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Ever since the Massachusetts election, Barack Obama has been asking Democrats and Republicans, "Can’t we just get along?" It seems he thinks if he just asks hard enough or wishes intensely enough that the Republicans will finally play fair.
They’ve voted no on everything and given him absolutely zero votes on most pieces of legislation. Obama has already tried inviting them over to the White House, negotiating with them, implementing the policies they asked for (deficit reduction commission was the perfect example) – and they still gave him no votes. Apparently the Rodney King strategy is not cutting it.
I understand the political value of reaching out to the other side. You appear reasonable and centrist, which in this case Obama actually is, to a fault. But there has to be a limit to it. Because right now Obama is caught in a no-win situation of his own making. He promised two seemingly contradictory things – that he would get beyond the partisanship in Washington and at the same time he would bring real change.
It takes two to tango on bipartisanship. So, if you can’t get the other side to play ball and you still want to bring real change, you only have one choice. You have to bring out the pliers and a blowtorch. You have to put the other side on the spot and call them out if they block the change Americans voted for.
But if Obama does that now, they’ll say he didn’t change the tone in Washington and he’s being too partisan by attacking the Republicans. So, he’s in a lose-lose situation. If he doesn’t put the Republicans on the spot he can’t deliver on the change he promised, but if he does attack them then he didn’t deliver on getting beyond partisan bickering.
But he can turn this around to a win-win. How? By setting a deadline. He can say that he is willing to do the concessions he has already promised the Republicans and list what those are. But if they still refuse to vote with him by a certain date, then he has no choice but to call them out. At that point, it is his duty and obligation to point out to the electorate who blocked the change they voted for.
In the words of John McCain, he should make them famous and we should know their names. If Chuck Grassley votes to kill health care reform, then every person who is denied health care in Iowa because of a pre-existing condition should know it was Grassley who did it. Every person that loses a family member because insurance dumped them after they got sick, they should know that their loved one died because Chuck Grassley played partisan politics. Grassley filibustered while people died. These are the men who killed health care reform and these are the men who killed your family.
If President Obama does this, then he can credibly say he reached out and gave the Republicans a chance to be bipartisan along with him. If they refuse, he’ll have no choice but to unleash his political wrath on them. This shifts the responsibility for bipartisanship from Obama to the Republicans. He did his part and they didn’t, so there had to be consequences. Everyone can see the logic in this. People understand that you have to make your case and put your opponents on the spot. The Republicans are never shy about doing this, so it should come as no surprise to them.
Offer them an olive branch, but if they slap it down, roll up your sleeves and deliver the ass-kicking of a lifetime. That would be the change we can believe in.
70 Comments
Cenk: One can hope I guess. But with your last post it seemed like you were saying Obama (and Democrats in general) do this because it’s their pre-ordained role as the “weaker” party so that no policies will “go left.” I can’t help but think that Obama is now just apart of the machine, optimizing gridlock through the guise of bipartisanship while ensuring the plutocracy is further entrenched.
That’s a wonderful strategy has several very strong points in its favor. The problem, though, is that the Republicans own the right wing noise machine and it will distort the situation entirely and lie about who is responsible for the problems.
Exactly right, kind of similar to my thoughts the other day:
http://seminal.firedoglake.com/diary/27348
“Offer them an olive branch, but if they slap it down, roll up your sleeves and deliver the ass-kicking of a lifetime. That would be the change we can believe in.”
Let’s hope this is the plan. Otherwise the Dems will be going down next fall.
Can’t you see? Obama doesn’t want to bring about real change and he’s just using the cover of bipartisanship to maintain and further lock-in the status quo. (Not to mention greasing the wheels for his ultra-lucrative post-presidential transistion into full-time corporate shill, as per Bill Clinton.)
Thanks, Cenk. It’s too bad Obama didn’t do that last March, give them until June, and then support ending the filibuster using the “nuclear option” in early July. If he had done that we’d have more legislation now than we’d know what to do with. As it is, he’ll be lucky to save a Democratic House if he does something like that now.
Couldn’t agree more.
