It’s not Obama’s fault, not a referendum on him, it was simply an omen. Because if people like the president but don’t like his agenda, with the country’s wrong track numbers off the charts, it’s no problem. Analysis like this belongs with the comics.
David Plouffe, Obama’s “Audacity to Win” engineer, even writes an op-ed and the last piece of advice goes like this:
– No bed-wetting. This will be a tough election for our party and for many Republican incumbents as well. Instead of fearing what may happen, let’s prove that we have more than just the brains to govern — that we have the guts to govern. Let’s fight like hell, not because we want to preserve our status, but because we sincerely believe too many everyday Americans will continue to lose if Republicans and special interests win.
Swell. Just swell.
Of course, he has other points of wisdom to impart as well, so never fear. It’s not like he wants to put us all in the way back machine and inject everyone with another dose of hope and change serum. Whew, I was getting worried.
- Pass a meaningful health insurance reform package without delay
- We need to show that we not just are focused on jobs but also create them.
- Make sure voters understand what the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act did for the economy.
- Don’t accept any lectures on spending.
- “Change” is not just about policies.
- Run great campaigns.
And the kicker, no bed-wetting.
This is not about what ails us, and we don’t need no stinkin’ pep talk.
David Plouffe needs to wake up and turn his message on Pres. Obama. It doesn’t matter what we do at this point, because the one thing Barack Obama has forgotten to do is lead. Let me know when Plouffe sends a message to the person who helped get us into this mess. We did our part over a year ago by turning the White House over to him, with a Democratic majority.
We’re also not the ones hinting that the only people to be covered on pre-existing illnesses could end up being children. See John Aravosis.
Since that time not only has Obama, who is the Democratic Party leader, and the Democrats lost Virginia, which he won but won’t again, but also New Jersey, which is a blue state, but Barack Obama didn’t even know the importance of handing over Massachusetts to Republicans and what it would mean symbolically to relinquish Teddy’s seat after almost 50 years. His team actually said they’d have come in to help earlier if they’d been asked. Obama has given innumerable speeches, handed helped to Wall Street and big banks, but just now figured out that people are pissed about it.
It’s also terribly ironic that the only political person David Plouffe mentions in his Washington Post pep talk is none other than Sarah Palin. Evidently at least Mr. Plouffe understands the damage Sarah Palin’s “death panels” squeal did to the health care debate, which I’ve been talking about since it happened, even as everyone else reacts like a bunch of children scoffing at the lessons of the last year.
We don’t need a pep talk, because we’ve been warning the Democratic majority and Pres. Obama what was coming for months.
This mess is on them.
“This mess is on them” — Taylor
Absolutely. But do you think they get that? A return to campaign mode doesn’t encourage me that they do.
On NPR’s Morning Edition today, their DC Senior Editor, Ron Elving, opined that what Obama/Dems needed to do was be “more conciliatory,” especially regarding getting health care industries back in the conversation. If that’s the kind of thing Plouffe and others are listening to, the mess will grow messier. Of course, maybe they’re listening to those providing the warning you mention. Maybe not.
“Present.”
This is all so depressing. I fear all is lost. You see, I believe that Obama is in his little bubble, and the only people who has access to him are other intellectuals, and people who tend to be well-off, more conservative, therefore probably more conciliatory. For the most part they would be aghast if he would be more bare knuckled against the Republicans.
If and when he does meet with people of opposing views, I also feel those people tend to pull their punches and never speak truth to power as it should be told. Thus he never learns the unvarnished truth about the red-hot anger some people are feeling.
They will forever be on the wrong track.
“the one thing Barack Obama has forgotten to do is lead.”
Obama claimed that although he lacked experience, he had decision-making skills. He took a pounding from Clinton on his lack of experience, but he convinced a lot of people that although he lacked experience, he had the intellectual power to make good decisions.
And he certainly excelled at inspiring people. He fired up people with his promise to change things, and people wanted change.
Now, a year into his presidential term, the perception is that Obama’s decisions have favored the rich and hurt working people, that his healthcare plan (derisively called Obamacare) will raise taxes and reduce services for the elderly and that American lives and treasure continue to be wasted on foreign exploits.
The bloom is off the rose for many Obamaphiles, and the opposition, which draws on support from always-present American racism, smells political opportunity.
Yes, leadership is required.
What is leadership?
It’s more than inspiring people and decision-making, although they’re important.
Leadership is articulating a strategic vision and then inspiring your organization to deliver results.
Leadership is demanding that your people perform to the vision, and jettisoning those who can’t.
Leadership is making sure that everyone in the organization understands that results will be measured, and that people will be held responsible.
Obama has been a poor leader. Has he forgotten how to lead, or did he never know?
