Also, being lectured on principles by an anonymous troll on a blog is hysterical.
December 22, 2010 at 11:46 AM
Anonymous said...
Yeah and being lectured by a pair of dickheads with pseudonyms makes you so much more correct.
Fucking arrogant twat. It's your blog. Why don't you explain why I should give a shit about Obama?
December 22, 2010 at 11:50 AM
teadoust said...
does the article talk about how psychotic many republicans/conservatives have become at this point? how angered they are by damn near ANY legislative victory won by democrats, no matter how "reasonably centrist" the legislation may be? if not, i'd find it hard to take the analysis in it all that seriously.
as for my obama problem, i just don't like mushy/gutless centrism. i may vote for it, as the alternative is certainly worse, but that doesn't obligate me to pretend i'm happy about it. some see legislative victories, others see blown opportunities.
and so it goes.
December 22, 2010 at 11:59 AM
teadoust said...
i go to have a coffee before posting my stupid little comment and war breaks out! can't you damn kids play nice? and get off my lawn!
December 22, 2010 at 12:02 PM
Anonymous said...
Big fucking difference between "blown opportunity" and "Obama expands the Bush dictatorship regime."
December 22, 2010 at 12:04 PM
bughunter said...
the most sweeping change in the financial regulatory system since the Great Depression
Um, no. The most sweeping change in the financial regulatory system since the Great Depression was the repeal of all the improvements made to the financial regulatory system immediately following the Great Depression in order to prevent another one. Obama's actions have amounted to a slap on the wrist and a cookie to the bullies who took advantage of the repeal at the first opportunity they got.
i go to have a coffee before posting my stupid little comment and war breaks out! can't you damn kids play nice? and get off my lawn!
HA! Teadoust, I knew there was hope for you. Keep that snark handy, there's going to be more gross Triangulation before we get the chance to turn the corner on this thing.
Yeah and being lectured by a pair of dickheads with pseudonyms makes you so much more correct.
Careful, there, Coolface, I'm sweet on SteveAR at the moment. I wouldn't want to wound my most metal of glibertarians, but if you keep flirting with me; well, the heart wants what the heart wants.
Obama signed executive orders closing Gitmo and restricting the CIA to only use interrogation methods outlined in the Army Field Manual.
Then Blue Dog Dems put the kibosh on closing Gitmo. The CIA is not known to blandly accept orders restricting its operations, and I'm sure they haven't this time, either. Check out how well Stansfield Turner did trying to turn them around. Nevertheless, they are under orders, from the president, that are so different from "Hell yeah, I ordered him waterboarded" Bush that only a thoroughgoing chucklehead wouldn't be able to see the difference.
It is actually possible to find the president's actions objectionable in one area and acceptable in another. Certain members of Jane Hamquist's Mooncalf Chorale don't get that, because she serves up their political beliefs in little plastic trays like airline meals, pre-cooked, and all the same flavor, for easy consumption.
Zandar doesn't serve Cream of Outrage every blog post. I can see how that could be a shock to your system. Obviously, there's a lot of build-up. You should add in more nutritious content, from a variety of sources, slowly, until you can handle it. Visiting a site which doesn't delete any dissenting opinion is an important first step. Good for you, Anonymous!
Zandar, my verification word is "ponized." Now you're just taunting me! WHERE IS MY PONY!
December 22, 2010 at 12:53 PM
bughunter said...
Oh, and:
There's a group of hard-core lefties that never saw Obama as anything more than a DINO...
I'm not a hardcore leftie, but I saw the DINO in O long ago. I guess it was hard to recognize because there are few left of anyone not DINO. His position on Warrantless Wiretapping and support of DMCA and the copyright police were the tells. I'm not talking about his words, but his actual votes and actions. In practice, he's just another corporatist, and in the long view, to the Right of people like Eisenhower and arguably even Nixon.
Nixon who secretly bombed Cambodia Nixon? That Nixon? Eisenhower who sat back and let Joe McCarthy persecute Communists the way wingnuts pursue Muslims?
Eisenhower did warn about the military-industrial complex, I'll give him that. Once he was safely beyond reach politically. Of course, that was just words, too. Just as Obama's calling out the Supreme Court as they sat in front of him was just words.
