It’s not what he’s done, or not done, in office, it’s the fact that I bought his lies and actually did have hope. The betrayal is the real kicker.

Remember when Bush passed a minimum wage hike back in 2007, at the insistence of a smaller Democratic Congress than Obama had in 2009?

Ever wonder if Obama would have done that in 2009 with his huge Democratic majorities?

If past behaviour is any indication, he’d probably tell the people who voted for him to stop asking for ponies, because Republicans and Ben Nelson say they might filibuster, and there’s nothing he can do.

He treats his base like that little 10-year-old girl treated her cat–swinging it around by the tail screaming “you will love me!”

…and Lieberman might say no.

With similar results.

(Okay, a little more favorable, but getting less so by the day, I think.)

great comment, made me laugh, i needed that…..

TERRIFIC post ELI!!!!

and just in time to go over MY post here

been a LONG time since I wrote a diary, my busy season and so disillusioned with obama and the democrats and all that

but there comes a time when ENOUGH is ENOUGH, and AND I AM NOT GOING TO TAKE IT ANYMORE!!!

I am sure you will recommend it and if you think it belongs there, see what you can do to get that to the front page, we NEED to begin discussing a primary challenge

Eli!

he has paid only lip service to progressive policies….

I guess I musta missed that…

ELI! What’s that protractor shit in the Steel City?

ELI!

((((JAYT))))

jayt!

Well, *occasional* lip service. He did claim to be in favor of the public option, and financial reform, and EFCA, and Dawn Johnsen, and Goodwin Liu, and Liz Warren. And it took over two years and lots of pressure before he did anything remotely fierce advocate-like for the gay community.

The beatings will continue until the morale improves.

BUZZ

BFL! I just saw that, I have no idea. I haven’t encountered any yet, but I don’t think they’re anywhere I typically perambulate.

Dubya used his crisis moment to push through a Republican agenda, and so did Obama.

Are you going to do a 2nd post on foreign policy lip service/betrayals?

Well, *occasional* lip service. He did claim to be in favor of the public option

lip service it was as he had already bargained that away long before debate even began, as I mention in
[*subtle hint*]

latest and most excellent diary

[/*subtle hint*]

Are we being hacked by Ezra Klein?

heh.

((( econ oh BUZZZZZ )))

WORSE THAN HOVER!

I could, although someone else could probably do it better, and bmaz could give chapter and verse on all his constitutional abuses. But the pattern of betrayal is my general point.

I’m just trying to get ahead of things and figure what Obama’s next betrayal will be. I’ve put SS in the rearview. ya know, I’m easy. i would have been like “Thank you sir, may I have another?” the first few times he shat on me. So if he’s lost me and gotten me pissed, he’s gone pretty way too far.

Instead of using negotiation and compromise to reluctantly move away from his preferred policy outcome while obtaining concessions in return, Obama uses them to move *towards* his preferred policy outcome, while obtaining nothing in return (and really, if he’s already getting what he wanted, why would he?).

I’m not sure folks realize how bad it is to tell the American people that the federal government is just like a family. To me, it is every bit as wrong as telling them Blacks are inferior to whites.

There is absolutely no truth to it. And it is destructive of everything progressives want for the country.

That makes him WORST to me.

hey jayt. The Trial happened a few floors above me. Thank the lord it’s over. Sentencing day they had mounted police and cops with tear gas but hardly anyone showed up. a guy with a sign “Casey WSill You Marry Me” a nd a guy with a “Save The Whales” sign and somebody with an abortion sign. But Nancy Grace just won’t leave.EEEk! Make her go ‘way!! The whole thing has been a circus.

Hover? Who’s Hover? Just teasing, Selise.

p.s. manufactured “crisis”

what was the deal with only going with three counts related to the death?

jesus, around here, *any* major felony garners six or seven counts. I’da thought they would have added maybe a crim negligence resulting in death or child neglect resulting in death.

Still, a tougher circumstantial case than I thought I guess.

LOL!

when it comes to spelling and proofreading, there may be no one worse than me. :)

Faux crisis.

I couldn’t be more disgusted with this fucking milquetoast of a fraud. If I didn’t know any better I might think this sonofabitch was a fucking stealth GOP plant.

I’m not sure folks realize how bad it is to tell the American people that the federal government is just like a family

i have no clue until a couple of years ago… and i had to make a pretty big effort time-wise to get that clue (read A LOT of nonsense and had to try to figure out on my own what was nonsense and what wasn’t).

Unlike THE TERRORISTS WILL DESTROY US ALL OMG…

Once they let the defense introduce that she may have drowned in the swimming pool, it was over. The prosecution couldn’t prove that it didn’t happen. One can’t prove a negative.

Like Nichole wasn’t killed by Columbian drug dealers.

(Also the financial crisis was pretty damn real, and Obama did little or nothing positive with that)

Obama uses them to move *towards* his preferred policy outcome, while obtaining nothing in return (and really, if he’s already getting what he wanted, why would he?).

exactly.

and where are the D party leaders on this? right behind obama, just as they have been from the beginning: on fisa, the bankster bailout, …

he might not be a gop plant per se but he is a corporatist plant, he is the man they need in office, there is no way a republican could deconstruct our middle class the way obama is doing it

Hover. Heebert Hover.

Ah, the Criswell defense. “Can you *prove* it didn’t happen?”

I would say he exacerbated the problem by taking stimulous funds and giving it to the people who caused the problem, planting a poison pill for future stimulous

The ManChamberian Candidate…

obama twisted arms to get the bankster bailout passed in the house — remember how it failed on the first vote? the house reps got so many phone calls (against) from the left right and center that it took the house phone system down.

me

One can’t prove a negative.

Autopsy can.

Yeah, only Nixon could go to China.

bed

g’night

one last pimpage for my diary

http://my.firedoglake.com/perris/2011/07/08/obama-producer-and-author-of-the-debt-problem/#comment-202884

please to contribute

see all manarrow

That’s the sort of thing that makes it so amusing whenever Opologists try to tell me how little power Obama has, that it’s not like he can just *make* Democrats vote for what he wants.

teh true
but what rot
who would cover up an accidental drowning
makes no sense

Well, he certainly could not be any worse, even if he were a real Manchurian Candidate.

And let’s not forget that he would welcome dead bodies coming back from the ship, Audacity of Hope.

Obama chooses carefully:
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v433/diannaruggles/obamafinger.jpg

I’ve always had trouble with “beyond a reasonable doubt” — especially when speculative alternative theories are allowed. I mean, the little girl was found rotting in a field with duct tape over her mouth and nose. Fuck.

Third party:
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v433/diannaruggles/chluthuforprez.jpg

I wrote this back in December 2009:

If I had slept through the last eighteen months and woke up this morning and you had told me that it’s 2009 and we have a new President who:

I would have thought “Well, maybe President Romney will only last one term.”

As it turns out, I was being optimistic

There was nothing left to autopsy.

which I mention in my diary

http://my.firedoglake.com/perris/2011/07/08/obama-producer-and-author-of-the-debt-problem/#comment-202884

not to pimp or anything but I do mention it there (in my diary)

Obamas=Palins …i my mind…worthless to Merika

I read your diary and recommended it.

just a bag of tiny bones so sad

me too

TBogg was great on the subject.

the computer searches…neck breaking,chloroform,damn she is sinister

I used to say that St. Ronnie was the greatest fraud ever perpetrated on the American people but this piece of shit gives him plenty of competition for that honor.

Every day, the “But… but President Bachmann!” argument looks weaker and weaker.

I just wish I could believe that the Democratic Party would respond to such a defeat by saying “Okay, I guess we’ve established that there are lines we cannot cross, lesson learned” instead of “I guess Obama was too liberal and scared Heartland America away.”

ELI!

So which is worse? The president who serves his base and sets the country on fire, or the president who stiffs his base and fights fire with gasoline?

The latter. Hands down.

x2

ill go read…that girl is a real piece of work

thank you for the link!

Margaret, hope all is well.

MARGARET!

From an objective historian perspective, the first probably is worse. If Obama had become president in 2001 I don’t think we’d have been in as big of a mess in 2009.

But from a progressive Democratic perspective, it’s hard to imagine anyone being worse, or more destructive to progressive goals or the Democratic Party brand.

Right now I’m not sure who I dislike more: Republicans like Boehner and Bachman, or liberals like those who support Firedoglake. It’s simply absurd. To @Jelperman: If I had slept through the last two years and been told that, in the interim, Health Care Reform had passed, that Don’t Ask Don’t Tell had been repealed, that we had the strongest financial reforms since 1940, and that in response liberals would accuse Obama of being a “republican” I would simply not believe it. And yet it’s true. People have lost their marbles. It’s not Obama’s fault that he inherited a financial mess. Many countries around the world have had varied responses to the financial crisis and the U.S. is doing better than most of them. What Obama needs is a democratic base that has his back.

There’s a term: cutting your nose to spite your face. I can’t think of a better example. If you screw Obama then your problem won’t be a president who doesn’t put his walking shoes on to march with the unions, it will be that unions no longer exist, that Medicare is voucherized, and that capital gains taxes are cut to zero (Ryan plan). What are you thinking? Get Obama re-elected and then push hard to make the 2016 democratic candidate more liberal. But don’t forget, an adequately liberal candidate who doesn’t get elected is not an effective liberal candidate. That’s all.

Right now I’m not sure who I dislike more: Republicans like Boehner and Bachman, or liberals like those who support Firedoglake.

Then you are wasting your time here.

didn’t know that.

guess that explains why the drowning theory was left unchallenged.

while momma was out dancing.

It’s said that one’s character is formed early in one’s childhood.

In the case of Obama, I’m guessing he never made it to school with his lunch money intact. He always gave it up!

Glenn Greenwald, and others, have argued that rather than being weak and inept, Obama is instead doing exactly what he wants to do and believes in.

I disagree. Not with the idea that Obama is doing exactly what he wants to do and believes in. No, instead I disagree that it is an “either or” proposition.

I find it believable that both can be, and are, true.

Obama’s journey through our elite Ivy league schools, to his time in the Illinois legislature, to his short-lived time in the US Senate, and then to his ascension to the US Presidency were all against the tide of the existing White Male power structure.

I can understand how a man of color making this journey could make a decision not to embrace the “angry Black man” role and instead choose to make accomodation, compromise, and comity his method of politics.

Accomodation, compromise, and comity are not bad things in themselves. But they cannot be the “ends” one pursues, but merely one of the many “means” to achieve those “ends”.

And that is where my greatest issue with Obama lies. Accomodation, compromise, and comity seems to be the only “ends” Obama sees.

It’s as if those early childhood experiences taught him a lesson, but the only lesson he learned was that fights were always to be avoided, stands were never to be taken, and giving up your lunch money solved all problems.

He learned a childish lesson, but not apparently the right lesson.

So my question to Obama, in what may be the last 2 years of his Presidency, is when are you going to grow up and realize that you can’t always turn the other cheek, that you can’t always give up your lunch money, and that standing your ground is what makes an adult from the child?

Health care reform was nothing but a big fat wet kiss to the insurance industry, we’re in six fucking wars, Guantanamo is still open, the financial reforms are a fucking joke, he won’t appoint Warren, his biggest backers are on Wall St., the fucker caves on damn near everything before he gets to the fucking table, he is now considering caving on SS and Medicare………fuck. And you say we’ve got to stick with this asshole?

What goes around …

The problem with that theory is that he *only* backs down from the right. He has no problem at all telling progressives to go fuck themselves, or twisting progressive arms to vote for conservative bills.

Bush/Cheney and Obama were both Franco-under-Spain model Fascists.

Bush/Cheney were not good Republicans. They were clearly NOT conservative on fiscal or civil liberties issues.

Obama just as much of Franco-model Fascist as Bush-Cheney.

No American cities have been wiped out, but now only Americans that make more than minimum wage are billionaires. Don’t forget that minor detail of 1/3 of Japan swamped by a radioactive tsunami thanks to General Electric nuclear reactors. I think Obama’s the pitcher of record for the radioactive tsunami. Charged to Obama’s ERA.

Obama has NOT betrayed his base. Only people foolish enough to believe that Obama’s base are the voters could believe this. Obama’s real base is the plutocracy that bankrolled his campaign. He’s served them well.

nobody in the history of the world would cover up an accidental drowning…in fact drownings are staged to look accidental,when real murder has taken place….

1. Private health industry bailout first developed by Romney, the actual plan written by a representative of the industry.
2. Obama did not push for this. It’s a result of decades of activism in and outside of the military. Public opinion has finally shifted to the point that they look like intolerant dinosaurs maintaining the policy.
3. Uh, what?

I used “base” instead of “constituents” or “supporters” because I consider a Democratic president’s base to be de facto the Democratic base. But I absolutely agree that they are not the constituents that he is dedicated to serving.

he definately seeks approval of his so called betters(percieved)

and here I’ve always thought that I didn’t have a prosecutorial bone in my body…

Many of us spent the first year defending Obama to the hilt, all the time watching his record of capitualization, accepting the conservative status quo, and passing of legislation so littered with GOP gimmes while all the time getting no votes for the legislation from them. The so called Health Care Reform bill will be left to wither on the vine if the GOP house remains, and Obama will claim it’s not his fault. The financial reform package has no real teeth, and the agencies in charge of enforcing it are being hamstrung by the GOP, but Obama does nothing to stop it. The acceptance, and even furthering, of the truly anti-constitutional acts perpetrated under the Bush regime give one pause as to what kind of “constitutional expert” our president really is. Not to mention the wordplay that is so Washington and Obama and his associates just love to partake of.

The only way things will get better is if they get so much worse that the American people finally realize the conservative neo-con/Bush/Obama/tea party agenda was the real hoax and the American people all got taken for a ride. But without suffering, historically America has seldom ever learned. Most people before 1929 thought that the Republican philosophy was great, but it took the world economic collapse to open many eyes.

Obama had defenders at TPM today, praising him because the DoD has stopped enforcing DADT. I was tempted to sign in to ask if Obama was on the Ninth Circuit because that’s who did it, not Obama. The military and Obama both still refuse to enforce repeal as the program has only been “suspended”. But there’s no point in talking to a rock either so I didn’t waste my time.

we had the strongest financial reforms since 1940

was glass-steagall brought back? enron loophole closed? financial OTC derivatives regulated out of existence?

were the bank fraudsters investigated, charged, convicted and sent to jail — as over a thousand were by a raygun appointee during the S&L crisis?

Hi jayt
this case took place in a nearby town

http://www.thefraudreport.com/index.php/2011/06/tn-man-denied-new-trial-after-convicted-of-killing-wife/

smart…waste of energy…true believers

ELI!

Taking a li’l dinner break from a project to say howdy on yer post.

I think O’s tied for worst, but clinches the title with the Austerity Tango and screwing up Social Security Medicare/caid. Gah.

The problem with that theory is that he *only* backs down from the right…

Not necessarily. The theory may still hold. When has the left ever really threatened to “take his lunch money”?

Oh, there’s been plenty of times that the left has groused, but in the end they allowed him to continue on to school with the lunch money in his pocket.

And in that sense, Obama has learned that he has plenty of company on the left when it comes to “accomodation, compromise, and comity”.