David Plouffe will deal mainly with this fall’s elections involving Congress and governors. I wouldn’t be too concerned with him. He has no authority in the administration.
More importantly, Obama’s chief political strategist, David Axelrod says don’t expect a staff shake-up. “Nothing gets Washington more excited than someone losing their job.” http://tinyurl.com/yba7krz
Oh no, let’s not get anyone excited in Washington. America’s chief export is jobs, unemployment up in all fifty states last year, people losing their homes, 50 million without proper medical care, but let’s not get excited, no bed wetting.
Bernanke, Summers, Geithner, Napolitano — no accountability for you. Let’s call the American people on the carpet and let them suffer.
Now that’s poor leadership (see above).
Taylor, I haven’t yet responded to your email, but want to say that you have, as usual, nailed the issues squarely. As you may recall, I became politically active as part of the drive to draft Wesley Clark to run for President, and continued to work essentially full time on politics until last July, when I finished a two-year term as third vice chair of the Clark County, NV Democratic Party. In this last presidential cycle, I did not have a strong attraction to any of the candidates, although my wife and I attended the NV Democratic Convention as delegates for Hillary.
We were both uneasy with Obama after attending a national symposium on health care in Las Vegas, in January 2008, at which all the Democratic Presidential hopefuls spoke. Both John Edwards and Hillary Clinton had detailed, well-crafted plans. Hillary in particular, as expected, could deliver any level of detail on the issue without reference to notes. Obama essentially admitted that he did not have a plan but would have one sometime in the spring. We found this to be totally unacceptable, and disappointing. Any senator should have had some ideas on this issue, whether or not he or she was running for President. And, we both were on the convention floor in Boston in 2004 when Obama gave the stirring speech that really launched his campaign, and expected him to show real leadership if elected.
Almost since the start of last year, I have felt that we have a complete vacuum at the upper levels of the Democratic Party leadership, at least concerning any coordinated strategy to actually advance a progressive agenda. President Obama never provided a real plan for health care reform – just some fuzzy principles. Leaving the crafting of legislation entirely up to the House and Senate invited the lobbyists for the medical-industrial complex to develop a system almost guaranteed to be worse than what we started with, and cost more to boot.
I believe we could have gotten a bold plan passed quickly through both houses if the President had pushed for an extension of Medicare to all U.S. citizens – which could have been written in a few pages, and would have been understandable to anyone who took a few minutes to read it. This amounts to a public health care plan with a private option, with already well-established mechanisms for the industry to participate by offering supplemental coverage. We now have over 40 years of experience with Medicare, which provides a lot of information on what works, what doesn’t, and ideas on how to fix the major problems. The battle for a public health was lost from the minute it was considered an option. This allowed the Republicans to frame the entire dialogue.
Unfortunately, this is no longer an option. Shakespeare knew that timing is everything, and missed opportunities cannot be reclaimed, as shown by this quote by Brutus in Julius Caesar:
“We at the height are ready to decline.
There is a tide in the affairs of men
Which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune;
Omitted, all the voyage of their life
Is bound in shallows and in miseries.
On such a full sea are we now afloat,
And we must take the current when it serves,
Or lose our ventures.”
I think we have lost our ventures, and all we can hope for now is incremental change. For more than a year, I have been thinking that Nietzsche was right. He considered Hope to be the last pestilence released from Pandora’s Box, because Hope just allows people to continue putting up with intolerable situations.
Combined with the recent Supreme Court decision allowing unlimited corporate spending on campaigns, I fear that we have lost even a superficial resemblance to having a government of, by, and for the people.
Don Bacon says:
24 January 2010 at 10:52 am
Perfectly said.
White flight. That’s what the “bed-wetting” reference was all about. The Hispanic voter and the Black voter is still solidly behind Obama. It’s the White voter, especially White men, who have fled from Obama in panic. That’s the easiest group to bring back into the fold. Just like the prodigal son, white men will return to genuflect at the Democratic political alter in massive numbers as soon as they are put back to work. “The way to a man’s heart is through his stomach,” or in this case through a job that will fill his, and his family’s, stomach. Peace
Seems like the fact that 800,000 people who voted for Obama in MA in ’08 stayed home and of the ones who did vote, 25% who voted for Brown had voted for Obama in 08,would wake someone up.
Halperin has a theory,he thinks Obama’s circle of advisors is too small.
http://www.nydailynews.com/opinions/2010/01/24/2010-01-24_bams_flaws_come_home_to_roost.html
“Imhotep says:
24 January 2010 at 10:58 am”
OH MA FREAKIN GAWD WHO DOSEN’T EXIST!!! I AGREE!!
Being ex-military, I’m naturally interested in the President’s leadership in the military field.
