Prove it, Noogan.

Actually, Bill Clinton never sold himself as a populist, but instead as someone in touch with people versus George H.W. Bush who didn’t even know about supermarket scanners.

Bill Clinton was about one thing and one thing only: HE TAUGHT DEMS WE COULD WIN AGAIN. Period. That’s what so many people forget. I’ll leave the rest for another time…

djjl – Don’t forget Bill Clinton’s corporate ties, which were very wide and very deep. It’s just that WJC had a gift of triangulating these interests while empathizing with people.

It seems to me that your entire purpose is “leave Obama alone – those others were bad too.” And if one does criticize him it must be seen under the over arching – racism.

When do you suppose Democrats should expect the President to start acting like a Democrat and act on Democratic priniciples? When 25% of his presidency is complete – on, yeah, we’re past that and nothing done. Don’t try to blame it all on Congress – he and his leadership havve determined that 41 Senators is a majority.

Still, I see such a parallel between Clinton’s first year and Obama’s first year. There was just as much rending of the garments and gnashing of the teeth about Clinton’s hubris and arrogance. And lots and lots of talk about how he had sold us all out – though he never sold himself as a liberal in the first place. He sold himself as a populist. We just projected our desires upon him. He was an asshole to us fickle Democrats until he wasn’t. When the economy recovered, he was our god again and all of our concerns about how he betrayed us and threw us all under the bus were out the door as we gleefully pursued our newest dot com venture.

I don’t think that this economy will recover that way under Obama. Not because of Obama, but because are a way different country now. We are extremely authoritarian (peasant minded) and corporate-owned. We have been getting there for a long time. But I think we are “there” now and can never go back (without some kind of revolution and we are far too lazy for that). We will turn the house and senate back over to the authoritarians in 2010 and then the whitehouse in 2012. We are finished as a party. I believed for a long time that if we just got some control, we could show the American people how progressive values made this country great and could continue us on the road to greatness. But we have been infected by the neocons hollow authoritarian “values” so much that WE no longer really believe in our values. How can we have complete control and still be running for the hills and cutting each other’s throats on the way?

I think if Hillary Clinton had been voted in as president, we would be facing the same thing. The trajectory is inevitable. Years of apathy and spinelessness have put us on the track that we are on and where we are going is unavoidable. The party is dead. Probably American democracy too.

days after obama beseeched the gop to stop fillibustering non stop everything and a weekend after obama went to the gop conf they did it again. it took all 60 dems to break a gop fillibuster on some lowly nominee. the gop should be thrilled- it gets to kill every dem priority and the dems have not done well educating an angry public that the gop is now using the fillibuster every day for the 1st time in history. looks like when brown is seated the govt stalls out fully. if the gop wants to do this crap it must be held accountable.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/02/01/dems-break-gop-filibuster_n_445242.html?view=print

Okay, I’ll go with that; but he’s the head of the Democratic Party, no?

Yes.

And, just as G.W. Bush tarnished the Republican Party by association, Obama’s going to taint the entire Democratic Party with his administration.

Elections have consequences. Democrats were STUPID to go with this man–a callow, charming character who had no history. They should have gone with the proven entity. The Senate knew he was a callow, spotlight-stealing liar. They figured he was a good sell. They went with that; it’s a real shame, because we’ve got such huge problems now that we could have used a leader who really knew HER stuff.

Not replaying primaries; just pointing out some facts. It is what it is; and the spinmeisters will spin this as “Liberals are big-spenders; big government fanatics.” And, I think it will stick. Mark my words: Republicans will use this argument against Democrats.

Well done, Jon!

What can I say? I like the guy. I don’t make it a “must see” television show; I”m too old for a constant diet of Jon Stewart. But, I like him–far better than I like Bill Maher, who just strikes me as a pathetic little weasel.

Jon Stewart’s recent take off on Keith Olbermann was a treasure.

Thank you for that Jon.

I’d like to hear you write more about this, IB. I’ve gotten emails on this one, too. If you feel like it, please expound. It’s a subject that needs to be talked about more.

That’s the definition of “big government.”

What lesson will be taken from this administration?

That liberal values and world view are wrong. Sorry, Lake Lady; that is the reality. That is why Obama is such a bad President; and a bad Democratic Party leader.

I was disgusted that G.W. Bush raised the debt ceiling time after time [what, 5, 6 times during his 8 years?] I was alarmed at his deficit. Now: The world has watched as Obama has quadrupled the size of the deficit in one year! We’ve seen him raise the debt ceiling 2-3 times in one year!

He’s spending like a drunken sailor and believe me; it’s not helping.

Here’s the truth: In about 7 years, we’re going to be spending as much as we spend on national defense today–to pay the rollover costs of our debt. That’s from Neil Barofsky. So, Obama is dangerous; reckless; feckless. If the people of this country take a lesson from his time at the helm of the Democratic Party, you can bet it will be that “liberals are big spenders, big government.”

If things had gone the way I wanted them to he would be Vice President right now,learning on the job.

Please don’t take the lesson from this that liberal values and world view are wrong. What is wrong are the souless people masquerading as liberal.

Nobody should “suck it up” for politicians who aren’t delivering liberal or progressive policies just because they have a “D” by their name. That’s called being a SUCKER. Because if you don’t hold politicians and political parties to account they have no reason to listen at all.

It would also be appropriate for you to considering who’s holding things up. It’s Democrats and Obama. We never needed 60 votes and we still don’t. That’s their bar, which they accepted, something Bush & his crew never did, doing whatever it took to pass what they believed in, no matter what anyone else thought.

The current crop of Dems have the Sally Field curse. They want to be loved, really loved, which is clearly the case for Mr. Obama where Rep. are concerned, because he’s been courting them at his own and our expense for over a year now.

You don’t choose “solidarity” with politicians you can’t trust, have no credibility, and don’t know what they’re doing.

I am not saying that we run squealing at the first sign of trouble. But there does seem to be a pattern with this spineless, worthless, pathetic party. We think being able to say “tolja so” first is more important than sticking together to get things done. Which is why I think this will be the last Democratic president and the last Democratic majority. Hopefully we can get a few things passed before we are relegated to the dustbin of history. We will have two parties, I think. But neither of them will be progressive. Progressives don’t appear to believe in progressive values enough to compromise or suck it up enough on one thing to get the other thing done. And we definitely don’t believe in solidarity. It is a weak, spineless movement that does t-shirts and blogs while the other side does grassroots and ground up organizing (city councils, school boards and on and on up to the White house).

Yeah, the teleprompter thing has to go. But we know the motherfucker can kick some serious ass without a teleprompter so let us let that go, ok? And let’s REALLY let go of the idea that Obama is supposed to fulfill your wish-fantasy of some Morgan Freeman-ish Wise and Humble Negro at the Helm. Obama is a politician. Likely, he is a terribly conceited bastard (name one politician who does not think that he or she is important enough to change the world and make everything okay for America and the world and I will show you a liar), he is also bright enough to realize where he fucked up and change direction. Let’s see. He has signaled that he is ready to start challenging republicans rather than kissing their asses, so we will see whether the lessons of the first year have been learned.