight but he might as well have been a Republican because anything progressive failed for the same reason, the rest of the country that you fly over wasn’t with us. So instead of calling pragmatist evil centrists or third way whatever, why don’t you acknowledge first that progressives have failed to convince the rest of the country that their way is right and stop acting like the failure to get everything you want is the same thing as failing to get anything you want.

Derek wrote: “Dee what has Obama done to bring the war criminals behind the Iraq war to justice, a war that caused the death of at least 100,000 innocents? He has done nothing.”
Exactly. Obama did absolutely nothing to bring Saddam Hussein to justice. Thank goodness someone had the cojones to bring that terrorist to justice.

I am chocking on my beer just now, not only for the misplaced accolade to the past fascist regime, but also at the thought of the great big wide world of evil leaders you have left to bring down, along with whole civilizations of innocent people in the process.

So in other words Tuck, while LT progressives get a free pass on their ad hominem attacks against any Democrat they deemed unworthy, anything akin to self-defense is shouting and self aggrandizing?

James, thank goodness I wasn’t drinking a beer too or I would have choked on it.

Dee:
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Respectfully, the source of much of your misunderstanding seems to be this:

stop acting like the failure to get everything you want is the same thing as failing to get anything you want.

It’s not that “I want” an unlimited supply of cookies, and I’ve been given only a dozen, it’s that “I want” cookies, and I’ve been given chrysanthemums.
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The problem isn’t that this health care reform agenda is not enough of something, it’s that it’s too much of something else.
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It’s not going to work. It’s bad. It’s not that I’m not getting enough of what I petulantly want, it’s that I think that it’s terrible policy, just as bad as if the conservatives set up a whole “reform” structure based on Health Savings Accounts with subsidies and a couple of symbolic regulations thrown on top. Those of us opposed think that it will fail. We think that it’s not at good idea. We think that that it will be worse for Democrats than Katrina was for Republicans.
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The contortions you have to get yourself into to effectively compare what FDR did to what Obama is doing now are mind-boggling. The characterizations of opponents as spoiled children are unfortunate and false. The characterization of Obama –someone who won’t even describe themselves as a liberal– as somehow liberal in spite of it all are desperate, and not reality-based.
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Please try harder to understand what people are saying to your face.
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It’s just like as if the whole legislative agenda of health care reform were predicated on the idea that health savings accounts would solve problems, as long as enough subsidies were attached to make enough people feel as if there were something to lose by opposing its passage.
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Opponents don’t want more health savings accounts, and are not upset because they’re not getting enough health savings accounts, we just know that a plan based on that set of policy premises will fail.
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Likewise it is with Obama’s and Baucus’ “market-oriented” approach, which hinges on making back-room deals with big industry, and leaving the price-setting mechanisms that are driving the bankruptcy of Medicare and the private system fundamentally unchanged. It’s not that we’re “failing to get everything” we want, it’s that we can see relatively plainly that the “market-oriented” Third Way approach will fail because we hold different premises about how things work in the real world.
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Please read and understand that your criticisms aren’t about anybody who actually opposes the legislation on its merits from the left, Dee.

Derek clearly, since you no longer wish to name call and instead want to mount an argument, I have to ask, why the same flawed reasoning as your original comments? Obviously, no matter what Obama does the GOP attacks because their political strategy is to delegitimize him and make him an unacceptable president so the public will have no alternative but to return to the GOP, despite their ruined brand and the lack of a new vision forward to offer. so your premise that they are only making these cracks because he won’t fight back and didn’t indict them as war criminals is false if their only strategy for political viability is to delegitimize their opponent. Moreover, as for not fighting back, that is also not true. In fact, immediately after Republicans mounted their awful response to the Xmas bomber the white house fired back by calling Cheney out for his many hypocrisies and national security failures. The administration pushed back hard enough for the media to finally switch gears and instead of their usual stenography they started posing some uncomfortable question to the GOP. You do realize that was the purpose of this pose, the fact that the media is suddenly pushing back on the GOP meme. That’s why you hear all of these Republicans backtracking today. Derek, tell me you don’t really think that the press narrative actually changes without the other side mounting a massive and persuasive campaign to make it change do you?

“Third Way people see an opportunity for big government and big industry/finance to get together in order to plan and execute what’s best for both.”
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Do you suppose they’ve forgotten enough history to not know who their political/philosophical godfathers are?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corporatism#Fascist_corporatism

Dee there is only one agenda the media follows and that is the one dictated by the fallacy of the middle ground, the same fallacy that you operate under. You know, liberals are radical extremists because they believe in the rule of law. They are exactly the same as the radical right. Only we centrists know the truth because we are “pragmatic” and other horse shit arguments like that. I can tell you this, if the laws of the land applied to people like Cheney, and if we had a president willing to uphold those laws, Cheney would be too busy keeping his fat ass out of jail, to spend any time politicizing a terrorist act.

Dee, you need to pop a top and have a good choke. I responded too hastily, neglecting to ask azmaveth to please expand on the issue of Iraq’s role in international terrorism (that was the point, wasn’t it?), prior to the attack (after, we know, it became a rallying ground for the crazies). I submit to you that it had none. Zero, zilch. It was a secular government in the middle of a hotbed of religious extremism, most notably the Saudi allies of the fascists here. Name one Iraqi who waged an international terrorist act. Just one please. Your task would be lessened for any other crazy Islamist country. But for Iraq, it is not possible.

shepherdwong:
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Jay Ackroyd thinks the same way you do, but I’m not sure.
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I think the Third Way people are too globally-oriented to be fascist. Fascism requires a hyper-nationalism that centrists don’t feel too comfortable with.
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Fascists would never have enacted NAFTA.

