As Peter Hart noted earlier, New York Times political reporter Matt Bai has a piece today (12/1/10) critical of Barack Obama for being “loath to publicly disown his base.” Bai writes of Obama: “Since he isn’t willing to break publicly with liberals, independent and conservative voters tend to see him as a tool of the left.”
You know, when your chief of staff refers to progressives as “fucking retarded,” your press secretary denounces the “professional left” and your senior adviser says that such critics are “insane”; when your vice president tells the left to “stop whining” and you yourself urge them to “wake up”–I’d say you’ve broken rather publicly with liberals.
Presumably all this hippie-bashing is mainly done for the benefit of journalists like Matt Bai. It’s a shame he wasn’t paying attention.
Mike Flugennock
Not to too flagrantly self-promote or anything, but I had that shit pretty much nailed down during the last midterm “election”, if not during the ’08 Presidential fracas itself:
“Yes, We Can”: http://sinkers.org/stage/?p=666
“Fucking Hippies”: http://sinkers.org/stage/?p=671
…not to mention, right after the Rahm Immanuel appointment:
“Obama’s Big Bus”: http://sinkers.org/stage/?p=459
That is all.
You’re welcome.
Doug Latimer
I think we need to define our terms.
Dear Misleader may have “broken rather publicly with liberals”, but I don’t think you can say he’s broken with honest radicals – that is, folks whose focus is on who wins and loses, who lives and dies, under a system that rewards greed and oppression.
You can’t break a bond that never existed.
Mike Flugennock
Doug Latimer sez:
You can’t break a bond that never existed.
He shoots… HE SCORES!
Seriously, man… I read some of the excerpts from The Audacity Of Hope which were posted over at Politico.com during the ’08 dustup, and I was thinking “Jesus H. Christ, this guy’s a goddamn’ Republican!”
Barack Obama is a “Manchurian Candidate”, just not in the way the Tea Party freaks think he is.
Oh, and as far as the Democrats’ publicly breaking with the Left goes, let’s go waaaayy back:
http://sinkers.org/stage/?p=407
Mind you, I’m defining “way back” here in the current sense; i.e., prior to the release of the final Harry Potter book.
michael e
Going in we conservatives said this man is jello.And though it is hard to nail jello to a tree .But We only needed to force him to take responsibility for his own deeds.That was the first step goal.Well MIssion accomplished.In his defense I have no doubt that he has gotten one hell of an education,and too little too late, realized how wrong he was on a great deal of things.We also knew that if he failed to deliver the goods or lost his power base that the radical left would turn on him like a mad dog.Of course it is humorous that we knew that instead of seeing the failure of this system, you would spin it that he was not left enough.WE also called that one.By now he knows that he can not squirm into a new role and fool the right.They are singular in their purpose of grinding him into dust.My last prediction is the left will dump him in two years and ask HIlary to save their bacon.
In ancient Egypt when one ruler took the throne he would scrape the very name- image -and history of the accomplishments of the old Pharaoh. Erase the man.That is the goal with that will be employed against the Obama administration.
Doug Latimer
Mike, I think the Democratic Party serves a vital function in keeping the profit system, capitalism – call it what you like – in place.
It’s more complicated that this, but I think it’s legitimate to say that the party, firstly, provides a facade of democracy, of choice.
It also acts to save the system from its own excesses, as FDR did with the New Deal – although now it’s more the illusion of “reform”, more style than substance.
In essence, they’re the “good cop” to the Republicans’ “bad cop”.
And you can ask the folks on the Danziger Bridge what cops do, can’t you?
Sirk
Michael e said “My last prediction is the left will dump him in two years and ask HIlary to save their bacon.”
Are you insane? Hilary is to the right of Obama!
We need Dennis Kucinich to team up with Ralph Nader or maybe with Ron Paul (it could happen). Then maybe this country could be returned to normalcy instead of a pleasure palace of greed and corruption by the uber-rich and the Israel-firsters.
Ron Mirolla
Mike you’ve nailed it, who is this guy we pounded the pavement for and gave more than we could afford to. The only thing he accomplished is the appointmentment of two not so liberal Supream Court justices. Oh well I can now spend more time in 2012 doing for my self, instead of Obama. He let us down, grow a pair. I guess this proves he’s white and American.
tishado
Sirk: “We need Dennis Kucinich to team up with Ralph Nader or maybe with Ron Paul (it could happen). Then maybe this country could be returned to normalcy instead of a pleasure palace of greed and corruption by the uber-rich and the Israel-firsters.”
I agree the left needs an alternative and libertarians may be attractive in some situations, but Ron Paul is seriously anti-choice and would likely be a suicidal for any progressive campaign that wanted to be taken seriously by the majority of voters (women). I think progressives should have Kucinich or some other long-shot run in the primaries again and then have someone independent like Russ Feingold in the general election.
d kight
Obama was never my choice – Kucinich was my first choice, mainly because I realized how important Single Payer Healthcare (which he fought valiantly for) was. I had to face myself in the mirror and voted Green Party for 2 reasons: 1. I agree with all they stand for in their platform. I figured anybody that would take care of the planet couldn’t do humankind any real harm. 2., Obama was always a Republicrook and he just hit me wrong before I had so many reasons to point to that finally proved it to me. Stick a fork in us – I think we are done!!