It probably reinforces his own “lesson” that this is how one works in politics.

As far as I know, there’s been no sighting of a Democrat with balls for many a year, and perhaps the entire species went extinct because of it.

But but ,,

If we don’t stick with Obama it will prove that no black President can be re-elected. /s

dem or puke
whats the dif?

KELLY!

If Obama cuts Social Security and/or Medicare, then he definitely takes the lead. His legacy may depend on how strong the congressional Democrats’ instinct for self-preservation is.

Criminal court Judge Robert Cupp ruled on June 3rd that it wasn’t his place to step in and overturn the verdict.

He’s right.

But hey, maybe the guy will get one of those high-paying prison jobs…

The only way things will get better is if they get so much worse that the American people finally realize the conservative neo-con/Bush/Obama/tea party agenda was the real hoax and the American people all got taken for a ride. But without suffering, historically America has seldom ever learned.

Shorter = Must. Suffer. To. Not. Suffer.
Timeworn = Must. Destroy. Village. To. Save. It.

Idiocy. I call bullshit on nihilists. You sound like some order of Carmelite nuns “Salvation can only be achieved through suffering.”

The progressive caucus tried it with the public option, but he called their bluff and they folded. And one could argue that the progressive base did it in last year’s election…

Look at the geographical patterns of the swing states that put Obama over the top in 2008. Progressives are not his base. Unless you want to define all African-Americans as progressives. Obama’s base is yellow dog Democrats. Progressives don’t even create a margin because of their geographical concentration in certain states and absence from a whole lot of states. Can progressives deliver Wyoming, where it only takes 130,000 votes to get you a slate of presidential electors, a Senator, and a member of Congress? How about Texas, the second largest state? Or Florida where Obama eaked out a victory? Indiana? Missoouri? Pennsylvania?

We haven’t built the movement, and we don’t have the numbers. The idea that progressives are Obama’s base is a conceit, pure and simple. And progressives not voting will not affect the 2012 election.

The 2010 election went down this way. Republicans treated it as a must-win election. Democrats treated it as a normal midterm. No protest votes affected the outcome. Were there protest votes against Tom Perriello? Alan Grayson? Russ Feingold? Larry Kissell, who won? Heath Shuler? Mike Ross?

Now, has Obama betrayed some larger base of ordinary Americans? That remains to be seen.

That doesn’t seem to be as much of a fundamental problem than the fact that Obama’s economic understanding is based on what is known to be failed premises. And that regardless of the personal desires of the guy, the system surrounding him is so corrupted by money that he bows in that direction. A contradiction that George W. Bush did not have.

It’s hell to feel powerless, isn’t it?

If you fixate on Obama and 2012, you will not take the steps that will strengthen progressive candidates (even third or fourth party candidates) in 2014. Congress in 2012 (which we have little chance of affecting the candidates who are challengers) and Congress in 2014 are the big opportunities to get progressive candidates elected. Or state legislatures (California presents some big opportunities).

kinda hard to imagine congressional candidates running away from the Big O in 2012.

but they should.

And another reason why a nation exporting it’s manufacturing overseas is a really bad fucking idea:

Confirming years of warnings from government and private security experts, a top Homeland Security official has acknowledged that computer hardware and software is already being imported to the United States preloaded with spyware and security-sabotaging components.

Fucking morans!

So my question to Obama, in what may be the last 2 years of his Presidency, is when are you going to grow up and realize that you can’t always turn the other cheek, that you can’t always give up your lunch money, and that standing your ground is what makes an adult from the child?

When his pants are around his ankles?

Chimpie is still with us

http://www.newstimes.com/news/article/Education-officia…

Education officials threaten to cut Montana funds

MATT VOLZ, Associated Press
Updated 06:20 p.m., Friday, July 8, 2011

HELENA, Mont. (AP) — Federal education officials are warning that Montana must get in line with its No Child Left Behind benchmarks by Aug. 15 or risk losing some of its funding.

Education Secretary Arne Duncan sent Montana education superintendent Denise Juneau a letter on July 1, followed by a formal notice, saying the state is out of compliance with its requirements for determining Montana schools’ adequate yearly progress for the 2010-11 school year.

The written notice says the state has until Aug. 15 to comply with the annual measurable objectives or the Education Department could withhold Montana’s Title I, Part A funds.

I look at it as a timesaver. Sometimes after I come home from a long day at work, I just don’t have the energy to install viruses and trojans on my PC, so I really appreciate it when someone else goes to the trouble to do it for me.

dem or puke
whats the dif?

One’s crazy and always fights everybody.

The other one is clueless, spineless, and believes in the tooth fairy.

*g*

I’m thinking more in terms of Dems refusing to vote for Social Security and/or Medicare cuts.

he apparently bludgeoned her,and put her in the tub,but claimed she drowned by accident

Casey would have loved if her 2 year old committed suicide,than the icky stuff ,and the smelly car would not have been necessary/

imo…both just venal,and puttin on a show

I not only have viruses, bugs, worms, and other mean nasty stuff – I also have a poltergeist.

The other day, I wasn’t even on-line or in the same room, and the computer started playing polka music.

Loud.

Yesterday, same thing, but this time it was country music.

I really don’t mind having a poltergeist, but jeez, I can’t figure out what I did to deserve one with such horrible taste in music.

707……snort

And I say that if you look at American history, we don’t do squat until we’ve had a distaster happen, and then, even, not so much.

The conservatives claim that it’s all the fault of interference, or government spending money, or whatever, but the fact is that the conservatives are making America into a land not to different from the former Yugoslavia, and we will have the same factional infighting after the collapse that the GOP is pushing as they had there. The conservatives still want to believe that America is composed of 50 independent countries, and that they should be able to do whatever they please.

I’ve lived through a lot of the ugliness of nearly 3 score years in America, as we tried to transform ourselves into a more open inclusive society, only to see in the last decade the massive backstep as those with power and money, or bigotry, try to divide us and make us all weak enough to easily control.

Naitivity is the last bastion of those who wear rose colored glasses or live by an ideology based on a denial of the facts.

we had the strongest financial reforms since 1940

That would probably be more impressive if there had been any efforts at imposing financial regulation since 1940.

the debt crisis is a fraud.

which means it’s not a matter of backing down and being weak. it’s a matter of having CREATED the circumstances that permit backing down.

:(

Could be obnoxious banner ads. I would like to personally take a baseball bat to whoever came up with the one with the redneck voice yelling “Hey! Over here!”

betrayed his base at almost every turn

Why does anyone continue to regurgitate such tripe?

Obama’s base is the Wall Street bankers and the other plutocrats who paid for his election, and he’s fought tirelessly for them with steely will and no quarter for his enemy (us).

That anyone reading this is, or ever was, “Obama’s base” is just inflated, wishful dreaming.

The sooner those who hoped they were “Obama’s base” realize they were just a convenient piece of ass he was able to use on the side as long as they were dumb and desperate enough to throw themselves at him, the sooner real change will be possible.

well said…we have amoral leaders

Eli: excellent stuff.

You get the Norman Mailer award for the week:

“No more bullshit.” :o)

Pray, continue.

Vigilance, I would point out that a hell of a lot of americans, myself included, contributed hard-earned money to help make Barack Obama president.

If you think that his presidency hasn’t been a betrayal of US, then give me your snail-mail, and I’ll send YOU five bucks toward a brain transplant.

I wasn’t on-line.

New hard drive goes in – tomorrow.

yes we were never Obies base

See my comment @81. I know full well who Obama’s constituency is, but I still consider a president’s “base” to always be the core voters of whatever party he (nominally) belongs to, regardless of whose interests he’s actually serving.

Probably could have been phrased better, but there it is.

unfortunately it was a case of unrequited love,been there

What you’ve written notwithstanding, still argues for a shitty outcome to somehow get a better outcome. That is still a black-and-white fallacious read of history.

Actual change of behavior instead of repetitious patterns is the desired outcome in my view.

I completely get it that people are pissed off, but setting fire to one’s own house still leaves one homeless through the intervening period of getting it built again.

Direct political action is far superior to wishing for calamity.

lets not forget the bait and switcheroo….he is guilty up to his eyeball

How many presidents were, in baseball parlance, “charged with the loss” for causing the death of a major political party”? Someday historians will sort out the wreckage and conclude that Obama mortally wounded the Democratic Party.

Everyone has been comparing Obama to Hoover, but I think that’s really unfair to Hoover. My brother’s a Hoover buff and sent me the info below:

Hoover was a pretty cool guy. Bit slow on relief, but he actually proposed a Social Security system. His party balked and later nominated him official fall guy, for everything. One of my favorite Hoover quotes: “The trouble with capitalism is capitalists; they’re too damn greedy.”

started what was later named the Hoover Dam project as a major stimulus project, and did it unapologetically with deficit spending. His problem was he didn’t realize that his fellow party members were “would be” economic aristocrats and not true believers like him. He was tagged with the blame- the Jack Ruby of the 1920′s laissez faire assassination of the global economy. Actually it wasn’t just a laissez faire disaster, It was worse than that. The economic destruction was hastened by Britain’s return to the gold standard- Thank you Winston Churchill worst Chancellor of the Exchequor in the history that nation. It was also hasten by Smoot Hawley protectionism- perhaps the single greatest accelerant to economic decline as it stopped all global trade to protect employment, resulting in a trade war and massive unemployment. Also the Fed opted for a “tight money” policy fearing the governments fiscal profligacy was going to result in run away inflation.

Hoover also gave us national standards in tooling and homogenized milk, and the early FDA. Hoover was positively left of the Tea Party and almost all of today’s neoconservatives. He was the hardest working and perhaps most successful Secretary of Commerce in the history of the United States. He was credited with saving millions of Europeans from starvation at the end of world war I, not exactly an isolationist like Michelle Bachman. Hoover was a scientist and a hell of a scholar. I look at today’s conservatives and wish we had a Herbert Hoover. He’s a fascinating figure and deserves more than the cartoon figure history draws for him.

He did a lot after his presidency as well. Some samples:

From Digital History: “Herbert Hoover was not an insensitive man. He was the first president since Theodore Roosevelt to invite African American dinner guests to the White House.
He said that the use of atomic bombs against Japan “revolts my soul.”
He played a key role in launching the United Nation’s Children’s Emergency Fund (UNICEF) and CARE.
Despite his staunch anti-communism stand, he opposed U.S. involvement in Korea and Vietnam.”

Feed the world, don’t blow it up. That’s a message I could get behind. Not to be critical Doug- Hoover’s a bit of a personal hero though. Thought you’d want to know.

yah…Obie is an Edsel

obama has done far worse than betray his base and reveal himself to be a Trojan Horse to progressives, undermining the progressive agenda to promote the plutocrat’s agenda.

And he did worse by abusing people’s need to embrace hope.

But his greatest sin and the most lasting damage of all is his single handed resurrection and return to relevance of what in 2008 after 8 years of the cretin bush was a thoroughly beaten, demoralized, and disgraced batshit insane republican party that could have been banished for a generation from wrecking their havoc and destruction.

obama’s legacy to progressives will be truly legion for how horrendous it will be.

Oops! Almost forgot to ask:

Since you were so prescient about what a “centrist” shit he would turn out to be, whom did you support for president?

And, with the blanket scorn that you directed at Eli and the rest of us, I think we deserve an answer. :o)

Either that or unmasked it as “the Slightly Less Crazy Republican Party”.

yup he fed Europe too

“Unrequited love…”

It was, sadly’, but when I hear someone ranting about how they knew aaall along that Obama was going to stab us in the back, I feel compelled to ask whom they liked, and, if THEY supported anyone, or voted at all.

You and millions others. I agree with you 100%.

He’s a lying sack of shit! I really despise this guy, even more then BV$H. Atleast with BV$H you got no Phony Bullshit. BV$H was loved and still is loved by the wing nuttery out here, because he wasn’t a phony. He delivered almost their entire agenda. Even BV$H knew there were limits though and when he tried to go after SSI and the rest he stopped fast when he saw it would go nowhere. Obama is a traitor to his own party and especially his base. He’s the friggin Manchurian candidate from HELL. If he cuts SSI , Medicare and Medicad he has to be primaried by us or were just a bunch of whiners. If somebody doesn’t step up its the end of the Left in this country. The line is drawn now. if Obama steps over it and the D caucus follows including the so called Progressive wing, adios to the D’s. Time to abandon ship.

the first count had….. what..?…. 3 / lesser includeds. the defense around here was getting trashed in the local media by local “expert” lawyers. reagardless of the outcome, i thought it was just bad form to do that. but given the outcome, it was jsut stupid. i said from the beginning that the defense was doing ok and probably about as welll as could be expected. just my opinion. but i was one of the few who held it. the “experts” locally and nationally said so much dumb shit–and still are. You know it’s bad when Geraldo rivera has the best coverage.

oh puleeeeeeaszzzzzz,i bought tshirts ,phone banked i was a fool for love of the guy

Pleuge has put his finger on the worst of it. Now the right can say…make that SHREIK! That we’ve tried the “liberal” solution and look what it got us.

And the notion that he’s a raging socialist, is just arrant horseshit, of course, but he’s never uttered a word in defense of himself on that point, that I know of.

If only he WERE more socialist, we might have salvaged something from the bloody-handed lunacy of bush and the republicans. Instead, we’re in worses shape than we were when Obama came in.

And what an opportunity he has utterly squandered.

By the time the primary came to PA, it was pretty much Obama vs. Hillary. The only semi-viable, semi-progressive option was Edwards, and that wouldn’t have turned out so well (such a shame he was a scumbag, I really liked his “Two Americas” narrative).

So was I, Sadly’, but you didn’t rip Eli and everyone else who believed in him. Vigilance did.

I’m waiting for an answer as to where his laser political perceptions led HIM for the 2008 election.

Been called lots of stuff in my day. Never been called a piece of ass before.

somebody remarked the other night,when was the last time he called himself a democrat…he hates democrats…they must suck at golf/????

Look, at some point enough is enough. The screw-job intended for Social Security and Medicare is the last straw for me. I caanot and will not vote for someone who does such a thing.

Ever wonder why Grover Norquist, the NRA, AIPAC and others don’t have to worry about politicians crossing them? Money is one factor, but the most important factor is that they simply will not tolerate it. Anyone who votes to (respectively) increase taxes, restrict firearms or so much as whisper criticism of Israel gets hammered.

Too many liberals are masochists who enjoy being betrayed and humiliated. If they didn’t, why do they stand for it?

Hardly ever post here, but always read. The confines of dkos are getting me down so here goes. I’m tired of the same old grind of proving my loyalty to either pol or party once they are revealed as toxic and undemocratic..

Obama is not a Democrat. Everybody including himself says he’s not ideological but this is pure bs. he is a free market fundie and a frontman for the Democratic version of the PNAC or The Heritage Foundation. Tjis is nothing but ideological it’s free market world domination carried to the max. The Democratic Party should declare him a non Democrat and he should run as a third party candidate as he is one. He should run under the name The Third Party, which has no ideology other then unfettered crisis capitalism and neocon global supremacy. He’s as I said not a Democrat.