Stuart — We’ll just have to agree to disagree. As someone who is both uninsured and was involved in knee deep in the Clinton health care attempt, I know that what you call back room deals with industry, had two purposes. The first was to strengthen Medicare, since we know from the last attempt that seniors posed the greatest threat since they were likely to have the most aversion to change. (Funny how the group most in need of it 20 years ago are now the seniors in opposition). So making sure this legislation got rid of the doughnut hole, a hole in coverage that Republicans deliberately put in along with the law that prevented the government for negotiating for better terms, by limiting their initial exposure to addressing the doughnut hole you’d accomplish two things: Get the endorsement of the AARP , which could help stabilize seniors and keep Pharma largely on the sidelines where they would be unable to kill the baby in the crib as they had done in 93.
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The administration pretty much made sure that all of the major opponents that had derailed health care reform before were out of the war leaving only the insurance company, yes formidable but ultimately a manageable enemy. You think you don’t like the policy now, if pharma had fought against this along with the AMA and the hospitals, there wouldn’t be any health reform to be angry about. Yes, Dean is now seeing the error of his ways, he shouldn’t have started this riff but since he did, here’s the skinny. The Democrats have every intention of making this thing better. Once you set the foundation of all of the things that can’t be gotten through reconciliation or would be in danger of being repealed if they did, they can go back and make the fixes. The big thing for this white house was always the exchange because that’s how individuals and small businesses will get bargaining power to bring down the cost of their premiums. Moreover, the exchanges will ultimately be how all insurance is regulated in the future and the fight will be to turn health care into a highly regulated utility.
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The exchanges is what can’t be gotten through reconciliation and the ground work for it is in the current bill. Once this is successful, before any of this goes into affect you will see the Democrats write stronger rules for the exchanges and have add-ons that can be gotten through reconciliation. Of course, anyone telling you that you can get the exchanges through this means is either lying or doesn’t know squat about passing legislation, But once the foundation is made they can go back and fix anything and everything they want, just like they did for Social Security, Medicare, Civil rights and every other liberal program ever devised. But they can’t focus on that right now. Why, look what happen when they had the deal for the Medicare buy-in and certain progressives starting shooting their mouths off about how it was a segue to single-payer and then low and behold the insurance lobby got Lieberman to renege. But I guess strategy and intrigue is too hard a subject for some huh?

I would just like to weigh in that I agree with Dee. I think its of the utmost importance to take the long view for the time being, so that this country can get back on the progressive track. Prosecuting the former administration for war crimes would feel great, but it would be ill-timed. Cripes Derek, didn’t you see how people freaked out over health-care reform in those town-halls over the summer? I could barely believe the absurdity of it. How can anyone oppose health-care for all? I still find it hard to believe that conservatives have a stranglehold on the Christian vote, while adamantly opposing helping the sick and the poor through effective public policies.

It is wonderful to have strong ideals, but in reality, it would be too easy for neo-cons to paint an attempt to prosecute the Bush admin as “spineless liberals not understanding the terror threat, not believing in keeping Americans safe”, etc, etc. You and I and Dee and other folks who actually pay attention to facts understand that Iraq was actually a dangerous distraction from properly addressing al-Qaida extremists and therefore made us less safe, and was a needless and tragic waste of life for both American soldiers and Iraqi civilians, but surely you realize that there are VAST amounts of Americans who don’t get that at all. For those folks, the easiest argument to understand is what convinces them, and Bush waged a war against brown people who worship a different god, talk funny and wear towels on their heads (and didn’t I see them on TV celebrating after 9/11?), so why is Obama trying to throw him in prison for it? He must be one of them too.

I fundamentally agree with your ideals, but the problem with liberals in the past few decades is that they haven’t been as politically savvy as the neo-cons have been. We have to be smart enough to stay in power and make effective, long-lasting change for the betterment of our country.

xandersmom do you think it is a good idea to completely demoralize the active base of the party, just to appease a few tea baggers? Have you seen the numbers on the Democratic base lately? There is huge disappointment out there and they are likely to stay home during the next election cycle. The Left is also getting tired of being the only group the gutless Obama regime shows any back bone toward. What is the point of winning majorities if they are not put to use? The right has done nothing but try to block everything Obama does and yet he still acts as if bipartisanship rules the land. My guess is they are making a big mistake taking the Liberal vote for granted.

I too agree with Dee, although my eyes go blurry reading the posts and I am concerned for her possible development of carpel tunnel syndrome. It is all a matter of context. It is a big time jump from TR to FDR, Truman, Johnson, Clinton. I think Obama is competent in the given context, that being ignorant and detached right wing tea baggers and much of the country not connected to the real issues. The education system is better now than it was in TRs time, yet the electorate is more disconnected, ignorant and brainwashed. I agree with Dee and trust Obama for now. One more thing, I resent that the term moderate has evolved to centrist which has become a pejorative tossed around as casually and acceptably to the left as the right wing use of liberal.

Wekcome to Firedoglake!