Here’s one example of how seriously the Commander-in-Chief is taken in the field, regarding Afghanistan:
President Obama, Dec 1, 2009: “After 18 months [Jun 1, 2011], our troops will begin to come home.”
http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/remarks-president-address-nation-way-forward-afghanistan-and-pakistan
General Petraeus, as observed by Tom Ricks, at a recent conference: “To be sure, the 18-month Afghan surge timeframe is flexible. Petraeus quickly rejected the notion that U.S. forces would begin an unconditional withdrawal in August 2011. Instead, U.S. forces hope to ‘start a transition that is conditions-based of tasks from our forces to Afghan forces, again, in areas where those forces and the situation allow it.’”
http://ricks.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2010/01/22/petraeus_speaks
secularhuman, don’t act so shocked. We agree on most things. It’s our approach (tactics) that is different. I do believe that we profoundly disagree on the need for man to invent and than to sustain a God in his own image , however. That’s a discussion that I do believe that we should have one of these days. In a Peaceful way. Peace
DB, the military still believes that it has the same carte blanche to act under Obama as it had with bush. It does not and is slow to recognize that fact. Obama would rather not take scalps, but he will if he is forced to. Peace
Imhotep,
I’m not aware that Petraeus, or any general, refused to obey any of Bush’s orders. Do you have an example?
The scalps I would like for Obama to take are from his economic team.
Ramsgate says:
24 January 2010 at 10:56 am
I’ll second that.
I think it would be very hard to lead the military not having served.Maybe having universal service is the way to go in our country. I’m talking about all kinds of service.Supposedly young Israelis are in demand by the multi-nationals because of the leadership abilities they develop during their time of service.
DB, the generals gave bush orders, they did not get orders from him. “I will listen to my generals in the field.” The shoe is now on the other foot and the generals are balking. Peace
The talking heads on ‘This Week’ are so clueless!
OMG Matthew Dowd just used the analogy I just sent to Taylor on the five stages of grief,only he was arguing that we accept the status quo!
Imhotep,
Listening to generals is a sensible thing to do, and is not the same as taking orders from them.
Can you answer my previous question? Do you have any examples of a refusal of a general under Bush to obey an order from the CINC?
My question is what’s up with this Administration and urination?
Remember being all “wee-wee’d up”? Now we have bed-wetting. If I was Freud……
I ask the question again…where are the adults?
Lake Lady, Obama has already taken those scalps. Summers and Geithner have already had their opinions made subordinate to Paul Volker’s. That is why Obama has come out so forcefully against the bankers and Wall Street. The trick for him, now, is to sustain that pressure. Peace
Now they are just wringing their hands over John Edwards! That is so important to our country right now.
DB, let me say again that bush did not give his generals orders. His generals gave him orders which he followed to the tee. bush did not run the military as its commander-in-chief. The miltary ran bush. Peace
Daches says:
24 January 2010 at 10:56 am
You are so right. Couldn’t agree with you more, especially about the extension of Medicare and supplemental private insurance. I also clearly remember Hillary saying during the primary that hope/change has to be realized in the results in people’s lives, not some abstract ideal. And you are right about her level of detailed knowledge without notes. Both Clintons often speak without notes.
Imhotep~ Now he needs to replace them with progressives.
kris…lol!
kris, they could be saying to the “ruling elite” that a yellow shower is about to commence. That unless you get out of our way we are going to piss all over you. Peace
Imhotep~ Crude but hopeful.
Lake Lady, what, exactly, is your definition of a “Progressive?” Peace
Lake Lady, politics ain’t bean bag. Those that have the golden ring aren’t about to give it up without a fight. Peace
No the Clinton’s didn’t need notes when they spoke because they just made s*** up as they went along. “I did not have sexual relations with that woman.” “We had to run from the plane with bullets flying over our heads.” Peace
Beautifully expressed, Taylor.
However, I see no evidence that our “leaders” have even the remotest clue. Already the response to the MA debacle is to ignore all the polling about what the American people really want. From the government to the media, the system is on help-the-rich autopilot, and no one has any vision whatsoever. ESPECIALLY the “progressive” blogosphere, which seems permanently trapped in electoral combat mode with virtually no energy expended on creating alternative ways to survive and thrive.
We still expect to be able to “fix” the media, elect “good” Democrats, and “correct” the imbalances. But not even the most concerned among us are willing to rock the boat, much less get out and swim to shore. Even liberals have mortgages and pension plans and don’t want it all to come crashing down. Hell, I don’t either. But there isn’t any future in trying to get this dead horse back on its feet. I feel that with my whole heart. There is no way I can imagine the U.S.A. or any Western country five years from now and see the same system in place. No way, no how.
That’s why I’m convinced we’re on the cusp of epochal change. HUGE change. Frankly, I expect Mother Earth to have the last word.
Imhotep …I want FDR style bold experimentation.