JStewart
To those who are upset with President Obama I would like to ask What candidate that could have been elected would be who you would rather have in office? It is not who would you rather have, but who that could have won the election? Of course Kucinich has great ideas. I agree with everything he says, but he could never have been elected. If he had though, would he not have been met with the same obstructionism?
And surely there is no one who wishes John McCain were President and Sarah Palin VP. As I have watched McCain continue to bungle his way through issue after issue I am even more relieved than I thought possible that he is only a Senator. Palin is a nightmare.
john polifronio
Sirk tells us that “…Hillary is to the right of Obama.” Where did you get such an asinine idea? It was clear to anyone paying attention, before Obama got elected, when he was 25 points behind Hillary, that she was far to the Left of Obama. I’m a Hillary supporter, and know god-damn well that she’s way to the Left of Obama. She would have been a vast improvement over Obama, had the American people had the sense to get her into the Oval office. It was Corporate powers, together with their media slaves, that falsified Hillary’s true outlook, and slowly reversed her overwhelming support in the voting community and made her out to be a racist, etc. Democrats have still not learned, that republicans have fought a nonending and deceitful and malicious campaign against the Clintons, since Bill Clinton got into office. I’m tired of hearing about their mistakes, which is all the right talks about when mentioning the Clintons. They never mention their accomplishments, which must be considerable, because many polls have proven, that Bill & Hillary are the two most popular and respected politicians in this country. Bill and Hillary are the best we’ve got, we have to get used to telling these repbulcians about it, and stop cowering in the face of their filthy lies and distortions about them.
lemmonmc
@John porlifronio
“I’m a Hillary supporter, and know god-damn well that she’s way to the Left of Obama.”
Tallk about denial, hate to break this to ya brotha, Hillary supported Nafta & Israeli oppression (just like the sellout Obama) and unlike Obama voted for the war in Iraq, you don’t get much more rightwing than that. She runs again and she’ll lose again thank god, few left wings want another corporate controlled plutocrat in the white house, Hilary like her husband is the standard quo standard.
slytot
Fidel Castro described Obama as the “greatest snake charmer that ever existed”. I agree with Castro 100%. At this point not even Jesus Christ could convince me to vote for Obama again. Hell, I would even vote for Palin(that empty headed, dishonest, immoral hustler)rather than Obama. At least she would boldly and openly rob the american people and destroy whats left of the country, instead of doing it in a cowardly and mealy mouthed way like Obama and his team are doing.
michael e
Wow I am stunned by todays Blogs.Very insightful.I feel the ice is thawing, and the Obamamania is truly ending.Im not seeing the hoos joining hands and singing that “hoo ah”song around the snow fire but hey it’s a start.
Going in I thought Obama was absolutely unqualified(of course that has now changed),and I agreed with little he said.Sarah Palin though more qualified for Vp or P(and I agreed with her basic platform)is still in my eyes unqualified for the job of president.Hilary Clinton was somewhat qualified, and today is very much more so.So do the math. She is the power to be reckoned with.And ambition ,or lack of it is not a fault she carries.I agree with nothing she says, but give the Devil her due.In the end though we as Americans must end this Bush-Clinton dynasty.I don’t want to see HIlary, or Jeb, or Chelsey, or the Bush kids- grandkids or adopted kids of all the above in office.Enough already!
Sigmund Freud
Zarah had a “platform?” Ach, ziz Micheal e is deluzional. i zuggezt therapy…unlezz, he meant her zhoezz…
Arthur Nonymous
I decided that people should write in Nader (or Kucinich, but more people know Nader) as their choice for President, whether he’s running or not, every election until he dies.
We all know what sine curves look like. They go up and down and up and down. When they’re down, the republicans are in office turning the country to shit. When they’re up, the democrats are in office turning the country to shit, and because they were supposed to be the opposition party yet fail to oppose, people turn BACK to the Republicans (!!??) and the sine curve just keeps rolling on.
And every time the Republicans control the Executive Branch (as they appear to do now, finally, even during an administration by their supposed opponents), we are moved (they hope inexorably) to the “right”.
The refusal to commit to prosecute Bush administration officials for their crimes AS REQUIRED BY LAW said all we needed to know about this new administration: within a couple weeks of his election we saw that the fix was in. So congratulations: it no longer matters how intelligent or articulate the President is; all they’re allowed to do with their intelligence is produce better-sounding excuses for selling the American People into Fascism In Our Time.
I’d suggest a couple other electoral remedies: (1) Simply don’t vote for Republicans or Democrats; vote for other parties. (2) Don’t vote for anyone who makes more than ten times what you make.
I sorely wish people would get that last message:
DON’T VOTE FOR ANYONE WHOSE INCOME IS MORE THAN 10 TIMES YOURS.
The number “10” is arbitrary. It could be smaller.
TimN
Good point, Doug Latimer, and Doktor Freud? Your insights are keen, as usual.