“I think the Third Way people are too globally-oriented to be fascist. Fascism requires a hyper-nationalism that centrists don’t feel too comfortable with.”
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Hence the use of the phrase “political/philosophical godfathers”. In Mussolini’s day industry itself was far more “hyper-nationalist” than in today’s world of the industrial “mini-state” I believe you called it. Otherwise, US-based multi-nationals couldn’t behave so traitorously to US national interests. Profit is their country.
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Like “conservatism” and corporatism, the definitions gradually evolve with the changing political and economic circumstances. Goldwater conservatism was completely useless to corporate interests so they appropriated the term as the marketing brand for their capitalist elitism, knowing that most people would never buy it if they knew what it really was.
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While we’re defining terms. let me also say that I don’t consider Beltway “centrism” to be very much different from movement conservatism. If you assume that “small government” was always a euphemism for de-regulation and reducing taxes on the wealthy then Democratic “centrism” is just a kinder, more rational form of the dysfunction: e.g., Medicare Part B is a $9 trillion unfunded big-government program while HCR is a $1 trillion big-government program that more than pays for itself, mostly on taxing the middle class (assuming the Senate financing mechanism is what we end up with). We’re all just cogs in service of the more globalist corporate mechanism now, just as the Fascists thought its should be.

Prosecuting the former administration for war crimes would feel great, but it would be ill-timed.
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The reason we should prosecute the former administration is not to feel good, or for revenge. Its not even about Bush, Cheney, etc. Frankly, that’s the conservative media’s meme and a diversion. They should be prosecuted so that it never happens again. We need to know exactly what happened so that there can never be another instance where a few well placed individuals (in the executive, DOD, congress and the media) can use our collective fear and anger to stage nothing-less-than a coup of American Foreign Policy (or any policy). And so that when someone like me writes those words, we all know that it is not hyperbole.
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We know what happens to those who fail to learn from history…

“I think its of the utmost importance to take the long view for the time being, so that this country can get back on the progressive track.”
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Those of us who are old enough to remember saying the same thing have two words for you kids: Bill Clinton.

oops, that should be attached to xandersmom #24

I’m afraid that this little lesson in what other people think liberals are mad about reveals something very important about our current political state: only liberals/progressives really care and understand about the substance of policy; for the centrists and wingers it’s all just partisan politics. And, sadly, there just aren’t very many liberals/progressives and they are barely allowed on TV (apologies to Maddow, Olbermann and Schultz).

See there you go again Derek, you ask to deal with the argument and when you have no logical response you resort to the ad homenin attack. I didn’t call liberals or even progressives extremists. I didn’t say pragmatists or centrists or anyone else for that matter were better or worse I simply pointed out the different perspectives from which they view the current political strategy. As for the rest that’s all on you. You are the one doing all of the labeling., I spoke to one specific group, litmus-testing progressives, which speaks to a specific group who have become intolerant of any divergent views. You don’t have a clue about my politics other than I don’t buy into the political viability of labeling and I don’t care how much anger you’ve managed to dredge up after late night dorm room discussions the political viability of labeling won’t get any better intolerance has the same outcome no matter what you are being intolerant about. It serves only one purpose to exclude people and it doesn’t much matter whether its based on race, gender, sexual orientation or political persuasion. Unlike you I think every one has something to offer, something to teach that will make me better at what I do. Except for may be you, because at this point your listening skills are so stunted I don’t think you have a whole lot to offer.

It became quite obvious during the push for health-care reform that the majority to which you refer is a party majority, but not an ideological majority. Unlike the Republicans, the Dems still have a wide variety of differing viewpoints on the issues, and I think that is a good thing overall.

I was as annoyed as you likely were by Ben Nelson and his ilk, who seemed to be thwarting the reform efforts, but even as I was irritated by the effect that it had on the legislative process, part of me recognized and respected the fact that the Dems have not become what the Repubs have long been, which is a political party that engages in groupthink and is unwilling or afraid to express dissent from party leadership. I think that you should want the political party that you most closely align yourself with to be heterogeneous in that way.

It is disappointing to me that the liberal focus is so narrow that the movement is “completely demoralize[d[” by Obama’s failure to prosecute the Bush admin’s war crimes during his first year in office. As Dee initially stated, Obama had to exhaust nearly all of his political capital just to get a health-care reform bill passed (without the public option that he clearly wanted, no less); pushing forward with a war crimes prosecution would simply be unwise right now, in terms of the 2010 and 2012 elections, because it doesn’t seem that the base to which you refer has the voting prowess to allow the Dems to keep their seats should they attempt something so politically risky at this time.

Dee:
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…Or they’re not playing 11-dimensional chess in this grand strategy to get liberal legislation that someday somehow puts the government at odds with powerful industries passed, and they worked for and got the legislation they wanted and their Third Way economists believe in: f you right wing, and f you left wing.
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Yes, we’ll just have to agree to disagree.

without the public option that he clearly wanted
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LOL

Frankly, I don’t think what you call centrists and moderates are the same thing. There are many liberal Democrats who are reliably liberal economic policies, but would have trouble with gay rights, just as their many who are liberal about social issues and have trouble with higher taxes. The bottom line is labels are in sufficient because people are not just one thing. Depending on the issue people change their alliances based on their own personal experiences and the traditions of other groups they belong to. so when we seek to exclude people because they may not agree on our issue just remember they might be our strongest coalition partner.

I think we should empty out all the prisons because there is a war on and it is impractical to think people ought to be held accountable for their crimes. Only a dirty hippie, idealist, thinks the rule of law is a good idea.

My mind was going overload trying to decipher the various possibilities depending on the given issue. Thank goodness you finally dismissed labels as useless. I am ok now.