Taos John~
Are you familar with the magazine,”Yes!” You might check it out.
Don Bacon
24 January 2010 at 11:32 am
Thing is, neither he nor his staff recognize the implications of this disobedience — this lack of respect.
Lake Lady says:
24 January 2010 at 11:43 am
“I think it would be very hard to lead the military not having served”
LL, I disagree. He has been elected Commander-in-Chief. All he has to do is to make an example of a few. His problem is he hates confrontation of ANY kind. No one takes him seriously because they do not fear him. Sometimes I wonder if his kids listen to him.
Let me ask you, do you think Sarah Palin or Hillary would put up with this crap? They haven’t served.
Imhotep,
The idea that generals can give an order to a president is ludicrous, and it didn’t happen. You have no proof of your claim.
President Bush listened to Generals Odierno & Petraeus and ordered the surge in Iraq AGAINST the advice of his general staff, for one example.
What we have now, apparently, is a general directly disobeying a presidential order, and probably (we’ll see) the president will do nothing about it. Obviously you also have no evidence of this sort of behavior under Bush.
Bush is history. What we have now is a pattern of poor leadership, including a lack of accountability.
TaosJohn, I’m into December 21, 2012 as well. We all know that every 5200 years there is a gigantic shift and that there are five parts to the 26,000 year cycle. To say nothing of the fact that the Sun will be at the dead center of the Milky Way in 2012. Isis. Peace
DB, until ‘you’ can prove ‘me’ wrong, I will hold to my thesis that the generals gave orders to bush on these wars and not the other way round. Peace
Imhotep says:
24 January 2010 at 12:00 pm
Neither of those quotes will affect my life or your life, but the policies they have spoken about will. I’ve heard both of them give detailed speeches without notes. That is indeed a skill.
To lie well certainly is a skill. And they are both skilled liars. Peace
LL,
Leading experienced military while lacking military experience is hard only in the sense that everything is hard. The country stuck me, a young basically-trained man, okay not really a man yet, in charge of thirty-five troopers which included a few hardened Korean War veterans (NCOs) when I was just twenty-one years old, and it worked out.
You listen, set goals, make good decisions (hopefully), focus on morale, reward the achievers and punish the slackers. It’s not rocket science. When my guys saw that we had dug our emplacements in good positions and they didn’t have to re-do the whole thing like the platoon next door had to do, I had it made.
Imhotep says:
24 January 2010 at 11:48 am
“Obama has already taken those scalps.” Summers and Geithner have already had their opinions made subordinate to Paul Volker’s. That is why Obama has come out so forcefully against the bankers and Wall Street. The trick for him, now, is to sustain that pressure. Peace”
WHAT scalps?
Last I heard, Summers and Geithner still had jobs in the administration and were keeping them. And why do you buy Obama’s BS? Maybe while he was promoting Volker, Geithner was in NY wining and dining the bankers and thinking up ways to thwart them. And probably WITH Obama’s blessing for all we know. He did it with Big Pharma, why wouldn’t he do it again?
And you were impressed with how “forcefully” he came out against the bankers? WOW!! You thinlk he’s going to actually FIGHT FOR YOU this time?
Some people were always bamboozled by his speeches. Peace.
Don Bacon~ I defer to your experience
You and Ramsgate make good points.
Getting back to Taylors point. Is Poof going to charge up the O grassroots? He might have some trouble with that from what I have read many are disappointed and disillusioned.
I don’t belong to that team but when I think of trying to go to work here in Missouri for Robin Carnahan, a good Dem ,against that crook Roy Blunt who is 6 points ahead right now, I have a very hard time imagining how to do it. In the past I have had house parties and raised money,gone door to door,made phone calls,been a precinct leader etc. I could do that because I passionately believed that Dems would make things better. I really did not realize how bought off they all are. I could bring people along because of the sincerity of my belief. I’ve lost that now and can not see how to be effective.
“Imhotep says:
24 January 2010 at 12:12 pm
DB, until ‘you’ can prove ‘me’ wrong, I will hold to my thesis that the generals gave orders to bush on these wars and not the other way round. Peace”
This is to idiotic and utterly ignorant of the reality of how the military works for words. The President can at ANY time, for ANY reason what so ever as Commander in Chief demand the resignation of ANY serving Officer. PERIOD. To entertain the ridiculus notion that the “generals” are running the show displays an ignorance of the chain of command as well as history. Ever hear about a General named MacArthur? He pissed Truman off and PRESIDENT, COMMANDER IN CHIEF TRUMAN CANNED him.
Why am I not surprise you into the end of the world crap. Bet you’re all about Nostradamus too huh?
Everytime you post something that makes a little sense you have to go and get all brain dead again.
That’s why you ignore certain comments – there is no reasoning behind them.
