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A little over a month ago, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell declared that “the single most important thing we want to achieve is for President Obama to be a one-term president.” A little over two weeks ago, a pair of nominally Democratic hacks explained that Obama would be much more effective over the next two years if he immediately declared that he would not seek a second term.
Well, Obama may not have come out and explicitly announced that he won’t try to get re-elected, but he has clearly signaled his intent to grant their wish. I don’t think I have ever seen a president as determined to avoid another four years as Barack Obama. Sorry, White House – he’s just not that into you.
I mean, why else would he announce a job-killing NAFTA-style deal with South Korea on the same day that unemployment goes up to 9.8%?
Why else would he be performing kabuki negotiations with the Republicans to ensure that the incredibly unpopular Bush tax cuts for the rich are preserved with no political consequences for the GOP, even to the point of opposing Schumer’s millionaire compromise?
Why else would he create a deficit commission stacked with Social Security haters and continue to lavish praise on it even after it recommended tax cuts for the rich and benefit cuts for the elderly? (And does anyone doubt that some form of that final recommendation will get a vote in Congress, especially with that non-binding but oh-so-bipartisany 11-7 committee vote? And that if it passes, that Obama will happily sign it?)
Why else would he piss off his union base by screwing government workers for a bit of mean-spirited austerity theater?
Why else would he brag about a “Recovery Summer” with 9.6% unemployment, or play possum on health care reform until after the public option was removed, or offer only HAMP as a solution to the foreclosure crisis?
And why else would he not only refuse to listen to anyone who tries to point out these mistakes, but actively mock and disrespect them as unreasonable whiners?
If this year’s Democratic campaign message was “We suck less,” 2012′s will be “We may suck, but at least we’re not crazy.” Not exactly an improvement, but it should definitely free Obama up to run for mayor of Chicago.
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Eli!
Lately I’ve been hoping I’ve just been having a bad dream about all of this…and I’m not really living in Crazytown. Unfortunately that’s not the case.
Heh. One and done for Obama, huh?
If the campaign is the regular season and the presidency is the postseason, then he’s the A-Rod or Barry Bonds of presidents.
GREAT POST, ELI!
Thanks, buzz!
With the tapes Rahm has?
Well, Mayor Rahm will probably have gotten himself indicted by 2013…
Obama is not a home run hitter. He made the majors and bombed. Back to the minors.
Eli! OUCH!
On top of all this dismal news, if the Wikil BoA memos are released next month showing how the Fed and Treasury have been gaming European economies, things will get a lot uglier.
Excellent! My sentiments, exactly.
I think that your Post is on the mark. I really wonder how the President can honestly think he has much of a chance in 2012 unless some sort of Epiphany happens. I hope everyone starts pushing this option as this would save all of us the torture of who to Primary against him or a 3rd Party move.
Great Post Eli
Like I said, *if* the campaign is the regular season. He was a home run hitter then, but now he’s lucky if he can even slap the ball out of Bronson Arroyo’s glove.
An improved K-12 system in Chicago is ideal, but it is just a sliver …
Zounds!
FDL is beginning to read more and more like The Onion.
Except unfortunately it’s all true.
Thanks guys, looks like I hit a nerve. Plus it kind of bypasses the whole “weak, clueless, or asshole?” argument.
Yes, see this!
Or a phenom who never quite lived up to perhaps overblown expectations like a Darryl Strawberry or a Ralph Sampson.
More like Heath Shuler.
We suck but…well, we just suck.
“We suck, but please vote for us anyway because we’re asking nicely and it’s our turn again.”
Obama has thrown so many different groups under the bus, it is not possible for the bus to move so they need a new bus driver to get folks out from under and drive forward
Also: the political office at the WH called a bunch of gays to the WH to tell them that the president would certainly engage ‘at the right time’ on DADT repeal. Which, as any other interest group could tell them, is the kiss of death.
Very pretty under this bus.
We suck but we don’t swallow — usually.
Yeah, that’s probably a better example. There are countless other examples, I’m sure, but who remembers their names?
707!
Obama’s political innovation has been to camouflage the bus to look like a tent.
NOT that there’s anything wrong with that!
Gawd how I wish this fucking slimeball scumbag motherfucking ball gargler would choke on a oversized dick.
Greg Oden, Tony Mandarich, Brian Bosworth, Tim Couch, Ryan Leaf, Ki-Jana Carter…
Eli?
There’s about three levels under this bus, for gays, women who want reproductive health services, Latinos, undocumented students, labor and all working people, everyone with a telephone or who uses a credit card, detainees at Gitmo and Bagram, the Afghan people who don’t understand why we’re in their country, African-American women, poor people, and the middle class.
And bless his little heart, also.
Another Obama innovation – most multidecker buses have all their levels on top.
My favorite line about the president: We voted for ‘Shaft’, but ended up with ‘Urkel’.
Hey, Brian Bosworth made movies.
We should be so lucky.
Sh*t, wish I could disagree. But I cannot. I expected nothing yet got Bush III, aka less than nothing… What’s the bright side? We haven’t invaded Iran? And can any sane person argue that Hillary would have given us anything better? The Rubin acolytes at treasury and such are Hillary’s people.
Obama is becoming such an object of ridicule among the democratic base–dailykos for example–and it has really snowballed in the past few weeks, it makes me wonder how much of that will begin to resonate with the dem powers that be. Must be more than a few house members pissed off and now you’ve got Schumer sandbagged with no support for his million dollar tax bracket.
And all the dem leaders, left or right, have to recognize a lousy, lousy pol when they see one. At some point perhaps a little visit to obama from the elders may be coming.
I’m hoping that Assange is not the sole dispenser of the bankster revelations.
I think this is really what is behind the zeal to suffocate wiki.
The corporate media is doing an effective job at obfuscating the present revelations.
Olberman barely covered the Spanish War Crime investigation, and who is going to prosecute? This DOJ? congress? Hardly.
What is left will be, hopefully some serious irrefutable evidence of convictable felonies and their prosecution is unavoidable.
Which doesn’t mean holder won’t throw the case.
Very much so.
I will be so happy when this closet Republican is out of the White House. I wish they would keep him in Afghanistan. Good riddance.
It really does feel like he’s gone off a cliff or reached some kind of critical mass of clueless dickitude in the past week or so.
Not only won’t he run again, he’s probably already arranged for his own impeachment, so when the country’s completely tits-up he can take it all in from his Goldman Sachs private jet, Bush-Katrina style.
Perfect!
I actually still think he’s going to run, I just think he’s setting it up to make it almost impossible to win.
C’mon, Eli. Same thing: why, why, why. Same answer every time. Obama is doing all this to show he’s tried to meet the republicans half-way and when they won’t budge he’ll win the coveted moderate, independent, swingy voters and once he does that and demonstated how moderate he is he will unleash his inner progressive and do, like, the stuff he said he would. Public option here we come. That’s why.
They are GONE — for good.
Because if there’s one thing moderate swing voters hate, it’s Social Security.
And Medicare.
An epiphany has happened. Mine. Obama played me in ’08. Scumbag.
He shall not run nor shall not accept….? It would be kinda liberating.
