GOP v. Ind.

How fresh.
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The New Republic councils a Democratic president to move right.
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“To be sure, many of the president’s supporters will be disappointed”
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As if he already hasn’t and they already aren’t.

Can you unpack “deftness” for us, please? Most of us don’t work in politics and we’re not experts at this stuff. So we have no idea what you mean. Move right? Move left? Fight harder? Give them what they want? What could Obama do that you would strike you as deft?

I wondered about that “deftness” as well. Maybe he meant “daftness”, that is, just joining the mob at the barriers.

I’m pretty sure “deftness” for JK is “go after unions”

This is one of the dumbest polls in history. Of course they want them to work together. They also want them to get things done. But that’s the rub isn’t it? What do they want done? The new house republicans were not elected to get more spending done. If working together means pass more spending then they don’t want them to work together.

What Joe is saying s that Obama has shown none of the political skills of Clinton who had a decade of experience as a Governor and who also had a love of the game of it all.

I kind of agree with that that.
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Putting policy aside, as a pure politician (retail and otherwise) the Big Dog was as good as I have ever seen.

Democrats and Independents want to see Obama and the Congressional Republicans work together–by large margins. Only Republicans seem to want gridlock.

Not exactly a revelation, Joe.

What’s missing is the discussion centered around what ‘working together’ would actually entail. Legislative bipartisanship as a goal itself gives us weak half-measures that no one really likes and don’t work as well as they could have.

If Obama’s “extending his hand to the opposition” over the past two years is any example, what will continue to happen will be that otherwise (mostly) responsible, rational policy would get watered down, held hostage to the demands of the right wing, or be bent so far out of shape that it can no longer be considered responsible. Take, for example, the Bowles-Simpson deficit deduction plan that’s been this week’s hot topic…

Actually, though, what the co-chairmen are proposing is a mixture of tax cuts and tax increases — tax cuts for the wealthy, tax increases for the middle class. They suggest eliminating tax breaks that, whatever you think of them, matter a lot to middle-class Americans — the deductibility of health benefits and mortgage interest — and using much of the revenue gained thereby, not to reduce the deficit, but to allow sharp reductions in both the top marginal tax rate and in the corporate tax rate.[...]

It’s no mystery what has happened on the deficit commission: as so often happens in modern Washington, a process meant to deal with real problems has been hijacked on behalf of an ideological agenda. Under the guise of facing our fiscal problems, Mr. Bowles and Mr. Simpson are trying to smuggle in the same old, same old — tax cuts for the rich and erosion of the social safety net.

What is missing in addition to all that is a credible, non-histrionic, ideologically-ambivalent definition of what our country is all about and what we feel is important. Barring that sort of national sanity check/level-setting…and then progressing forward in the fulfillment of those American values…we’re just spinning our wheels.

Okay. But that kind of “political skill” could have devastating effects right now. It’s one thing to temporarily shut down the U.S. government back in the mid 90s when the country was well past its recession but that kind of thing now could be devasting. It’s the kind of thing that could result in a flubbed bond offering that tanks the dollar.

Oh, and a semi-related column from E.J. Dionne.

Whatever “deftness” President Obama may or may not lack might very well be made up for by the shrill, self righteous obtuseness (obtusidity?) of people like Jim de Mint and Michelle Bachman. (Add this to the fact that people like George Will believe that gridlock is the state of affairs most desired by the Founders.) The chance of them overreaching and looking churlish in the process is something worth betting on.

BTW, anyone else think the Deftness Quotient will be enhanced by the re-arrival of David Plouffe into the fold?

Apart from a slight rephrase of “pass more spending” into “piss away our money on worthless public enterprises, such as foreign nation-building and the gambling debts of elites,” there’s much to agree with here.

Wow, we are seeing the true face of the moral and intellectual bankruptcy known as liberalism. We don’t have something that can be construed as outrageous by Beck, Palin or some other conservative to attack so we are treated to articles of 911 and choking on marsh mellows, spy stories, a war story and for the truly bored , absurd Machiavellian comparisons. No where to be found the true failure, not to mention the cost of Obama’s G-20/Asian trip, his silence on the co-chairman’s report on the deficit commission, the WH edited panel report on drilling safety, or the Climate Change job machine of the Chevy Volt that in addition to costing well more than other “green” vehicles, it may actually cost more to run than a gas driven auto. And for good measure we have the whackos in SF wanting to criminalize circumcision

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Yes, Americans.want to see Congress work. What they don’t want is the ideas like those above as the basis for legislation. They certainly don’t want bipartisanship to mean Congress to do what Obama wants. They vetoed that plan a last Tuesday.

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Liberalism still failing here and abroad. And the left still lying to themselves that people really care about what they want.

I can’t really find much to disagree with there, either, except for remembering that we really don’t know the hearts of these two men with whom we are only acquainted through public image.

This is excellent commentary.

SZ-how could we?

The only thing that’s failed is your fulfillment of the bet you made, Freeper.

(blushes)
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…we really don’t know the hearts of these two men with whom we are only acquainted through public image.
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With regards to Obama, we really don’t know this at the moment, which is (partially*) why much of what is being said about his take on the Bowles-Simpson recommendation and the impending automatic Republican tax increases is believable.
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The President needs to provide some definition of the direction he feels we need to be heading towards for the next two years and beyond. And be willing to fight for it.
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*Yes, Stuart, the other part of why it’s believable is that Obama has traveled down that Third Way a bit too far. Oh, and welcome back!

Working with the GOP is fine. Like with the Bush tax cuts.. $250,000 for a family on the east or west cost is not “rich”. Democrats can deal with redefining what rich means in this case. $400,000 for a family is rich. Even $500,000. But Obama can not just go along with a total roll over.. repeating what Bush did. Look at how well it turned out for Bush in the country. Bush ran up 5 trillion in deficit spending in 8 years with 4 trillion being because of those tax cuts. Those tax cuts are bleeding Lady Liberty to death. We have to slow down the bleeding.. and that means only cutting taxes for those in need. A family on the west and east cost have to spend a lot more for food and shelter and still have cars and save for retirement and higher education for their children.. a tax hike would hurt them.. I can see reason in that. So.. redefine the lines of what rich is and then reach a compromise with the GOP. If the GOP refuses to compromise.. use it against them. Put it out everywhere. No one is going to think half a million a year is middle class. No one. With that.. Obama and the democrats will look sane compared to the GOP.

Are we talking redistribution of income/wealth here? Geographically? I’m confused in the context of most of your posts.

“If Obama’s “extending his hand to the opposition” over the past two years is any example, what will continue to happen will be that otherwise (mostly) responsible, rational policy would get watered down, held hostage to the demands of the right wing, or be bent so far out of shape that it can no longer be considered responsible.”
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You have to wonder if Democrats and Independents would feel the same if they had been told the true story of the Republicans traitorous choice to harm the economy and working-class citizens for the past two years for their own political gain. I guess you have to go with the political press you have…

Guess which way the future will fall.
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“Some interesting findings buried in the new Pew poll suggest Republicans and Democrats have starkly different expectations of their leaders: Republicans want their leaders to be less moderate and less compromising, while Dems want precisely the opposite”
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http://voices.washingtonpost.com/plum-line/2010/11/republicans_want_their_leaders.html
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No republican will risk even the hint of capitulation.

The pro-America community replaced at least 66 Democrats in Congress with Republicans so that the Republicans would “work together” with Obama?

When the pro-America tosses Obama to the pavement in 2012, expect Joe Klein, Time magazine, ABC, NBC, CBS, PBS, CNN, A-Mess-NBC, HBO, Showtime, ESPN, the New York Times-Democrat, et al., to declare that America wants Republicans to enact Obama’s agenda.