Thank you daches
http://blogs.ajc.com/cynthia-tucker/2010/01/22/5764/?cxntfid=blogs_cynthia_tucker
Read Cynthia Tucker:
Democrats need the courage to do the right thing
“The health care “system,” by the way, doesn’t work all that well for those of us who have coverage. Profit-making insurances companies do everything they can to keep from paying for illnesses. They practice “rescission,” employing a huge bureaucracy to find ways to drop customers when they get sick. They refuse to cover “pre-existing conditions,” or ongoing medical complaints. And, with or without health care reform, costs will continue to soar.”
24 January 2010 9:39 am by Taylor Marsh
“We don’t need a pep talk, because we’ve been warning the Democratic majority and Pres. Obama what was coming for months”.
“This mess is on them”.
——————
Um, no. That attitude is part of the problem and surely no part of any solution. Let me first say that at the end of the day the blame lands squarely on President Obama’s shoulders…no doubt whatsoever.
However, the Left can piss ‘n moan about how they were betrayed, and if only Hero of the Day X, Y or Z was [insert position here] things would be different…boo-damn-hoo. The Right is winning this virtual war simply because they are willing to get off their a$$es and publicly fight for what they want. Who is it you see on the MSM holding rallies and protests? -exactly- The Left is too busy reinforcing GOP platitudes while playing the perpetual victim and Democratic leaders are unable it seems to shut their fu@king traps about fellow party members in public (loose lips sink ships)…winning combo there.
The SCOTUS has now completely rigged the game for corporations to choose our public officials, it’s probably now or never for any change that benefits the people of the U.S. There is no time left for halo-polishing and pity parties, the final push to completely take the power from the people has begun…will this moment in time find us raging against the machine or crying in the closet?
It is Obama who is failing – not the people.
The people are failing themselves.
No, the people are being failed by the one who was elected to lead. He’s doing a piss poor job. All the bowing and scraping to defend him won’t do anything positive. He wanted the damn job – let him do it and do it right. This isn’t all about Obama – it’s about the people of this country who deserve better.
You attitude would lead to McCain going around saying “I lost because the people didn’t vote for me” – well duh. Obama is losing political ground because he isn’t delivering much of anything for Main Street while focusing mightily on banks and Wall Street.
I take full responsibility for my actions and I am more than willing to take the heat for my ongoing (if far less enthusiastic) support of Obama. Flame me all you like, call me an Obamabot/phile…whatever assuages your feelings, I am unoffendable. If you need a punching bag…do your worst.
I knew when I posted that call for individual responsibility I would be subjected to the firing squad and that’s fine by me, somebody’s gotta break from the ‘woe is me’ pack and look in the mirror. It’s ALL Obama’s fault, it’s simpletons like myself who can’t see the forest for the trees, right??? Well, get up and DO something about it, time has come to leave a little skin in the game.
All successful politics is based on:
(a) raising lots and lots of money; and
(b) whipping up some kind of fear in the electorate, thus allowing the politician to position him/her self as being best able to deal with the cause of the fear.
Repubs have pretty much always understood this, and have generally been quite good at both (a) and (b) which explains why they always come back even when they seem to have completely self-destructed, as was the case a year ago.
Obama proved during his 2-year campaign that he knew how to bring people aboard who were very good at (a), but his “hope and change” message completely overlooked the critical importance of (b). Funny that, after listening to the Rev. J. Wright all those years, you would have thought he’d have learned that a message of fear is much more powerful than a message of hope.
So, how can he now come up with something that will cause large numbers of voters to be fearful — and it has to be something they will believe that only HE can deal with? Something that is not an obvious steal from the Repub “fear playbook”, such as fear of people of color, fear of terrorist attacks, etc. Something, ideally, that is not just a made-up fear but a real and immediate threat to the average voter’s ability to lead a comfortable and happy life.
Health care reform might have done it, if packaged properly [i.e., preying on peoples' fear of being bankrupted by skyrocketing premiums and/or a catastrophic illness way beyond their coverage]. But that opportunity has obviously been missed now.
Global warming might have done it, but that was always a tough basis for fearmongering, if only because the catastrophe is many years in the future. And now the Climategate scandal has caused way too many people to suspect that it was all bogus science from the get go. So that won’t do.
What is left? Is there a totally legit fear out there, that Obama can pivot to and exploit — and that he has a hope in hell of convincing people that he and he alone can deal with?
If not, then those who think his Presidency is already beyond salvaging, are probably correct.
I have been. I’ve had a lot os skin in the game for a long, long time.