But that’s far too liberal. Not gonna happen.
And how on earth is the next Democratic candidate going to convince them that he (or she) isn’t a fraud too?
No, just shall not win.
Exactly so. And one thing they love is free trade agreements so they can buy stuff really cheap.
The winning message is pretty clear, isn’t it?
Or convince *us*, for that matter?
Although I suppose a strong track record of progressive votes and advocacy would probably help…
“Vote for me, I swear I’m not a fraud like the last guy”
Can’t be a politician.
I’ve been avoiding dkos because of the blind Obama support that was rampant there. So today I visited just to get a feel for what the temperature is over what’s been happening in the last few days, and I couldn’t believe the turnaround in opinion. If Obama has lost dkos, you know he’s gone way too far.
Seems to me that by caving on extending the tax cuts to the rich, which is going to result in $700 billion in lost tax revenue over the next 10 years without stimulating the economy or creating any new jobs (which is what happened during the past 10 years), Obama has admitted that the budget deficit is not a serious problem and austerity measures aren’t necessary.
If he were to claim otherwise, he would be admitting in effect to massive irresponsibility and criminal incompetence placing the nation’s economy at serious risk of collapse and insolvency. Would that not constitute an impeachable offense or, at the very least politically disqualify him from serving a second term?
We already know that the deficit is not a serious problem because the government issues its own fiat currency and it can borrow money by selling Treasury bonds. Obama has just confirmed that he understands that even though I do not expect that he will ever admit it.
Therefore, to the extent we needed it, we now have confirmation that Obama’s deficit commission austerity idea was just a cover to destroy social security.
As a matter of principle, neoliberals can’t abide any form of safety net. To their way of thinking, unemployment compensation and social security are bad because people are being paid not to work and that financial compensation makes them less desperate for work and harder to control. Therefore, they have a religious-like fervor to destroy them and they are determined not to stop until they succeed.
Putting the lie to the bullshit austerity excuse by extending the taxcuts for the rich now exposes the neoliberals for what they truly are attempting to accomplish.
They are concerned about only one thing: Making as much money as possible. Telling any lie and committing any act to serve that end is justifiable and proper. The criminal law does not apply to them because to their way of thinking, they are, after all, just free marketeers trying to make money.
Obama outdid himself on this one.
true
Really, isn’t it clear to everyone on FDL what Obama’s message should have been to hold the House?
You know. I know. everybody here knows. WH doesn’t know. because they take us for granted. scumbags.
He has lost dKos.
I wouldn’t be surprised if he ends up pretending to throw his hands up in faux resignation about bipartisanship and resigns for real, leaving the whole shebang to Biden and HRC. His wife wants out, and his mission will be accomplished, setting 2012 up seemingly perfectly for Jeb or Palin or Romney or Scott Brown or…..
Sure, he should have been on the side of the people, against the corporations, and not vice versa.
By the way– frost advisory in The City Beautiful. Brrrrr.
He could have made SPECIFIC promises to FIGHT for us. He didn’t.
Really.
Saw Jeb on Fox & Friends eating my Fruit Loops (BOGO at Publix) and he insisted he will not run for prez. Only wants to fix educashun.
Personally, I think Obama is running out the clock. He’s not running for a 2nd term. In his mind, he’s done enough. He’s already guaranteed his spot in the history books (first black president and Nobel Prize Winner), and he’s going to milk that the rest of his life.
Pardon me, his wife NEVER had it so good.
Eli you may get a call from NFL commissioner Goddell you just hit Obama very hard!
Assange claims that if he is taken and Wiki is shut down, the memos will automatically surface from different sources.
Check out the Q&A with Assange at the Guardian today.
Julian Assange:
Reckon Ignite! will be part of his Innovative Education Reform Plan?
Apparently she described being First Lady as “hell” to Carla Sarkozy…or should I say allegedly….
he will wait until the very last moment to declare that he will not run — forcing the replacement d candidate to run a last minute campaign
Hahaha. But can you prove that the roughness was excessive or unnecessary?
Yeah, the scallops were cold. Give me a fucking break!
He is one of them. I really wish people had paid more attention to his record before we ended up with the best con president the republics never had. He doesn’t give a rats ass about joblessness or anything or anyone else but his corporate masters. He is a republican and always has been. He has to go. We can’t allow him to run again, I damn sure hope someone steps up because there is NO way I will vote for him again. I hated doing it the first time.
What, did he go into business with Neil?
That is the first thing future presidents always say when they are getting ready to run…he’ll jump in late in the game. Babs is getting old, and she probably wants him to do it in her lifetime…just sayin’. He’s been around quite a bit lately…
Interest in criminal prosecutions will be of secondary concern if the GS-concocted Ponzi scheme collapses.
Absolutely. Every swing/moderate/independent voter that I’ve spoken to hates Social Security, even if they’re collecting it. They are angry that they have a safety net and are furious that Obama and the GOP haven’t cut it. The swing voters want SS routed and turned over to Wall Street. Moderate voters trust Wall Street implicitly.
Snark…
Can you imagine living in the WH? With your mother to watch the kids? And a dozen maids? And a 4-star chef? Hey, my spouse (M or F) could ass fuck me every night and I would still be in heaven.
Eli, I am old school, when you put on the big boy pads and play in the NFL, getting hit hard comes with the JOB!
Obama is SOL
NO FINE! JUST A GOOD CLEAN HIT
HE’S RUNNING!
Did you know that they have to buy their own food, and have a kitchen?
BS, with all due respect.
The coverage in the U.S. is almost non-existent. The opposite of that is the case abroad.
As one example, El Tiempo of Bogota, Colombia has separate groupings of articles on its banner page, Wikileaks; Julian Assange; Cablegate. Seems like they can’t give it enough coverage.
With all due respect:
http://wiki.answers.com/Q/Does_the_president_buy_his_own_food
Eli!
Bein’ prezznit’s hard werk….
Then the republicans are toast. They have hitched tightly to wall street.
Not only that, it will mean that this depression we are in will start being called a depression. We may be entering the social faze of the Mayan Calendar and will have a demagogue rise from the slime of collapse. Half this country is either stupid or crazy.
b.O. Should run for Prez of the Moon.. He obviously can’t figure out how to rule as our Prez… Sad indeed. I still say some one/some entity has shown him the REAL PLAY BOOK! Amd he doesn’t co-operate some thing awful will happen to his family or something… nothing else explains his capitulation to the MOTU!!
Margaret!
the GOP and Dems both hatetheir potential presidential candidates for 2012
the GOP needs Obama to run in 2012 because DEMS hate OBAMA
the Dem are begging that Palin wins the GOP nomination in 2012, because GOPer hate her.
the only way to bring the USA together is to let Obama and Palin run together
the candidate that run against the OBAMA /PALIN ticket would win every state in the UNION! an Obama/Palin ticket would bring the USA together they are hated by the conservatives and progressives!
McCain/Lieberman: Together At Last!
I knew we were screwed during the primaries, when the favorite tactic of Obama’s supporters was to call their fellow Democrats racists.
They’re both crazy. Makes me think our political system has a fundamental flaw that dooms the US.