“Republicans want their leaders to be less moderate and less compromising, while Dems want precisely the opposite”
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One wonders how that’s going to be interpreted…expressing a willingness to work together for a solution is not the same as expressing a desire to compromise our way into bad policy.

Clinton as a politician reminds me of Ali as he got older and became and even smarter boxer in the purest sense of the work. For my money the best fights I ever saw were Ali-Frazier and as sportwriter Stan Hockman noted they brought out the worst in each other outside the ring but the best out of each other inside the ring. I see Clinton and Gingrich in that light with Clinton a sharp counter-puncher who needed someone like Newt to get his competitive juices flowing and apply that giant intellect to the task at hand. Clinton himself has noted his tendency to get into trouble jumped when he was bored. Bubba seemed to really enjoy all of the aspects of that form of tactical, competitive politics.

It helped he wasn’t an ideologue and living in the center fit him well. Obama has passed a lot of legislation but with pure muscle. The huge majorities are gone and there’s a certain irony in that keeping the Senate has a downside. He can’t run against Congress and he’s got a weak majority leader with a really difficult layout. He’s got 22 Senators up for re-election having just watched their peers get slaughtered for supporting a liberal agenda. Jim Webb and Ben Nelson to name just two won’t be pictured in signing ceremonies with Obama.

Obama hasn’t at any point in his career showed the political skill that oozed out of Clinton and to an extent Reagan. He’s not a good communicator and he is going to have to show he isn’t an idealogue because he is under-water on virtually every position. I think we had 5 Americans murdered in Mexico last week, violence is bleeding over the border and he is dragging his feet on the fence. Clinton had no problem finding out where the parade was going and getting in front. Obama hasn’t done that ever as far as I know. The House absolutely, positively will not discuss immigration reform until Obama moves in a dramatic fashion on the fence. If he doesn’t somehow give them what they need and make it seem like his plan, on this and several issues, his agenda is dead.

Do you really wonder what the next two years will bring?
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The die is cast. That’s what was so frustrating about the last two.
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There was a window do really do something. That window is closed.

rdw-I have no idea how old you are but what, honestly, were you saying at the time about Clinton?
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I am genuinely curious.

Obama and liberals are in a bad place on taxes for two major reasons: His radical spending binge only cemented his image as a tax and spend liberal. Thus the worse election since at least 1938. A majority of Americans are terrified regarding jobs and they know tax increases slow an economy. They do not want tax increases now on anyone. Several Democrat Senators have already said they are not supporting ANY tax increases now. It is Obama in the box. He only has a short period because checks dated 1/1/2011 are generally processed and printed before 12/20. Reid has a losing hand in the Senate. The only way he can stop a permanent or a 2-yr extension for ALL Americans is to filibuster and that means if the Senate Democrats will get blamed if there is no deal and ALL of the tax cuts elapse. There is no way Harry can get 50 votes for a different bill That means either they fall on their swords or they let it pass with 51 votes and then Obama can Veto. I’d be stunned if he vetoed that bill because he’d take the heat for all of the tax cuts expiring.

This is the sort of tactical box Clinton smelled out before they formed and maneuvered to put the GOP in the trap. The person who needs to avoid this trap is Obama. And immediately after he has a series of spending bills that are what this election debacle were all about.

BTW: His comments from Seoul today suggest he is utterly clueless on the election results.

I don’t care for Obama even a little bit but you two are far too hard on him. We elect Presidents not Kings. You just had the worse election since 1938. That’s 72 years. This because he passed legislation a majority of the country didn’t want and doesn’t like. Did you want to lose 120 house seats?

We all know that textee can be much more comprehensive in listing of the libertard leftist media. Not to cause alarm, but I must say that he has left out many, many here. Beware. One I have not seen is the Cartoon Network. textee, do you have some vested interest there? Just the facts, please.

EJ is the quintessential DC elitist, as arrogant as he is clueless. In the example of the tax cuts Obama is going to get a bill on his desk extending ALL of the tax cuts for 2 or more years. EJ would tell him to hold his ground and VETO it. Then what happens is all of the tax rates expire and the Dow loses 800 points. So he pisses of everyone owning a share of stock and getting a paycheck. Yeah, that’s smart.

Not a bad point but your party is keeping Reid and Pelosi in the leadership. They are brutal.

“You just had the worse election since 1938.”
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You’ve made that point twice in this thread (which makes it seem like a talking point) so I am curious. How do you think FDR got re-elected in 1940? And why? Did he go to the center, right, or left?

You just had the worse election since 1938. That’s 72 years. This because he passed legislation a majority of the country didn’t want and doesn’t like.

More deplorable “analysis” from a partisan hack. The last election was almost uniformly about the economy and very little else but don’t let facts get in the way of your false narrative.

Speaking of clueless, who’s going to send him that bill? The Dems in Congress will decide what tax legislation goes to the President for the rest of the year. The first thing they need to do is pass the middle-class (only) extension and see if Senate Republicans have the arrogance and traitorousness to filibuster it. If they do, they’re outted for the liars they are when they claim care about deficits and also for the fact that all they really care about is the selfish, traitorous desires of their ubber-wealthy masters.

My favorite term then and now is Slick Willie followed by Bubba, each capturing different aspects of his personality. I like politics at several levels. I was a supply-sider before Reagan made his pitch and I was a fan of his from day one. I am an idologue and a partisan but I also enjoy the tactical aspects and those on the other side with real political gifts. I despise Chucky Schumer yet wish he was on my side. He’s very, very savvy tactically and very skilled in front of the camera. It was always easy to appreciate Clinton’s talents and his obvious joy in holding the office. I don’t think Obama is all that smart but is highly disciplined. Clinton was absolutely brilliant yet sloppy and lazy. Probably because things came so easy for him. His mastery of policy details was/is amazing.

There are many things I despised about him as well. He was/is a shockinglyself-centered and shallow man he made many decisions based on what was good for him and not the country. Camp David had no chance of success yet he put so much pressure on it resulted in the disasterous infatada. It was a desperate grab for some legacy to offset impeachment. At the end of his term he knew the economy was slipping and he needed to either cit taxes or increase spending but all he cared about was the size of the surplus which he saw as his claim for a positive legacy. It was horrible economic management. The recession started 6 weeks after Bush took office but the economy had been slowing for a year. Running surpluses is restrictive fiscal policy. He needed to stimulate but he put his legacy 1st.

To his credit he did listen to Rubin and Greenspan and agreed to real decreases in the rate of spending. These deals happened fairly early and with some other reductions passed by the GOP set the table for the surpluses to come.

All-in-all I thought clinton was the best conservatives could hope for. I’ve never been able to build the bile liberals have for Bush. For example I think people who call the man who was able to get elected President stupid, are stupid. But this stuff never bothered me because I always thought it played to GWBs advantage. I’ve always tried to judge the man on several levels such as communications, politics, policy, capacity, disposition, etc. Clinton had so many strengths but a rare exception in terms of personality and that was a huge defect was discipline. Otherwise his intellect and love for the job were admirable. He’ll be ranked at best an average President and won’t be especially well remembered because it was a rather boring period. But for us,having lived it, I think there’s disappointment because of his dumb personal mistakes, limiting his potential.

Remember one other thing. He was very good on criminal justice, police funding, prison construction, passed free trade, agreed to spending limits, etc. He signed welfare reform and some very decent centrist legislation. to repeat, we could have done worse.

It’s going to be very hard to Pelosi to get her bill passed for a couple of reasons. The vast majority of congressmen are loathe to pass major legislation during a lame duck session because it’s so sleezy, Americans don’t want people who could fit the profile of ‘sore loser’ in a position to do something radical on the way out of the door. Many such as Seatak and Murphy in PA are still young and ambitious. If they were to vote yes on a tax increase as lame ducks they can kiss their political careers goodbye.