Speaking of skin, you seem to be pretty think skinned if you call a direct response flaming and you feel you’ve been subjected to a “firing squad.” Toughen up, that’s what Obama needs to do. Speaking of skin in the game – he should have been doing that a long while back instead of keeping “hands off.”
djjl says:
24 January 2010 at 3:54 pm
“All the bowing and scraping to defend him won’t do anything positive”.
—————
And all the whining and gnashing of teeth won’t do anything positive either unless people are willing to get out and make Obama do what they want. IMO, the corporate nations/mega-banks/military-industrial complex etc. have way too much power for any President (whomever they are) to get anything truly progressive accomplished without massive public pressure. Can there still be any doubt about who really runs the show and what it will take to turn the tide?
Hey, if everyone feels that what I’m saying is just cover for Obama bullsh!t then so be it. If the Left can somehow bypass the increased power of the Chamber of Commerce and über-lobbyists to get a Progressive president and Better Democrats™ elected, go for it. I’ll fight at your side, I just don’t feel that we have the time to waste.
BTW, I don’t feel as though I’ve been subjected to the firing squad yet, I’m just saying there is no need to hold back on me for anyone who may bite their tongue.
Sandmann,
You’re certainly entitled to dismiss what we’re doing here but that doesn’t mean that it’s justified. There are various liberal blogs going strong, and they each have their own personality and their own objectives. They all serve a purpose in that they foster democratic discussion, promote mutual support and advance the learning of issues. Some blogs are more thoughtful than activist, some are the opposite, and some are both. One very successful blog has been DKos, and its founder wrote a book about it recently.
from an LA Times review of “Crashing the Gate” (on Amazon):
In a given week, Markos Moulitsas Zúniga’s progressive blog, Daily Kos, receives more than 3 million visits, making it one of the most widely read political blogs in the world, and earning its proprietor regular calls for advice from Democratic Party leaders. Not bad for somebody who just four years ago was a Silicon Valley dropout with no real political experience. . .Crashing the Gate is brash and infuriating, as it should be. The progressive blogosphere is starting to feel its own strength — in the continued growth of Web traffic, in its powerful fund-raising capacity, and in the rise of its man, Howard Dean, as Democratic National Committee chairman. As Eli Pariser of Moveon.org’s political action wing wrote in December 2004 (after helping to raise a few hundred million dollars online): “Now it’s our party: we bought it, we own it, and we’re going to take it back.” Crashing the Gate is a powerful salvo in that battle. And as such, it commands attention.
So your general dismissal of the lib blogosphere is probably mis-directd.
Taylor Marsh is not Markos Moulitsas Zúniga, she takes a different approach, and from I’ve observed in a short time here is more policy-oriented and less Party-oriented than Markos.
Personally I like her approach. It suits me. Perhaps you would be happier in a more activist setting such as DKos. That way you could avoid all the pissing and moaning, and the whining and gnashing of teeth, that seem to bother you here.
Are you a liberal? Take the test
http://typology.people-press.org/typology/results.php
Good one Don Bacon~
Don Bacon says:
24 January 2010 at 8:02 pm
—————-
I post here EXCLUSIVELY, and I read articles and posts from multiple sites daily including DKos, HuffPo, TPM, Realclearpolitics, etc. and so on. There are many regulars who’ve been a part of this site way longer than I, but I’m no newbie here. I’ve explained before that I come here because the conversation/debate is usually high-level, and with the modest amount of long time members who frequent Taylor’s pad, I can get a clearer understanding of where people are coming from.
Taylor has said that she would rather the members here police themselves than get involved in banning and moderating (which I appreciate very much), so I leave it up to the members here to tell me if Don Bacon is correct in suggesting that I’d be better off elsewhere or that this board would be better served minus my presence. I promise there will be no hard feelings, I won’t reappear under an alternate screen name and I won’t badmouth TM or anyone else here for any reason.
Just say the word and I’ll vanish permanently.
That is absolutely not the suggestion I got from Don Bacon’s reply to you.
I felt he was responding to nothing more than your concern about the tenor of posts here as relates to criticism of President Obama. This tends to be an issues site an not a personality driven site.
Lake Lady says:
24 January 2010 at 8:55 pm
Lib.
I suppose I’ve been willfully blind to the writing on the wall for some time now, so let’s keep this friendly and civil. It’s been my REAL pleasure to have been a part of the TM community and although we’ll be taking different paths to the same destination, perhaps we can have a good long laugh together when we meet at the end.
Never lose that fire.