Either yourself and Derek are deliberately misunderstanding my position, or I am not being clear.

It is not that I don’t think that the Bush admin should be prosecuted for the war crimes that they callously perpetrated. It is a matter of timing. I have yet to hear anyone address what I pointed out would surely happen if Obama were to tackle this issue right now; i.e., neo-cons painting the Dems as weak on national security, etc., and the Dems losing their seats in 2010 because of that.

I think that once the Dems prove that they can solve the plethora of pressing issues that Repubs created during their mismanaged reign, their credibility will be such that Obama can proceed with addressing these crimes effectively.

I do not think that attempting to prosecute the Bush admin right now would be worth handing control of the country back to conservatives, do you? Or can you illustrate a scenario in which that would not happen (keeping in mind that the gen pop of the U.S. is not as left-leaning as you happen to be)?

Stuart you laugh at the thought of Obama wanting the public option, but what you fail to realize that its not that he didn’t want the public option is that he wants the health exchanges more because that’s the foundation to ultimately reigning in the insurance companies. In addition, perhaps you forgot that Obama always said the public option may be the best way to get to where he wants to go but its not the only way, However without the exchange there is no way to get there. Moreover, unlike you the president doesn’t have the luxury to just focus on policy. He has no choice but to also be concerned about the politics and in this case, there should be more than enough examples out there for you not to doubt that if Obama was to come out publicly and fight for the public option that a certain number of Senators would object to he would pay too high a price if he lost. You know good and well that the media narrative would be Obama loses signature health reform even if the rest of legislation got through. If he is going to transform the country’s political persuasion into one that believes in government he needs a press narrative that is focused on their success.

xandersmom there are a lot of things that are going to be done in the future aren’t there? By the way, you have no more idea what the future holds than I do or what holding criminals accountable for their crimes will bring. Besides, many people don’t think the rule of law is dependent on political timing. Some people are spending their lives in prison for having a small amount of pot on them. It’s too bad if it is inconvenient to centrists if mass murderers are held accountable for their actions.

I intended to post this as a reply to Derek’s reply, sorry bout that.

sz: It is ok to be cynical, I suppose, but realistically, Obama clearly articulated his preference that the reform bill include the public option time and time again, including in his Address to Congress.

Would it have been preferable for Obama to have forced the Senate bill to include the public option, just so that it could be voted down and we’d all be back to square one? Once a reform bill is signed into law, it will be subject to legislative amendment, leaving open the possibility that the public option can be added in later on.

Dee:
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I agree with almost, just about everything you’ve said here.
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Ideological Third Way centrists really don’t have a popular constituency out there in the country, they are mostly a creature of Beltway and Democratic party institutions.
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When most folks lean toward the center, they usually are moderate in the left or right opinions they hold (or they’re able to hold hardcore right and left positions simultaneously) and aren’t clamoring for the same extreme centrist ideology that the New Democrat wing of the party believes in.
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As far as “coalition partners” go, I’ll temporarily sign an email with tea partiers, if they’ll work to stop the next industry bailout, just like I’ll accept the Paulites when they try to stop the next foreign invasion.
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You’re so right, Dee! When we seek to exclude people because they may not agree with our position on, say taxes or regulation or social safety net programs, we can’t benefit from the louder combined voice we might achieve in opposing bad policy.
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It’s only when we allow the Beltway center to label who is acceptable and Serious, and who is “ideological” and “extreme” on either the left or the right that we run afoul of the complex positions that ordinary people actually hold. It also doesn’t allow us to temporarily team up with the right to our tactical political advantage against the center.
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Not being able to say the sun sets in the West just because a popular rightist says it is the kind of “ideological purity” that cuts off nose to spite face. When we can’t use the Crazee Right to our advantage because…because…well, because they’re Tea Baggers, dammit! then we truly are tribally dedicated to our ideology.
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Ideological centrism and moderation are not, and have never been the same things.

Killer f’ing thread folks!

“There are many liberal Democrats who are reliably liberal economic policies, but would have trouble with gay rights, just as their many who are liberal about social issues and have trouble with higher taxes.”
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I think I see the problem. It is axiomatic that a liberal would not “have trouble with” higher taxes, if they are necessary to fund government (unpaid for government is a proven “conservative” thing) and also would not “have trouble” with anyone’s liberty rights. It’s in the definition:

lib⋅er⋅al [lib-er-uhl, lib-ruhl]–adjective
.
1. favorable to progress or reform, as in political or religious affairs.
.
2. (often initial capital letter) noting or pertaining to a political party advocating measures of progressive political reform.
.
3. of, pertaining to, based on, or advocating liberalism.
.
4. favorable to or in accord with concepts of maximum individual freedom possible, esp. as guaranteed by law and secured by governmental protection of civil liberties.
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5. favoring or permitting freedom of action, esp. with respect to matters of personal belief or expression: a liberal policy toward dissident artists and writers.
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6. of or pertaining to representational forms of government rather than aristocracies and monarchies.
.
7. free from prejudice or bigotry; tolerant: a liberal attitude toward foreigners.

I can call myself a Saudi Prince but it doesn’t mean I’m going to be kissed by George Bush.