The 2nd reason is several people in the Senate including Bayh, Leiberman, Webb and Nelson said they won’t support ANYchanges during a lame duck session. There are 22 Democrats up for reelection in 2012. You are compounding a really hard decision doing it during a lame duck session. It just has a stench to it. You are correct a GOP only filibuster would be problematic but there will be at least 5 Democrats voting with the GOP and there could be 10.

One other thing. This isn’t 1996. Fox didn’t exist during the shutdown under Clinton. Clinton could count on MSM to carry his narrative and that’s almost impossible today. Obama tried calling this legislation Obama’s middle class tax cuts and it bombed. It’s a ridiculous construction but probably would have worked in 1996. I think the image of Nancy Pelosi as Speaker trying to pass major legislation after suffering such huge losses would be a PR debacle. This isn’t how the system was designed. They were voted out of office.

FDR got reelected in 1940 because war was coming and they didn’t want to change horses. FDR had also a year before completely abandoned the new deal and made peace with industry.

shep:
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I thought your way, too, until I started to hear things.
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You’re right, the Dems will put a bill out that contains only the middle-class tax cuts.
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But then, from what I hear, the GOP will offer a motion to recommit adding the top-rate tax cuts, & approximately 70 Democrats will support it.
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If that happens, then this turns into the opposite of the situation we’re in currently, which is exactly how you describe it, with the GOP & Vichy Dems being forced to filibuster a tax cut.
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This will allow the Dems to sell the narrative “we tried,” but then allow them to also send the entire tax cut to the President, who will then sign it, and then everyone in the Village will understand and praise the Dems for capitulating, citing the authority of Pete Orszag for policy, and the usual suspects for politics.
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No reconciliation rules, either, so this will be permanent, even if it doesn’t say “permanent.” Even if it’s “only for two years,” the vote necessary in two years will be to drop, as opposed to now, where it’s necessary to extend.
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I think that this is bubbling close to open secret status in DC, maybe.

The economy was obviously a dominant issue but it’s also true virtually every initiate from Obama was under water and some by a wide amount. Cap and Tax and immigration by a 2 to 1 margin. HC was unpopular. The Stimulus was hated. The level of spending and deficits caused the largest grass movement possibly in American history. The tea party wasn’t about the economy but exploding govt.

Very, very interesting, rdw56.

SZ,

That’s interesting. I didn’t hear that but it makes sense. I think the mere act of trying to pass a major change to a tax bill during a lame duck session would be bone head stupid politically. It just reeks of corruption. 60 of these people have been voted out of office. It would also put ALL of the blame on Congress. I can’t imagine giving recent suffering they want to fall on their sword for Obama now. Pelosi madea really stupid mistake forcing her members to vote on cap and tax when there was no chance the Senate was going to pass anything. It was a totally wasted vote that ended careers. This would be even dumber.

“If they do, they’re outted for the liars they are when they claim care about deficits and also for the fact that all they really care about is the selfish, traitorous desires of their ubber-wealthy masters.”

You are missing the forest for the trees. The #1 problem is jobs and we need a strong economy to create them and you don’t help economic growth by raising taxes. This is a given. It’s accepted truth. people get this and they don’t want tax increases. The problem with the deficit is spending. The tea party was about spending. We now have 30 GOP governors and virtually everyone running in both parties campaigned to CUT spending.

This is not a marxist society. Most people find socialism to be a nasty disease, a pox on human history. We don’t hate rich people. We are not jealous of their success. We celebrate it. Bill Gates did not exploit the poor. He made PC accessible to them and raised their standard of living. He’s a bit on the nerdy side but a nice guy and with his philantrophy, far more admirable than any politician you can name. I’d much rather Bill kept his wealth, and lets be fair, he earned it. He should not have to pay your bills.

Stuart,
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I said that’s what “they need to do.” As in, if they wanted to govern responsibly and at the same time play smart partisan politics. Considering how many times Senate Democrats have been given that choice and chosen to support the desires of the oligarchs and look weak and cowardly instead, I tend to think that the scenario you describe is far more likely.
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But we liberals have to keep drawing the contrast between what is both possible and responsible and the traitorous corporatism of our elites. Obviously, if we don’t, no one will.

But Bill Gates supports tax increases on himself. Why would that be?

“Bill Gates did not exploit the poor. He made PC accessible to them and raised their standard of living.”
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Bill Gates brilliantly exploited the market and cornered new PC/OS sales at the outset. In the process, he foisted a seriously flawed, second-rate-in-its-time operating system that probably set world computing back at least five years (and we are still stuck with) and cost business $trillions in unnecessary security triage alone. He’s the poster-child for out-sized reward for meager social contribution and the failure of under-regulated capitalism. I admire what he’s now doing with his wealth and his new life’s work.
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And the “#1 problem” is that Unites States government is now being bought and controlled by small faction of our richest, most sociopathic citizens and they give not a whit about God, country, life or limb, (not yours anyway) and neither do their minions in the government. That’s why there are no jobs. And you just gave them more control.

@10.2 Please explain this” radical spending binge” statement. What radical spending binge are you talking about? IMHO Obama should do nothing and let all the tax breaks expire citing Republican deficit concerns as the reason for fiscal responsibility. This from a middle class worker who is, above all, an American who cares about the future of the country and willing to do what is necessary to secure its future, including paying higher taxes. Something that other Americans with their “its mine and screw the country” Forgot.

Shutting down the government would not only probably devalue the dollar, it could have global economic effects right now. I so wish the republicans go for it.

“He’s the poster-child for out-sized reward for meager social contribution and the failure of under-regulated capitalism”.

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Let me guess. You would have given regulators the order to write an operating system and we’d have done better. That’s insane. If that were true the USSR would be intact.

do agree about the 2nd rate thing. one of the ironies of SteveJobs, now widely regarded as a genius is that he butchered Apples strategy to compete with MsDOS. The dumb bastard refused to license his OS. One of the greatest business blunders of all time.

Extend the Bush tax cuts to only the middle class or extend them for everybody seems to be the narrative. But there is a third choice. Let the tax cuts expire as the Republicans had intended. Then, after the new year, with the new Congress, Obama can introduce his own tax cuts–and watch the Republicans filibuster the bill when it doesn’t include cuts for the wealthiest of Americans.

Bill Gates and Warren Buffett both support it. They also support the estate tax. Know why, Because they have no intention of paying either.

Warren famously takes only a $100K salary. The MSM will also tell you his lives in the home he bought in Omaha 40 years ago and lives fairly frugally, As if that $100K is enough. They leave off the $14M plane and $5M home in California. They leave off the fact Warren lives off an expense account and does things like barter for vacations. For 30 years the family spent a week in plush jackson hole Wyoming as the guest of honor. The deal was he gave a two hour talk at the end of the week for big shots paying for the honor of listening to Warren. It’s all a wash, virtually invisible as a tax event.

Like another famous liberal family, the Kennedys, the Gates and buffets won’t be paying estate taxes. There’s a name for them. Hypocrits.

How cool was it the movement in Wash States supported by the Gates family for a new income tax on the rich failed 2 to 1. How about that. Everyone knows how liberals think. Adding an income tax for the rich was just a start.

And the “#1 problem” is that Unites States government is now being bought and controlled by small faction of our richest, most sociopathic citizens and they give not a whit about God, country, life or limb, (not yours anyway) and neither do their minions in the government. That’s why there are no jobs. And you just gave them more control

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This is just marxist puke. It’s right up there with the rich getting their wealth by exploiting the poor and wishing to keep them poorl. I wasn’t10 and I knew this to be absurd. If you are going to exploit someone for rmoney the last group you target are the poor. They don’t have any money. And when keep any group poor? If they’re poor they can’t buy your products.