Speaking of DKos, Dante Atkins laid it out nicely (extract):
on bipartisanship:
But the election of that 41st Republican Senator offers the opportunity for change. By now, every prominent politician in America not named Evan Bayh must recognize that bipartisan compromise is a bygone dream–and even those named Evan Bayh can see that the party that taps into populist anger will be the one that wins at the ballot box.
and:
he only way to reverse the Citizens United ruling is a Constitutional amendment. While this may seem drastic and unwieldy, there is perhaps no better time than now: President Bush discussed an amendment to ban marriage equality–despite it having no chance of succeeding–just to send a signal to his social conservative base that he was still paying attention. Because a Constitutional amendment requires ratification by two-thirds of the states, passing one would require the creation and activation of a nationwide base. Fortunately for Mr. Obama, he has one: Organizing For America. OFA is rumored to have an email list of more than 13 million people, with volunteers in every Congressional District.
Such a move would activate and motivate the progressive base, would likely be relatively popular, and would make the Republicans who opposed it look like the pawns of corporate America that they so often are. The only question is: Does the President have the courage to do what’s right?
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2010/1/24/827339/-Obama-unbound
In a word NO. This President has shown himself to relatively chickenshit when it comes to the balls department.
Jeez Sandman~ Don’t be so thin skinned and stick around
I agree LAke Lady.
Sandmann…you aren’t Geo are you? You kind of make me think of him. I wanted him to stick around too but somehow he became convinced that this site was on a slippery slope to supporting Palin,which is a hoot!
What a week!
As so many of us writing for Huffington Post have been arguing for the past year, if President Obama did not cease behaving as the ally of Wall Street, the right wing would emerge as populist champion of the forgotten American. The election results in Massachusetts have now provided the exclamation point.
The loss of Ted Kennedy’s former senate seat seems to have gotten the president’s attention. Obama is belatedly getting in touch with his anger, as it were. He has turned up the rhetorical heat against the banks. But will he walk the talk?
Are we seeing a true shift in the Obama presidency where he revises his theory of change and discovers that political progress sometimes requires confrontation before you reach consensus?
snip
So far, the signals are mixed.
oops – above from HuffPo
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robert-kuttner/mixed-signals_b_434832.html
A great leader is able to articulate a shared vision in such a way that others are compelled to be a part of it.
This is the one great hope I did have for Obama.
If he stops listening to all his elitist friends aka Axelrod, Pelosi, and Reid maybe he can find a way to connect to the common man again.
May concern is that maybe Obama has no shared vision.
http://motherjones.com/politics/2010/01/can-obama-fight
David Corn
Can He Fight?
Hey folks, EVERYONE IS WELCOME HERE.
Let’s argue ISSUES. If someone disagrees, so be it. Let’s not kick people out, which will happen if they can’t back up their issues argument. People who 100% support Obama, without criticism, but also believing I may be too critical are welcome, too.
Let’s all support a large base of commenters, okay? Attacks only scare away lurkers and others. I don’t want that.
We need EVERYONE.
I don’t think Obama connected with the “common man.” Obama was popular – not a populist.
As Obama himself said:
“I serve as a blank screen,” Obama writes, “on which people of vastly different political stripes project their own views.”
Reaction from Fromma Harrop December 26, 2006
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2006/12/obama_scores_as_an_exotic_who.html
Obama Scores as an Exotic Who Says Nothing
“But one does wish, for the sake of democracy, that we could skip the crush and give less glamorous contenders who actually say something more of a hearing. “
David Corn asks ,can he fight? Well over the weekend he lobbied Senators to save Bernanke. He LOBBIED for Bernanke. Does that give us a clue what he will fight for?
Message to Sandmann: I do not get “Just say the word and I’ll vanish permanently.” No one has that right. Next time anyone so much as infers that you, or possibly they, would be better served by your going to another site, cuss ‘em out. Let them have the rhetorical buckshot. And then return to your substantive observations, which are invariably on point.
Your right to speak here is not subject to any plebiscite.
From Kruggman
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/25/opinion/25krugman.html?hp
“But — and here comes my defense of a Bernanke reappointment — any good alternative for the position would face a bruising fight in the Senate. And choosing a bad alternative would have truly dire consequences for the economy.
Furthermore, policy decisions at the Fed are made by committee vote. And while Mr. Bernanke seems insufficiently concerned about unemployment and too concerned about inflation, many of his colleagues are worse. Replacing him with someone less established, with less ability to sway the internal discussion, could end up strengthening the hands of the inflation hawks and doing even more damage to job creation.
That’s not a ringing endorsement, but it’s the best I can do.
If Mr. Bernanke is reappointed, he and his colleagues need to realize that what they consider a policy success is actually a policy failure. We have avoided a second Great Depression, but we are facing mass unemployment — unemployment that will blight the lives of millions of Americans — for years to come. And it’s the Fed’s responsibility to do all it can to end that blight. “
ogenec~ You are right about everything but the invariably being on point part.I love your visits here, you always give me something to think about and sometimes we can meet in the middle,sometimes not, but I always enjoy engaging.