Reminds me of the title to a French movie called “Elevator to the Gallows.” Obama can’t get there fast enough for me.
Geez, he (Goldman Sachs) has to buy his own food. Does he have to cook it? I would gladly buy my own food if I could move into the WH. There is an OFFICIAL function 3-5 times a week, for god’s sake.
Are Sasha and Malia on Food Stamps?
Oh, they’ve swept it under the rug with the sex charges. I’ve heard in two reports the term, “sexual molestation charges” used in connection with reports on Assange. Of course this implies to Americans that children are involved, so the choice of words — which charges to highlight — is an important editorial decision.
I hate to say it, we were screwed either way
Would have Hillary been any better? NO
Was at the SS office today to help someone file a claim. They show a continuous loop video there, and one segment covered the origins of SS: the stock market collapse of 1929, to the soup lines and the 25% unemployment of 1932. The conditions that led to that catastrope were probably less extreme than the conditions presented by the current Ponzi scheme.
I wish McCain had won. The conflict between him and the Democratic congress would have been better than no conflict at all.
Yes. No Hill fan here, but if you think Hill would have let the Rs humiliate her like they are humiliating Barry, you’re wrong. With all due respect.
I’m just saying that I don’t think living in the WH is fun at all…some people might enjoy it, but there is really no freedom and there is always a threat…and that is a lot of stress.
Posted this earlier today at the Early Morning Swim. The charges are about having sex without a condom!
If “Progressives” only had a brain, they would realize this is a game between two groups of the same party, playing the American people for fools year after year. The “Party” even employs FOX and MSNBC to keep the sporting event going.
Assange is not dumb!
A wise man once sad, it is better to deal with the enemy you know, than one you don’t know.
Arresting Assange may be a very bad idea, for any govt.
He probably has a nuclear swith, he probably told interpol arrest me, and all the skeletons come out!
I bet every govt in the world wished that Obama was the founder of WikiLeaks, because Obama would have burned all the cables and documents and than ask govt to make deals with him.
I agree. The Clintons are not as destructive as Obama. I think Hillary would have disappointed us differently and not as harshly.
I think the thing I would hate about it is the constant stream of strangers trooping through. On the other hand, what’s the point in being a politician if you’re not a narcissist?
True.
I think Hillary and Obama both worship Neo-Liberalism
I think she would certainly have shown more backbone. Unlike Obama, she, at least is a Democrat in other than label. She called herself Democrat due to conviction instead of personal gain.
Yeah, apparently that can be trumped up to a rape or molestation charge in Sweden. Which of course is what the soundbites in the US focus on. I’ve yet to hear the more neutral and fair, “facing charges for having improper sexual conduct with two women” used. It’s always been, “wanted by Interpol on sexual molestation charges.”
I respect your opinion. BUT, if I had a chance to move into the WH, I certainly would do it. Michelle went to Princeton, Harvard, and now lives in the WH. For her to complain when 20% of Americans are sucking canal water is just too much for me.
BUT, that said, I understand your position and thanks for the reply.
switch?
Maybe he has a cable in which Obama tells Hillary he isn’t running for a second term. They’d throw Assange in Guantanamo over that one.
Thanks. I’d love to be a fly on the wall…;)
Well, the U.S. media can play their denial game if they want, but the BoA memos will be released, and the foreign media IS paying attention.
Oh, I would switch out Michelle for Barack in a NY minute. She would tear Boner’s balls off and shove them down Mitch’s throat.
he really is spiralling down, isn’t he. the white house looks hapless and pathetic — what the fuck was the point of the trip to afghanistan; this trade agreement with s korea.
wanna bet he takes the family to hawaii for xmas. just imagine the photos of him and the girls frolicking on the beach while 2 million additional families seek out food pantries …
tweety flat out called assange a rapist — several times — on thursday’s show.
I agree with you!
Living in the White House has a lot of UPSIDE!!!
Michelle knows what we all know she is living with DUMMY in the white house!
FDR had a ball in the white house, because he made it the people house, the people of the USA knew they had a friend in the white house.
Obama is no friend of average americans!
Undoubtedly. Though Mitch would no doubt love suckling the Boner’s balls, that would probably not be true if they had been ripped off.
I think they were actually planning that and may have cancelled due to NK…certainly not because they are worried about people suffering.
Yep the new normal
Sure he is! As long as you’re an average millionaire, you’ve got a friend indeed. Obama:
Might
As
Well
Be
Bush
Bush paid quite close attention to his base. Obama gives us the bird and goes on his way.
I agree with you
Laughing!
Obama probably has reservations in Hawaii
why not!
Obama tells american I fell your PAIN, now let me get back to walking around the lovely beaches of Hawaii with my family and freinds
“stay warm in those soup kitchen lines” OBAMA says before leaving stage left
MARGARET, behave yourself. This is a family blog.
KrisinCa is over 21! ;)
The intensity of their vituperation reveals how frightened they are of what Assange is holding.
Just like trolls at the progressive blogs. Bring up a topic involving Israel, 9/11, or rigged elections and they swarm like flies on detritus.
But still …
Obama The Chess Player is positioning himself to run in the 2012 GOP primaries.
Bush’s base was the millionaires, Obama wishes his was. He’s an idiot though because he thinks throwing his base under the bus over and over is going to endear him to the rich. All it’s done is piss off the few rich people that were in his base, (not to mention we little people).
Present company excluded, right?
Obama/Lieberman no doubt.
That’s disgusting, but who is “tweety?” (I’m not that media savvy having banned cable TV from my house years ago.)
Yes, you are right.
chris matthews
Chris Matthews
Chris Matthews
That’s the Democrats’ fundamental problem, and the Republicans’ fundamental advantage. The corporate campaign money pulls Republicans towards their base, and pulls Democrats *away* from theirs.
http://firedoglake.com/2010/09/07/money-makes-democrats-stupid
Brilliant minds …
Damn it! Now I owe TWO drinks!
Assange knows something or has something, that scares the elites sh$tless!
thus the reason he seems very calm and cool, he doesn’t seem to be worried at all
Assange knows what we all need to learn, having a lot of money does not make one smart!
Palin will kill him.
Chris Matthews cause he looks like Tweety Boid.
I’m hip but I take exception to your characterization. Obama’s not being “pulled” anywhere. He’s running away from his base, like we were flesh eating zombies…. the fast kind.
I think the point of the trip was to be out of COTUS when the Catfood Commission vote happened. Seeing how uncoordinated the Afghanistan trip has been, it just looks like Sir Obama bravely turned his tail and fled.
Hillary would make them pay. I always thought with her ‘payback is a bitch and the bitch is back’.
Thanks, funny that. He’s a dick.
Obama was paid to throw the game. So he threw the game. The penalty for any lack of cooperation was too great. O was always a whore. He freely admitted such in his book. His nature is one that people can imprint upon him any ideals they choose. That’s the same as any successful prostitute.
It’s a structural problem, and it ensures that the bench of progressive Democrats will always be thin.
Catfood commission, tax cuts for the wealthy, unemployment extensions, DADT…anything he might be asked to take a position on or twist some arms over.