This is why you lose. You don’t make any sense.

rdw56:
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You’re creating a red menace out of your imagination again, as movement conservatives tend to do.
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Nobody said this was a Marxist society, and nobody said they wanted one, either.
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It’s not Marxism nor socialism to simply refrain from worshiping the rich.
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It’s not communism to see the world through clear, non-Objectivist eyes, it’s just being realistic about the fact that elites don’t have ordinary peoples’ and the nation’s best interests in their hearts at all times. It’s also being reasonable to remember that burnt sacrifices and offerings aren’t necessary to tilt our worldly gods’ favor toward us, regardless of their self-interested orthodoxies. In order to ensure prosperity, its only required that powerful interests be stopped from buying their way out of having to work, compete and provide value, i.e. be made unable to buy the government.
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People know these things, even if they aren’t necessarily aware all of the time that their situations could be different.
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Ordinary Americans know that wealthy, society elites and powerful corporate boards aren’t working hard and playing by the same rules as them –do you think that folks haven’t been paying attention to whose gambling debts they’re now being forced by the government to pay?
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Do you honestly think that Americans are in the midst of “celebrating” the wealthy and powerful because of their tax-payer ensured “success?”
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Do you live in the same country as the rest of us?
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Do you get that most normal folks don’t exactly “appreciate” lavish, decadent, obscenely excessive wealth, privilege and power quite the way that you seem to?
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When I read some of your weird, ideological lining up of folks’ goodwill with the elites whose mountains of party trash we’ve just been forced to take out to the dump, and then pay for, I’ve got to wonder…
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…did you somehow get the idea that Potter was the hero of “It’s a Wonderful Life,” instead of George Bailey and his good neighbors?

I can understand Republicans not liking ACA. They don’t like any kind of regulation. But what Republicans fail to realize is that the rest of us who are unhappy with ACA aren’t unhappy that health care was reformed or that health insurance companies now must follow some uniform rules like not dropping policy holders just because they get sick. We don’t like ACA because it doesn’t do enough–Obama refused to even consider either of the options that would have made us happy, true universal coverage (medicare for all) or the public option.
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That refusal showed us that Obama is nowhere near as lefty as we had hoped and yet the righties continue to label him a liberal and a socialist. I’m a Liberal, Obama is far from one.

Actually, the rich do exploit the poor. But perhaps “exploit” isn’t exactly the proper word for it. I don’t know what word would be more accurate. All I know is that all the manufacturing jobs have left my city for places like China and Tiawan where-guess what-the rich corporate bosses are able to increase profits because they can pay the laborers there less. If I didn’t know any better, I might call that exploitation of the poor.

spending is up 21% in two years. That binge.

It’s good you want to pay more in taxes. Is someone stopping you? Go right ahead. Conservatism supports small govt as the fairest and most economically efficient. You want to take money from the private ctizens who create jobs and give it to bureaucrats to piss away. We wish to do the opposite.

Exploit suggest unethical behavior and it’s a dumb word in this case. Why is providing jobs to the Chinese a bad thing? We can agree as a socialist country China was an economic basket case in dire need of a capitalist makeover. Businesses moving to China are providing good jobs to the chinese at higher wages than they’d otherwise have access to. Also note that American consumers are loving those cheap Chinese goods while helping to raise chinese living standards. Who is exploiting who? Are we not exploiting them buying their cheap products?

This is an economic fact of life as old as the hills. We are consistently moving up or down the value chain depending on where we have the advantage. We export jobs and we import jobs. Exploitation is a marxist term with little application in the advanced world

It’s not Marxism nor socialism to simply refrain from worshiping the rich

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but it is to blame them for your problems and to force them to pay your bills.

did you somehow get the idea that Potter was the hero of “It’s a Wonderful Life,” instead of George Bailey and his good neighbors?

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never saw the movie, you’ve lost me here

When our problems involve their avarice, corruption and ineptitude, and our bills involve socializing trillions of dollars of their losses, then yes, we force them to pay our –their– bills.
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You see, we’re not socialists, that’s why we have these sorts of ideas about accountability for elites.

Are you being serious?
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If so, do you just not remember the names involved, perhaps?
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Can you recall the classic movie that plays every Christmas on multiple television stations, the one with the guy who gets his wish granted by an angel, that wish being that he never be born? Little Zuzu’s petals? “Buffalo gals, wont’ you come home tonight…?” Every time a bell rings, an angel gets his wings?
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That black and white film with Jimmie Stewart you see every Christmas, usually around Ralphie and the “Christmas Story?”
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Do you remember, now?

Dude, politics aside, that is a magic film. See it this year, ideally with loved ones.

Wha????

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rdw: One of the best scenes in the movie.

Hard to believe I know and almost embarrassing to admit but at age 57 I’ve never seen the film and I like movies. Just saw Casablanca for the 1st time about 5 years ago in a really cool, unique experience. Driving to Ohio to visit in-laws my wife brought Casablanca for her parents to watch on the VCR in the van. So I didn’t see a scene, I had to listen. A tad annoyed at 1st but it wasn’t 3 minutes into it I knew this was going to be a great movie to listen to. This isn’t something I recommend but when you have no choice you go with the flow and obviously it’s all screenplay. What crackling dialogue. I always thought Bogart was a good actor but after that I rank him with the best. A weird experience but glad it happened that way. We are talking about It’s a wonderful life” i presume. I know the story and have seen clips of the more famous scenes and consider Stewart right there with Bogart but never saw the movie.

You’re creating a red menace out of your imagination again, as movement conservatives tend to do.

*********************************

You over-react to what is a simple literary device to draw the distinction between liberals and conservatives, left and right. You are not marxists or socialists in the classic sense but that is the direction you wish to head. We wish to stop you in your tracks. In many cases like Bill Clinton you have a guy who is more pragmatic and less dogmatic he’ll move left or right depending on what his instincts tell him what will work and what will keep his polls higher. He knew socialism was a dog and capitalism had to be regulated at some level to protect us from the worst instincts of many. Our argument, our constant argument is over how much regulation. In Reagan we have two ideologues on opposite ends of the spectrum. Reagan is hayek, hume, a classical liberal in the sense of championing and protecting the individual from the worst totalitarian instincts of the state. A believer in govt having a critical regulatory role but with a general rule the less govt the better. Obama could not be more different. Socialism is a dead religion. It has not been eradicated but has been thoroughly repudiated in most of the world. It’s results were pure evil. conservatives have contempt for it and all who believe. The few places where it lives are among college faculties and among the far the far left. When you look at Obama’s life experience you see he’s had the worst possible experiences a President could have. He was drenched in this left wing marxist ideology and having never held a job in the private sector was never able to see for himself what it’s like to work and earn profits. Reagan by contrast studied economics and as a successful actor saw the ludicrous results of 90% tax rates. His peers either stopped working after two films because they were taxed 90% or all of their off-screen energies were devoted to finding tax shelters. Why on earth would you want industrialists and entraprenours focusing on hiding their earnings from the govt rather than making as much of it as possible. Reagan lived the absurdity. His supply-side philosophy was learned and lived. When you add his incredible communications skill you can understand why he was a man of the ages, the right man at the right time.

Obama has no life experience. He doesn’t know how things work. He knows how govt works but not how it impacts incentives and affects the private sector.

He is as close to a true marxist as anyone who’s been in that office since Wilson and those two are 2nd to none. he isn’t a marxist but he thinks there are attractive elements. No, there are none. He understands being identified as such is toxic so he denies any affiliation but that’s a political construct. His instincts are totalitarian. He will insist his takeover of GM was the only option and mean exactly that. Big govt is the only option. He knows what he can’t say and thus speaks in code.