We just disagree, Dee.
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I disagree with you about what the “foundation” of “reigning in” industry is. I disagree with you that the goal is to “reign in” industry at all. I disagree with you that Obama was ever dedicated to the meaningless, worthless little public option in the House bill. I disagree with you that Obama was ever dedicated to a public option that constituted a Trojan Horse for single payer, as liberals had hoped.
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The exchange, as currently legislated, is almost worthless, except as a sh*tty means of executing a poorly conceived federal welfare program state by state. The idea that Obama couldn’t publicly fight for things he wanted is a joke, given the vast hot air expended during his campaign for “transparency”. Do I need to dredge up Obama campaigning against back-room industry deals as a part of the health care reform process he sold the country?
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I haven’t forgot anything that Obama has said or not said, I simply disagree with you about what the goals of this Administration actually are, about what the best road to a workable health care system in this country is, and about what is politically possible and practicable.
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I don’t care if Obama “transform the country’s political persuasion into one that believes in government”, when the practical result of that is an anti-transparency, centralized, “trust us, we know what we’re doing” partnership between the state and big industry and finance to entrench power in the hands of unaccountable elites.
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We’re not supposed to “believe in government”, Dee. They’re not our beneficent rulers, and we’re not meant to be their hopeful subjects. We’re supposed to make the government do what we think is best, not work to prevent it from functioning at all like the rightists, nor rest comfortably in the care of technocrats like the centrists.
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We just disagree, Dee, that’s it.

Derek, I am certainly not a psychic, but I can and do use inferential logic to make predictions about future events, like many rational people tend to do.

Using said logic, I take into account the colossal effort that Obama and Congressional Democrats needed to get something so obviously beneficial as health-care reform passed in Congress. Factor in the belief that many still hold that Iraq was connected in some way to 9/11 (courtesy of the conservative misinformation machine) and the public perception that liberals are soft on terror (i.e., wanting the end the war in Afghanistan). It all adds up to a political environment ripe for conservative takeover.

I’m no Karl Rove, but if I wanted to reinstall neo-cons into the seats of power, the atmosphere that would be created by an attempted war crimes prosecution would be ideal, for the aforementioned reasons.

And by the way, a conservative takeover would be inconvenient for you, too. The only way to effect change is to use the machinery provided, which is our political process. For too long, idealistic liberals haven’t played the game of politics well, and that has been to the country’s detriment. We now have someone in office who can play the game, and that is what he is doing. Too bad for you if you don’t get it.

See shepardwong, I’m a number 7 liberal. I can tolerate just about anything but stupidity — not too Zen with that crap.

Well, I’m glad he clearly articulated his preferences. That’s probably very important to someone who was concerned about Obama’s preferences, as opposed to, say, someone who was concerned about what Obama would get done (or not).
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I won’t trouble myself trying to figure out which part of “I didn’t campaign on the public option” ( link to Obama declaring that his lack of support for a public option is consistent with his campaign ) is that sort of clear articulation of his preference for a public option, but not the kind of overwhelming preference that would lead to dedicated action and a job well done.
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Come on, it’s funny! It’s ridiculous, you can see that, right? The more we go this route, the more we get into what the meaning of “is” is, or even “I voted for the 87 billion before I voted against it”. It’s not a “clearly articulated preference”, unless those preferences have as much to do with policy as Obama’s taste in tableware.
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The simplest explanation is that Obama campaigned on something to get liberal votes, and then tried to let liberals down easy when it came time to supporting centrist legislation as he always would.
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Don’t you remember Obama’s FISA telecom immunity vote?
It’s the same thing.

Hee. That stupidity-intolerance thing is our Achilles heel for sure. Another reason everyone else hates us.

Joe Klein, I have a question–what were Barack Obama’s campaign promises with respect to terror watch lists? Let’s see you answer that question.

xandersmom inferential logic is synonymous with deductive logic, a geometric like logic that proceeds from general principles and deduces various conclusions that derive from those principles. Given that you make reference to empirical events I think you must be referring to inductive reasoning, rather than deductive. However, if I am wrong what are the universal principles you are referring to that lead you to your conclusions?

By the way it may be too bad for me that I share the left side of spectrum with people like you, but it is also too bad for you when you drive people like me out of the party, which is what you and Obama have done. The time to act is now, not later, when the pukes have regained power. Obama’s time has already come and gone and his shyness has made him a failure.

I should just make it clear:
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Insurance companies are not the biggest part of the problem. The real “foundation” of reform was never reigning them in, but establishing effective price controls on health care, private and public systems. The “foundation” of Obama’s and the Democratic leadership’s reform wasn’t “reigning in” insurance companies, either. It was offering them something in return for a bit of regulation. They think that’s fair, and that it’s good policy.
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“Reining in insurance companies” is as simple as passing regulations forbidding certain activities, such as rescission and pre-existing condition exclusions. We didn’t need “health care reform” to do that. We didn’t need an “exchange” to do that, nor for making health insurance affordable and accessible to everyone. We only need an “exchange” to keep government and industry as incentivised to work together as possible.
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But insurance companies are a small piece of the health care problem pie in America, Dee. Why do you think that Medicare is going broke? Hint: it doesn’t have to do with “reigning in insurance companies”
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The goal of the New Democrats has never been to control industry, but to find ways to use the government to accommodate the market as it is.
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I hope that clarifies what I said.

The “War on Terror” is and has been since 9/11 an Orwellian fraud.

“Violence can only be concealed by a lie, and the lie can only be maintained by violence.”

- Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

http://michaelfury.wordpress.com/2009/04/11/the-rest-is-silence/

Valid question spob. I don’t recall if he had any or not, but I would assume that he was in favor of them after such had been ignored prior to 9/11. I won’t diminish the main point of need for scrutiny of intelligence practices and effectiveness. On that point I wholehearted agree. I do dismiss your insinuation that they were any better during the fascist regime for which you hold such fond nostalgia.