Which means we have to move beyond …
Or non existent. They have plenty of dirty fucking hippies to bash without a bench.
yeah he is, daily.
Aloha, Eli and all…! One can only hope that Obama will be the first Nobelist stripped of their title…?
Wikileaks: Cedar Sweep, U-2′s, and, ‘Let’s Get on with Negotiations’…
That Assange knows something seems pretty clear to me both by his actions as well as by what has been released by WL. Assange hasn’t released Top Secret stuff even though he has it. Even though what has come out has made lots of worldwide headlines, the highest classification that it has had is Secret.
Aloha, CTut…!
That sort of says it all. Depressing.
Another media question: who was the guy filling in for Rachel Maddow just before Thanksgiving? What an Obamabot, he actually had a list of things to be thankful for, thankful to Barry O for. It was gag inducing.
We think it’s obvious that the D’s are intentionally self-destructing but with guys like that in the mix they could be forgiven for thinking they’ll have a chance in 2012.
Chris Hayes, writer for The Nation
I agree – the WH positively loves to hippie punch. They take downright pleasure in bashing their own supporters, rather than being dragged into going against their supporters reluctantly.
Obama has burnt so many bridges that he has no clue were he’ll end up…! 8-(
“We have co-opted the entire Republican agenda and left them with nothing to run on! We are Super Geniuses!”
And if you think that’s gag inducing, try watching Ed Schultz someday.
And we thought Obama’s chess game had only eleventyseven dimensions..
Hayes is among the best. I like him. But they all have to be careful in what they say.
Yes but this Hayes guy actually constructed that into a series of progressive victories we should all be thankful for.
he didn’t throw the game. Our choices were mccain/gramm or obama/summers.
No matter who you vote for the government always gets in.
I wasn’t blasting Hayes. He’s doing a better job than most of them.
I agree with you. I doubt seriously if Hillary would have bent over for the repub congressional leadership. She remembers the 90′s all too well.
Plus, though she’s a pol like anyone else there, I think she has some self-respect.
Again, it’s important to note that she’s a Democrat by bent, not by convenience. That’s a big plus right there.
Hayes is a REALLY smart guy who would understand our concerns on FDL. BUT, he’s got to be careful — as a stand-in for TRMS.
He did a damned good job of it.
Can any sane person argue that Hillary would have been worse. BILL Clinton’s Rubin contacts were aligned with Obama against Hillary. Bill never had the mandate, majorities, or crisis environment available to Obama, and he still managed to get a vastly more progressive tax bill through than Obama. He rejected the Heritage Foundation, Dole, Obama health bill as worse than nothing.
Hillary isn’t really the right half of Bill’s brain. The attempt to create a single entity called THE CLINTONS is sexist and repugnant. The left would never have made two years worth of excuses if she’d behaved the way Obama behaved. (If she’d appointed Geitner and Summers it wouldn’t have been called 11 dimensional chess.) And Hillary, more than anything else, is a fighter. You never heard the words “post-partisan from her lips. She relished the opportunity to continue her fight with the far right.
Hillary Clinton would have done things I disagree with regularly. But it is insulting to compare her to Obama. She’d have been on my side at least part of the time and had the guts to fight when she was.
It’s past time the people who scraped Obama off the underside of the bottom of the barrel to stop Hillary Clinton recognized they made a mistake. AIG and Goldman Sachs recognized it early, when they gave Obama much more money than Clinton.
A successful high dollar whore must enable the John to imprint upon her fantasized ideals which he believes (or which he can compel himself to believe) to be valid. Take Diaper David Vitter, for example.
He’s a tough customer. I really like him.
Hi Eli,
Krugman said pretty much the same thing only more refined wording. lol
“Whatever is going on inside the White House, from the outside it looks like moral collapse.”
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389×9677938
Hack, at this time of night, after so many Martinis, you’re getting me hot.
And you admonished me…..
Yeah, moral collapse, I had that in the Seminary. Fun, but not good.
But it isn’t even Hayes, per se. All of the “good guys” have at one time or another over the past couple of years thrown in with the Obamabot hippie punching crowd. Whether it be good guy pols who caved on health care cum corporate welfare or good guys in the media who play the “Obama is too nice” meme.
I think that what Eli said in the OG post is right on, but I dunno. Could be the too-clever-by-half crowd in the WH really, really still thinks they can pull out a win.
I’m wondering if it’s the drive to get so much stuff into the lame-duck session that’s causing him to cram a bunch of terrible ideas into such a compressed timeframe rather than spacing them out a little.
I know, I know, the flesh is weak …
They must think they won last month, then.
“Mare of Sha Kag Ga.”
Eli, you continue to blaze new paths thru the synapses of my comedic membrainz.
Another stellar diary . . . how you DO that man . . . *G*
This was the deal all along.
Destroy Social Security, keep all the Bush administration policies and executive orders in place, and at the end of four years the oligarchs will take care of the worst president this country has ever had for the rest of his life.
He’s part Borg. Everybody knows the Borg have a wonderful sense of humor. Look at their clothes!
“Typical mid-term setback, much less so than 1994. And look at all our victories! The losses weren’t that bad; we kept the Senate. Let Boehner and co. wreck things for the next year and we’ll be even stronger in 2012. The base will really get the hint looking at the Republican house…”
What, you can’t see them saying that?
Yeah, cramming that lame duck, man, can only get you so far. /s
Thanks Larue, you’re too kind. I think the combo of aggravation and not quite enough sleep makes me punchy.
420 helps.
What does the O in DINO stand for?
Obama.
As in Barack DINObama.
I voted for Hillary Clinton in the 2008 Democratic Party primaries, primarily because there was far more known about her versus what was known back then about her only-remaining competitor at that time, Barack Obama.
Both Democratic candidates had strong ties to the DINO DLC (which I didn’t know about regarding Obama until after he won the nomination), but I voted the way I did, for Hillary Clinton, because I figured that a President Hillary Clinton wouldn’t put up with any Republican crap, especially after what happened in the 1990s. She proved to me from what happened in the 1990s that she could be tough, much tougher than President Obama has proven to be. So, I voted for Hillary in the primary in hopes that she’d win the nomination and, once in the White House, thoroughly investigate and expose all the criminal acts committed by her Republican predecessor and his administration. Obama won instead. I wasn’t about to vote for a continuation of criminal Republican practices, so I voted for him in November 2008.
Unfortunately, as a DINO, President Obama has aided and abetted the Republican criminals who preceded him, by both continuing Bush policies while blocking investigations into the previous Republican administration, as well as throwing in some of his own radical DINO wrinkles, siding more often than not with the economic slaveowners in our society and around the world. The result? The traditional Democratic Party brand has been tainted, as we saw in the recent midterms, since there is no longer any real distinction between the DINObama White House and the Republicans, as far as siding with the global economic slaveowners out to subjugate economically everyone else.
There is only two possible explanations for Obama’s weak presidential behavior, he is either a delusional isolated Stealth Republican demoralized by the unexpected hate he received from the Tea Bag racists that loathe his very existence. And he is desperately seeking their approval like a son try to please an abusive absent father, or this blogs explanation of a one term bipartisan agreement.