Obama is exactly who he said he was all along. I did not support his positions on Warrantless Wiretapping, but the fact that he got HRC through a Congress where the Dems had only a token majority (cough cough **Leiberman**cough cough)is enough to argue against his being a DINO.
The purity progs cannot get over what various baddies get out of some of the deals Obama's had to strike. They don't look at, or prefer to ignore, what good comes out of these bills. 4 million people entering poverty? Fine, as long as the rich stop getting so much damn richer! 32 million people having no access to health insurance? Fine, as long as the insurance companies don't get rewarded!
Let's kill the bill (Hamquist's default position; KILL BILL being the words she's most comfortable with) and redo it with the friendlier congress and new, progressiver president that's going to come some day!
I hereby christen FDL and the manic progressives: PINOS. If only Obama would take them.
December 22, 2010 at 2:08 PM
bughunter said...
You're confirming the "arugably" part of my post.
Consider: Would Obama have fought against the rightwing noise machine and paid the political cash required to create an environmental regulatory agency with the clout of the EPA in 2010's beltway environment?
It's an interesting thought experiment. There are a lot of variables involved, not the least of which is the difference in the makeup of the legislatures during the two men's terms.
But you can just write off any such line of inquiry as hogwash if you wish. The idea that Obama is a liberal is just as much pig drippings, imo. But then, my Overton Window is still stuck in 1980.
December 22, 2010 at 2:13 PM
bughunter said...
@Polly: Don't get me wrong. I'm not a progressive scold. I just have no illusions that the man is a liberal, and therefore not disappointed in him. In fact, I'm very impressed with what he's been able to accomplish in the last month, especially with respect to the tax bill. I think he managed to actually get something of value in exchange for the estate tax concession and bush tax cut extensions... so it proves he can accomplish something if it's important to him.
Progessive scolds are disappointed that he didn't deliver the single payer pony and the out-of-afghanistan/iraq/gitmo rainbows, and are therefore frustrated with him because they thought the man shared their values... therefore they expect to continue to be frustrated with him which creates a higher standard for their satisfaction. That reaction is understandable.
I come across as a liberal because my old-school moderate position and the recent rightward lurches of the "center" simply places me on the same side of the aisle with liberals and progressives (and I find them far, far more pleasant company). But I never was convinced that ponies and rainbows were important to Obama in the first place, so it's hard for me to be frustrated with him.
I want my ethics-in-government pony, too, but that horse gave up the ghost long ago... if it ever lived.
With this weekend’s decisive Senate repeal of the military’s “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy for gay service members, can anyone seriously doubt Barack Obama’s patient willingness to play the long game? Or his remarkable success in doing so? In less than two years in office—often against the odds and the smart money’s predictions at any given moment—Obama has managed to achieve a landmark overhaul of the nation’s health insurance system; the most sweeping change in the financial regulatory system since the Great Depression; the stabilization of the domestic auto industry; and the repeal of a once well-intended policy that even the military itself had come to see as unnecessary and unfair.
So why isn’t his political standing higher?
Precisely because of the raft of legislative victories he’s achieved. Obama has pushed through large and complicated new government initiatives at a time of record-low public trust in government (and in institutions of any sort, for that matter), and he has suffered not because he hasn’t “done” anything but because he’s done so much—way, way too much in the eyes of his most conservative critics. With each victory, Obama’s opponents grow more frustrated, filling the airwaves and what passes for political discourse with fulminations about some supposed sin or another. Is it any wonder the guy is bleeding a bit? For his part, Obama resists the pugilistic impulse. To him, the merit of all these programs has been self-evident, and he has been the first to acknowledge that he has not always done all he could to explain them, sensibly and simply, to the American public.
Purdum goes on to say that Obama has made his share of mistakes too, and those have been magnified by the Republicans as well. Bob Cesca points out that Republicans can't stand the fact that Obama keeps beating them so they try to make the victories as costly and as painful as possible, and adds that Republicans aren't the only ones who want to see Obama burn.
I would also argue that the same thing can be said about the president's progressive enemies. The establishment press continues to operate under the false impression that the progressive movement elected this president. Wrong. Many of the top shelf progressive leaders were ambivalent at best about Barack Obama during the campaign. John Edwards was the progressive candidate. Not the president. As such, there's no real motivation among some progressives to see the successes, since they had little to do with the election of the president in the first place.