I’d just like to say thank you to everyone who participated in this thread generally, and responded to my commentary in particular.
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I’ll let you all have the last word, I’m exhausted.

That quote only befuddles me more than Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn himself does. And I agree with others that you should expand your commentary beyond pandering your own site. I am happy with this one.

sz, thanks. In the words of St. Paul, who I think was a nutcase, but nonetheless, you fought the good fight. My last word is it was fun and enjoyable, mostly thanks to the stars you and Dee, and we will do it again tomorrow. Sleep tight. And to all a good night.

Hey, have you experienced the Kingdom of Loathing ( link to the Kingdom of Loathing ) ?

Derek, perhaps you are correct about my misuse of the term (I was an English major, so I assumed that the term referred to logic based on reasonable inferences).

But since you seem to know so much about various types of reasoning, I find it confusing that you are so very unreasonable yourself. You stated that Obama needs to do these things while he is still in power, but he is still a first-term president, so the potential for a second term is yet on the horizon.

I cannot help but notice that you seized on my misuse of the term, but declined to address the hypothetical situation that I illustrated for you. It seems like you do not want to realize that a large segment of the population is misinformed and easily led, and that Obama prosecuting Bush and cronies for war crimes would create an atmosphere of division and mistrust that Repubs could easily capitalize on in 2010 and 2012. Perhaps if you could profoundly expand and mobilize the ultra-liberal voting bloc that you seem to think is the Democratic base in the next few months, your demands could be seriously considered without running the risk of handing control of the country back into the hands of criminal neo-cons.

There are still lots of positive changes that need to be made for the betterment of this country, and losing the seats of power in exchange for the satisfaction of prosecuting the Bushies is not the way to go at this time in our history. Which is not to say that it should never be done (lest I be misunderstood by you yet again).

formerlyjames wrote: “please expand on the issue of Iraq’s role in international terrorism (that was the point, wasn’t it?), prior to the attack (after, we know, it became a rallying ground for the crazies). I submit to you that it had none. Zero, zilch”
You’d be woefully mistaken. Beside his foiled plan to use Iraqi agents to assassinate the elder Bush during a trip to Kuwait, he also gave tens of thousands of dollars to families of Palestinian suicide bombers on numerous occasions. And it would be ludicrous to suggest his massacres of Kurds & Shiites shouldn’t have outraged Kurds & Shiites in other countries.

sz: I stand by my statement that Obama clearly articulated his preference for the public option, because he did. Once it became apparent that it was a dealbreaker for moderate Senate Dems, he expressed that it was not a “public option or nothing at all” situation, and that legislation could still be crafted that he would sign off on if a deal that included the public option could not be reached.

Would have been great if he could have written the bill himself and signed it into law, moderate Dems be damned. However, our legislative process doesn’t work that way, so he had to work with what he could get a majority of senators to agree upon.

He made specific promises about fixing the terror watch lists to make them more effective. It was a discrete promise, and action on said promise probably would have prevented this guy from getting on the plane.
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Perhaps Joe Klein will weigh in.
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Here are some questions:
.
1) What did Janet Napolitano do to implement the promise?
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2) Did Barack Obama do anything to implement it?

xandersmom sorry for being so pedantic but my field of study was philosophy so I am familiar with the various forms of logic. I am also aware that you are still drawing conclusions that you have presented absolutely no reason for believing. Given that the majority of people kicked the Republicans out, and gave the Democrats universal control of government, there is every reason to believe they would have supported the prosecution of the criminals they removed from power. As far as I’m concerned, my logic is every bit as sound as yours.
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As for my suggestion that the time to act is now I rely on inductive logic, a logic based on the evidence of the senses. I can draw on history in that respect and see there is a strong tendency for the ruling power to lose seats, when the first election comes around after electing a new president. That would be this year. Hence my suggestion that the time to act is now. However, the Democrats are incapable of getting anything done, even when they have a blank check, so unlike you, I refuse to hold out the false hope that they will correct their mistakes later, unless of course the proper bribes are offered as compensation.

“Would probably”? Do you have any hard links that we can use to evaluate this “would probably”?

The President has only one series of actions which will end terrorist attacks on the US.

A) Indict Cheney, Rumsfeld and Bolton for crimes against humanity. Bush was fighting his inner demons throughout his Presidency and should be given a pass. Clearly he was not in control.

B) Withdraw all aid from Israel until they stop pissing off everybody else on the planet.

C) Nuke Waziristan to wipe out the Al -qaeda leadership and to show all the other players in the region that the US is serious. Waziristan has a population of maybe half a million. This is fewer than the numbers of Iraqis and Afghans who have been killed in the last ten years and will be killed in the next ten years.

It may be only a one term Presidency, but it would finally get the twenty-first century off on the right foot.

Even if the Republicans disagree strongly with Obama on the issues, they should at least give him a chance, respect the office and refrain from the vicious attacks. And not blame him for everything for the sake of political gain.
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Just like the Democrats did with George W. Bush.

Can’t anything be done just for the sake of justice anymore?

All of you progressive liberals don’t get. Islam (that’s right Islam not just radical Muslims) is going to rule this country in the not too far future. In the early stages, radical Muslims are going to continue to spread mayhem and destruction, in increasing frequency. Meanwhile, the growing Muslim population with the help of you freaking liberals will help usher in Sharia. So your children’s children will likely live in an Islamic world. So go ahead and live your secular and liberal lives, your time is limited.