Barack Obama is the worst Democratic President since Andrew Johnson. The spineless pollsters and corporate losers(Gibbs, Geitner, Axeldudd, & Poof)advising Obama should fall on their sword, literally, for America’s best interest. Like Andrew Johnson, Obama is effectively a Independent President using Blacks, Democrats, Progressives, and Liberals for his own corporate financial gain. Just like his political mentor, George W Bush, whenever Obama has political difficulty, he uses American soldiers as props to look Presidential. I’m just wondering, where is the “Mission Accomplished” banner?
I actually never touch anything stronger than Dr Pepper.
An. . . . ‘would choke on AN oversized dick’.
AP Stylebook for print and broadcast media . . . just sayin. ;-)
I’d settle for a fatal pretzel inhalation . . . . at this point.
Must be . . . . *G*
You’re a natural. Congrats.
Maybe, but there are other younger writers in this esteemed forum and elsewhere who just don’t ‘get it’ the way you do, and then muse about it the way you do . . . it’s like you were a 55+ something boomer . . . ;-)
Love yer work . . . thanks.
Never underestimate the mind altering properties of the 10, 2 and 4.
Stylebook? After 10 pm?
Country pure and country sincere, ma’am.
*G*
Howdy to Hubby . . . too.
Thank you so much. That means a lot to me.
I’m phrellin speechless.
N you KNOW that ain’t usual . . . ;-)
I’m hoping it’s even half as good as Mega Shark Vs. Giant Octopus.
Check *this* out.
Sorry, all your musings fail to account for the fact that Obama and all our elected offals are bought, paid for and owned and operated by the corporate fascists who own and run our nation.
As such, Obama is a very successful, and Congress too, servant(s) and supporter(s) of the oligarchs.
In The Class War, Obama is a VERY successful general for the have’s.
Shit, I’m flying next week.
If you think for ONE nanosecond that HRC would not be a shill for the Corporate Fascists like Obama is, I got some beach property in New Mexico I’d like to talk to you about. A few bridges, too, now that I think about it.
*G*
You mean she wouldn’t have at least given us a reach around?
The PO reach around?
He’s worse than Bush because he is such a two-faced liar. Bush was an ass – he knew it, you knew it. The Republicans are rolling him like a group of thugs finding a rich old lady.
YES — at least that!
If you think Hillary Clinton would take that crap I’m sure you do have titles to beach property in New Mexico and to some bridges too. You’ll have more luck peddling them to Obama apologists.
The one fun thing will be seeing the gays lay into him during his public appearances. And Obama doesn’t like it when his own challenge him – but he genuflects when Republicans call for him.
Unarmed and splay-legged, right?
If you think Hillary Clinton would take that crap I’m sure you do have titles to beach property in New Mexico and to some bridges too. You’ll have more luck peddling them to Obama apologists
“I’m just wondering, where is the ‘Mission Accomplished’ banner?”
Mission Accomplished = Recovery Summer
Good grief, Eli, missed you again. It’s funny that, just today, I was in an argument about what Obama really wants (IOW, is he really just too cowardly to buck up and do the right thing on economics, or has he been fooling the people I have been arguing with all along). This is the first time I can remember writing that I think Obama will be a one term President. Until very recently, I didn’t think it would happen. Now, if things continue as they are (always a big if), I’m sure he’ll be a one-term wonder. The economy isn’t going to get better, and he’ll be blamed. And frankly, for once, that blame will be pretty squarely where it belongs.
Now I’ll go read what everyone else wrote. I’m sure someone else thinks this way by now, since it’s so become so bloody obvious that I see it.
Buzz, I’m definitely and equivically not saying that.
Hil Reaches.
*G*
N then, yer wallet’s lighter, yer womens rights are lighter, our civil rights are lighter.
N The Man Who Pimps Her (and all the others) eats another milk fed veal penned scallopinni dinner.
*G*
I was willing to give Obama the benefit of the doubt as being possibly just a weak conciliatory centrist and naive fool *until* HCR. He was helpless and passive until the public option was killed, and then he suddenly sprang to life and started leaning on blue dogs.
So yeah, I think he can be tough when he wants to, and what we’re seeing is that he simply doesn’t want to, at least not against conservatives.
Best news I have heard about him in awhile. Wldnt it be great if he decides not run for reelection? The only thing better is watching his sorry ass give his concession speech in two years. Anyone know how to get and Obama sticker off the car? If so pls let me know. thx
Well, he’s Boner’s and Mitch’s butt boy now.
The GOP’s position on tax cuts is so unpopular that the voter’s got mad a t Democrats and threw them out.
This is the bad calculus that underlies all the kabuki. WHATEVER a poll or two polls show, the GOP is not going to take a hit on this because the public does NOT really go against their position. If it falls down, Dems will get blamed. If all the tax cuts are allowed to expire, Dems will get blamed, rightly.
You would think the Dem’s would have seen NO backlash for the GOP who trumpeted this position before the election–they even got rewarded. There is NO groundswell against the GOP on this. NONE.
Dem’s should cut their loses and get it behind them. They only have two choices: 1. let all expire and get a shit storm from everyone, or 2. make the temp extension of all of them and get a smaller shit storm.
They have put themselves in a position where there is no “non-shit storm” option. Better to face the shit storm now and get it over with.
Anyone thinking the GOP is going to get into ANY trouble on this issue is dreaming.
He is no where near the man Bush was. You may not agree with Bush but you knew where he stood and no one pushed him around. This guy currently in the White House is pure kitty kat.
What we should be thinking about is who we would like to run in 2012 and how to get a ground operation going to get them to run.
Yeah, I think that’s the bottom line. I might get a reach around but live to regret it.
No reach around, then.
Those two really were butching up on O the other day. They’ve got his number.
When I say the GOP will not get into
ANY trouble over this issue, I am not saying it is right or wrong. Just, that is how it is.
Agreed, although his success in Chicago politics should have been an indication that he has intestinal fortitude. I’m not intimately familiar with Chicago politics, but nothing I’ve heard about it suggested that wallflowers or “little girly men” do well there.
Kucinich
Yes, it was quite a threesome, wasn’t it? Nothing like watching a guy who got elected with big majorities in both Houses bend over for two losers.
But are you digging it?
I’d put it this way – someone here called him a member of the “Professional Center” in the last few days. He lives to compromise. He doesn’t view it as some form of politics that you have to do because you just can’t get what you want – he doesn’t want to confront. Hillary Clinton never showed such qualms.
So I think that HRC would have played hardball when it served her interests, or her party’s. The trick with Hillary is figuring out what she perceives her interests to be.
Right, it was all wrong somehow. Boner looked drunk in his appearances, while the old turtle had the bearing of a man who’d risen way above his station on a temporary basis but is determined to use the little plastic badge to the fullest.
He’s a con artist. At the end of the day, what he will do is what benefits him. Doing what the rich and powerful want is what’s going to get him ahead. It’s what will get Boehner and McConnell ahead, too. He’s not their butt boy, he’s their ally.
I think Obama is fine with being a one term President if there’s enough profit in it.
Does anybody here still think it will make a bit of difference if a Republican becomes president in 2013?