Jim
Obama has shown us that he is not a principled person at all. http://www.libradex.com/viewArticle.aspx?id=113&affil=jh
Pharmar Histamine
The Presidency isn’t where to foment a shift to left; no, it’s the Congress. Ring those phones, bang those doors… well, sadly it’s only the right willing to drop coin, robe up in stars and stripes and storm the churches.
Of course, the GOP has terrified itself by turning up a few true believers who will give their partay a fit of death shivers. Palin and Huckabee are only the begninning; check out sociopaths like Utah’s Mike freakin Lee. They portend a deep, deep grave for anything resembling governance, conservative or otherwise. It’ll be terrifying to see how a three trillion $andpile compresses the GOP grave.
Meanwhile… Kucinich even if he got the “Ixnay on your UFO ightingsay” memo, couldn’t achieve anything more than world record for vetos per day.
Kat
John P,
Hillary lost me in 2006 when she became an “unlikely ally” of Rupert Murdoch. http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/05/09/politics/main1600694.shtml There are some things so low they just can’t be overlooked.
I was one of those who held my nose and voted for Obama. (I knew he was not a peace candidate but I thought he would help black people, at least.) It was the last time I voted for lesser evil. Until people can no longer buy office, the electoral system is a sham. I will be voting write-in. I do hope Kucinich or Feingold register write-in candidacies.
TimN
That’s right Kat. To imagine that a true liberal, or as the Tea-flakes like to imagine, a bona-fide Socialist (!) could be elected President (President!), is to have the mind of a feverish, half-bright child. As Mike F. reports above, having simply read what Obama wrote, there should never have been any doubt about him. I’m going to pick up John A. MacArthur’s “You Can’t Be President: The Outrageous Barriers to Democracy in America.” Does anybody really believe, at this late date, that someone not in the Money-University system, or at least embraced by it, could become even a Senator, let alone President?
Boots
Obama should have spent less time on the basketball court and more time in the boxing ring. That way he may have learned how to fight those GOP slugs who need a good shot in the mouth.
Arnold
Some of you like to forget how we really were motivated in 2008.
Obama was the credible candidate who could take on the assiduously “realistic” pro war Senator Hillary Clinton. Clinton was so despised on the left in New York, where she refused to even meet with anri-Iraq war protesters. She was demonstrating loud and clear, with the symboloism of non-negotiable positions on war and matters of state-that responsible conservatives like John McCain, who was less conservative in those days, could vouch for her military credentials. Of course there was also the memory of Bill Clinton’s NAFTA twisting of arms, and ending “welfare as we know it” which Sen.Pat Moynihan rightly saw as the beginning of the end to any pretense of social benefits in america over enough time.
With all these motives we jumped on Obama’s bandwagon after his Iowa win showed we finally had a vehivle to stop Hillary an all she and the Clinton’s stood for on the left wing of the democratic party. I may not like it now, but that is the truth of why we embraced Obama.
The fact that he was black and was the eventual beneficiary of the worst economic disaster since the great depression only obscured the reality.
We elected a candidate of mixed race who grew up in a white world, where the most important thing he learned is that in order to advance in my career and goals, it is most important that I never be perceived as an “angry black man”. In order to do that always compromise after a courteous and dutifully eloquent verbal advocacy of a more liberal position. We are now stuck with the results. Any challenge in the Democratic party has to come from the left. Hillary Clinton is forever identified with the right and as Secretary of State she has no way of even trying to reposition herself, even if she wanted to do so. Russ Feingold’s vote FOR the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy takes him out of the 2012 presidential run. Howard Dean is a maybe.
michael e
Arnold what i don’t get is that you don’t get…that America has rejected the liberal agenda.Obama is not personally disliked.Just the opposite in fact.It is His policies that are repugnant.We on the right knew all along how this would shake out.America would finally see this movement for what it was and reject it.And libs would blame him(Obama) for not being liberal enough.And you think picking a REAL liberal is the answer.You just refuse to listen.Arnold the crazy progressive liberal -socialist experiment is over.Bam and Pelosi shot your load and you didn’t kill America.Well maybe bush and bam did.That aside… what comes next will not resemble this nightmare where success is taxed and failure subsidized.The great nanny state. American exceptionalism and rugged individualism is now up to bat.
Michael
Doesn’t matter to me which arm is choking me, the left or right. Neither cares one hoot about the average man. The only reason to have two parties at all is to channel the real and warrented anger and frustration of the population into a game where they feel like they have some say. Go ahead and vote. Doesn’t matter who wins, they will still be eating your lunch for you.
John
I had hoped to hear a a rational, factual, honest discourse about issues confronting american voters. With the two parties, I’ve witnessed a soap opera based on manufactured issues that have little relevance other than to obscure that slight of hand that goes on behind closed doors. Perhaps voters should take a good look at third party candidates. It’s a bit much when elected representatives have signed statements that preclude any honest discourse about public issues. Let’s get rid of the “a priori” stuff. Perhaps the only statement a representative should sign is to protect the life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness of their constituents.
michael e
Michael and John
You aint lyin!