Your article is well-written, Cenk, as always, but you are missing the critical point. Obama doesn’t really want to do what his constituents elected him to do. It’s all bait & switch and kabuki show.
Seriously, it’s tedious to keep saying: well, maybe NOW, Rahmbama will “see the light” and stop expecting ReThugs to be biparisan. Heh – ObamaRahma expects and wants Republic obstruction because BHO is playing by the Rovian playbook. As I stated in another post, it is a fantasy to think that we have a two-party system. We have a one-party system, and Rove & his henchmen have achieved their goal of a permanent Republican majority.
Unless or until we can somehow have a viable third party (unlikely), that’s where it’s at. We might as well have McCain/Palin at the helm for all the good ObamaRahma does for Democratic constituents. He’s just not that into us!! And it’s way past time to get over it. Stop expecting the “change” that’s never, ever gonna happen.
The Scorpion and the Frog.
The scorpion needs to cross the river, so he asks a frog to carry him across. The frog is afraid of being stung, but the scorpion reassures him he wouldn’t do that because they both would die, the frog would sink and the scorpion would drown. The frog agrees, but halfway across the scorpion stings him. The frog asks him why and the scorpion explains, “I couldn’t help it, I’m a scorpion; it’s my nature.”
Obama has never been a fighter. He’s a kisser upper, a bully appeaser, and a slick talker. That is his nature.
Right now he is anthropomorphizing the Republicans. He thinks they will cooperate to avoid mutually assured destruction. They aren’t afraid of destruction.
Look what they have done to us when they had the majority. They only care about being returned to power by invalidating his authority or sabotaging his efforts.
He refuses to see them for who they are. It’s exactly like when Bush looked into Pooty-Poot’s eyes and knew what he was thinking.
He only brings out the sticks to use on progressives to get war supplementals, or elite welfare bills signed for the bullies – who told him to bully the weak ones in case his nice speech doesn’t work. He brings out carrots for republicans because he identifies with them, but they don’t identify with him. He’s not part of the tribe. The don’t let weak bully appeasers in to their club. He can threaten the progressive congress members, but he can’t threaten the progressive voters.
There’s gonna be a lot more pain until he finds the bottom and decides to go left or die politically. Then we’ll see some change.
I know that parable, but respectfully, I disagree with your analogy. But I wrote about my take, above, so I won’t go on. IMO, BHO knows exactly what he’s doing, and he’s just not at all interested in being anything but a neo-liberal. He’ll never “get around” to doing what progressives want; he is responding only to the rightwing playbook (my opinion).
I agree with your points. He’s a neoliberal. So are the Republicans, but without any patina of caring about the common folk.
Right-wingers value security through tribalism and loyalty to the tribe above all else. He can’t get into their club, not even as a secret member.
That’s what I was thinking. Dems have been doing this for a very long time. Couldn’t do anything in Congress, cuz there were more Rethuglicans. Voted in a majority Dems, and couldn’t do anything cuz of the bipartisanship that never existed before. Now Obama has brought the mundane to primetime 24/7 media blitz. He isn’t innocently reaching out for bipartisanship. It’s his excuse.
Deadlines already passed.
I appreciate what Cenk is trying to do… but Obama wants bipartisanship to do the wrongs things… plain and simple. So be careful what yuu ask for because we might just get it. Like we did with Bernake.
All I can do is hope the GOP doesn’t give it to him and the Senate Dems in particular.
Wasn’t it Reginold Denny who said, “Can’t we just get along?” and not Rodney King?
Easy mistake to make if you are not a LAX resident. Heh, heh.
Yeah, about sums it up… what did he say a couple of days ago to his Senate friends: paraphase “…don’t read [listen] to the blogs…”
NOTE …forgetting from his OWN ‘outreach’ blog — those oh… so shallow words:
http://my.barackobama.com/page/community/post/stateupdates/gGx3Kc
Yeah right.
Despite their frequent comic pratfalls, the GOP has been smarter than Obama all along. They know voters don’t give a damn about bipartisanship, that they will judge the Democratic majority by what they accomplish and if they accomplish nothing, the GOP will become the majority party again and they will not make the same mistake, they WILL accomplish things… none of them good.