He's got a point. People often speak of disgruntled Hillary Clinton voters going after Obama and swinging to the Republicans on occasion in order to punish what they see as his betrayal, but few folks talk about the ever more rabid group of progressives that never forgave Obama for beating John Edwards, hindsight about Edwards own personal foibles be damned.
There's a group of hard-core lefties that never saw Obama as anything more than a DINO, and that America was suckered into voting for him by a particularly slick campaign. And they've never been too fond of his many accomplishments either.
18 Comments
Close this window Jump to comment formAnd you go from "Obama is unacceptable!" to "Obama repealed DADT, all is forgiven!" in one post.
Fuck you. You have the principles of a bowl of warm pus.
December 22, 2010 at 10:39 AM
OH BOY! PROJECT!
*dons bifocals, flips through dictionary*
Nuance... nuance... nuance...
AHA! Here it is.
http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/nuance
For you!
December 22, 2010 at 10:53 AM
What's the nuance here asshole?
Obama's worse than Bush, period.
How's that economy coming along, anyway? And all getting rid of DADT means is more bodies for the meat grinder in Afghanistan.
December 22, 2010 at 11:41 AM
So angry! GRRRR!
Easy now, Coolface, easy. We'll never make it to Kamp Kumbaya with you in a stew. Take a breath, and tell us what's got you in such a huff. In detail.
December 22, 2010 at 11:46 AM
Also, being lectured on principles by an anonymous troll on a blog is hysterical.
December 22, 2010 at 11:46 AM
Yeah and being lectured by a pair of dickheads with pseudonyms makes you so much more correct.
Fucking arrogant twat. It's your blog. Why don't you explain why I should give a shit about Obama?
December 22, 2010 at 11:50 AM
does the article talk about how psychotic many republicans/conservatives have become at this point? how angered they are by damn near ANY legislative victory won by democrats, no matter how "reasonably centrist" the legislation may be? if not, i'd find it hard to take the analysis in it all that seriously.
as for my obama problem, i just don't like mushy/gutless centrism. i may vote for it, as the alternative is certainly worse, but that doesn't obligate me to pretend i'm happy about it. some see legislative victories, others see blown opportunities.
and so it goes.
December 22, 2010 at 11:59 AM
i go to have a coffee before posting my stupid little comment and war breaks out! can't you damn kids play nice? and get off my lawn!
December 22, 2010 at 12:02 PM
Big fucking difference between "blown opportunity" and "Obama expands the Bush dictatorship regime."
December 22, 2010 at 12:04 PM
the most sweeping change in the financial regulatory system since the Great Depression
Um, no. The most sweeping change in the financial regulatory system since the Great Depression was the repeal of all the improvements made to the financial regulatory system immediately following the Great Depression in order to prevent another one. Obama's actions have amounted to a slap on the wrist and a cookie to the bullies who took advantage of the repeal at the first opportunity they got.
December 22, 2010 at 12:30 PM
i go to have a coffee before posting my stupid little comment and war breaks out! can't you damn kids play nice? and get off my lawn!
HA! Teadoust, I knew there was hope for you. Keep that snark handy, there's going to be more gross Triangulation before we get the chance to turn the corner on this thing.
December 22, 2010 at 12:32 PM
Yeah and being lectured by a pair of dickheads with pseudonyms makes you so much more correct.
Careful, there, Coolface, I'm sweet on SteveAR at the moment. I wouldn't want to wound my most metal of glibertarians, but if you keep flirting with me; well, the heart wants what the heart wants.
December 22, 2010 at 12:36 PM
Obama signed executive orders closing Gitmo and restricting the CIA to only use interrogation methods outlined in the Army Field Manual.
Then Blue Dog Dems put the kibosh on closing Gitmo. The CIA is not known to blandly accept orders restricting its operations, and I'm sure they haven't this time, either. Check out how well Stansfield Turner did trying to turn them around. Nevertheless, they are under orders, from the president, that are so different from "Hell yeah, I ordered him waterboarded" Bush that only a thoroughgoing chucklehead wouldn't be able to see the difference.