Obama’s advisors are mostly the folks the Clintons were well rid of, both in economics and foreign policy. Now we’re seeing that it won’t turn out any better than we expected.
If it’s Palin or one of the other know-nothings, things will go to hell faster. That’s the main difference I see at this point.
Buzz, some things are just . . . essential.
;-)
Great snark to call me out, though, I’m smilin.
*G*
I got nuttin . . . ;-)
What ever happened to the Mothra Twin Sisters?
*G*
Got This?
Lemme know when ya wanna get into some real fact finding on HRC’s previe and present policy beliefs, actions and who might be funding and backing her (DNC/DLCC).
Kthxgby
it is that time AGAIN!!
Creg, love a lot of your musings and postulations . . really.
But this comment fully ignores that Pugs and Dims are alike, and are all bought and owned and operated by the Corporate Fascists who run every aspect of our country and our lives.
Hope I can lasso you back into the reality . . . .
Dunc,they got shit . . . the corporate oligarchs got them, and Obama.
Please, never lose sight of this simple fact.
It’s no longer political . . . the elected offals are bought off.
It’s class war.
He was burnt on HCR . . . somehow he has been neutered.
I’d guess, it was the ‘Oswald/Plane Falls From Sky’ chat some PTB had with him.
His wife is hot and smart, too . . . *G*
Cujo, always love your comments and mjusings . .
But really . . HRC? Who are her interests?
War.
War money from government.
War profits.
War state.
Brokering and selling US Arms to nations, and as SEC DEF dictating and supporting policy and legislated policy which supports those means, aims, and goals?
Really . . . HRC as a shade of grey?
Yer killin me . . . ;-)
missing snark tags?
He did. He just didn’t follow through.
In other words:
do whatever the Rs want, and hope they’ll be nice – for a change.
Like that’s going to happen.
The Ds would have a much better chance if they’d actually stand up for their alleged principles.
Not me.
PJ, we’re all under assault . .
We all gotta fight, some way.
N I’m with ya all the way . . . always love yer musings.
There’s some good solid hard core proggy’s in this forum . . .
Its an honor to rumble with them from the keyboard.
*G*
Goin upstairs and elsewehere . . . great Diary Eli, and some great comments thru it all . .
258 comments Eli . .
*G*
N most of them, for ya . . . or for the topic . . .
That’s my kind of writing and advocation, hoss . .
Thanks.
HRC is two things that Obama has shown himself not to be:
- honest
- smart on policy
I’ll bet you didn’t notice that what we ended up with in health care reform was pretty similar to what HRC proposed during the primary. When asked what she’d do regarding Bush’s reach for extraordinary powers, she said she’d look at them carefully. Contrast that with what Obama said on those issues. We would have at least known what we were getting.
As for the arms sales, they’ve been going on for a long, long time.
I’m pretty sure that Hillary would have either cut us free of Karzai by now, or gotten him straight. Odds are, it would have been the former, of course, but we wouldn’t have 100K troops there right now. Like I wrote, she got the good Clinton foreign policy team, not the bench warmers who ended up in Obama’s inner circle. I doubt things would have been much different in Iraq.
And frankly, when she’d gotten through deciding, I don’t think we would have been in much doubt what she intended to do about civil liberties, one way or the other. I also doubt she would have continued all the power grabs of Bush, which is what Obama has done. She needed less prompting and begging back when we were trying to get Congress to stand up against telecom immunity. She was one of the few who spoke out about Bush’s grabs for power in the first place.
It would have been better. I probably wouldn’t have liked it, but it would have been better.
In 1976 Jimmy Carter got elected with a one-line platform: “I will not lie to you.”
“I’m not a fraud like the last guy” is the 2012 version.
I am an African American woman who proudly voted for President Obama. A young man convinced me at first and then i looked at my grandson and knew what I had to do. Now, two years later, I look at my grandson and other young children who had so much hope in their eyes for this man, I look at them and I just hope that they will not be like him. They have to stand up and never bend down. my grandson has to stand on his principles and maybe, just maybe that was what this man legacy will be for the children….to never forget your promises. I will not vote in 2012!!!!!!
I’ve reached this conclusion awhile ago and keep repeating it every chance I get: Obama does not care if he gets a second term. There is no way on earth he CAN care. It shows.
The only other possible explanation is that he knows Palin will run against him and he wins by default.
More then ever–we need a third candidate this time around.
It would be difficult to find a politician with more talk and less walk than Obama. And for someone who seemed to understand how to capture the public sentiment when campaigning, it’s truly remarkable what a clueless, neo-liberal, enigma he’s become as President.
For that matter, if Obama wanted a second term, why would have continue each and every single Bush-Cheney policy and then some?
I agree… she definitely would have fought for a better health care plan, but I think jobs would have been a greater priority.
Thank you very much for that rant!
Why else? Think a bit more sinister. Maybe he IS doing his job.. the job he was hired to do. He has succeeded in throwing the whole party for the Republicans (the legitimate business party). It is interesting that any remaining true Democrats aren’t challenging him.
Hillary also just gave notice about her future.
The game must be up?
Oh my goodness, people here need to get a life. The economy will be improved and gaining jobs during 2011 and 2012. Obama will get elected easily. No will care about the day to day rantings of the pretentious brats here on firedoglake. Get a life.
Been a lot of good threads up on here lately, Eli, but from the viewpoint of talking about the political reality which Barack Obama has created, you get the Palm d’or with the “no more bullshit” ribbon attached.
He is so far down the road for one and done, that if we had a complete roll-reversal in which he bucked up to the corporatist shits that are ruining us, and if the GOP laid down like cur dogs on every regressive conservative issue, I’d still doubt that he would have enough political capital to go for a second term.
And I get gladder of it by the day.
Of course, we’re going to see a circus of people coming out to run that’s going to look like a clown-car, with the stream of mostly-idjits climbing out of it who’ve looked at Obama and said: “Hey! I can fuck up a can of political peaches THAT good!”
So: Who’s got the popcorn?
(and the show might start sooner than we expect…)
Yup.
Lake, what’d I miss about Hillary?
I haven’t seen or heard of anything from her that would indicate that she’s gonna bail out of State to make a run at him. I think it’s too soon and would be too politically costly for her. Besides, if his numbers get down into the ’30′s, the democrats in congress who want to have a chance to keep their jobs and perks, will publicly amputate his political legs. I don’t think he’ll be ALLOWED to run again. It will be easier for Hillary (and any other democrat) to jump in if he’s just jumped out.
I mean, I still think it’ll be a disaster if she runs against the grain, and only slightly less so if she does it after he bails on a second run, but at this point, I’m willing to see the kharmic political chickens shitting on democratic heads like they’ve been feeding on Ex-Lax. At least it’ll be entertaining.
We should have a pool on how long before the new applicants start treating him like facial lesions. It’ll happen within a year, I’d think. Also, watch the administration rats heading for the “more time with my family” hawser-lines.
Of course, as the chaos cranks up, there will be fur flying at the Lake about who’s next. But that’s what we get for being one of the few reality-based blogs who, honestly enough, have now dropped any childish emotional attachment to the idea of Barack Obama as an agent of change. :o)
“WH” in this administration means”Whimp House.”