As for his intentions and loyalties who cares he certainly isn’t a Democrat nor does he care about the common good or our laws and basic principles so really fuck him. I guess I’m just a troll but seriously what good is this for any one other then the obscenely rich and those that seek to to rule the world. The ones who always call themselves inevitable and preach the gospel of a New World Order.

I didn’t exactly believe in him. I think EV’s problem hinges on a disagreement over what I meant by Obama’s “base”.

i was hoping he was 1/2 as good…he is vile,and i really feel sorry for AAs cause,all of them he threw under the bus

Agreed, Eli. Edwards was my first choice. I went down to Georgetown, S.C., and heard him speak in a labor hall. Practically the first thing out of his mouth was that he would begin closing the prison at Gitmo the first week he was in office. You should have heard the applause…in red state South Carolina.

He pointed out that he wanted to get the health insurance robber barons completely out of the health care system, while Hillary wanted to keep them in it. More loud applause. (Down here, Hillary was not a shoo-in with democrats, by a long sight…)

And then the roof fell in on him, of his own making.

It’s said that one’s character is formed early in one’s childhood.

In the case of Obama, I’m guessing he never made it to school with his lunch money intact. He always gave it up!

While I think you’re very much on the right track about the importance of understanding Obama’s childhood, I think you’re 180 out about what he learned.

Obama’s big lesson from his childhood was to conceal the truth of who he is.

This is a result of his having to forever pretend black power activist and pornographer Frank Marshall Davis wasn’t really his father. (That his real father was the much older and socially threatening Davis, and not the innocuous and non-threatening Kenyan student Barack Obama Sr. chosen by the family to give cover to Obama’s underage white mother, is the real secret of Obama’s birth certificate.)

In a very beautiful way, Obama’s birth certificate sums up all of what we see him become later as President – superficially innocuous and acceptable, but underneath a very, very different person.

So you’re totally right about Obama’s childhood defining his character. But the definition was to learn to appear one way to those he needed to use, while protecting the powerful forces who truly spawned, and define, him.

I guess I’m just a troll

You’re not much of a troll if you’re agreeing with me…

By the time the primary came to FL…um…. it didn’t count. What a bunch of dumb fucks the dems are in this state. I miss NJ where they call the Repub governor a “punk” and a “rotten bastard” who they “want to punch in the head.” Hey, at least they haven’t called him a fat load. In FL, our Repb gov is the most unpopular in the country and i haven’t really heard from the Dems. Either of them.

I’d personally prefer a real Retardican to this fraud. What health care reform SIR? WTF? He handed us all over to the Health care monopolies on a silver fucking platter and he didn’t have to! What financial reforms are you talking about? The ones he passed are so full of holes its not even a joke. 3 wars I don’t see him ending BS. Gays in the military big deal and he had to be dragged there kicking and screaming. This guy is a lying conniving sack of shit. He’s done nothing more then line his own friggin pockets the last three yrs. I’d like to see him Impeached now, before he hands over the crown jewels of the new Deal and the War on Poverty over to Eric Cantor and company. He’s a disgrace. He’s had 3 yrs. to do something positive and all he does is complain about the hand he was given. He knew coming in what it was, if he wasn’t up for the job he should have let Hillary do it. She has more balls then he has ever had. Fuck you and fuck the rest of the idiots that follow and believe in this guy. THE WORST PRESIDENT EVER. WORSE THEN BV$H 2 by far. At least BV$H didn’t bait and switch his base like this lying sack of shit. Go away man your not welcome here anymore. Hang with the rest of the Obambots over at KOS. RETARD , TROLL go away!

I truly thinks he ranks right upfront as perhaps the worst…..after all,he had the advantage of seeing what Bush’s polices did,I guess he paid no attention cuz he continued most of those disastrous policies.

The NJ Democrats aren’t exactly a prize either. At least not the Sweeney/Norcross assholes who helped Christie screw over the public employee unions.

not to mention a thief of grandest proportions of american taxpayer $$$$$$$$$

“He hates democrats”…

Well, he’s sure led us right back into the political shitter, hasn’t he?

And the repubs made the mid-terms all about him, when his name wasn’t even on the ballot. Think how easy it will be for them to do it, when he’s right there in the voters’ faces, on the touch-screen.

I have this on-going argument with my liberal friend; the ones who can’t sever the emotional umbilical cord between themselves and Mr. Centrist.
I ask them: now that he’s lost the house, and with the repubs within a half-dozen conservative democratic votes of monkey-wrenching anything that he sends to the Senate, in their willingness to tank the economy, and with his erstwhile most loyal supporters beginning to hate him, how on earth is he going to put together any kind of political coalition to win another term?

I think we can’t afford to have him run again. I only hope that the dems in congress have enough self-interest to send their version of the Goldwater Firing Squad that told Nixon how the hog ate the cabbage, after Watergate, over to the White House to tell Obama that he opt for a cushy job in some think-tank, or he can preside over the reduction of the democratic party to a comic-opera rump political party…kind of like the Whigs.

Seconded. I was giving this guy every second and third chance — and more and telling myself that I was kidding myself when I would say I wasn’t going to vote for him. ’cause no matter what I say now, on election day 2012, when i get my ballot, i’m voting for him. Now? Honest to Christ, each of you is a witness, I am not voting for that prick. I’m not going to have any trouble keeping that promise–it’s only gonna get worse. and then he’s gonna totally piss me off when he starts campaigning and treats me like I’m a fucking ignoramus with his bullshit. “We strengthened social security.” And then npeople are going to lean on me “Your just throwing away your vote.” “You might as well vote for Romney/Palin/Bachman (that was hard to type). And, being a stereotypical stubborn Polack, when they start doing that, I’ll only get more resolve to tell Obama to piss off come election day.

I think that’s 5 cent psychology.

You got a link to that “real father” theory?

And again, who were you supporting in 2008?

That’s true. Can’t believe that happened. WTF???

that is what im hoping…i really dont think he likes the job….the trips AF1 and the golf,but not the job of being an involved statesman
FDR LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOVED the job,said so all the time

Worst democratic president, ever.

if he cuts entitlements he has no soul
and the frikkin Drones
skip it…he has NO soul

they just take the union people for granted because the republicans are frightening. same as obama does to union people and people like us here.

nite,nite all…sleepy

Barack Obama is a Neo Benedict Arnold. Squared.

Vigilance, I would point out that a hell of a lot of americans, myself included, contributed hard-earned money to help make Barack Obama president.

If you think that his presidency hasn’t been a betrayal of US, then give me your snail-mail, and I’ll send YOU five bucks toward a brain transplant.

Yes, millions of Americans were gullible and self-deluded enough to fall for Obama’s sales pitch. That they were not only willing but fawningly eager to do so is an important assessment of national character (since until it’s accepted as one’s nature the same error will be repeated over and over again), but has nothing to do with whether Obama “betrayed” anyone.

Obama stated – clearly – that he would do exactly what he’s doing now, and there were many at the time who tried to get people to listen. Obama’s supporters not only didn’t hear, they actively denied the truth, and believed only their own misplaced hopes.

Obama didn’t “betray” anyone. The moistened schoolgirls who refused to heed the repeated warnings they were being used by a player betrayed themselves.

And as long as they keep looking for someone else to blame, rather than taking responsibility for their own desire to participate, nothing will change.

More simply: a synonym for “betrayal” is “awakening.”

It’s time to wake up – about ourselves.

Don’t forget what I discovered that over ninety percent of all national deficits from 1921 to 1939 were caused by payments for past, present, and future wars.
Franklin D. Roosevelt

Bullkacky!!!

The moistened schoolgirls who refused to heed the repeated warnings they were being used by a player betrayed themselves.

“Moistened Schoolgirls” ?

Between that epithet and your science denying, that you get any further responses on this blog aside from well deserved mockery and derision, you should count yourself fortunate.

Well, speaking as one of the moistened schoolgirls (but of the male gender…) can YOU wake up long enough to tell us all to which candidate your crystalline perceptions led you, in 2008?

Or did they all not make the cut for your un-moistened self?

and while I’m at, how about sharing your view of what we should do, now that your unerring sense of Obama has been borne out?

Between 1980 and 2011 only Clinton actually enforced what few financial and trade laws we have – indeed Greenspans’ no regulations ever approach dominated the era because the Federal Reserve actually is the only regulator of the Investment Banks – the folks whose derivative and housing activity – on its own – caused the collapse of 2007. Clinton enforced IRS Code 482 – the area that allows overseas worker value added to be untaxed (deferred tax) – if real value added – and actually caused jobs to stay in America.

Enforcement is indeed more important than laws on the books – which is why Warren not being appointed to regulate finance says a lot about Obama.

Been called lots of stuff in my day. Never been called a piece of ass before.

Hey, take compliments where you can get ‘em. ;-)

But seriously, the collective behavior of the Obama supporters was exactly that of a desperate woman who refuses to believe the guy her friends are warning her about is really just using her.

While the player may or may not ever change, the entire outcome could have been avoided had the desperate woman not demanded she be allowed to believe the guy she’s spreading for will leave his wife for her. There was a overwhelming desire on the part of Obama’s supporters to be seduced.

The blaming of Obama for being exactly who he has always been is a convenient way of avoiding personal responsibility for our own participation, and deepest of all our demand things be exactly as they are.

“Obama stated clearly that he would do exactly what he’s doing now.”

This is arrant bullshit.

In 2002, as Hillary and most of the dems and nearly all of the repubs were handing bush a blank check for invading Iraq, Barack Obama gave a courageous and perceptive speech on why he opposed the invasion. It was all the more impressive because at that point most americans were swilling the bushCo agit-prop koolaid like it was their mother’s milk.

Also, during the campaign, he promised to protect our coasts.

He promised to walk the picket line with job-threatened union workers.

He spoke, repeatedly, about the need for a substantive reform of our healthcare system, and he was specific about getting a public option, to that end.

You are ignoring all of this, and too much more to list here. And that means you’re either ignorant or a liar, or both.

Who. Did. You. Support. In. 2008?

Between 1980 and 2011 only Clinton actually enforced what few financial and trade laws we have

huh?

repeal of glass-steagall
cmfa 2000 with the enron loophole and deregulation of cds (financial otc derivatives)
wto fsa (international financial deregulation)

My time before last phone bank was nationwide – it was the liberal base doing the calling from the east coast.

Door to door is more important, but I suspect the 2012 phone bill will be way down as the base walks away from Obama.

Indeed current money begging is from east coast phones.

If focus group money can not get a message that brings in small states, shame on the consultants he hires.

But in any case, key states for 2012 include Florida – and the base will make that red if this keeps up.

Between that epithet and your science denying, that you get any further responses on this blog aside from well deserved mockery and derision, you should count yourself fortunate.

If I were to get no further responses such as yours I would indeed consider myself fortunate.

Yours is exactly the response years ago to those who dared question the “Obama, our savior” dogma.

Thanks for illustrating for those who can see the kind of blindness that got you exactly where you are – and will keep you right here until you’re willing to change.

If Obama cuts Social Security, I don’t think messaging is going to be the problem…

in no way defending EV, but look at obama’s actions — not words — before nov 2008:

- engineered fisa capitulation, after promising to filibuster telco immunity
- took economic advice from larry summers
- picked joe biden for vp
- twisted arms for bankster bailout

The biggest mistake made by most was actually believing Obama meant what he said.

What? Obama is still out on gay community and marriage, except when he goes to a gay fundraiser in NY and collects $600,000. He speaks with both sides of his mouth, equivocates on everything and has no core positions on anything.

He was media hyped and through convincing speechifying became a media darling. Amazing that with no experience and a not so terrific back story
he was sold as a saviour. Obama was voted for largely from white collective guilt. This was America’s chance to make amends for it’s shameful history of discrimination and allowed themselves to believe this newbie was the Messiah.

His inexperience is painful to watch. His conceit and arrogance have allowed him to kiss off his base as fast as he could. He’s betrayed his base arrogantly and with open contempt for their values. He’s a pussy with the GOP and they surely know it and are playing him. Obama has neither the will or the talent to negotiate and fight back.

If the Democrats had any spine or direction, they’d run a primary. Obama should be cashiered out of the Party, but the Democratic leadership is so bad that it continues to tolerate betrayal, defeat, and the core values they claimed as their right. Timid and indecisive among GOP sharks who know how to fight for what they believe in.

The Democratic Leadership has blown it bigtime by tolerating an incompetent and arrogant newbie who has accomplished nothing and has given away the store. Obama is the worst negotiator imaginable and he continues to wade into GOP territory at his peril. And ours.

I think that’s 5 cent psychology.

Given that “5 cent psychology” predicted long before the election everything that’s happening now, while whatever you’re doing has created exactly what everyone’s crying about – you ought to start saving your nickels.

It was, sadly’, but when I hear someone ranting about how they knew aaall along that Obama was going to stab us in the back, I feel compelled to ask whom they liked, and, if THEY supported anyone, or voted at all.

I’ve voted democratic all my life, until 2008.

There were plenty of indications as to what Obama really was, even long before he took office, and after the FISA betrayal, there was no way I could vote for Obama.

And to answer your question: I supported Kucinich in the primaries, and the Green candidate in the main election.

Given his landslide election and undeniable mandate, never has someone done so little, with so much, for so many, so quickly.

The once in a century moment was deliberately pissed away for no discernible reason.

I, in fact, warned about Obama, from the North Carolina Rally with Donny McClurkin and from there out the Hamilton Project.

You have no idea who you are talking to, and what many have done prior and then during this Administration.

Your easy willingness to malign women by that vile epithet, and your insistence that Science is some sort of opinion or belief centered operation rather than the fact based processes that it is ensures your absolute irrelevance no matter what opinion I hold.

Well, I was more trying to say that Obama *has* occasionally paid lip service to progressive values, not that he lives up to them.

He’s improved on gay issues from his administration’s open hostility for the first couple years, but he still has a way to go before he’s anything remotely resembling a fierce advocate.

Who did you support in 2008?

If you keep ducking this, then I don’t think that anyone on here is going to give you a micron of credibility…and they shouldn’t.

Of course, the nonsense you wrote:

about Obama telling us that he was going to sustain Bush’s wars and send another 30,000 troops into Afghanistan…

And that he told us he was going increase the offshore oil drilling…

And that he was going to put Social Security on the table for cutting…

And that he was going to work for a healthcare reform with no public option and that he would oppose any effort to re-import generic foreign drubs…

And that he was going to keep the Gitmo prison open…

That he would keep Geithner and Bernanke on as resident financial wizards, when they were, at least partially, part of the economic collapse…

I don’t recall Obama ever saying any of the these things.

And, I’m sorry, and I hope the mods will forgive me, but, with all due respect (which aint much…)

you’re as full of shit as a Christmas turkey.

in no way defending EV, but look at obama’s actions — not words — before nov 2008

Ding ding ding. Exactly.