Those who believe in nothing are very, very jealous and angry at those who believe in something.

http://japan-russia.jimdo.com/world-press/

But the GOP understands there is no limit to what the American people will believe. They continue to blast our president as a traitor and enough folks in this country will fall in line with that dangerous ideology.

http://www.political-buzz.com/

(sorry to post and run yesterday… meeting some friends to watch Sun night football.. had threeorfour…)
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I disagree that the timing would be bad. Actually, if tried at The Hague then Obama could simply say “if they’re innocent they have nothing to worry about” and go about business-as-usual. But, that seems not to be happening. If tried in Congress, yes, there certainly would be a major effort to portray it as a “liberal vendetta”. But I suspect that enough people would be horrified to see evidence of war crimes and treason- and the backlash against conservative politicians and media figures would overwhelm their storylines.
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But it’s moot, I think that the real reason Obama and Congress won’t prosecute is that the admin is following the neocon’s blueprint- if there was a trial, enough people would question our ambitions in Afghanistan and the military budget. EIT/torture and prisoner detention are not essential to the neocons, infrastructure is. The Bush admin negotiated the SOFA with Iraq and began to focus on Afghani infrastructure:
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The military has already spent roughly $2.7 billion on construction over the past three fiscal years. Now, if its request is approved as part of the fiscal 2010 defense appropriations bill, it would spend another $1.3 billion on more than 100 projects at 40 sites across (Afghanistan)…
(link)
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Obama’s even building his own embassy/compound in Pakistan (link):
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The White House has asked Congress for – and seems likely to receive – $736 million to build a new US embassy in Islamabad, along with permanent housing for US government civilians and new office space in the Pakistani capital.
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The scale of the projects rivals the giant US Embassy in Baghdad, which was completed last year after construction delays at a cost of $740 million.
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(…)
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Other major projects are planned for Kabul, Afghanistan; and for the Pakistani cities of Lahore and Peshawar.
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How can Obama prosecute the architects of his policy, and the people that appointed his military brass?

If you tell lies often enough…
You can fool some of the people all of the time…
Those who fail to learn from history….
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Am I in the right neighborhood?

Haha. I got all of my Christmas decorations, trees and outside lights taken down and stored back in the attic while everyone else was arguing yesterday. A week to put up, two days to take down.

sorry to disappoint you but Americans have a hard enough time learning Spanish, you can forget learning Arabic.

azmaveth, what you say is certainly true, but you can’t argue that the reason we invaded Iraq was to punish SH for sending money to Palestinian families, can you? The elder Bush knew to leave a toothless SH (and secular Baath govt) intact as a buffer to al Qaeda and Iranian ambitions.

Well Sacred just so you know Mr. Selfish, we could have used a little comic relief but nooooooooo all you could concern yourself with is dead pine needles sticking out of your carpet..

I’ve always wanted to do this to one of those reindeer scenes (modify according to number of reindeer):
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1. Take the antlers off all but one of the wire frame reindeer.
2. Lay the one with antlers down on it’s side.
3. Arrange three of the others with their heads down in the “rib cage” of the one laying down. They look like hyenas that way.
4. Pick out the muzzles of the “hyenas” and belly of the prone reindeer with pretty red Christmas lights.
5. Have two “hyenas” tugging at either end of a short string of red lights.
6. Pick out everything else with appropriately colored lights, i.e. a red area under the feeding “hyenas” and green maybe around that, white to pick out the bodies of the prone reindeer and “hyenas”.
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Voila! An African savanna nature scene!

I apologize Dee. There was some comic relief here though. My wife does our dining room in silver, gold and white. The old angel she used to top her tree with is getting replaced next year ( she had her eye on a new angel that cost $90 before Christmas that I picked up for less than $25, 75% off the day before yesterday). I took the old angel, outlined a pentagram with ketchup, stuck the butcher knife through it into the cutting board and squirted it with ketchup. I left it on the kitchen counter. When the MIL screamed I knew she’d discovered it.
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A splendid time was guaranteed for all.

53_3: That’s just sick. I wonder how much it would cost to set that up? A few years ago I did set up a stuffed Santa in the front yard that was bent over a sleigh with a reindeer mounting Santa from behind. My wife made me take it down because all the cars would honk their horns when they drove by.

Sacred — You certainly know how to have a good time.

…you freaking liberals will help usher in Sharia
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And you would counter by helping usher in Christian Fundamentalism? Not much difference.
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For kicks (link)- A theocrat is a theocrat, whether Muslim or Christian. By Juan Cole.

I’m a classic case of arrested development. My wife tried to prentend that she was mad at me but she’d bust out laughing every few minutes. She finally told me to take a picture of it and then clean up the mess but the MIL had already given the angel a decent burial in the garbage can. I think she prayed herself hoarse yesterday.

I think you need to change your diaper, Mr. Bedwetter.

Wow. A likewise rather bloody sense of humor.
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I like it..

Dee: FTW.

I’ve been tempted to affect the uh, “revisions”, late at night, to one or two of the displays in the neighborhood.
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As to cost, it’s free.
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If you have the stones…

53_3: The MIL felt that it was necessary to give my mom (85 next month) a call to complain about my latest sacrilege. My mom told her that she should pull my pants down and spank me except that I’d probably like it. I wonder where my sense of humor comes from?