Sandmann,who I also want to stay comes in and blasts everyone for expressing what they are honestly thinking and expressing. Now, that is not all bad. Sometimes we can get into ‘group disappointment’ instead of creative thinking. I think Texan always does a good job of reminding us that we are after all mostly Dems.But to accuse many of us for not being activist enough is off the mark.
This does seem a tempest in the teapot. Don Bacon was mearly pointing out that other sites offer differing attitudes,I didn’t read it at all as a big attack. Jeez…remember the primary and general? There was much more attacking going on then.
Krugman makes some good points about confirmation of someone else with the change in the Senate.Seriously,something has to be done about this 60 rule or we are stuck in a bad place forever.The Senate has become disfuntional and anti-democratic.
I wish someone would write a fuller expalnation of the point Krugman made about the other governors on the Fed being worse than Bernanke.
I don’t want to speak for Sandmann. But it seemed to me that he was not saying that folks here were insufficiently activist. He was asking, how do we channel that activism to make Obama do what we want? As you concede, this site occasionally lapses into group disappointment. Other times, it’s awash in schadenfraude: “You made your bed by not picking Hillary. Now lie in it.” Seriously, I don’t think anyone with an ounce of self-reflection could dispute this last statement.
So, IMHO, Sandmann is asking precisely the right question. How to channel this disappointment into “course correction”? For his trouble, he was essentially told to f**k off to Daily Kos, a site he might find more suitable to his temperament.
My response would not have been as measured. Not by a long shot.
This does seem a tempest in the teapot. Don Bacon was mearly pointing out that other sites offer differing attitudes,I didn’t read it at all as a big attack. Jeez…remember the primary and general? There was much more attacking going on then.
Amen, LL. Debate isn’t always calm and you’re absolutely correct.
For economic, Dean Baker is a good bet:
http://www.prospect.org/csnc/blogs/beat_the_press
My 2 cents on Bernanke: Bermanke is Bush; Geithner & Summers are too closely associated with Wall Street and not Main Street. They have ALL long lost credibility. In addition, they were there at the creation. If Obama is to give any credence to this new populist tone; if it is to mean something more than words, he has to get rid of these three. Bernanke should be the first to go. That would be the beginning of the change.
These changes would signal that he is at long last fighting for MAIN STREET instead of Wall street.
As for a fight in Congress? HA! There’s always: “If that’s a fight they want, that’s a fight I’d like to have”
Got to run. Later.
Sandmann doesn’t need me for a proxy. He’s more than capable of fighting his own battles. I’ll give him a terrorist fist bump, and hope he stays.
As for Bernanke? Sigh. Here we go again. So we should have a Fed Chairman who activiely promotes the policies of the government? The answer is no, we should not. Reducing unemployment is a laudable goal, and Obama should be more on it than he is. But that’s not the Fed’s fight. The Fed is independent for a reason, and it is supposed to fight inflation and ensure the stability of the monetary system. We’ve been down this road before. Google the Treasury/Fed Accord of 1951.
Confirm Bernanke already.
I thought it was also in the Fed’s job description to promote full employment?
Dean Baker would be great! I’m not holding my breath.
First, let me return the terrorist fist bump to my brother from another mother ogenec, good looking out. Lake Lady, no I’m not thin-skinned whatsoever, I spent 6 years in the USMC being shouted into the dust so this is child’s play in comparison…hell, I just called people out to fire at me with everything they have
and the response was weaksauce at best.
Upon reflection it was wrong to ask members here to take a vote to boot me out or not and for that I apologize, that’s why I decided it was me who needed to make that choice, and make that choice I did. It’s been a hoot, I’ve been hanging around way longer than I should have. I figured that maybe I could be the ‘Last of the Mohicans’…the lone voice of dissent against what I perceived a growing echo chamber and all this has done is lead to distraction and unnecessary conflict.
Keep the fire burning, I’ll return if at some point I feel my presence can be constructive so the few Haterade™ drinkers sprinkled about here shouldn’t rejoice just yet
Lake Lady says:
25 January 2010 at 12:59 pm
I thought it was also in the Fed’s job description to promote full employment?
_____________
Yes, it is. Along with price stability. Fed has cut rates to zero. What more can it do from a monetary policy perspective? It can buy even more bonds, but that’s just printing money, which leads to inflation.
We all agree that more desperate measures are required to get people back to work. But there is a limit to what the Fed can do, and they already are at that limit. The rest must come from the White House and Congress. So I don’t understand the criticism of Bernanke.
Exit Sandmann, huh? Damn. First the Fat Boys break up, and now this. Take care, brother.
Nobody asked sandmann to leave.
ogenec~ Might just be people wondering where he was during the build up of the bubble? Does the buck ever stop anymore with the people in charge of disasters? Guess not,this just continues a Bush tradition. Maybe Obama will give him the Medal Of Honor!