The bottom line of the election is all of this is understood by the right clearly and the center instinctively, if not as clearly. The plan was to ramp up spending and then as we got used to the new services and programs figure out how to pay for them. A back-door expansion of govt. It’s been totally rejected. Gov Christie has become a rock star for his successful repudiation in rather blunt style. The tea party is real and powerful. The fight is on.

The language will be defined by terms like socialist and marxist because they are useful and valuable. Obama will be excoriated for his Harvard background. There is that classic saying. “if you are 20 and not a socialist you have a heart of stone. if you are 30 and still a socialist you have a head of stone.” The people most likely to have that head of stone are those most isolated from the real world of the private sector. That’s the harvard faculty and Barak Obama. In terms of practical experience they never reach 30. If you want to find a marxist in the USA look 1st on the closest campus.

BTW; The national review is a great sight and William F Buckley a founder of modern conservative. one of his great lines was “I’d rather be governed by the 1st 300 names in the Boston phone book than the harvard faculty”. this sentiment is also core to this ideological battle. Obama will lose in large part because he and liberals are such elitists. That’s not accompliment. Elites are people who’ve accomplished real things and are generally even tempered. Elitists are people who think they’ve accomplished great things, in reality haven’t, but have become full of themselves anyway. They s/b be running things. In my world they’re dickheads. In my world Obama lack of experience and his left wing economic view would disqualify him from running a hot dog stand. We’ll see but I believe when his history is written this will be why he only got one term and why the country swung to such a conservative fiscal policy in 2010. Vastly over-rated as a communicator and clueless as an economic manager. The comparisons with Reagan will be stark with the shocking irony this debt commission is going to move us back to his 1986 tax reform and then some. This is the next step toward the flat rates he wanted.

…spending is up 21% in two years. That binge.
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That’s a pretty superficial interpretation of that statistic, rdw.You’re leaving out the reasons why spending had to go up over the last two years.
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Conservatism supports small govt as the fairest and most economically efficient.
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Has that theory ever actually been proven?
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You want to take money from the private ctizens who create jobs and give it to bureaucrats to piss away. We wish to do the opposite.
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Your wish has already been granted. Taxes are at a 40-year low. When are the ‘private citizens’ gonna start creating jobs?

Speaking of movies:

It gives me great joy to look at the last decade of Hollywood output and just celebrate the disasterous effort on the left coast to produce movies to influence the political debate only to be totally ignored. There are only a few movies that didn’t bomb totally and none made money. My guess is syrianna came closest to making money but that was an incoherent mess. Rendition and another 20 were total duds. The Redford/Streep effort was so bad it was almost funny. It’s such a different world than in the 30′s, 40′s and 50′s where the actors and directors lived reasonably normal lives. Theses morons are the quintessential elitists, utterly without a clue. I counted up the number of bombs one day and got over 20. That’s got to be $500M pissed down the drain.

Moreover the only financially successful flick was by that staunch anti-capitalist Michael Moore who pocketed well in excess of $100M. He was so repulsed at fleecing so many liberals out of their money, talk about exploitation, his next film attacked capitalism. He wanted another $100M from libs. Only liberals could take that sleezebag seriously.

While liberal critics praised the documentary, further shrinking their shrinking audience, it did nothing to change opinions in Iraq and GWB won re-election easily. It put the MSM is the losing position of watching Fox and other outlets show clips of Michael Moore touring Europe selling his America bashing film announcing at each stop, “Americans are the dumbest people on the planet”. What was that like to be Charlie Gibson. George Stenapholis and the rest seeing those clips, knowing Fox was running them 24/7 and they went viral on yortube, knowing most of American was watching Moore mock them as they praised them while he was pocketing buckets of cash for the honor. Charlie and George knew, they had to know, it was a PR disaster for liberals. They knew they could not play the clip but it didn’t matter. A majority of Americans watching the reports of the various premiers of Farenheight 911 were aware More spend the previous month telling Europeans the people in those lines were the dumbest people on the planet. It was such a pitiful sight one could only feel sorry for them.

Even what I’d call the most serious effort at Hollywood propaganda was a bomb on those terms. Speilberg’s Munich was an attempt to suggest Israel made a mistake in going after the terrorists who killed their Olympic athletes and somehow squandered some of their moral authority. No they didn’t. It was then and remains very impressive as well as wise. The state has as it’s 1st responsibility to protect it’s citizens. That is exactly what Israel did. The clear lesson was to those thinking of doing the same that they will be hunted down like dogs and killed. Obviously it’s been pretty effective. It’s one of a very few films I stopped watching after an hour waiting for it to get interesting. Speilberg is a master but the basis was absurd.

The net/net of this babbling is to point out the alliance between Hollywood and the DNC has not been productive for either. Just as the obvious bias in the MSM has killed their business Hollywood has been set back. Gross Sales are doing well but unit sales are down in a growing population. George Clooney in a serious conversation many years ago lamented the fact the term liberal had developed such a negative connotation and he really missed the good old days of just 3 networks so we all got the same news. I doubt George knows how bad it is for the networks. At one point their audience was over 40M and it’s under 20M now. This while the population doubled. So penetration is less than 1/5 the levels of the 60′s. Further, even before Dan Rather exposed himself the image of the anchor as all sweetness and light had been repudiated. Today Rush Limbaugh has a larger audience for 3 hours than all 3 networks for 22 minutes. So if you are thinking Obama can just do what Clinton did in1996, before Fox existed, think again.

Reagan is…Obama could not be more different.
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That’s a crock. If Obama was a Repub, you’d be praising him for his Reagan-esque leadership.
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The plan was to ramp up spending and then as we got used to the new services and programs figure out how to pay for them.
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Again, a crock, doubly so considering that the steepest increases in US government debt occurred under the Reagan and both Bush administrations. Spending as a percentage of the GDP has been growing steadily (with the exception of the Clinton years) since the beginning of last century.
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The language will be defined by terms like socialist and marxist because they are useful and valuable.
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Yet earlier, you wrote that they were “simple literary devices”. What they really are are pejorative lies, same as if I were to label you a fascist because that’s the direction I think you are heading.
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Obama will be excoriated for his Harvard background.
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Hypocrite. Nothing about the Bush family’s Ivy-league education?
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Here’s something I don’t understand: How a person like Obama, who epitomizes the concept of pulling yourself up by your bootstraps to achieve success in America, is derided as an ‘elitist’ while privileged sons like McCain and Dubya are feted as regular folk.
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Once upon a time in America, getting a degree from a place like Harvard was considered to be a worthy achievement. We used to celebrate intelligence and make heroes of our thinkers and scientists. Now, the right-wing disparages science and academics in a fit of anti-intellectual pique driven by their (figurative) insistence that the world is flat.

The power of the internet is in breaking the monopoly of the MSM. The Weekly Standard will never have the product placement of Time or Newsweek at airports or in Dentist offices but good writing gets cited to a huge audience:

A clip from powerline:

One of President Obama’s most prominent and least attractive qualities is his vanity. It almost disposes of the speculation that Obama is a Muslim. The man can’t be a Muslim; he worships himself.

In the title of the new Weekly Standard cover story, Jonathan Last calls Obama “The American Narcissus” and, as Last demonstrates, Obama has earned the title. The evidence compiled by Last is voluminous, if not overwhelming.

One of President Obama’s most prominent and least attractive qualities is his vanity. It almost disposes of the speculation that Obama is a Muslim. The man can’t be a Muslim; he worships himself.