See Cujo at 260. Except that a public option was central to HRC’s health plan, he sums it up.
Kthxgby
“She was one of the few who spoke out about Bush’s grab for power in the first place.”
You mean, when he brewed up the bloody koolaid about what a threat to us was Saddam and Irag? And she drank it like it was her mother’s milk, and helped him man the juice-stand for five years?
THAT “speaking out”???
Jesus, Cujo, she ran well to the RIGHT of him in the primaries. Unspinnably, she and her “savvy” braintrust made the horrible mistake of thinking that she could get to the White House by throwing her natural constituents, progressives, under the bus as she triangulated her way out her chance at the nomination. She’s got “Property of AIPAC” tatted on her butt. I’d say she’s about 50% more likely to gin up an attack on Iran, than is Obama. (I will admit, the ratio may well drop as Obama’s poll numbers tank, and he looks at how well Bush did by creating a “patriotic” war in Iraq. Come to that, we can only hope that congress and the pentagon haven’t taken complete leave of their senses…)
Just because Barack Obama has shown himself to be every bit as unprincipled and politically stupid, doesn’t mean Hillary’s the default successor, or that HER shitty choices, such as supporting Lieberman against Ned Lamont in the Connecticut Senate primary, or praising John McCain as making a better Commander-in-Chief, etc, etc, should be ignored.
She’d be a disaster. Nothing in that has changed. The republicans will dance naked if we’re brick-dumb enough to choose her, if she bails out of State to run. a HUGE segment of the american electorate absolutely loathes her, and not just republicans. More: all of those Clinton retreads that Obama so idiotically larded his administration with, are a good part of the reason we’re up shit creek.
Hillary would just be more of the same. No rehab is possible on the Clintons. We need to let go of all those statu-quo-preserving pols. We have no chance until we do.
“The trick with Hillary is figuring out what she perceives her interest to be.”
Well, the democratic party and most progressive organizations didn’t have a problem figuring out Hillary, when they turned their backs on her (including, the National Organization for Women) and opted for a guy who, at the least, talked a good fight, instead of climbing into bed with the assholes to try to get to the White House.
Again, the fact that Obama climbed into bed with them AFTER he got to the White House, doesn’t validate or excuse Hillary’s feckless shit.
I promise you; the number of voters who are NOT willing to jump out of the Obama frying pan into the Clinton fire would make what happened just over a month ago, look like a political love-in.
HRC was not my 1st or my 5th choice. I do not want to see her run again. But running well to the right of Obama in the primaries? Is that why Paul Krugman supported her health care reform plan over his? Most of the BILL Clinton retreads were for Obama in the primaries. Then there was the case in Ohio where BO was trashing HRC for Bill’s NAFTA support and one of his economic aids told a Canadian diplomat not to worry. He had to say that in Ohio. The aid was red shirted for the rest of the campaign and the first year of the administration. But he’s back.
Re the Koolaid, don’t tell me how much courage Obama WOULD have shown if he’d been there.
Is Rahm going to make the Mayor’s chair?
I’m reading he’s got serious problems.
As an extension of Obama, I’d love it if the voters said:
“Nahhh…too much “centrist” stink on you, you fucking retard.” :o)
It would be a great slap in the face to Obama. :o)
My holiday letter to the Tea Party, from a Liberal. (humor)
(Keep your gun, just help me save social security. Then go fuck yourselves.)
I wonder if he has the minutes to the oil meetings that Cheney held in January 2001. That stuff is dynamite.
This is running to the right of Barack Obama:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UxDLKUeoJm0
Saying that hardworking white voters wouldn’t vote for Obama is running to the right of him. In fact, it’s dog-whistle racism, and very LOUD dogwhistle racism.
Supporting an asshole like Joe Lieberman over a good anti-war candidate like Ned Lamont, was to the right of Obama.
Ridiculing Obama’s 2002 speech against Bush’s loon crusade, which he made at practically the same time she was was voting to enable it, was running to the right of Obama.
Letting Rupert Murdoch hold a fundraiser for her was running to the right of Obama.
Barack Obama went to Israel and spoke the truth to them that the invasion of Iraq had not made them safer. Hillary Clinton would never have done that.
In the South Carolina primary, Bill trying to trivialize Obama’s campaign
by comparing it with Jesse Jackson’s cameo appearance, was running to the right of Obama. And he, and Hillary caught hell for it, as they should have.
Hillary speculated that she needed to stay in the race until the bitter end because look at what happened to Robert Kennedy, and you just never know…whether or not that was “to the right”, it was straight out of the Idiot’s Manual for campaign tactics.
Two/thirds of the way through the primaries, not one major progressive organization had endoresed Hillary. Even The National Organization for Women endorsed Obama over the woman for whom most people had already assumed that the nomination was hers to lose.
Well, she lost it, and it damn sure wasn’t because she was too liberal.
Anything else?
Please do not bombard me with snarky comments because my question is legit…What do you suppose is wrong with the president? Is he perhaps ill? I have NEVER seen the likes of this man that is beginning to make GWB seem all there. He can’t possibly ignore all that is being said but it just doesn’t seem to hit home with him. I’d really like to know if there is some underlying problem none of us is aware of.
Or LeBron James against the Celtics.
I have wondered that as well; made a note earlier this week. Depressed, self-destructive…who knows?
Yeah, Obama has done more for the Republican party than any three conservatives I can name.
One term is enough for this idiot.
People, don’t bother yourself as to the whys and all that.
Obama is an arrogant, know it all with no balls and no political skills.
He has a super teleprompter but is himself an empty suit.
Hell, he makes W look great.
Another goner looks to be Hillary. To you Liberals that is no big loss but she was a threat to the Republicans.
Yeah, WikiLeaks is doing a fine job.
“Obama is an arrogant, know it all with no balls and no political skills.” That about sums him up.
Obama has to go…but he has to go in the primaries. I am not voting for a Fascist run by an Oligarchy! Not now, not ever! I think Democrats better get up off their ass as they are a big part of the issue. You can’t stay home, not vote, and expect a positive outcome. It is up to YOU to make this country move to a more fair place for people. In the mid-terms you didn’t do it!
Design, I don’t think anyone is going to snark at you. It’s a good question.
The debate is this, basically: was he dumb enough to think that he could achieve political success (at least, his view of it…) by “reaching out” to the assholes who are most responsible for our situation, or did he come in with an agenda for selling out?
Personally, I don’t believe the fix was in when we elected him. i DO believe that he was a lot more conservative than he presented himself as being, in his campaigning, but you’re going to have a hard time convincing me that that he came into office thinking:
“I’m willing to go down as the poster-boy for a failed president, as long as I can successfully rehab the poor, beleagured republicans.”
I think he made some monumental mistakes in judging just how much real change was needed, and in how much the voters would have supported him, if he’d fought hard for it.
The GOP weren’t able to hand us our asses last month because the voters are charmed with their failed policies; they did it because they’re disgusted with Obama and the dems rolling over like dogs, when we had given them a golden opportunity to really change this death-spiral that we’re in, and they completely funked the job.