It was simple and obvious. A person had to actively try to avoid the truth in order to not see it.

p.s. It’s ok about the “in no way defending” thing – I don’t need defending. ;-)

” turned a budget surplus into massive deficits”

eli – i strongly disagree on this one. please read randy wray’s post:

http://my.firedoglake.com/lrwray/2011/07/06/a-progressive-approach-to-federal-budgeting-or-can-one-take-billionaire-pete-peterson’s-money-and-remain-progressive/#comment-70

if you don’t want to read the whole thing, just start at the paragraph beginning with, “On to the third question: what would a progressive approach to federal budgeting look like?…”

“glass-steagall brought back? enron loophole closed? financial OTC derivatives regulated out of existence” –

the financial reform we got was a gift from Barney Franks who went far beyond what Obama wanted – and wanted to go farther but the new Democrats on his Committee voted his ideas down as they were more conservative than the Democrats with more seniority.

The GOP blocked derivative control and the closing of the ENRON loophole in the 99/2000 debate on the Commodities law, but ENRON was closed in 2008 (Senator D. Feinstein, CA, Bill) and derivatives under the Barney Frank law could, if enforced, be under much better control (out if existence will not happen because business needs real derivatives on crops and interest rates and minerals). Glass Steagall was replaced by a weak “Volker Rule” but in any case G-S never had anything to do with investment banks and therefor could not have affected much even if it had not been modified to allow City and Travelers to merge (and Rubin to get his $120 million “director” fees).

True

The GOP blocked derivative control and the closing of the ENRON loophole in the 99/2000 debate on the Commodities law

linky please.

here’s mine: http://www.netrootsmass.net/selise/financial-regulation-timeline/

but ENRON was closed in 2008 (Senator D. Feinstein, CA, Bill)

bill number please.

G-S never had anything to do with investment banks and therefor could not have affected much even if it had not been modified to allow City and Travelers to merge

too big to fail

Obama has done something Bush did not do

Obama is hated by the LEFT and RIGHT

History may just call HIM the worst USA president EVER

Enough is enough. Exactly right. If the rumors turn out to be the passed legislation. I don’t disagree; as a Social Security recipient with Medicare, I have a dog in this fight.

But the assumption that liberals=Democrats or progressives=the base are flawed. It’s not that liberals who are masochists (although some are, in a lot of senses of that word). It is the case that outside of about 100 of the 3000 counties in the US, liberals don’t dominate the voting population enough to punish Democrats like Norquist conservatives punish Republicans. And it took thirty years for the conservatives to build that kind of control over the Republican Party. Until 2003 or so, progressives were hunkered down, thinking they were crazy and alone. (Except for folks in progressive nirvanas.) My county in NC voted for Obama, but there are not enough progressives here to separate the Democratic city and county governments from their corporatism, whether the politician is black or white or whatever.

Until there is geographical spread of liberal voting majorities, we are just shaking our fists at the sky. And our threats to punish, even for those who aren’t masochists, are just idle. And the Democratic politicians know it. That’s why it’s so damn easy to gratuitously punch hippies.

You cannot write off Mississippi, Alabama, Oklahoma, Georgia, South Carolina, Texas, Florida, Virginia, Tennessee, Kentucky, Arkansas, Missouri, Kansas, Nebraska, South Dakota, North Dakota, Wyoming, Utah, and Arizona and expect to win Congress in the numbers necessary to push a liberal/progressive agenda.

Some days, I wish that elite students had he guts to repeat the Freedom Summer voter registration drives. There was a nascent progressive movement in the South that flowed out of that effort; that movement was shut down by the election first of folks like Jesse Helms and second by Ronald Reagan. But that’s not likely to happen for another generation; elite students were given the message in the 1970s that such “youthful indiscretions” can destroy careers. Career and job fear. Fear of rightwing neighbors. Isolation in a sea of evangelicals. What liberal or progressive wants to live in those surroundings. By choosing their geography, liberals and progressives have chosen to marginalize themselves.

President Kucinich could not change this.

Yep, I’m puzzled what financial and trade laws Clinton enforced that reduced the flow of jobs being outsourced.

repeal of glass-steagall – NOT IMPORTANT TO MELTDOWN – SEE KRUGMAN

cmfa 2000 with the enron loophole and deregulation of cds (financial otc derivatives)- BLOCKED BY THE GOP in 2000 – BUT WITH NO VETO THREAT BY CLINTON SO PARTLY TRUE

wto fsa (international financial deregulation) – WTO JUST CONTINUED 1948′s General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) – but it was time to end the tariff only with give ups to get military bases approach and go for a fair trade approach. But Paul Samuelson of MIT’s paper on why free trade can kill jobs was not out back then (it came out in 2005) – so we were still into free trade brings new jobs to everyone thinking back then (Adam Smith, and later David Ricardo -1817).

This is arrant bullshit.

In 2002, as Hillary and most of the dems and nearly all of the repubs were handing bush a blank check for invading Iraq, Barack Obama gave a courageous and perceptive speech on why he opposed the invasion. It was all the more impressive because at that point most americans were swilling the bushCo agit-prop koolaid like it was their mother’s milk.

Also, during the campaign, he promised to protect our coasts.

He promised to walk the picket line with job-threatened union workers.

He spoke, repeatedly, about the need for a substantive reform of our healthcare system, and he was specific about getting a public option, to that end.

There were plenty of promises that Obama broke once he got elected, that is true.

But there were a number things he started to go back on even before the election:

the FISA thing I’ve already mentioned.

Then there was his change of tune on NAFTA once he got the nomination.

Then there was stuff like this:

http://www.factcheck.org/elections-2008/print_obamas_lame_claim_about_mccains_money.html

Obama announced he would become the first presidential candidate since 1972 to rely totally on private donations for his general election campaign, opting out of the system of public financing and spending limits that was put in place after the Watergate scandal.

And the thing that first brought the big Zero to my attention as somebody to avoid way back April 2007 was this:

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2007/04/01/318352/-Obama-caves-to-Bush

If President Bush vetoes an Iraq war spending bill as promised, Congress quickly will provide the money without the withdrawal timeline the White House objects to because no lawmaker “wants to play chicken with our troops,” Sen. Barack Obama said Sunday.

What a ridiculous thing to say. Not only is it bad policy, not only is it bad politics, it’s also a terrible negotiating approach.

Instead of threatening Bush with even more restrictions and daring him to veto funding for the troops out of pique, Barack just surrendered to him.

Let me repeat that — Obama just surrendered to Bush.

This was classic Obama right there back in 2007, for everybody to see. There was the caving without a fight, and the use of republican talking points about anti-war people “playing chicken with our troops.”

All those things were there to see well before the general election, and by that time, I knew I couldn’t support that bastard.

whaaaa…..where the hell did that come from?

Proof please?

i don’t think “outsourcing” was the real problem. rather, it’s that we haven’t been making the public investments to create better jobs here.

i know of no reason we can’t have full employment here (with resorting to trade war type actions)… if only we had a fed govt. willing to prioritize it.

Who did you support in 2008?

Christ, is this the extent of your abilities?

While I recognize the childish tantrum you be paid attention to, you could at least be enough of an adult to notice that you’re not the only one here and I’m busy responding to other people.

You could easily have chosen to either search my post history here, or even used…this will be a revelation, I know…Google to look it up, rather than just crapping all over the thread.

While your requirement that I produce some kind of track record before you can examine the issue at hand (and more specifically, your own responsibility for your “betrayal”) reveals precisely the kind of logically faulty desire for authority that is so much of what blinded people about Obama, and in so asking indicates it’s still just as active and just as blinding now, I’ll answer you anyway.

In 2008, I wasn’t supporting *any* of the major candidates.

For much longer than the past decade I’ve been working to show people the current system of electoral politics in America is rigged.

And so your foot-stamping whine of “Who. Did. You. Support. In. 2008?” is just like demanding I tell you what card I would have picked in a game of 3-card monte.

I know the game is rigged – and so it’s foolish to play.

It’s time for us to create a new game.

You’re ducking the question.

Where is the proof for your “father” theory?

Obama destroyed HOPE…

Which is one of the most important life sustaining qualities we have in us.

That makes him the worst.

I didn’t believe him and and am a staunch Democrat. I did my homework in the Chicago newspapers, etc. and Googled his dealings with his backer and mentor Tony Rezko who has been in jail for several years for corruption. Obama’s sweetheart deal in buying his mansion was backed by Rezko with hanky panky. When the Chicago Sun Times did an investigative series on him his answer to the the Rezko deal? “It was boneheaded of me”. Rezko and Obama were tight politically and personally inspite of Rezko’s misuse of Federal grants to rehab Chicago slums which he did nothing about except collect the money. Nothing like having a pal in the State legislature.

Americans were exhausted by Bush and anxious to believe. So a naive electorate got snookered by Axelrod’s political machine that pilloried Hillary and marched American Idol to victory. The Media did nothing except praise Obama inspite of many facts that contradicted the saviour sell he was pushing. Who cared? He gave great speech, looked good, and we could stop feeling shitty about what we’ve done to African Americans throughout our history.

So we were betrayed twice. By Obama and then the Democratic party who wished for a new shine to their weak and tarnished image. Oh yes Obama promised powerful change and reform. He’s been over promoted,oversold, and underperformed. This is a disaster for the Democrats as they have not shown leadership in demanding that Obama stand for our core values
and negotiate hard, hard, and harder for them.

Worse yet the Democratic Leadership either didn’t do their fact checking, or were politically negligent in pushing this hard sell BS by overlooking Obama’s total unpreparedness and temperamental unfitness for the presidency. Actually no one realy knows what Obama really believes or if he believes… other than personal opportunism on the back of the Democrats who rode him to power. And after achieving immense good will and real power managed to squander it totally.

repeal of glass-steagall – NOT IMPORTANT TO MELTDOWN – SEE KRUGMAN

which post / oped / paper should i read? if you will give me a link, i read the argument and re-evaluate the evidence.

cmfa 2000 with the enron loophole and deregulation of cds (financial otc derivatives)- BLOCKED BY THE GOP in 2000 – BUT WITH NO VETO THREAT BY CLINTON SO PARTLY TRUE

when was it blocked? which vote? house, senate or committee?

not only was there no veto threat, the clinton financial team had been pushing for years to prevent deregulation of cds. which, btw, you can see from my link — including primary source doc citations (and frequently quotations).

wto fsa (international financial deregulation) – WTO JUST CONTINUED 1948′s General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) – but it was time to end the tariff only with give ups to get military bases approach and go for a fair trade approach. But Paul Samuelson of MIT’s paper on why free trade can kill jobs was not out back then (it came out in 2005) – so we were still into free trade brings new jobs to everyone thinking back then (Adam Smith, and later David Ricardo -1817).

i listed the wto fsa (fsa = financial services agreement) because it has been a major tool for implementing and enforcing global financial deregulation. has nothing to do with so-called free trade.

….

seriously, please, some links. i’ll read them. assertions, even when capitalized are not evidence.

whaaaa…..where the hell did that come from?

Proof please?

A very reasonable request, though I’ll suggest that in matters of the truth about political actors “proof” is almost impossible to obtain, about anything. By the time a politician reaches a certain level of power anything that contradicts the product image they want to sell has been scrubbed.

One can see this as an evolutionary process of removing those from the political gene pool who have susceptibility to certain kinds of attack.

As far as being more specific about the argument that it’s Frank Marshall Davis who was Obama’s real father, I’ve commented about it at FDL, so you should be able to find more by going back through my comment history.

You needn’t believe it if you don’t wish, of course. But the theory (which could only be “proved” by Obama coming out and admitting it) has some important predictive abilities. And it has the scientifically satisfying appeal of unifying and explaining a lot of what otherwise didn’t make sense.

It’s like the end of a good thriller mystery. It explains everything. It’s…pretty.

So, go look for what I’ve written if you want more, and if you either have trouble finding it or want even more detail, just send me a message.

I don’t know if Obama is the worst ever but he is in a 5 way tie with Herbert Hoover, James Buchanan, Andrew Johnson, and George W. Bush. Obama is the only one with the benefit of historical knowledge to solve the country’s problems but by pure cowardice and lack of character chooses to adopt the policies of his opponents.

excellent point. . imo, EV needs to provide some links to source evidence.

whatever has happened to the “ethic of the link?”

MadDog wrote:
“I can understand how a man of color making this journey could make a decision not to embrace the “angry Black man” role and instead choose to make accomodation, compromise, and comity his method of politics.”

Key insight IMO. Can you imagine the reaction if he had gotten overly aggressive with /anything/? Maybe…, he just has one style of management and thinks running a country is not all that different than producing the Harvard Law Review.

He knows that his hippie punching days are number.Like his teacher Traitor Joe Lieberman ,he just getting a couple kicks in on his way out the door of the white House. I wounder how Edith Childs who now qualify for early retirement feels. The woman who developed the phrase, “fire Up and Ready to Go”. Now that Obama wants to cut Social Security I bet she fire up in ways he can’t even imagine .

I’m not sure folks realize how bad it is to tell the American people that the federal government is just like a family. To me, it is every bit as wrong as telling them Blacks are inferior to whites.

There is absolutely no truth to it. And it is destructive of everything progressives want for the country.

Re: Federal Government is just like a family. . . .

Well, I plan on going to DC and asking “dad” for my allowance, plus more than 40 years of back pay. ;-)

The conservatives still want to believe that America is composed of 50 independent countries, and that they should be able to do whatever they please.

That is only if “whatever they please” is in the interest of the big corporations. . . other than that, they have no problem with federal government interfering with state government.

http://www.lifenews.com/2004/11/09/bio-554/

The Bush administration on Tuesday appealed a federal appellate court’s decision preventing it from restricting the use of federally controlled drugs in assisted suicides in Oregon.

Attorney General Ashcroft, expected to leave the Justice Department in the next couple of months, ruled that the drugs used in assisted suicides in Oregon violate the Controlled Substances Act because killing a patient does not constitution a “legitimate medical purpose.”

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/9611497/

In 2002, U.S. District Judge Robert Jones, in ruling against the attempt by the Bush administration to block the law, said, “Oregon voters decided not once, but twice to support the law and have chosen to resolve the moral, legal and ethical debate on physician-assisted suicide for themselves.”

But Bush and his administration will not give up. Then Attorney General John Ashcroft pressed the case on appeal and it has now wound up in front of the Supreme Court. The president’s conservative base is so strongly opposed to any form of assisted suicide that it has sought all possible means to overturn the Oregon law.

Good to see you in full engage mode, my friend . . .

*G*

I just click on their names, click profile, and flag their asses anymore when they won’t shut up or go away after being soundly beaten about the testicles for comment after comment.

Just not worth it to engage them anymore . . . ;-)

I was focusing on trade policy. On government investments to support jobs here, you are correct.

There was a lot of market fundamentalism derangement syndrome going on in the 1990s. The idea of pseudo-market mechanisms like cap-and-trade and carbon taxes, which depend on government will to be effective is one example. The pricing of the effects of regulation is another, ignoring the fact that good regulation fall equally on all competitors complying with the regulation.

Unfortunately, the path to the presidency does not lead through any practical economic understanding. And that can effect the choice of advisers, which…vicious cycle. Clinton was enamored of business and Wall Street. Obama’s understanding comes from half-baked Chicago School.

You are way too hard on Hoover. He proposed Social Security in the first place. At least he wanted to investigate the New York Stock Exchange. He doubled the estate tax and raised the corporate rate by 15%.