Obama’s characteristic rhetorical trope is the presentation of history in a messianic mode featuring himself. Last quotes Obama’s June 2008 speech in St. Paul celebrating his securing the Democratic presidential nomination. In that speech Obama concluded:

I am absolutely certain that generations from now, we will be able to look back and tell our children that this was the moment when we began to provide care for the sick and good jobs to the jobless; this was the moment when the rise of the oceans began to slow and our planet began to heal; this was the moment when we ended a war and secured our nation and restored our image as the last, best hope on earth. This was the moment–this was the time–when we came together to remake this great nation so that it may always reflect our very best selves and our highest ideals.

***********************************************

This is the sort of language that conservatives find preposterous but gives Matthews tingles. The man is rather impressed with himself isn’t he? I feel embarrassed for him for saying it and you for buying it. This guy is not normal. He’s not grounded. For all of his technical oratorical skills he’s a rotten communicator. His famous speech in Philadelphia was crowned as the finest speech in 150 years, comparing Obama to Lincoln, yet had a shelf life of 2 weeks. He said he could no more throw the Rev Wright under the bus than his own grandmother. Wright to that point has only trashed America. Two weeks later he called Obama, ‘just another politician’, and under the bus he went. Now it’s a speech liberals have buried and Conservatives find memorable.

There are dozens and dozens of examples of him speaking of himself in these messianic terms and when you cobble just a few of them together the picture of the man is not pretty. The common term the MSM used to describe the sense they had of him after they had interviews and/or private talks was of his ‘enormous self regard’. That’s the phrasing David Brooks used and it was copied by many. A rather nice way of saying egomaniac isn’t it?

If you don’t sense the danger of him wearing out his welcome with this act you aren’t thinking. He’s still viewed as a nice guy who played by the rules and has a great family and all that but to the extent his preening arrogance seeps out it’s toxic. My sense is he, Harry and Nancy are convinced the election was all about the poor economy and their policies are fine. Someone like Obama is especially susceptable to false praise like, ‘we’re doing well’, ‘hold your ground’. If he listens he will be crushed in 2012.

“Hypocrite. Nothing about the Bush family’s Ivy-league education?”

It’s the elitist thing. No reporter walked away after talking to GWB musing, ‘wow, enormous self-regard”. Obama is messianic. GWB is the frat boy. He loved being mis-under-estimated.

A elite is someone who has excelled at somethiing. An elitist is someone who thinks he has.

The Bush family is about as self-depreciating and engaging as it gets. Two Presidents and a Governor and they are not impressed with themselves.

Obama is going to heal the planet. Come on! You have to admit that kind of talk is preposterous.

This is one of those really cool things sitting here and looking back at how the MSM covered Bush and his father and Reagan and Ike, etc. They covered Bush as if he was a moron and Gore (and kerry) as if he was the 2nd coming of Einstein.

Just look back at the Gore – Bush debates. Virtually every word written by the MSM on Bush oozed with contempt for his intellect. Just oozed. Gore by contrast was a deep thinking intellect. Newsweeks less than 6 months ago did a cover of Gore with the caption ‘a thinking mans thinking man”. My 1st thought this is Mad Magazine doing a parody of Newsweek.

To this day I ask myself how this was possible. Every single reporter producing that narrative knew for a fact GWB had higher marks than Gore and Kerry in college. They knew Bush had a Harvard MBA. They knew Gore tried 3 different graduate level programs and failed at all three.

Knowing those simple facts, and they are no in dispute, how is it possible to think Bush is dumb and Gore smart? It’s not sane. It’s irrational.

Is it a matter of liberals being so full of themselves they think anyone who disagrees with them is stupid? Anton Scalia has been called many things but stupid isn’t one of them.

One of the really funny moments of the 2000 cycles was Bob Schrum having one of those, “Houston, we have a problem” moments. Two days before the 1st debate he realized they had so beaten down Bush and praised Gore the odds of Gore meeting expections were impossible and for Bush to miss them even moreso. In his own arrogance he created a disaster for his candidate.

It’s hard to believe this happened. Joe Klein had a front row seat and was part of the team. If you read Time you would have expected the equivalent of Cicero from Gore and wondered if Bush would be able to string two coherent sentences together.

I repeat this story too frequently but it is the perfect representation of the liberal dilemma. You can’t help yourselves. Schrum did the same exact thing 4 years later.

Liberals think Obama is all that because he went to Harvard. So does Obama. For Bush it was a liability. For conservatives it’s about what you’ve done not where you went to school.

That’s a crock. If Obama was a Repub, you’d be praising him for his Reagan-esque leadership.

**********************************************

Come on, the men are total opposites. Their personalities and background are totally different. Neither Bush nor anyone else I can think of in my party has been called reaganesque in a serious way.

Rubio gave a speech after he was elected that was reaganesque in that it was forward looking, very positive and well delivered. He does have a similar way but he’s far from earning that accolade.

Obama doesn’t speak like him or think like him in anyway. He’s capable of soaring oratory but it’s more like something from a preacher. There is that acting part of delivering a speech that enhances the experience and Obama is authentially gifted and maybe the superior of Reagan but I don’t think it’s accurate to call him Reaganesque because it’s so different.

The single biggest difference is the preening arrogance. That simply does not sell to a conservative audience. You can’t be messianic to an audience that believes in God. Obama is the very definition of elitist. You can’t get in front of conservative audience and give off a whiff of that arrogance.

You have to admit that kind of talk is preposterous.

The “Barack the Magic Negro” song wasn’t played on Olbermann, rdw. ‘That kind of talk’ (or, rather, the emphasis on ‘that kind of talk’ occurring) is more of a construct of Obama’s right-wing opposition.

liberals being…Liberals think…

Awfully broad brush you’re painting with, rdw, and a rather dishonest exercise in framing. To know liberals are and think, you pretty much have to be one. Even then, we’re not monolitic in thought.

The thing that really fries your nads is that you can’t shovel your crap without soemone telling you how bankrupt of a philosophy that drives your sorry life.

Just keep lying to your self.

How a person like Obama, who epitomizes the concept of pulling yourself up by your bootstraps to achieve success in America, is derided as an ‘elitist’ while privileged sons like McCain and Dubya are feted as regular folk.

Rule #1 – don’t BS as to who you were. I grew up in West Philly in a row house. We were absolutely not poor but we didn’t go to prep schools like Obama did from the 4th grade on. There is much to admire him for in terms of a single mom and not coming from Bush wealth and doing so well but the 2nd you exaggerate his circumstances you destroy the narrative. (kerry wasn’t winning anyway but selling him as a John Wayne like war hero was unspeakably stupid)

I did not go to an exclusive prep school in the 4th grade. Don’t give me this bootstraps crap.

He is degraded as an elitist because he is an elitist. He’s self regard is enormous as they say and his accomplishments thin. Americans as a group are classless. We don’t like having classes. Someone who thinks they are smarter than you because they went to harvard is essentially creating a separate class for themselves above those who haven’t. That’s insulting. Now if he cures cancer, invented something, created wealth somehow, maybe we can go with the ‘he’s pretty smart thing’. But is isn’t something you nominate yourself for.

Bush went to Harvard and never pretended to be anything more than a frat boy. Harvard did NOT go to his head.

He is a real world example that I think was very damaging to Obama. The beer summit. That press conference was absolutely absurd. He did one of the dumbest things I have ever seen a President do in a press conference. He was so sure the cops acted stupidly because they arrested a harvard professor. Lets take the race angle out which is damaging for a different reason but Obama almost certainly had the question planted because he wanted to bring it up and it wanted it at the end. He even said he didn’t have all the fact yet he is so arrogant that in front of a national prime time audience he called the cops stupid for handcuffing a Harvard professor.