All he had to do was confront these people, long and loud, over what they’d already done to us, and dare them to block a real salvage effort.
Instead, all the republicans had to do was whisper the word “filibuster” and he and the democratic “leadership” instantly pissed themselves.
His panic-attack with the Sherrod mess was, and is, a microcosm of his lack of understanding of what was at stake, and of his ignorance of the opportunity that he had. Now, it’s gone. I see no way that he, as a lameduck president, can get around the republican resurgence…which, I have to say, has a certain poetic justice to it, since no one but Obama could have done this wondrous rehab on them.
Give him time, darms, give him time. This time next year, we’ll be in WWIII (or V, if you’re a Woolsey acolyte).
C’mon, you two. They’re both Bilderbergers, for cryin’ out loud.
Incidentally, Hillary Clinton has never been a threat to the republicans.
They hate her for her philosophy, which at one time, was fairly liberal, and because she was the outspoken wife of Bubba, whatever she was saying.
But that’s different from her being a “threat” in the sense of becoming president. Almost to a voter, they loathe her, and they are joined in that by no small number of democrats. Nominating her for a run in 2012 would be even worse than allowing Obama to run again. It would be political seppuku for democrats.
Fortunately for dems and progressives alike, neither situation is going to happen.
“Honest”? Really? Two words: “Vincent Foster”.
And what tanbark said.
Please… both parties are run by the banksters. How long will it take the populace to figure out this simple fact?
Sorry. I thought you we’re talking about policies. Campaigning against a man who has no record presents special challenges. He devoted his life to becoming a mirror in which all people could see their aspirations reflected. Thoughtful people recognized such a mirror could be used to reflect people’s nightmares as well. The Republicans were doing that quite successfully until the economy tanked in September. They picked up where they left off.
Re campaigning, Obama got into the IL legislature by bringing in Ivy League lawyers to disenfranchise primary voters for his opponent. Then he backed out of his pledge in the presidential campaign to use public financing the moment he knew he’d do better without it. And of course there were the thugs, no relation to Obama, who threatened blacks who supported HRC with violence if they didn’t change their minds.
I honestly don’t care about the campaign. Show me something Obama’s actually done in office that has put the interest of any progressive over the self interests of Obama. Show me something positive he’s done that any other Deomocrat in the 08 race wouldn’t have.
I appreciate and largely agree with your comment. But as Lincoln said to the lines of people eager to point out Grant’s failings and limitations, “I need Grant. He fights.”
Even a new liberal modestly to the left of blue dogs who is willing to fight would be hugely preferable to that jellyfish who makes me sick to my stomach. Would HRC apologize for being too partisan to people who called her a Nazi?
It’s not much, but it’s something.
The (suppressed) technique of objective analysis — the (Marxist) Occam’s Razor of politics and economics — assumes that consequences prove intent, which explains perfectly the role of Obama as Barack the Betrayer.
For example, the U.S. capitalist Ruling Class has made war on government services and living-wage employment for at least 100 years. Thus objective analysis postulates the sudden economic downsizing inflicted on us in`2008 is functioning exactly as intended: condemning millions of workers to genocidal poverty while simultaneously eliminating the socioeconomic safety net that might have ameliorated their potentially deadly afflictions. Objective analysis also recognizes this is a new, malignantly euphemistic Final Solution: extermination of excess workers — in other words, forcible population control — diabolically structured so all blame is transferred to the victims: “it’s their fault they made fatally bad choices.”
Objective analysis reveals Obama’s function as well. By being a Black man in the White house, Obama reanimates the Ku Klux racism of U.S. whites, the Nazi-like hatred of minorities the Civil Rights Movement forced into the closet as unfashionable — though only until wearing sheets and pillowcases became stylish again. At the same time, by being Barack the Betrayer, Obama inflicts a demoralization so profound it effectively destroys what little remained of the humanitarian Left: “change we can believe in” proven an ultimate Big Lie, “hope” proven to be not “audacity” but imbecility.
Thus — as other posters have observed — did Obama deliberately facilitate the Republican landslide last month, just as he is now laying the foundation for a Republican victory in 2012.
Since the Republican Party is historically the U.S. vessel of fascism — note its anti-New Deal links with Mussolini and Hitler in the years before World War II — what we are witnessing today is obviously both the fulfillment of plans laid nearly a century ago and the death-throes of the American Experiment in constitutional democracy, which is already dead in all but name.
Obama is therefore merely doing what Wall Street is paying him to do. No Democrat or alleged Democrat has ever received anything approaching the contributions (bribes) Obama got from the banksters: Google OpenSecrets.org for the details. In return for this largess, the Betrayer has deliberately made himself and a Lame Duck after only half a term.
And as objective analysis demonstrates so wrenchingly, the winners are the Ruling Class: they gain absolute power and unlimited profits while we are condemned forever to tyrannical subjugation and genocidal poverty.
I had a huge struggle posting the above (296) because this website’s software kept jamming all my seven paragraphs into one (overwhelming) mass of type. In the course of this frustrating and ultimately infuriating battle — trying to find some alteration of text that would restore the paragraphs — I fucked up the last sentence of the next-to-last graf, which should read: In return for this largess, the Betrayer has deliberately made himself a Lame Duck after only half a term and effective nullified the Democratic Party almost certainly forever.
I can’t show you either of those last two things you mentioned.
What I can show you is nearly five years worth of Hillary Clinton sticking with George Bush on one of the foullest and bloodiest foreign policy decisions ever made by a U.S. president…among the numerous other reasons that I’ve pointed out for believing that if anything, she’d have been worse than Obama.
That Obama has also sustained some of bush’s worst policies doesn’t excuse Hillary Clinton from the campaign she ran, nor, from her sucking up to the American right to try to win the democratic nomination.
What’s coming down the political turnpike is going to look like a bunch of crazed shithouse rats going after one piece of food, but that sure as hell isn’t a reason for tranferring our support from one worse-than-useless political hack to another one.
I have never suggested that progressives should look to HRC as a future candidate. I became a reluctant HRC supporter when the choice came down to HRC and BO.
Hillary Clinton’s support of Bush in Iraq groups her with nearly every other elected Democrat including Obama once he reached the Senate–and since. She did show a genuine interest in health care with a position to the left of Obama’s over her entire public life.
I am NOT suggesting that anyone transfer support or hope to Clinton. I do get tired of people who excuse their votes for Obama by saying HRC would have been worse. I think there is a better than even chance that she could have turned the cards Obama was dealt into health care reform with a robust public option. I also think she’d have, or at least out of political expediency pretended to have, a measure of concern over an unemployment rate of 9.8%.
Look, I voted for Obama. I ranted at friends who voted for Nader instead of Gore. I still think they were wrong because I don’t believe Gore would have taken us into Iraq.
I’m not sure we disagree. I don’t think there are words to describe what’s in store for this country. I’m frightened that we’ve passed a tipping point.
I grew up watching economic prosperity of the middle class grow year after year. I’ve spent my adult years watching it die. I don’t see a way out. I’m as hurt and angry as I suspect you are. If you see even a possible way out, I’ll be behind you.
Sorry for rambling. It’s past my bed time.
Amen Brother!