He was a much better President than Obama.

Where you been? I’ve been discussing it since about September, the New Progressive Alliance has been organizing for it, time for discussion is past. Time to make it happen.

Unfortunately, the path to the presidency does not lead through any practical economic understanding

imo, you are so very right.

I guess I should not have been surprised by Obama. His Senate mentor was Joe Lieberman.

When does NPA expect to have some traction and a candidate? And supporters in the millions?

I scrolled through approximately seven months’ worth of comments, and found one where you made the same assertion, without supporting evidence.

Please provide a link to actual evidence, or I will be forced to conclude you are just spouting birther bullshit.

I agree with Greenwald, he is not caving, he is a Republican. Read his writings. He hates boomers and is really sticking it to them now. President Narcissus managed to peddle his flim-flam to the naive, unwise, and those unwilling to look beyond platitudes. He is just lining his pockets now and would probably be just fine with not being reelected in 2012 because this job is too much work. I shake my head thinking of what might have been if Hillary had been elected with a democratic congress in place.

Don’t know why there’s any question as to who should be the 2012 Republican presidential candidate. Obama should run for the GOP and the Democrats should find a REAL Democrat to oppose him!

Hope so, then we might actually get a dose of reality!

Grow the eff up.

deleted as redundant

Re Krugman on G-S

First he sort of agrees G-S had impact
http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/01/22/glass-steagall-vs-the-volcker-rule/#more-47965
Then gets critics
http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2008/09/clear-as-glass-steagall/4145/
and then agrees with critics – the last I will let you find – I need some sleep.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commodity_Futures_Modernization_Act_of_2000

in 2008 the “Close the Enron Loophole Act” was enacted into law to regulate more extensively “energy trading facilities.

http://www.oreilly-sucks.com/News/clinton.htm

he Clinton Administration and the Democrats Tried to Prevent the Enron Disaster from Happening

1) Stopping Auditor-Consulting Conflicts by Accountants

In 2000, Clinton Securities and Exchange Commission Chair Arthur Levitt, Jr. proposed regulations to prohibit accounting firms from simultaneously serving as consultants and auditors. Arthur Andersen and other accounting firms mounted a massive lobbying campaign against the Clinton-Levitt regulations, killing them. The lead lobbyist for the accounting firms was Harvey Pitt. After being sworn in as President, George W. Bush named Pitt chair of the Securities and Exchange Commission.

2) Greater Disclosure of Energy Derivatives

In 1997, Bill Clintons Commodities Futures Trading Commission Chair Brooksley Born proposed greater regulation (by way of more stringent disclosure) of energy derivatives, the key financial instrument in Enron’s Ponzi-scheme empire. Her proposal was beaten back by House Republicans, including then-House Banking Committee Chair Jim Leach (R-IA) who scolded her for two hours at a hearing.

3) Oversight of Energy Traders

In 2000, William Rainier, Born’s successor as chairman of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, told Congress that he was “deeply concerned” about a bill to exempt energy trading from CFTC review, noting that those who trade energy derivatives were not subject to any other oversight. Rainer’s objections were largely ignored by the Republican-controlled Congress, and the exemption, heavily backed by Enron, became law.

4) Cracking Down on Tax Havens

In 2000, Clinton Treasury Secretary Larry Summers proposed a crackdown on tax havens such as those used by Enron. With the US co-chairing the OECD’s Forum on Harmful Tax Practices, Summers crusaded for a crackdown on money-laundering and tax havens. His proposal was opposed by the GOP Congress. When the Bush Administration took office, Treasury Secretary Paul O’Neill abandoned Summers’ crusade, telling the Wall Street Journal, “The government has not been respectful of the cost it imposes on society.” The New York Times reported that Bush’s top economic adviser, Lawrence Lindsey (a former economic adviser to Enron) also opposed efforts to crack down on tax havens.

5) Protecting 401(k)s

In 1997: Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-CA) proposed banning investment of more than 10 percent of the total 401(k) plan in the employer’s stock–the maximum that investment experts recommend a person sink into any company. The GOP Senate watered down her bill so much it no longer applied to any corporation in America;

6) Protecting Investors and Shareholders

On December 20, 1995, President Clinton vetoed the Public Securities Litigation Reform Act, which would have restricted lawsuits against corporation accused of securities fraud. In his veto message, Clinton presciently noted that while he supported the notion of reducing frivolous lawsuits: “I am not, however, willing to sign legislation that will have the effect of closing the courthouse door on investors who have legitimate claims. Those who are the victims of fraud should have recourse in our courts. Our markets are as strong and effective as they are because they operate — and are seen to operate — with integrity. I believe that this bill, as modified in conference, could erode this crucial basis of our markets’ strength.” The GOP Congress overrode Clinton’s veto.

Wendy Gramm, wife of Texas Republican Senator Phil Gramm also aided Enron’s rise to power. As the lame-duck chairwoman of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, she pushed through a key regulatory exemption on Jan. 14, 1993, six days before Clinton took office. Five weeks later, she joined Enron’s board of directors.

“The exemption was passed over the objection of the Clinton administration.”

But not only has [Barack Oilbomber] failed to create jobs or restart the economy, he has paid only lip service to progressive policies and betrayed his base at almost every turn.

But — but — THAT’S HIS JOB!

The job of Republican politicians these days is to provide Nordstrom’s-like service to their base.

The job of Democratic poliiticians (see: Tom Daschle, Dick Gepardt, Bill Clinton, Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, Barack Whatzisname) is to spit on their base.

So he’s doing his job. Why are you criticizing him for doing his job? Leave Barack Oilbomber alone!

http://bit.ly/a4G36e

Why do you say that? I agree with reader4life.

True – but I saw beginning with Reagan the wholesale movement of factories to other countries so as to get cheap labor and no worker protection or environ protection – Clinton slowed it down with his tax move on enforcement of the deferred tax rules – and got the first growth in manufacturing of any real size – but trade policy has not been pro US job growth in my lifetime – we always trade jobs for military bases/

sigh – you and me both – I know where Hillary wanted to go – Obama bots claimed she was too near the “center” – but that left of center spot looks so far left of Obama these days.

To echo Selise’s point, Dean Baker had a pretty good debunking of Clintonomics today.

If the country has a trade deficit, then it absolutely must have negative national savings. (This is an accounting identity, it has to be true.) Negative national savings means that we must have either large government budget deficits or very low private savings, as was the case at the peak of the housing bubble, when the savings rate hit zero.

The phrasing “Clinton left us a surplus and Bush blew a hole in the deficit” has become sort of a stock in trade in the progressive media. Unfortunately, it has little substantive meaning and only tends to reinforce widely circulated fallacies about money. A budget surplus is not like a piggy bank that someone could blow a hole in and have the money fall out. The government “saving” its own money makes no more sense than Newcastle importing coal.

When we say that “the sun rises” every schoolgirl knows that it is only a manner of speaking and that the apparent motion of the sun is due to the earth’s rotation. Unfortunately, most people don’t know the basic facts about money so it would be better if we could avoid phrases that reinforce the common shibboleths.

Don’t try selling the corporate sellout that was the Baucus-WellPoint Bill to FDL regulars. We know all about how Obama cut a deal back in July 2009 to kill the public option and Medicare drug-price negotiation in exchange for health and insurance industry backing in 2010 (a deal on which the industries reneged, by the way).

Obama and Hillary are almost identical in terms of political ideology. And she’s not only from Chicago herself, she’s now in his administration.

Actually, both Bush and Obama were/are puppet presidents controlled by the same puppet masters. Like in pro wrestling, a decision is made in advance that one puppet will win and the other will take a dive. This is theater, not a competition.

And, Eli, we’re still waiting for you and other FDL proprietors to tell us you’re going to vote Green.

Until then, posts like this are nothing but weak farts in a desert windstorm.

A salamander is essentially a weak, slimy lizard. That’s how I feel about Obama.

morris1030

That was a great comment. A good summation of how we got here.

Mr. O is indeed the worst and most dangerous president ever. People like Bush & Bachmann are cartoon evil on the face of it. Mr. O sounds like a good guy, like one of us but he is insidiously bad. He is doing great harm to the country and to liberals. Given a choice between Bachmann & Obama, I would absolutely vote Bachmann. I prefer evil not to be packaged as a saint. Tragic really.

Howard Dean tried to address exactly your point with his 50 state strategy. Obama and Emanuel nixed this strategy and sent Dean into exile.

There are policy differences between Obama and Bush. Obama is actually to the right of George W. Bush on most issues.

Obama wins hands down. Might not like Bush/Cheney but they did do what they ran on, while this

Republican Trojan Horse

has done the opposite of what he ran on. He had no plan to even try to keep his promises.

Enough with the “Exceptionalism” of the Obama Administration. Most thought conforming to normal rules was the problem with the Bush/Cheney Administration. But the Obama Administration shows us all how wrong we were.

I hope you are having fun. You are going to stay home, or vote for Romney, and get a couple of Supreme Court Justices who will finish ruining the country.

Obama is much worse and more dangerous because he ran on a platform of change, was elected with a mandate for change, and knowingly had in front of him mountains of real examples of failed Republican policies (ideology). Yet he chose to double-down on the exact same policies. He’s worse by far for being a lying, duplicitous, immoral, backstabbing, kleptocrat.

shizzaa….good question, Eli. Obama is also attempting to restore long term sanity to a national applecart upset by the uninterested child-freak, Bush, and his pet monster, Dick Cheney. Obama is in the business of changing systems and institutions in our nation that were designed to change slowly, rather than tearing them apart & destroying them to rebuild them. He is really working hard to do the moderate business of evolutionary change, and that has been a complete and utter disappointment compared to the relentless campaign promises he made. I think he’d be well-advised to tear the country’s Repugs a new one in his second term, but I’m not holding out much hope for that, since he’s young with young children, he values the continuity of the office of the President and the threat level has never been higher.

I answered this one last December:

Did he close Gitmo? Um, no. Get the US out of Iraq? Only if you don’t count “contractors.” Pass the DREAM act? Um, no. Fix the banking system? Um… Well, he did pass a health care bill. And get unemployment extended again. And pass the beginning of DADT repeal. Which three things sound really impressive until one looks a little closer and realize that the first two of them were done by giving huge amounts of money to very wealthy businesses and individuals, and the third is financially neutral and seems to have mostly come from the Senate, anyway. See, you can get a health care bill through the Senate if you give the health insurance companies a mandate and weak regulation. And giving the very rich a huge tax cut and the ability to set up dynasties also gets the Senators of the very rich to vote with you. The problem with this approach is, sooner or later, and later is sooner, there’s nothing left to give to the rich.

The president who serves his base and sets the country on fire, or the president who stiffs his base and fights fire with gasoline?

I think the judgement of history might be something like, “the turn-of-the-century period of US authoritarianism, begun under Bush II, and continued under Obama.” Consider also Obama’s Supreme Court picks, and his secretaries of Commerce, Energy, Interior, and State: these are pretty good–better than Bush II. So I suppose Obama is not in the running for worst. But he is not the great president we had hoped for.

Obama becomes Smeagol when giving a speech. Once back behind the curtain he becomes Gollum – in a suit. He really wants that ring.

When we say that “the sun rises” every schoolgirl knows that it is only a manner of speaking and that the apparent motion of the sun is due to the earth’s rotation.

the sun rises

hope you don’t mind, wilvick, if i occasionally borrow that one — it’s great!

and some of us also know that the po obama killed was a tiny bound-to-fail piece of policy nonsense and that in general the po-in-multipayer-exchange-competition approach was marketing propaganda, based on bogus polling and big fat con aimed at progressives who didn’t know (or bother to learn) enough of the policy issues involved to see through the lies.

He is really working hard to do the moderate business of evolutionary change

I’d have to say that by Trotsky’s definition of a revolutionary Obama is a revolutionary.

“The difference between an evolutionary and and revolutionary is that the revolutionary takes advantage of opportunities as they arise.”

Obama has taken advantage of each and every opportunity to move his neoliberal agenda forward, starting with his first cabinet appointments.

Re Krugman on G-S

seems that neither of your links go to krugman.

in 2008 the “Close the Enron Loophole Act” was enacted into law to regulate more extensively “energy trading facilities.

what bill? the only “Close the Enron Loophole Act” i see is S. 2058 and it wasn’t passed.

the reason the enron loophole — enacted by in the cmfa 2000 — has been so important is that it has seriously contributed to oil price speculation.

the rest of your comment doesn’t address, let alone answer any of my questions @199.

Right now I’m not sure who I dislike more: Republicans like Boehner and Bachman, or liberals like those who support Firedoglake…

Right now I’m not sure who I dislike more: Republicans like Boehner and Bachman, or delusional toadies like slamander who support Barry0, their heads so far up his ass that the new normal is hazy brown because they are unable to remember anythign else. Go back to DailyKos if you want to keep on boiling in the water like some clueless frog.

The best way to punish the Democrats for abandoning working people is to forgo voting. Don’t be scared by Palin or Bachman and the rest. Like George Bush, they could not have the same political backing to do what Obama has done, and is about to do. Neither of them, nor McCain for that matter, would be capable of destroying Medicaid, Medicare and Social Security all at once, or any one of these programs. It has been Obama’s goal from the outset. The powers that be choose exactly the right person to dismantle the last remnants of the FDR agenda. He has said he doesn’t mind being a one-term president, and of course he doesn’t: all his goals have, or are about to be, achieved in this term.

Mark Halperin is correct, if for the wrong reasons: Obama is a dick as are nearly every one of the Democrats. America is about to get the greatest screwing it has ever received and all we can do is pass the petroleum jelly. Remember that President Reagan’s three major goals (at least rhetorically) were to reduce government, end welfare and lower tax rates. He only accomplished the last of these, and he was very popular. Any electable GOP candidate today could never implement the kind of conservative agenda that Obama has, and is about to pass.

That is what makes him the worst president, ever.

Voting for anyone is pointless. There are as close to no politicians (save the very few like Bernie Sanders) who will ever respect our support as is theoretically possible. Voting in this era of American politics is like buying a lottery ticket; the chances of hitting the jackpot with office holders who will try to work for our interests is as slim or less than the lottery odds. There once were elected politicians who actually cared about us, or who were afraid enough of the political backlash that they threw us a bone or two. Not today.

Like him or hate him, but over 23 million jobs were created during President Clinton’s term, the most of any president since such statistics were kept. I don’t remember too many people complaining, then, they were not making enough money. That is the last era when Social Security was too hot to touch. In fact, if you looked as what was actually accomplished, and ignore the rhetoric, a good case could be made for calling President Nixon was the last liberal president.

It is going to take a generation of work to make politicians again respect progressive voters. Like for the conservatives, who had to rebuild after Barry Goldwater was trounced, progressives need to reassess and restructure. The time to start is now. And pass the petroleum jelly.