It is actually possible to find the president's actions objectionable in one area and acceptable in another. Certain members of Jane Hamquist's Mooncalf Chorale don't get that, because she serves up their political beliefs in little plastic trays like airline meals, pre-cooked, and all the same flavor, for easy consumption.
Zandar doesn't serve Cream of Outrage every blog post. I can see how that could be a shock to your system. Obviously, there's a lot of build-up. You should add in more nutritious content, from a variety of sources, slowly, until you can handle it. Visiting a site which doesn't delete any dissenting opinion is an important first step. Good for you, Anonymous!
Zandar, my verification word is "ponized." Now you're just taunting me! WHERE IS MY PONY!
December 22, 2010 at 12:53 PM
Oh, and:
There's a group of hard-core lefties that never saw Obama as anything more than a DINO...
I'm not a hardcore leftie, but I saw the DINO in O long ago. I guess it was hard to recognize because there are few left of anyone not DINO. His position on Warrantless Wiretapping and support of DMCA and the copyright police were the tells. I'm not talking about his words, but his actual votes and actions. In practice, he's just another corporatist, and in the long view, to the Right of people like Eisenhower and arguably even Nixon.
December 22, 2010 at 1:00 PM
So, Nixon would have repealed DADT or signed the Lily Ledbetter Act?
No, Obama's far from perfect, but this "to the right of even Nixon" shit is hogwash.
December 22, 2010 at 1:51 PM
Nixon who secretly bombed Cambodia Nixon? That Nixon? Eisenhower who sat back and let Joe McCarthy persecute Communists the way wingnuts pursue Muslims?
Eisenhower did warn about the military-industrial complex, I'll give him that. Once he was safely beyond reach politically. Of course, that was just words, too. Just as Obama's calling out the Supreme Court as they sat in front of him was just words.
Obama is exactly who he said he was all along. I did not support his positions on Warrantless Wiretapping, but the fact that he got HRC through a Congress where the Dems had only a token majority (cough cough **Leiberman**cough cough)is enough to argue against his being a DINO.
The purity progs cannot get over what various baddies get out of some of the deals Obama's had to strike. They don't look at, or prefer to ignore, what good comes out of these bills. 4 million people entering poverty? Fine, as long as the rich stop getting so much damn richer! 32 million people having no access to health insurance? Fine, as long as the insurance companies don't get rewarded!
Let's kill the bill (Hamquist's default position; KILL BILL being the words she's most comfortable with) and redo it with the friendlier congress and new, progressiver president that's going to come some day!
I hereby christen FDL and the manic progressives: PINOS. If only Obama would take them.
December 22, 2010 at 2:08 PM
You're confirming the "arugably" part of my post.
Consider: Would Obama have fought against the rightwing noise machine and paid the political cash required to create an environmental regulatory agency with the clout of the EPA in 2010's beltway environment?
It's an interesting thought experiment. There are a lot of variables involved, not the least of which is the difference in the makeup of the legislatures during the two men's terms.
But you can just write off any such line of inquiry as hogwash if you wish. The idea that Obama is a liberal is just as much pig drippings, imo. But then, my Overton Window is still stuck in 1980.
December 22, 2010 at 2:13 PM
@Polly: Don't get me wrong. I'm not a progressive scold. I just have no illusions that the man is a liberal, and therefore not disappointed in him. In fact, I'm very impressed with what he's been able to accomplish in the last month, especially with respect to the tax bill. I think he managed to actually get something of value in exchange for the estate tax concession and bush tax cut extensions... so it proves he can accomplish something if it's important to him.
Progessive scolds are disappointed that he didn't deliver the single payer pony and the out-of-afghanistan/iraq/gitmo rainbows, and are therefore frustrated with him because they thought the man shared their values... therefore they expect to continue to be frustrated with him which creates a higher standard for their satisfaction. That reaction is understandable.
I come across as a liberal because my old-school moderate position and the recent rightward lurches of the "center" simply places me on the same side of the aisle with liberals and progressives (and I find them far, far more pleasant company). But I never was convinced that ponies and rainbows were important to Obama in the first place, so it's hard for me to be frustrated with him.
I want my ethics-in-government pony, too, but that horse gave up the ghost long ago... if it ever lived.
December 22, 2010 at 2:33 PM