Wow.
.
Just…
.
weeeeellll
.
um, uh
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Hell. Just wow…

I don’t know how I got mine. It’s just here, along with the sarcasm. Sarcastically bloody. Just remember what I said about the crocs, the death roll, and your spouse/MIL baiting…
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Why I am.
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Why. I. Am.

On second thought, does this mean that God is going to toast my heart on a stick over an open fire till it sizzles and pops on your behalf?

I don’t worry about the MIL and the wife makes me look like a piker. I am in awe of her. The mrs is far more caustic than I could ever hope to be. She sometimes tells me that I’m disgusting but then I remind her that that’s why she married me in the first place.

You have confidence, you do, sacred. Will it be as shiny after an appendage or two is twisted off and garfed down hungrily?
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You never know…

I live in a very conservative area. We live on a hilltop but there’s a mile of land up here where the houses line both sides of the road. Before you start down the road into the valley someone had put up a big wooden sign that had “Jesus Christ” painted on it. It now has:
.
JESUS CHRIST!
SLOW DOWN!

Derek, do you understand where we live? Running a “real” liberal or watching the liberal wing of the Democratic Party form a 3rd party results in the same thing, a loss to any Republican who steps up to the plate. This population does not favor progressive, “real” liberal policies, like it or not.

Come to think of it, it is certainly rather odd that a couple of 50-somethings can even think these things up.
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Maybe we are just kids at heart.
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You know, the kind with a magnifying glass on a sunny day, loose in the woods…

53, I wonder what brew would go with that meal… A stiff Red Ale, no doubt.
…maybe saute up some onions too.
Hey Rus, what are you growin in the sustenance-garden that can be a good side? Maybe you could bring that, some fire-wood and entertain us with readings from your manifesto -while we toast in ol’ 53′s memory.

53_3 and pintortwo: I suggest a nice chianti and fava beans.

Then you do know what the cost would be!
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Your hilltop residence wouldn’t have gates, a moat, and turrets guarded with humongous crossbows would it? Big ones, like the ones in Underworld Lycans. I like those. I especially like the triple-bolt sidearm the girl’s father has. Totally wicked.
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Myself, I’m down here in the trenches with the struggling masses, with the fog and the slugs and the dripping branches and moss covered rocks. Annelids everywhere…

It is a big brick place (3000 sq feet) with peaks, lots of huge trees and flower gardens, but it’s only a castle to me. And it’ll be payed off in 2 years thank God.

Astonishingly, I found that a white Zinfandel is sometimes actually red.
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Go figure.
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I think a few shitaki mushrooms and onions, caramelized in a butter and wine sauce would be great complement to the main repast.

I was thinking of more of a dark and rustic ale, with a sprinkle of cinnamon, pintortwo.

I look at it this way: Things are so screwed up that we can either laugh or cry. In the immortal words from “When the Levee Breaks”…cryin’ won’t help you, prayin’ won’t do you no good.

Sacred, you coming? We’ll make a party of it, ring in the new decade in style. You bring the wine. Pot-luck dinner, everyone’s invited. StuartZ, you’re very welcome, but you have to promise, no talking to us about “playing fair”, it’s a free-for-all. Dee can bring all his/her personalities. It’ll be great.

You get a good view of the streets from the rafters? That would be a good place to put ‘em.

A good joke and a good shotgun is all I need.
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The jokes keep me smiling.
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The shotgun solves all my problems.

When the levee breaks, momma, you gotta move…

I’ll be there. The Somali pirates could learn a thing or two from us about hijacking.

Can I come too?
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Oh, wait…

Quick, before the glow fades!
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We need another inane right wing post to make fun of!

You would think with half the day gone already some wingnut would have to come to our aid by now and wrote something stupid.

Well Dee, the most precious thing I can take from the past few days has been this nugget from Rusty (14):
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“He is doing what he needs to do, however in my opinion, not enough.”
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Aside from the great exchange you, SZ and Derek (I agree with xandersmom, on the general gist of how Obama is doing), that particular statement from Rusty was the closest I have ever seen him come to saying something at least not-terribly-negative about Obama.
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Of course, he did hurriedly backtrack to cover his tracks with his usual bilge, but I’ll take it!

Happy New Year!

Is it 2011 already??!!

Yeah I was shocked by rusty out of character response I asked him did he really read it. but you know, the entire day seemed like I was caught in an alternate universe with Republican naysayer all over the TV suddenly defending Obama’s actions in light of the Xmas bombers. Obviously, rusty does get the daily talking points suggesting that he is more connected than he lets on.

I went upstairs an hour ago to get another cup of coffee. My wife told me to fire up the grill. It’s 20 degrees out and snowing. We’re having barbecued ribs for dinner I guess. The neighbor guy was running his snowblower down his driveway clearing 6″ of snow and I’m firing up the grill. He flipped me the finger. I mooned him.

Good grief – had a lot of chores to do this morning and I thought there would be lots of new posts to catch up with. Did all the swamp leaders sleep late? JNS and MS should be back from vacation by now. Maybe they have real work to do. Although some of us consider this the important real work.

But, it was worth the trip. I read most of the serious discussion last night and was delighted to find all the recent suggestions for the 53 banquet and, of course, sacred’s adventures with MIL!

Yeah Ivy, apparently we are all sitting around waiting for one of the wingnuts to write something that riles us up. Of course, we could just declare this an open thread and start a new conversation, it’s not as if there isn’t a lot going on in the world despite swamp leaders seemingly taking the day off.

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