And which lies were those, exactly? There are definite issues regarding civil liberties, but this article does not address those at all. It is just a whine that he did exactly what he said he was going to do – work with the the Repubs on domestic issues. What did you guys think that meant? He was totally open about his centrist tendencies during the campaign. I don’t get how you missed it. Also – I guess that the end of DADT, the Lily Ledbetter act, and even flawed health care reform mean nothing. But, I can guarantee you that Bush wouldn’t have signed those laws and neither will the President Bachmann you all seem to be hoping for. So, good luck with that! It seems like all you want to do is complain and moan and it will be even easier for you once someone who accomplishes at least SOME of your policy priorities is out of office.

I am curious as to what more liberal president you remember. I am very excited to hear about him! But, I hope you are not referring to “Welfare Reform Clinton” who hurt poor women in this country more than any Republican president ever thought about.

What makes you think that the people who comment on this site are the core of the Democratic Party rather than the disgruntled left wing of it?

That’s like saying a serial killer’s really an okay guy cuz he loves puppies.

Yes, because if one thing has defined the Obama era, it has been congressional support for his policy priorities! Do you live in the world? Do you read news other than FDL?

No, it’s like saying one serial killer is better than another because he kills less people. It is not pleasant, true, but at least more people are alive. It is not about what they like, it is about what they do. I will take a serial killer who kills only two people over one who kills fifty any day.

Twisted, sick.

Realistic.

I do not defend Clinton’s “dismantling of welfare as we know it.” But please direct me to anyone who has done an article or study on exactly what happened to those people who were kicked off welfare. I’m not thinking that the majority of the people who left welfare were “welfare queens” or cheaters (every system has such people) or people who simply took advantage of the program instead of finding work. So where did all these people go? I think many of them just were shuffled around and remain on the public dole in other ways.

While I hated Clinton’s bill, Democrats are no longer beat up for supporting welfare. That was the goal. But what happened to the welfare people?

They prolly really love you at DKos.

His policy priorities are now, and always have been, to dismantle the FDR programs. He does not give a shit about working people, not-working people, ending wars, closing Gitmo, ending the Bush-era tax cuts or anything else along those lines.

Obama and the whole ruling structure only care about how much money they can grab. If you want to talk about reading, go back to when Bush faced the question of raising the debt limit and see how the political stars aligned, then.

The ruling elite in DC does not care about cutting spending. They wake up every morning thinking about how they can get power, how they can keep power and how they can get more power. Money is power, and they more money they can control only increases their power. Why would they actually reduce the amount of money they control? This is only about taking the money out of our pockets and putting into other pockets.

Really cutting the deficit means as full employment as possible, raising taxes and cutting spending on the military/security state. Anything else is bullshit.

So, did one of the hardcare Obamabots at DKos alert you to this post this morning and you ran right over and registered to lay all this Obama love on us?

I will take a serial killer who kills only two people over one who kills fifty any day.

Next election cycle, it will be a serial killer who kills only fifty people, over one who kills two-hundred.

After that, it will be a serial killer who kills only two-hundred people, over one who kills two-thousand.

And you’ll go on and on supporting these guys as they move ever further to the Right.

But I will not support either option. I’ll vote Green instead.

Read American Dream by Jason DeParle. It’s a book though, not an article. It is amazing and describes the real impacts that reform had. It is one of those things that is beautiful and heartbreaking all at once. Thanks for actually being interested! The other evidence I have is mostly just anecdotal and through work, but it is just really hard for women to get assistance these days and, personally, I don’t know if my only goal for a woman with three or four young kids is to get her working. Eventually, yes, that should be a goal, but I think that there could be value in her staying at home with them as well(and that is a value I would be willing to pay for via taxes) and welfare reform does not even offer that as an option.

I don’t actually ever go there. But, I guess I am just failing to see how we are going to get what we want (and I do think we probably share most of the same policy goals) by losing elections. What I talked about earlier, DADT etc., may be small potatoes, but it done and that is how progress is made. It is not going to be fast, easy, or pretty. And we are probably not going to get a president who fights for everything we want. Such a person could not get elected. Thankfully, the president does not get to decide what laws get passed. Stop pissing on Obama and start working on congress. If they pass a progressive law, I bet you $1,000 he will sign it.

Nope. I just got annoyed. All on my own. I didn’t even know they were Obots at the Daily Kos. I thought they were more in your neck of the woods.

I agree with what you said. Better Bush than Obama. Better a wolf outside your door than a traitorous Trojan within. The wolf outside will strengthen you, as it had under Bush. The Trojan within will destroy you if not routed in time.

I’ve never worked for or donated to a Presidential election. I’ve worked at getting left or left leaning people into Congress for close to 40 years.

I piss on all neoliberals, Obama included.

If Congress passes any “progressive” legislation it means that no money will be spent on the people but the monied elites will profit from it. In other words, worthless as far as the American people are concerned. If Congress passed a bill making abortion a woman’s right in every state do you think Obama would sign it?

I did not speak to a liberal presense in my response to salamander, so put down the crack pipe and try to read what is being written.

If it will make you happy, while I harbor no love for Clinton, at least he had seme sense to stand up to the repuplicans when it came to holding th eline from Newt’s house on spending BS or pushing a modest tax increase on the rich to help balance the budget and pay down the national debt.

For a real liberal, I think you would need to look back to LBJ, then to Truman and FDR. Regardless, Barry simply sucks at being a Democrat. He is a very slick republican, however, who knows how to take advantage of situations (such as his run for Prez) and peddle the snake oil to the desperate and gullible.

@ salamder ” It’s not Obama’s fault that he inherited a financial mess. Many countries around the world have had varied responses to the financial crisis and the U.S. is doing better than most of them. ”

Really? How would you measure that? Have you been abroad lately? Here’s just a couple measures I would use:

1) GDP Growth; The U.S. ranks 117 in the world according to the IMF http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_real_GDP_growth_rate_(latest_year)

2) unemployment rates: the u.s. has higher unemployment rates than the major 7 oecd countries such as Italy, Japan, Germany, the U.K. and Canada. I guess France has a level similar to the U.S., but is still lower. http://www.oecd.org/document/28/0,3746,en_2649_37457_47117941_1_1_1_37457,00.html

Alive to what end you clueless dumbshit. The slower death, the different death? How many young men and women are dead becausue of Barry’s ramp up of Afghanistan and Lybia and broken promises to get us the hell out of these illegal wars? Are you gonna cry for them, too? How many are dying slow but certain deaths because of loosing their homes, and livelihoods because of BO’s inaction to the banks malfeasance and support of those criminals? How many have killed themselves, their familes in their last desperate cries? Are you crying now? How many have died, are dying and will be dying horrible deaths of cancer and what not becasue of BP’s Gulf disaster and Barry0′s hapless response to that? I recall BP was pretty much cleared by Barry’s DOJ? Are you crying a river, yet? Spare me, and us. Go to Kos and post a pretty picture diary or somthing.

Mornin’ Dragon.

How many kittehs you save today?

I hope you and they be well in these awful awe-full times.

Sign me irrelevant, I guess.

I was foolish enuf to think people would learn, way back when.

now, not so much, or it won’t matter, or some such

feels like just a twisted version of more trick-ill-downs for us t’weeners, and the lofty high-flyers don’t even see the clouds, much less the clowns.

peace, dammit.

sigh

Agreed about the ruling elite. We are the little people and the big people don’t care or are actively trying to make us further subservient to them. I am not actually trying to argue that Obama is a liberal savior or something. I just don’t think that it is his actual goal to dismantle said programs and I don’t believe that he would suggest it. That is why I think he is better than a president who would do so. He might sit idly by and let bad stuff happen, but I would prefer that to a president who openly advocates for hurting those with less. And given the voting public, those are our only two realistic options. We might wish for something better. Actually, call me an Obot, but if he had free reign I think Obama would enact better policies. However, we have to deal with the country and the congress that we have and Obama cannot actually pass his own laws.

my goodness

a legend in his own mind

those are becoming quite common these days

some would say overdone

Yeah – I went Green in my early twenties and I even live in California, so they have almost even been elected to office here. However, I got tired of living on ideals and wanted to make progress, however incremental. The world is not how I wish it was.

The problem is that we don’t live in the perfect world and we must judge Obama on what he has actually done, not what he *might* do in a perfect world. What he has done, or has failed to do, is pretty awful. You say you prefer a place holder to someone who openly advocates for hurting others. But at least then we have been warned and can fight. Bush tried to privatize Social Security, but he failed. And Obama, who campaigned on defending it, now is helpless to do so, in your way of describing it. In my way, he’s intentionally doing what he can to undermine it as much as possible.

I just don’t think that it is his actual goal [Obama] to dismantle said programs and I don’t believe that he would suggest it.

Really? The how would you explain his catfood commission, partly funded by his BFF Pete Peterson and chaired in part by Alan Simpson? He’s already fucked with denting SS income stream with his 2% taxcut. Now he wants to extend that to business (bigger mistake). Obama’s eithe real stupid or he’s a Trojan corporatist. At this point I really don’t care, his actions have spoken louder than any words or toady supporters can. He needs to go.

Not exactly sure what prompted your hostile response, especially since I said I was only talking about domestic issues. But, sure, I’ll admit that the U.S. has killed a lot of brown people in far away countries under Obama – and every other president that we have had for the last fifty years, with the hearty support of our fellow citizens. So, I guess what I don’t understand, clueless dumbshit that I am, is how you think that things are going to get better unless we work on the people we know and on getting a better congress. I am of the belief that Obama is less bad than McCain would have been and we should use all our energy to convince people to vote for better congresspeople and then maybe we can make some progress on our goals. But, I guess you know something I don’t about how if we just bitch enough, Obama can make magic happen. And here I am the one being accused of believing in him too much.

Hey, Eli, the folks over at BalloonJuice are hatin’ on you in particular this morning. They were hatin’ on Jane yesterday. I guess they’re incensed that we’re all not just clapping harder.

Yeah, Clinton stood up to the Republicans on his first budget and that is it. Truman dropped nuclear bombs and annihilated more people than Obama ever thought about. FDR interned the Japanese and had a mixed record on civil rights. I am sure that had there been the internet at that time and you were alive, you would be on there bitching about them too. I am not saying that Obama is as liberal as them, but I just want to understand who you guys think we could actually get as president who would accomplish more of what we want than Obama has. I get all the Overton Window stuff, but I just do not see the possibility of electing someone more liberal. So, I say, take what we can get.

Apples and Oranges on Truman and FDR. All you show there is no one is “perfect”, whatever that may entail. You judge with today’s standards and knowledge on Presidnet’s actions from 60 and 70 years ago and consider nothing else about them and the times they were in.

As for Barry0, I am way past done with the less shitty than the other guy considerations. Shit is shit. Period. It’s that simple. Better the wolf at you door that you can identify and strengthen yourself against, than the Trojan within who will deceive and destroy.

Sure, Barry was handed a tough row to hoe by the past Administration(s) and we live in a very ignorant society, purposefully made that way by the very interests that BO is in bed with and strengthens with every move he makes. Regardless, he is President and came in with a huge supermajority of people behind him (80%+ at one point), a supermajority in the House and the largest majority in the Senate in generations. The Republicans were dazed and confused. He had the bully pulpit to explain, educate and push through real change on so many fronts. He, they, had tools to push through a real agenda, and they shit their pants and cowered at every turn on what was needed to be done. He appointed, starting with Rahm Emmanuel as COS, and onward every corporate whore, neo-liberal, CONservative who contributed to our problems in the first place to his cabinet. He even asked that Republican to be his commerce Secretary until he told him to fuck off. Anyone with decent qualifications or a hint of liberalism was either left to dangle ala Elizabeth Warren of thrown under the bus ala Van Jones, Acorn, Sherry Sherrod, etc.

Barry took the easy, cowardly way, out–and that is assuming he has liberal tendencies and some understanding of the past and solutions as they existed before his idol, Ronald Reagan took the Presidency. I did not vote for a coward or idiot and that is the last thing we need in the Democratic Party.

If he is not a coward, but simply saying what he needed to at the moment while on board with the current corporate-feudal/Fascist agenda of the Oligarchs, well, then he is despicable and needs to go.

I really do not know what is truly in his heart, but his actions have repeatedly told me, each time, that he cannot be trusted to do what is right for the people of this country–the 99%’s, basically. He can be trusted to help the Republicans and Oligarchs, however.

So, less shitty is done for me. Frankly, I hope Bachman gets the nomination. I would vote for her in a heartbeat. Let the crazy assclown really fuck things up and see if it wakes up enough frogs to make a change, ala Wisconsin. All we are doing now is the slow boil with Obama’s deft cementing into place the Fascism we already have while adding some new touches all on his own. He is more than useless, he is dangerous to whatever is left of the Democratic Party and liberalism as a political force, and that is not much.

I actually think he would. However, more importantly, why do you think he wouldn’t and if you have just given up so completely, why are you here? Does it satisfy something within you to just complain and be hopeless? I think we should take what we can get now and keep asking for more. And also, we should fight against those that have the opposite goals that we do and who are actively acting against those goals.

Under Clinton & Gore Up to 85% of your Social Security can be taxed Since many of us have paid into FICA for years and are now receiving a Social Security check every month — and then finding that we are getting taxed on 85% of the money we PAID to the Federal government to ‘put away’ — you may be interested in the following: —- Q: Which Political Party took Social Security from the independent ‘Trust Fund’ and put it into the general fund so that Congress could spend it? A:It was Lyndon Johnson and the democratically controlled House and Senate.
Q: Which Political Party eliminated the income tax deduction for Social Security (FICA) withholding? A:The Democratic Party. —
Q: Which Political Party started taxing Social Security annuities? A: The Democratic Party, with Al Gore casting the ‘tie-breaking’ deciding vote as President of the Senate, while he was Vice President of the US Q: Which Political Party decided to start giving annuity payments to immigrants? AND MY FAVORITE: A: That’s right! Jimmy Carter and the Democratic Party. Immigrants moved into this country, and at age 65, began to receive Social Security payments! The Democratic Party gave these payments to them, even though they never paid a dime into it! Then, after violating the original contract (FICA), the Democrats turn around and tell you that the Republicans want to take your Social Security away! And the worst part about it is uninformed citizens believe it!

And don’t even get me started on ‘ObamaCare’! What a load of crap! Did YOU get your ‘waiver’ in the mail yet? Pelosi sent THOUSANDS of waivers to her ‘constituents’ & so did other dems…what’s up with that? As she said ‘Well, you will just have to PASS the bill to find out what’s in it!’ The woman is delusional, but hey! It worked!

Don’t you think it’s time we STOP ‘the fox watching the hen house?’

Actually, call me an Obot, but if he had free reign I think Obama would enact better policies. However, we have to deal with the country and the congress that we have and Obama cannot actually pass his own laws.

How quickly you forget that for 2 years Obama and the Dems controlled the Executive and Legislative branches, with a supermajority in the Senate.

So, one of the simplest things he could have done was to kill the Bush tax cuts–a no-brainer. And yet, the billionaires and millionaires prevailed.

You were saying…?

I guess we don’t see it the same way. I don’t trust a thinly sourced story in the Times to tell me that Obama is dismantling SS. Further, while I perhaps didn’t say it to you, my feelings are that the problem is in congress and that is where we can make more difference. People like Nancy Pelosi are the ones who get things actually done, because congress is where it happens. I also didn’t mean to suggest that I see Obama as a place holder. I see him as the best we can get in a country not inclined to vote our way. A perfect world would be one where people would vote their interest and we could get a real progressive as president. I agree with you, that is not where we live.