That doesn’t scream elitist? Are you kidding me? When GWB got a DUI up in Maine Daddy, then VP wrote a note to the arresting officer, apologizing for the incident and thanking him for his professionalism. A hand written note. He wanted the guy to know there would not be any negative reaction from the family.

Obama uses a prime time national audience to call the arresting office stupid.

These two people have nothing in common.

BTW: You make a huge mistake in going after GHWB. The man is and has always been total class. He has never flaunted his wealth or his education. On his18th birthday he enlisted in the service to become a fighter pilot and was the youngest pilot shot down on a very dangerous mission against a Japanese stronghold. His wingman was killed. I think that was something like he’s tenth mission and he did another 10 after that. After that he went back to Yale where he was also the captain of the baseball team. These are good people.

“The “Barack the Magic Negro” song wasn’t played on Olbermann, rdw. ‘That kind of talk’ (or, rather, the emphasis on ‘that kind of talk’ occurring) is more of a construct of Obama’s right-wing opposition.”

It was a hilarious song parody put together by a guy who does stuff for Limbaugh and has probably been played by him100x’s. it’s based on a column by a black columnist for the LA Times who’s point was that Obama was attractive to whites because in background and mannerisms he was more white than black. Or as Biden put it, “clean’. What Limbaugh was doing obviously was mocking Obama using political correctness against liberals. Many were initially outraged and tried to play the race card but when they found out the title came from the LA Times they were in bad stead. It’s politically correct to go after Limbaugh. It’s very politically incorrect to go after a black columnist.

To know liberals are and think, you pretty much have to be one. Even then, we’re not monolitic in thought.

************************************

I have to be a liberal to understand Obama? Maureen Dowd? Joe Klein? Don’t they make their living communicating?

It is a broad brush and I have to think some liberals think his grandiose pretensions of saving the world are rather goofy but they’re not saying anything like that. Most are justifying it because he supports cap and tax. That’s so important it’s going to save humanity. You are him. You are as close to monolithic as it gets. I have no doubt you think passing cap and trade will save the planet ergo you and he are all messiah’s of a type.

Joe has another post on Obama’s Asian trip and he is defending walking away from Korea without a trade deal as if that’s a good thing. Ok, this is pretty superficial and hardly a huge issue. But it’s another sign of incompetence and/or arrogance. You don’t send the President into a conference with the President of Korea unless the deal has already been struck. It’s embarrassing for each side to walk out without one and looks like a failure. The suggestion is he thought they were close enough and felt his immense personal charm and powers of persuasion would win the day and he’d get a deal done. Wrong again. This is something ABC won’t report and few people will be aware of but the Europeans and other potential trading partners will see. It smacks of incompetence. A few years ago when in the Senate he blocked the free trade deal with Colombia Japan was more than happy to grab that heavy equipment market.

I warned people before he was elected he would be rotten on trade where Bush was VG. During his term Trade added between 0.5% to 1.2% to GDP each year. Obama has been blocking free trade. He is getting next to nothing. You can expect trade to be either neutral or a laggard for the next two years. This man does not understand basic economics.

Once upon a time in America, getting a degree from a place like Harvard was considered to be a worthy achievement. We used to celebrate intelligence and make heroes of our thinkers and scientists. Now, the right-wing disparages science and academics in a fit of anti-intellectual pique driven by their (figurative) insistence that the world is flat.

********************************************

This is mindless whining. We don’t trash Harvard per se. We trash elitists. We trash people who because they graduated from Harvard think that automatically makes them a cut above and they act like it. There is no shortage of great people from Harvard. If my kids could get in I’d send them there in a heartbeat. While of course telling them to tune out all of the lefty crap.

This anti-science stuff is just as silly. Due mostly to cap and tax but you rally screwed the entire GW thing up naming Gore as your apostle. His entire life has been a series of often grotesque exaggerations. You named a D student and world famous exaggerator as essentially your chief scientist and you think you have credibility on science.

BTW: I actually researched the science. Global warming is a house of cards. It isn’t quite a hoax but it’s on the edge. Al predicted almost 4 years ago the Arcitic ocean would be ice free in 5 years in the summer. What happened 4 years ago (could have been 3) is very unusual wind patterns emerged blowing the summer ice much further southward and in bigger quantities. Most ice normally breaks up in the summer but stays there and simply refreezes. This summer they lost as much as 25% more than usual. Albert as his is won’t to do acted as if that was part of the long term trend and if you predict that ice loss will repeat for the next 5 years you do have an ice free summer. Well it ain’t happening and you haven’t see the worst of it yet. Conservatives will be at the Arctic circle to note Gores predictions. ABC won’t cover it but we’ll all know.

It’s not a matter of us being anti-science. It’s a matter of liberals being stupid. This will not go unnoticed.

Obama is not a liberal.
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Joe Klein is not a liberal.
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Maureen Dowd is a psychotic.

rdw56: It is impossible to have a dialogue with you. Your habit of hijacking a thread and posting long, paragraph filled comments is annoying. Please stick to the subject, don’t rely on propaganda, and open your mind.

It is odd for someone who has omitted seeing 2 great, classic movies is now an expert on movies of the last 10 years. I assume you attained that knowledge through one of your rw second hand sources.
Here are some successful political movies of the last 10 years you might want to actually watch:
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City of God
WALL-E (man made destruction of our habitat)
Milk
The Contender
4 Months, 3 Weeks, and 2 Days
Brokeback Mountain
The Dark Knight (political corruption)
Children of Man
There Will Be Blood

Yeah, that sure carries a lot of weight coming from person who stated that the same philosophies justifies ignoring his own principles.
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Cry about it some more, Free. Then tell us again how it’s okay that you went back on your word. Because we’re the dishonest ones. Something something personal responsibility…

rdw are you snowed in like I am?
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Holy moly so many words.

To this point, I am stunned by how bad Obama is at politics (as opposed to governing).

29.1 – apr2563,

“rdw56: It is impossible to have a dialogue with you. Your habit of hijacking a thread and posting long, paragraph filled comments is annoying. Please stick to the subject, don’t rely on propaganda, and open your mind.”

Thank you.
As I ended a previous thread,
“rdw,
You have the floor. Too bad you shat on it.”

I’m a real savant. I can type and watch the Flyers at the same time

Yes, and you obviously thought you were so comical you repeat. Imaginative, not so much.

How does one hijack a thread? Either you have an interest in the thread or you don’t. If you don’t you post whatever brilliant insights you have and run your own thread. This is mere whining. Yes you are a lib.

You’ve got some high standards there. I can’t imagine what you define liberal and it doesn’t include those three. You can’t just Obama by what he’s passed. He didn’t pass single payer because it wasn’t possible to pass single payer nor to get elected in the 1st place if he promised to do so.

BTW: Notice he’s walked away from Trying KSM at all and his pledge to pull out of Afpac? I am not supposed to like him. I’ve got to imagine the anti-war, anti-patriot act left is beyond livid. Obama is pretty much to the right of Bush now on all these issues. Not so much because he doesn’t want to move left but he is simply incompetent. Your great orator is in fact a rotten communicator.

I agree with those who say that the “poll is dumb” although it is obviously true that Americans want effective governing. Paradoxically the only way that Obama can get the Republicans to respect him is if he vigorously opposes them. They will work with him if they respect him. They will try to roll over him if they don’t and then there will be no “working together” – just one sided compromise on the part of the President that will alienate the Democratic base.

A president cannot rule effectively if his own base will not stand up for him as it is all too obvious that the opposition party will oppose him and the center will not hold. This is so obvious.I sense that Obama feels betrayed by his base (just as they feel betrayed by him.) He absolutely has to fix that. It should be his first priority.

“They will work with him if they respect him.”