Getting along with the rotting hulk of Repugnantcan Conswervates: Dirty dancing with your Unusual Uncle with the running sores.
Not getting any on you: Priceless,
He can say that he is willing to do the concessions he has already promised the Republicans and list what those are. But if they still refuse to vote with him by a certain date … it is his duty and obligation to point out to the electorate who blocked the change they voted for.
C’mon, whatever he concedes, they’ll just say it’s not enough. And then, the problem becomes ours: we don’t know how much he is willing to give away. Probably the whole fucking progressive agenda.
This guy and his presidency are toast. He’s all talk and everyone knows it. He oozes weakness. He’s not “calling out” anyone. He’ll offer Judd Gregg or Dana Perino a cabinet position before he does that.
It is a sad reality that gridlock is preferable to passing the Senate HCR bill or most of the Dems other proposed legislation.
Yep. That’s the sad reality all right but people are still hoping and waiting for that magic moment to come along. By the time it does, Obama will be doing the Clinton ExPrez Speaking Tour, bringing in the big bucks and wondering why he was only a one termer. Time is something nobody has left. The economy is in a shambles, while everyone waits less patiently for some magical progressive turn of a President that isn’t going to turn. He’s a great speaker. That’s all he’s got. Everyone now knows it after one year.
Nope…Rodney King, very plaintively. Such a fine quote from that troubled man.
Obama is a Blue Dog status quo corporatist. Change was a campaign slogan, something for the rubes. He never meant to deliver on it and hasn’t. Why should the Republicans compromise with him? He’s not only continuing their policies but setting them up to return to power, all this after they were on the edge of oblivion.
Why is Obama doing this despite the obvious consequences? You could ask as much of Evan Bayh, Blanche Lincoln, Harry Reid, and all the House Blue Dogs who look like they will go down to defeat. They did it because their interests run that way, because they believe the corps will take care of them, that they can become lobbyists even if they don’t call themselves such.
I also like Tom Tomorrow’s alternative theory.
I had one of those soap opera will contests, where the grown sons of the first marriage sue the second wife. It lasted 5 years. My opponents were just like the Rs. Every time I caved into one of their demands (as I wanted to get it over), that became the starting point for their next demands. I finally fired my second lawyer & got one who would fight. Had to go thru a bench trial, but the judge strong armed them into a compromise (which didn’t even pay for their lawyer’s fees) before he had to make a decision. Learned a lot of painful lessons, and the pain is revived by observing O’s behavior.
Enjoying our 1 party GOPocratic state? Dem vs. GOP, right vs. left, conservative vs. liberal, it’s all just noise. The plutocrats own both parties and have for a long time. It’s nothing but a dog and pony show.
They will enlarge their already millions, working for the big corporations, and down the road a couple of elections, will be selected to work in yet another administration. That’s how it’s worked for decades. So they don’t care. They feel they are entitled to these positions, and it turns out, damn, they’re right.
This deadline talk reminds me of the little kid who says this time he will hold his breath until he turns blue if he doesn’t get his way. The fallacy in this kind of threat is that the only one he is hurting is himself. So what incentive do the other kids have to give in? None.
I guess my question for Cenk would be how much more of this is he going to take from Obama before he drops his support of Obama? Some of us pulled our support of Obama a year and a half ago. At some point it becomes about one’s credibility. We can all of us be wrong. But the real test is how long you are willing to stay wrong.
F*ck bipartisanship! That ‘ship’ was topedoed a long time ago and it isn’t coming back to the surface. Do you honestly think the Rethugs are going to cross their ‘base’?! You all have seen by now the Kos poll on self-identified delusionalists! Ain’t going to happen Baby!
That’s a good point. For most of them, there isn’t a downside to screwing us. They can do it coming and going, and they win either way.