It was his goal to dismantle the FDR legacy from the very beginning. It is what he was hired to do. He is doing it this summer because he learned in the near loss of “health care reform” the August town meetings nearly did his program in. Thus the artificial deadline on the debt limit. And it could be the last summer he is able to put his hands on our social programs.

Look at the congressional majorities that swept into power with FDR. No matter what you think of his policies, FDR’s wake scared the ruling class so much, it enacted a term limit on the office of president. His was a very powerful message that nearly destroyed the GOP. That the current Democrats did not take advantage of the economic disaster in a similar way scares me. That they continue to ignore a more populist platform shows just how short a leash they are tied to. That the most powerful populist message was not used to its full effectiveness in 2008 and 2010 demonstrates how scared the Dems are of the financial powers that be. FDR did not suffer from such fears because he was rich. I don’t think we will get so lucky again.

No politician should be judged by what is said; only deeds count. There are probably thousands of small details that happen outside the reporting of our lousy press that has been accomplished, but his most important policies regarding war and the economy simply do not demonstrate he is anything but a conservative and a poor president. His health care program is only going to make our medical care more expensive and the economic policies he is about to put in place with the Republicans is based purely on fantasy. We remain at war in two countries and he has started a war in at least a third. His inexperience as an executive is showing to those who want to take a look.

Long-term unemployment is the most devastating affliction a country can suffer. That Obama has ignored the unemployed is not debatable. His rhetoric on cleaner energy and creating hi-tech jobs and increasing the education level of all Americans is the same bullshit I have heard for five decades from all the presidents in that time. Next to nothing was done.

Only raising taxes, cutting the military/security and, most importantly, getting people back to work is going to reduce the deficit. Everything else is bullshit.

Even if all the Obama supporters change their minds in 2012, it will be too late. Obama is now working closely with Republicans to fatally damage Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security. Even I, who has never supported and only tried to warn people about Obama, never thought he was audacious enough to screw with all three of these most important government programs. I was wrong. If he adds “fixing” these programs along with “fixing” the American health care system to that list he says he keeps in his pocket (the one Rolling Stone failed to ask to see), he won’t care too much if he is not re-elected. He will have done his job.

Obama is the most dangerous person we have ever elected to the presidency and has caused (and is about to cause) the most damage to working people in my lifetime. I fear that the worst is yet to come.

I could go on, but the steam coming out of my ears is beginning to hurt.

Let’s send as many Dems as we can to the locker room and see if that helps. Returning them to office year after year obviously does not work.

You mean the commission of which no recommendations were turned into bills, let alone laws? Do I think Obama has been dumb on SS by so much as entertaining the glimmer of a thought of a cut? Yes. Do I think corporations run our government and are basically evil? Yes. The fact is, as everyone here knows, that SS is fine and any long term deficit could be eliminated instantly by raising the payroll cap. However, as long as we have one house of congress who will en masse vote against even the most benign of tax increases that is not going to happen.

Rahm? Is that you Rahm?

Here’s soemthing for your lying ignorant ass and general dumbfuckery. I hope it helps with your damage. From http://www.snopes.com/politics/socialsecurity/changes.asp

Q: Which Political Party took Social Security from the independent ‘Trust Fund’ and put it into the general fund so that Congress could spend it? A:It was Lyndon Johnson and the democratically controlled House and Senate. >> WRONG <<

…the monies paid into the Social Security trust have never been “put into the general fund.” The equirements for how the Social Security Trust Fund is to be financed and invested have not changed since the fund’s inception in 1939. The reference to Lyndon Johnson indicates that someone was probably confused by a change implemented at the end of the Johnson administration (1969) that altered how the fund was accounted for in the federal budget but did not change the actual operations of the fund itself: Beginning in fiscal year 1969, Social Security and other Federal programs that operate through trust funds were counted officially in the budget. This was done administratively by President Johnson. At the time Congress did not have a budget-making process. In 1974 Congress adopted procedures for setting budget goals through passage of annual budget resolutions. Like the budgets prepared by the President, these resolutions were to reflect a “unified” budget that included trust fund programs such as Social Security in the budget totals.

Q: Which Political Party eliminated the income tax deduction for Social Security (FICA) withholding? A:The Democratic Party. >> WRONG <<

Social Security withholding has never been deductible from income for tax purposes. The original Social Security Act of 1935 specifically stated that monies paid into Social Security via payroll taxes were not to be allowed as income tax deductions.

Q: Which Political Party started taxing Social Security annuities? A: The Democratic Party, with Al Gore casting the ‘tie-breaking’ deciding vote as President of the Senate, while he was Vice President of the US . >> WRONG <<

Prior to 1984, income derived from Social Security benefits was exempt from taxation. Amendments to the Social Security Act passed by Congress in 1983 allowed for 50% of Social Security benefits to be considered taxable income for taxpayers whose total income exceeded specified thresholds.

Responsibility for this change cannot fairly be assigned to either political party. The idea originated with a proposal issued by the Greenspan Commission, which had been appointed by President Ronald Reagan, a Republican. The amendments were passed by a House of Representatives in which the Democrats held a clear majority of the seats (296-166), but the proposed amendments received “Yea” votes from members of both parties, and they were signed into law by President Reagan.

As for you Al gore reference, your “answer”, wrong as it is, was to the wrong question, you ignorant toad. Here is what should be there, but it is mixed up by you and wrong as it is not increasing taxes on SS, but on rasising the cap of what level of salary qualifies for SS taxes. Here is what you should have had in your rediculous post:

Q: Which political party increased the taxes on Social Security annuities? A: The Democratic Party, with Al Gore casting the “tie-breaking” deciding vote as President of the Senate, while he was Vice President of the U.S. >> DISENGENUOUS <<

In 1993, Congress passed legislation that increased the percentage of Social Security benefits subject to taxation from 50% to 85%. As with the 1983 amendments to the Social Security Act, this increase applied only to taxpayers whose total income exceeded specified thresholds.

Q: Which Political Party decided to start giving annuity payments to immigrants? AND MY FAVORITE: A: That’s right! Jimmy Carter and the Democratic Party. >> WRONG <<

No one — whether he be a citizen, immigrant, or illegal alien — is eligible to collect Social Security benefits unless he (or someone else, such as a parent or spouse) has paid into the system. Someone has confused Social Security itself with Supplemental Security Income (SSI) — the latter is a federal welfare program “designed to help aged, blind, and disabled people, who have little or no income” by providing “cash to meet basic needs for food, clothing, and shelter.” Immigrants can qualify for SSI benefits under certain conditions, but SSI is financed by general revenues and not Social Security taxes. SSI was not enacted by the administration of President Jimmy Carter (a Democrat); it was created and signed into law in 1972, during the administration of President Richard Nixon (a Republican).

Yes, the commission that, while no law thus far was made from it, certainly spread the meme of we’re broke and the sky is falling and SS is DOOOMMMMEDDD. All thanks to Barry-0.

The fact is, as everyone here knows, that SS is fine and any long term deficit could be eliminated instantly by raising the payroll cap. However, as long as we have one house of congress who will en masse vote against even the most benign of tax increases that is not going to happen

Ummm…. does you buddy Barry-0 know this? Dis he even try? Really, stops being such a dumbfuck, and if you cannot, then go to DailyKos and fluff for Barry the corporate whore there.

Progressives should primary Obama in 2012. Sanders or Kucinich could start the process. Retake half the democratic party with a real leader. What’s the downside ? Dems lose presidency ? So what, we lose anyway with another Obama 4 years. But what we’ve done is set the stage for the return of a worker/middle class rebellion. After 4 years of Romney, Bachman or whomever the Koch Brothers select, the middle class will be hanging by a thread, unemployment up, wages down, great depression II. That’s what it’s going to take, folks, to find the next leader with the courage of FDR, Teddy or Kennedy. That’s when the independents and republicans with triple digit IQ’s will realize that corporate control of the country isn’t really working out to well. The longer Obama goes unchallenged, the weaker the progressive movement becomes, because he gets to call himself their “leader.” Primary O’Bama in 2012 !!!

Exactly!!!! Hear, hear!!

Well, I think we just have fundamentally views or something, because we see the same thing and attach very different levels of importance to it. You said that you saw “real” liberal presidents in FDR and Truman. I pointed out huge flaws of theirs that affected millions of people. You said you were not looking for “perfect.” I think dropping a nuclear bomb is for more morally questionable than anything Obama has done. And certainly, interning citizens for their race is incredibly illiberal. I know why they did it. I don’t even necessarily think they were wrong, but it does call into question their credentials as “real” liberals.

Then, you once again start in on your rant about how Obama doesn’t even have “liberal tendencies.” I disagree with that belief. Actually, I think that belief is complete bullshit if one takes a second to look at the man, his votes and his career. I understand that you have reached a different conclusion, but even if you are right, how do you expect to get someone better elected in the country as it is. I guess from your message that you plan on voting for the most right wing nut you can find and hope that they will burn the country down and then finally, finally, the stupid masses will see what you have been seeing and vote the way you want them to. This won’t work and it will hurt tens of millions of people in the process. You care more about being morally or politically pure than anything else. “Shitty” isn’t good enough for you anymore? Well, if shitty saved your food stamps last year (remember that hostage taking where Obama and the Dems were going to lose? But, oh yeah, didn’t) than I am guessing that shitty is plenty good enough.

Dude – he has the ring. Try again.

As much as I like Kucinich, his suit against the Capitol cafeteria shows he has the savvy of a newt. I like Sanders very much he and Vermont’s health new care system make me want to move there (shiver).

But the Dems won’t allow a true progressive to surface, especially in the 2012 primary, until they suffer from the kind of staggering loss Barry Goldwater did. We have to steel ourselves and leave voting for Dems off our lists to do no matter what in 2012. Huge, staggering loses at the polls seems to be the only thing they will listen to.

I know it took lots of money to get the nutty conservatives to their current place in politics. We need to figure out how to get ourselves to a similar place with the tools at hand. A political figurehead makes that job easier.

I didn’t forget. And I didn’t say that we should just get Democrats elected to congress. In Obama’s first two years legislation failed primarily because of people like Ben Nelson, Evan Bayh, and Joe Lieberman. If you have people in your own party who are determined to vote against you, I don’t know what you do, except for the rest of us out there to not vote for them.

You guys are completely full of Sugar Honey Iced Teaparty. The Democratic Base is what’s wrong with the Democratic Party! Republicans are willing to drive the World economy into the ground so save the rich a 5% tax hike. By your logic that is to be admired. Any progress that is not totally progressive is a failure? Worse President ever? FOH.

Come to think of it, Seniors, who are on Social Security and have Medicare, are more likely to vote Republican anyway. So, what’s the point?

I agree with you about FDR. I agree with you that we need some combination of raising taxes and cutting defense spending to balance the budget. Where we disagree is that you seem think that Obama has the same power over congress that FDR did and/or that we should stop electing Democrats and then they will realize that we are really serious and do what we want. I just don’t think that either of things are true or would work. Obama has faced unprecedented levels of obstruction from congress for his mildly left-centrist agenda. What makes you think an actually progressive president could get a damn thing passed? As for the second, I only have to say that at least under the current, bumbling Democratic regime I have a pretty good feeling that things like my right to choose are not going to be taken away. However, get someone like Bachmann in there and we will be wishing for GW.

I wish I had that much power! Although, I do like having all my fingers! And being female! But, I have never given anyone a fish while naked or whatever it was he was supposed to have done!

I don’t really understand what you are so mad about since we obviously share similar ideas and I didn’t insult you and I definitely don’t understand the DKos things, because last I heard they were only slightly less angry at Obama than you are. I guess this is futile, since you are all just calling me names, but I will try one more time to reiterate my point. This time it is about social security. Yes, Obama definitely knows that any issues with SS could be solved by raising the payroll cap. And yes, I believe that if a bill that did so were passed, he would sign it (I get that we differ here). However, here is where we are really at odds. I want 1.) a congress who would pass a law lifting the payroll cap and 2.) a president who would sign it. I believe I have number 2. That is why I am focused on keeping him and getting number 1. Also – here is the rub, neither Obama or the Repub’s are actually going to cut SS benefits. It would hurt them both too much. They might talk about it to sound tough, but it is not happening.

idiot

I would like to throw another name into the ring: Peter Peterson’s adopted son..yes we all know and hate him! The big Bubba…BJ Clinton!! that good old Panderbear himself…I am 58 and look back and we have had some losers running this country but now we are getting evil losers running the country…

Obama did not lie to his base. He privately told them the truth. He only lied to working people.

While you are scrutinizing our President, you might ask yourself once again why that $1.4 million Nobel peace prize was awarded to this warmonger. That’s right. You didn’t think the prize was a medal hung around the neck, did you?

You want to judge moral relevancy by number of people killed or hurt? Ok. Whatever. While it’s a consideration, it is hardly the only one. I think more of the close future, and I see over half the world’s population being cut in half this century. So, good luck with that ruler. I am more concerned that there is a future for humanity that is worth living for.

First, understand, people live and die every day. Life is what it is and the best leaders establish and promote systems that allow people to have lives worth living. To do that usually means you have to improve the current lot of peoples’ lives and give them room to express themselves, to individuate, to let them be what they can be without a misstep, or a moments rest, sending them into the abyss and without taking civil society down with them. You also have to create a system that can be sustainable in nature. Our Founders set up an amazing system for its day, and its ideas are still way above the rest even if it has fallen short of them and is now failing.

FDR also did that, I do not see any question there. He saved this country from a potential Communist revolution on one side and a Fascist coup on the other; keep in mind they did not have the european model of socialim to pull from then. FDR also established the mechanisms to create a true middle class; won a World War, reformed banking and prosecuted many criminals, pulled us out of a Great Depression and challenged the Economic Ropyalist (Oligarchs) of his day and put them to heel. Sure, some Japanese citizens, who’s original homeland attacked us, were interred during a time of WORLD WAR. I suppose it’s similar to our Muslim frenzy today, except in a WORLD WAR, loosing would not just mean some lives lost, but whole nations and the idea of America along with it. It was a fight to the death, in essence. So, Yeah, it’s tough for those Japanese citizens, and it wasn’t right, but it wasn’t exactly the Genocide America practiced against the indigenous people in earlier times and some reparations were eventually made. So, an improvement.

As for FDR on civil rights, please. Spare me the crap. The man was brilliant and courageous but he was not omnipotent. I will point out from FDR’s pick of VP begat Truman who ordered the integration of the armed forces. Done! Maybe Obama can learn something there on DADT, but I doubt it. Obama is not worth a pimple from FDR’s ass as far as I am concerned.

Let’s go on to the nuking of Japan. If you want to count lives lost as some sort of absolute to what’s worse or better, then you may have it, or not. It’s been estimated that over a half-million lives were lost in Iraq as a result of our invasion (the Lancet), and while that is not Obama’s fault, the fact we are still there in such a presence, and in new places, like Libya, does not exactly bode well for his scorsheet, by your measure.