There was a recent poll that really is accurate. The message was, “cut spending or find another line of work because we will retire you.”

So there’s respect for Obama and respect for the wishes of the voters. Perhaps you have a different opinon on what the voters said but that is the crux. Methinks the Senators up for relection from 3 states Neb, Wv and VA have already sent clear signals they will side with the voters against Obama. If Nelson decides he wants another term he will follow the wishes of the people of nebraska and respect for Obama has nothing to do with it.

There is something else. There are 70 some new house members and every one of them on the GOP side made a vow to cut spending. Further they know with certainty the Tea Party will watch every vote and if they step out of line one time the tea party will begin fundraising and recruiting for someone to oppose the junior congressmen in the primary.

I don’t think sticking to a platform no one wants gains respect. I think the opposite is true. Obama is n a horrible spot with no suggestion he’s learned much from the election. If that is true he will be retired in 2013.

“Further they know with certainty the Tea Party will watch every vote and if they step out of line one time the tea party will begin fundraising and recruiting for someone to oppose the junior congressmen in the primary.”
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You aren’t kidding.
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http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2010/11/tea-party-fail-patriots-conspiracy-theory-leads-to-mass-calling.php?ref=fpa
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Charming bunch, those TPers.

rdw: Not to be rude but you miss the point. Scroll through this thread for instance. You have more comments of greater length than anyone else. It appears that most of the time you are communicating with yourself. You are not really interested in anyone else’s opinion. Taking Rep talking points and posting them with stream of conscous verbiage and rare documentation is unproductive.
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Sometimes when I feel inclined I read your comments and there is occasionally something interesting. However, it gets lost in the overwhelming, predictable content and lack of linkage to sources.

Correction: conscious

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2010/11/13/weekinreview/deficits-graphic.html
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Fun interactive site. Allows you to “fix’ the US budget.
What would you cut and how would that impact the budget near and far term?

What this survey says is as long as Obama follows policies unpopular with his base and joins with independents in a futile attempt to appease the Right, who have no interest in compromise, Obama ought to be able to retain power.

I don’t pay much attention to conspiracy theories, other than to wonder which form of mental illness the person spreading them suffers from, but it is beyond mystical the way Obama has been painted as a radical Leftist, without following any Left-wing policies. It’s as if the failure of his moderate policies is being deliberately pinned on the Left, in order to justify an even further shift to the Right.

The main thing missing from the survey is any mention of actual policy, whether examples of Left or Right extremism, or any idea what the compromise set of policies ought to be, and what economic effect we should expect from them.

It just says, we all have to compromise, and leaves it at that.

Speaking of conspiracy theories, first order of business is acceptance that Obama is a legitimately elected President, that he is a US citizen, that he is not Muslim, he is a professed Christian, that religion doesn’t matter, his successful pursuit of education does not reflect elitism, he is does not advocate or endorse radical or violent actions, he is not leftist or liberal, he is centrist.
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After filling that big order, we must define compromise. Good luck to us all.

Unless I am mistaken I believe the survey says the Right is opposed to compromise which begs the question, why is the recommendation to follow a strategy that is doomed to failure? Is that not the definition of futility, another example of Tilting at Windmills?

From wiki: “Alonso Quixano (or Quijano), a retired country gentleman nearing 50 years of age, lives in an unnamed section of La Mancha with his niece and a housekeeper. He has become obsessed with books of chivalry, and believes their every word to be true, despite the fact that many of the events in them are clearly impossible. Quixano eventually appears to other people to have lost his mind from little sleep and food and because of so much reading.”

rdw56,
you really need to slow down on the page hogging. You are boring and prolific.. please, man. Take it down a peg.

“Are we talking redistribution of income/wealth here? Geographically? I’m confused in the context of most of your posts.”

@ formerlyjames, yes, I am. It is called a sliding scale tax code.
We can look at Mexico to see what flat tax results in. The top 1% hold all the wealth and the middle class is wiped out. McCain wanted to give people who make $50,000 a couple more hundred in tax cuts while he gave those who made millions hundreds of thousands in tax cuts. Obama gave middle class Americans $1000 or more in tax cuts while raising taxes on the very most wealthy.
The theory goes like this.. a few of the very most rich people by a few new luxury products.. like a new helicopter. That spending helps a few businesses and employees. You give 1 millionaire $100,000 and it helps very few people. You give 100 middle class people $1000 and they spend it on car repairs, new appliances, ac repair, and countless other products that stimulate the economy in a wide range. You can help far more people, businesses and employees that way.

It’s not that I have high standards, it just really and truly seems as if you either don’t know or aren’t willing to know what liberals and liberalism are in 2010.
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Your ideas seem to have come from some weird, old Birch Society orthodoxy circa 1968, as far as I can tell.
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Ironically enough, you have more in common with how Joe Klein, in his aged, bubbled way, sees (and opposes) liberalism than you would probably prefer.
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Maybe at one time long ago you had liberalism down, but you’re way off of the mark in today’s terms.
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If, for a few moments, you could fight your way out of the rhetorical paper bag in which you’ve put yourself, you might find out some relatively new information about who we, movement liberals, are –if you were more interested in real definitions than the definitions you create to win arguments with yourself, that is.
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No, Obama, Klein and Dowd aren’t liberals. They don’t try to be, and therefore they are not. One has to have liberal goals, use liberal method and identify oneself with liberalism, in order to actually be a liberal.
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Rightist epithets don’t define liberals, reality does..

This is real easy lila, if you don’t want to read it then don’t. I didn’t ask you if it’s OK for me to post. That wasn’t an oversight. Just skim right over my post. Soon as you see the name just bypass it. If that’s too difficult for you to manage then too bad.

It’s called democracy

The right is opposed to the expansion of govt ans wants to roll back the spending increase of the last several years. There is no compromise on that. Spending increases will simply not pass the Congress and the size will be frozen while the private sector expands until we get govt back to 19% of GDP.

The extension of the Bush tax cuts will cost the government 3.7 trillion dollars. Don’t tell me the Right is opposed to spending increases.

If you’ll notice, TBS and TNT are also not on there. What do these three networks have in common? They were once owned by Ted Turner. Now, you may point out, CNN was also owned by Ted Turner, but there is more to it.
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Cartoon Network plays reruns of Family Guy, which every “Real American” loves. Family Guy is on Fox, so it gets a pass.
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TNT plays Law and Order; 22 hours a day of Law and Order. Nothing more to be said.
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TBS I’m not so sure on, but I’d guess that he probably loves watching all the mid-90s sitcoms that are replayed all the time.

It is called democracy, actually.
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That’s correct.

No it really isn’t Democracy.

Help me understand, PNNTO.

Providing private cell phone numbers in a mass e-mail to harangue elected (and non elected, that is to say.private citizens) people about which meeting to attend and which to avoid isn’t Democracy. It is harassment.

Sure, they f-ed up and called people who weren’t elected by mistake.
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But you don’t think that sort of campaign is essentially democracy, even if it’s poorly (maybe laughably) executed?

I don’t ask this facetiously but is mob rule essentially democrat? Or is it intimidation?
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I would say “petitioning” (that’s the kindest way to describe it) one’s -not yet sworn in-Congressman over attendance at an orientation meeting by calling their private number rather than their office is closer to harassment than democracy.
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But I think I get where you are coming from as far as encouraging grassroots action/participation.

You have more comments of greater length than anyone else. I

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I am a conservative, I am more cerebral than everyone else. There are 400 cable stations so you can watch whatever you like. You also have an off button so you don’t have to watch anything. Read whatever you like. You see rdw56 and don’t want to bother, don’t. Is that hard or complex?

Letting people keep money they earned is not spending. And you will see real spending cuts.