On to Truman dropping the bombs on Japan, I have no real problem with that except for the horror of using a nuclear bomb and the deaths, but that is part of war. You see, IMO, Truman dropping that bomb probably saved the world as we know it. As Physics progressed in the 20′s and 30′s. the bomb was fait accompli at some point soon. The genie was out of the bottle, basically. He used it, and from that, we all saw just how terrible is really was. It gave everyone pause to using it in the future. Otherwise, actually using it would still be a hypothetical, no matter how many islands you blow up. It may have well been used in the future in the cold war, during the time of nuclear escalation and MAD deterrence theory becasue it was not used in the past. IMO, using it then not only ended the war sooner and with many American lives saved (and Japanese) by avoiding a invasion, it also gave an image to those who might use it in the future to contemplate. The world owes a debt a gratitute to Japan for them being the victim of this device. That does not mean I regret we used it.

Jululu, I do not see where being “real liberal” means acting like Jesus or Ghandi. It’s a not being “pure” to think is a Reich Wing assclown gets in and burns the country down in order to wake the rest of the public up, ala Wisconsin. Providing a real potential for true change in a more people oriented fashion. Keep in mind our original revolution was against the abusive power of an out of control corporation (The East India Co.) and the ultimate Oligarchs—the Royals. How that business endeavor infiltrated the Royal Family so they would willing do its bidding; a type of fascism in its day, before the term was coined. Or, a parasite taking over its host.

You keep on jabbering on about people will get hurt if we don’t hold our noses and go with Barry “I seem less shitty to some than the other guy” Obama. News flash for you Jululu, people will be hurt no matter what, and they will be hurt badly. It’s not just people, it’s our futures. What Obama is cementing into place, our slide into corporate Fascism/Feudalism, will guarantee that. It is sending us back to a Hobbsean time where the life of man is solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short. I would like a chance to change that journey into hell and Barry-0 has shown himself to NOT be the captain to do that. Since he is a Democrat, he is nothign better than a Benedict Arnold. Now, I do not think anything on the assclown CONservative Republican side will either. But, people expect malarky from R’s and they will provide it in spades. IT will reenergize a real liberal left that hopefully will not be fooled by a snake oil peddler like Obama and will bring back the Democrats or really get a new party going. A few years of a R assclown will provide a better chance to wake more up and get involved and redefine Liberal and Progressive!

A sufficient response to pain requires enough of it in a short enough timespan. It ain’t rocket science.

SS has been “fixed” many times in the last decade. It is not really in bad shape and has nothing at all to do with our deficit. It is not part of the budget. Including it in the same bargaining sessions about the deficit shows they are not seriously discussing deficit reduction. It means Obama is giving Repubs political cover to at least chip away at a program they could never destroy on their own. Obama’s putting SS on the table demonstrates he, too, wants to hurt the system as much as the Repubs.

The country was in disaster mode when Obama took office (the unemployment rate shot up two points between December 2008 and January 2009 alone). While I understand he wanted to “fix” our healthcare system, that system has been broken for 50 years or more and should not have been his priority. Fixing health care while people could no longer pay mortgages or buy cars simply ignored reality.

Paul Ryan’s Medicare plan was the greatest gift to Dems since George Bush II. Obama could have let that policy ride and use the issue for 2012. Instead, it he is now going to politically paint over that Repub disaster with an agreement he will hammer out with Repubs this summer. Repubs shot themselves in the foot and he comes over and gives them first aid.

That Obama and the Repubs are in agreement that fixing an economy in a collapsing job market by cutting government spending demonstrates they live in a dream world, at best. Runaway government spending had nothing at all to do with our economic collapse. Failing to investigate the causes of the economic collapse and then trying to fix them shows Obama is unconcerned about the people who are hurt most in this economy. His early mortgage/foreclosure program mostly served to give banks a head start on getting the foreclosure paperwork ready.

I could go on; the list is very long.

Obama the most cynical, untruthful politicians I have ever observed (and that goes back to Lyndon Johnson). He has demonstrated he completely unconcerned about working people, no matter what collar they wear. That seasoned political observers could not see this from the very beginning of his campaign baffles and scares me to this day.

Given the weak Repub candidate list so far, professional Dems have to stick with Obama. But as the economy worsens, they may be finding themselves backing a dead horse. I remember a very smart, largely unknown, Dem from Arkansas who understood Bush I’s weaknesses like no one else and served two terms. Obama is similarly damaged goods.

I think voting for Obama is like bashing yourself in the head with a hammer or worse. Obama is just taking money away from us and handing over to the kind of financial ghouls who run Goldman Sachs. He does not even try to hide this.

The best thing that could happen to this country in the next year and five months is for an “Anybody but Obama” movement to take hold and become strong enough to depose him. No Repub would be nearly as able to cause as much grief as Obama has caused this country. He is the most dangerous person we have ever elected to be president.

Finally, it grieves me to realize that our first black president (something I thought would not come in my lifetime) is such a lousy one.

Points all taken on the FDR and Truman stuff. As I said above, I did not think they were necessarily wrong, just that such decisions could (and were at the time) be criticized as “illiberal.” I am guessing that future liberals will judge Obama far more kindly than you do now. However, that is to be seen and we cannot possible know.

I honestly don’t think we have any disagreement at all about where the country should be going. I just think you seem to have a much greater faith in the populace to suffer economically or otherwise and then think, “I should vote for a real liberal!” I just don’t see that happening. Look at 2010. All the polls showed that people still hated Repub’s and didn’t even trust them to fix the economy. They just wanted a change.

I am from a very red part of California and every unemployed person there I know blames Obama for their plight because of how he “raised taxes.” Both of us know he didn’t do that, even though we probably wish he had. However, these people, some of whom even voted for him, are not alone in this country. What I have asked on this site over and over and over and what no one has told me yet is just how you guys think you are going to get someone more liberal than Obama elected? You aren’t. What we have is someone who will sign progressive legislation if it is passed. What we need is a congress who will pass it. It is much easier to elect progressives on the local and even state level than it is on the presidential. I do not think Obama is perfect, but your own admission about Iraq shows that he is miles ahead of Bush and those few miles are pretty much the only range we have to work with in electing a POTUS.

Also, with the pervasive negativity that exists here, I can understand why people would be turned off. I just started posting here today because the article kind of annoyed me and I was in the mood to argue back at it. And so far I have been called – “clueless dumbshit,” a DKos flunky (on multiple occasions), and been told to “put the crack pipe down.” I just wonder how people who react that negatively to criticism from people who agree with them plan to win over the rest of the country.

In Obama’s first two years legislation failed primarily because of people like Ben Nelson, Evan Bayh, and Joe Lieberman. If you have people in your own party who are determined to vote against you, I don’t know what you do,[snip]

No imagination…none.

Bush’s tax cuts were set to expire in 2010. All Obama had to do was veto every bill set on his desk that extended the Bush tax cuts. If a handful of blue dogs voted to override the vetoes, so what? It takes a lot of votes to override a veto.

DKos is that way ===>>

The very fact that you claim that Big Dog Bill was less cynical than Obama shows that you are full of completely irrational hatred. Bill was the most cynical triangulator I have ever seen – and I say this as someone who pretty much worships him. However, he did nothing specifically for the working class (after his first budget) and, as I said in response to another comment, welfare “reform” pretty much just screwed low income single mothers.

I also love that you are apparently more concerned with elections than governing. How dare that Obama work with the Repub’s and compromise and crap? Doesn’t he know that their craziness would have been a great election issue?

I have enjoyed arguing here and I think that I have basically the same policy goals as all of you, but you have to be the most mean spirited, disgruntled, and unrealistic people I have ever met…on the internet. Try living outside FDL for a minute or two and maybe things won’t seem so glum!

Still don’t understand the DKos thing, but you guys seem very committed to it, so I’ll go along. I, apparently, heart the Daily Kos and that is where I belong, because the slightest dissent on tactics makes people at FDL very very cranky!!!! I am sorry I didn’t realize it sooner. I thought this was a liberal site to discuss ways to achieve progressive goals. I was obviously wrong. Clearly this is just a site to talk a lot of shit about Obama. So sorry for the mistake. It must be all that crack an earlier commenter accused me of smoking. By the way, for all your Obama bashing needs, the National Review is that way.

Ok – real response. If you care, which I doubt.

The problem with vetoing every bill was that there was important stuff there like unemployment and food stamp extensions. Maybe those getting vetoed was worth it to you to make a political point, but I don’t think it would have been worth it for the people who depend on it.

Also also, the Bush tax cut extensions are not even an example of what I was talking about, because even Nancy couldn’t get enough votes in the house. I was responding to the idea that Obama had a “supermajority” in the senate his first two years and could have passed whatever he wanted. I pointed out that, yeah, they were Dems, but they were not inclined to vote for progressive legislation.

Sorry if you have been called names. I hope you note that I never called you a name or otherwise besmirched your character.

While I did not specifically say Obama is more cynical than Bill Clinton, I did say and believe Obama is the most cynical politician of my lifetime, your point is correct. No matter how cynical you believe Clinton is please note that under his presidency, over 23 million jobs were created; that is the most of all presidencies since Truman’s, when the figures were first collected. Now presidents do not wave a magic wand and create jobs, but their policies do contribute to job creation. Both Presidents Bush eras, BTW, were times when the least amount of jobs were created. We’ll see at the end of his first term how Obama has done in this category.

Clinton is about the only leading political figure who has pushed a jobs agenda. Now you might pooh pooh his goals: create a service the matches job openings to currently unemployed people, offer companies incentives to train unemployed American as opposed to hiring immigrants and conduct talks with corporations sitting on large amounts of cash and find out what it would take for them to spend the money. That’s fair since our current unemployment crises is one created by loss of demand for goods, not by a mismatch in worker skills. But if Obama had simply instituted even these modest policies, I think a full point or two could have been shaved off the unemployment numbers. Instead, Obama has done virtually nothing.

I have not said anything irrational. You may not agree with my conclusions, but the basis for them are hardly irrational. I have never questioned Obama’s religion or place of birth, two examples of irrationality, nor do I go around calling politicians Nazis, fascists, etc. unless they are actually members of the Nazi party or call themselves fascists. It was very disturbing to me when, during the Bush II administration, a billboard near my apartment was plastered with a depiction of him looking as goofy as Alfred E. Newman. The chimp depictions of him equally repulsed me.

It is because Obama’s governing and his actual policies, as opposed to his rhetoric, go against my ideas of how American government should work that I hope people wake up and keep him from having a second term. I barely followed the 2008 election once Obama won the nomination since I knew he was no liberal and out of line with the Democratic party I once supported. Less than a month ago I registered to vote in my new community and for the first time since 1976, did not register as a Democrat. That was a very painful decision for me.

I happened to read FDL today after a kind of lull of several months having to do with my moving to a new town and establishing myself in a new job. FDL is hardly my only source of information; thanks to the Internet I read nearly every kind of news from all over the world (if it is in English that is). I stay in touch with all shades of political views. And I do not watch television; don’t own one and never will. Paying roughly $100 a months for scores of channels I care nothing about is a the biggest waste of money I can imagine.

If the comments here seem glum remember that we are living in horrible times. Only the stories I listened to from people who survived the great depression match the kind of gloom people feel today. The single most important problem in America today is jobs and only when the monthly unemployment figures are released do news outlets report about the problem. Long-term unemployment is easting away at the soul of the American people and nearly everyone I meet understands their jobs are constantly at risk. The widespread insecurity is palpable. The media does not report it because such coverage does not jive with its most important job: selling stuff.

Obama did not cause the mess, but he has taken on responsibility for it by his inaction. I am not calling for anything other than taking away his job as president by the voting booth. He has done a bad job and deserves to be fired. If enough people disagree, then he will continue another four years, heaven help us. I feel no personal hatred for him as I felt none for Bush. Neither one should have served as president of the United States and we are are paying the price for having made the mistake of allowing them to serve us in this capacity.

It is going to take generations to shake the devastation of this recession from our country, as it did after the great depression. The real unfortunate problem we face is that no one I know of can step it and serve to ease the bitter mess created by our ruling class in the past decade. We are in for more terrible times until someone does.

Also also, the Bush tax cut extensions are not even an example of what I was talking about, because even Nancy couldn’t get enough votes in the house.

What? Please don’t drink and post. Are you saying that Nancy Pelosi could not muster enough votes to sustain a veto? Bullsnot.

The Bush tax cuts are a perfect example of Barack’s failure to lead. We could have been done with them 12/31/2010, but the GOP made it clear from the outset that the tax cuts were a non-negotiable item and Obummer subsequently folded on the issue like a cheap card table.

The point that you keep missing (over and over and over) is that at some point a President must pick a fight with the opposition and win. He must show the opposition that he has power and is not afraid to use it. You don’t understand this central tenet of governing and neither does Barack. The net result is that every time Barack “negotiates” with the GOP, he starts by giving away his leverage. The GOP never gives away its leverage because they know Barack is all hat and no cattle.

“you have to be the most mean spirited, disgruntled, and unrealistic people I have ever met”

Bravo! This is the best description of Firebaggers I have ever seen.

Oh, and you can add to that “paranoid,” because the instant anybody disagrees with them (and does so intelligently, with facts) they accuse the person of being a Daily Kos troll.

It’s as if their tiny little brains can’t comprehend the fact that some adults in the room think they’re full of it.

Another betrayal: effective deregulation of Roundup Ready plant varieties.

welcome redheadedfemme, but do you have a point you’d like to make about the subject of the diary?

As one of the self-described adults in the room, I’m surprised that you’ve confused debate with ad hominem games. You can do that a Balloon Juice, but shit stirring is more your style, isn’t it? Grow up.

Now why would Jululu need to go (back) to DailyKos, balloon-juice or anywhere else when she can be treated just like that here.

Ummm…. does you buddy Barry-0 know this? Dis he even try? Really, stops being such a dumbfuck, and if you cannot, then go to DailyKos and fluff for Barry the corporate whore there.

Seems to me she is arguing honestly and if you can’t convince or move someone to reconsider with better arguments then resorting to calling her dumbfuck isn’t going to do it either.

Umm, Eli, you’re a fucking moron, and the rest of you are pissy little whiners. You don’t like what’s happening, then get your fat fucking asses off your couches, and elect the kind of candidates that aren’t annoying little shitbag bluedog Democrats like Ben Nelson. I mean, for crying out loud, the guy’s from my home state, Nebraska, and he never stops acting like a Republican-lite. But when the fucking Tea Party assholes start doubling down on the crazy, you have to elect Democrats with spines like Alan Grayson, who fight back against the bullshit that the Rethuglicans spew on a daily basis. It’s time to elect some brass-knuckle Democrats, the kind that look like liberals, but punch like Marines. I should know, I’m a former Marine, from Nebraska, and I am a liberal.
But being a strong liberal means I’m not going to let a shitbag like Eli turn around and dilute the title of worst president ever, which shall and forevermore belong to George W. Bush. You don’t get to get away with that no matter what your liberal props are, and any of you that agree with him are smoking some grade-A weed, because you’re fucking high.

“Barack Obama, on the other hand, inherited a mess rather than creating one.”

I reserve judgement but I’m worried… sigh