The comments here are the too-familiar and too-typical Obama-bashing. The crowd here has lost all faith in POTUS 44 –after a whopping one year…The last thing that this crowd wants is an “Obama strategy” since they’ve already abandoned him –after one year….The crowd here laments about the “time and faith” that they put in Obama, only to be totally jilted –after one year….You see Obama is an “insider” who is “owned by corporations”. The crowd here has totally figured that out– after a whopping one year….It’s obvious that Cenk has not totally given up on obama. That’s too bad because the loyalty position is not welcomed here. After all, its already been a whopping one year.
Cenk, if Obama had you as his chief of staff instead of Rahm, the US would have recovered already. Unfortunately, Obama is a Douchebag so no we won’t ever make any progress while he’s still in office. So hold on to your hats folks cuz us peons are in for one helluva crappy ride.
It is all Barrington Chadsworth’s fault. How could I not have seen? LOL
I think perhaps Obama’s miscalculation was in thinking Republicans would not obstruct a corporatist agenda. Wrong, their primary objective is to make Dems appear ineffective… which is a pretty sure bet.
We mustn’t lose hope, Agent Palin is still in the field.
Thanks for your concern.
Keep on hopin’!
OK, please detail the evidence that supports your case that it is too early to give up on O. Links would be nice too.
Pretty obvious, at this point, I concur.
Alas, Cenk seems to think there’s hope left . . .
Silly Cenk.
All that’s left is massive hard core pressure on WH, Obama, Dem, Pubs.
I don’t see THAT happening soon.
I think Obama’s “Rodney King” strategy is aimed more at independents (who like to see him make the gesture) than Republicans.
His strategy for Republicans is to look for wedge issues, such as
* Afghanistan
* Anti-Big Bank policies
* etc.
His Afghanistan initiative did get Republican support. Other policies are easy “I can’t believe the Republicans are against this” policies that essentially dare Republicans to oppose popular programs. The weird thing is how often Republicans take up the dare. These things will come in handy as November approaches.
BTW, what happened on TRMS today Rachel appeared for a few seconds between adds with a case of the giggles followed by a dive under her desk??? I wasn’t watching very carefully at the beginning of that very brief sequence, and when she came on again, there was not a word of explanation.
WTF?
Bob in AZ
Earth to TruthHurt2 — we’ve seen the “Obama Strategy” — also being told that it was worked out [well before a year ago nb: w/o a po] behind closed doors with the health care industry with not a progressive in sight — not one at the negotiating table… !
If you can’t see the insider’s by his side, and the ‘outsiders’ that are ignored and totally shut out — then I’m really sorry that you still can’t see the forest for the trees [yet?].
Yeah, in that one year what exactly has he done on issues of national security reform (getting rid of the Bush-Cheney shit), health, and economic reform? He blew his favorable ratings with the public in case you haven’t noticed.
Spoken like a true neolib, status quo, corporate feudalist.
Rovian to its core, your comment.
But thanks, Rahm.
He has completed more than twenty-five percent of his term. Are we to wait for fifty, seventy-five, or one hundred percent before we are allowed to evaluate his administration?
Sorry, you didn’t inform us of the rules prior to November 2008 so they do not apply to this president. Better luck next time.
Actually I gave up on Obama in July 2008 and it wasn’t a sudden decision. You know the argument you are using is similar to one that Bush used. He said he would leave the evaluation of his Administration to the historians. It was all just a dodge then as it is now. Obama has given us plenty of data points on a multitdue of issues, what he has done, what he hasn’t done, how he did or did not do it, what he promised, what he delivered, what he says, what he does, whom he put in his Administration, whom he chose to work with on the Hill. We all wanted change, real change. We all wanted to clean up the disasters and fix the mistakes of the Bush years, but it’s not happening with Obama. It doesn’t matter if he’s been there 1 year or 7. It isn’t just that he hasn’t delivered but that he never really tried, he never really fought for anything. And this with the largest majorities in Congress since the 20s. If you still want to find excuses for him that is your prerogative. The rest of us have moved on.
Yeah, that going for the independents worked like a charm in MA. (Where 51% are registered Is, iirc.)
I gave up on him exactly then too, at NN, when his snot nosed reps told me I had no choice but to vote for him despite his switcheroo on FISA.
You know I’m really insulted that O hasn’t organized supporters to show up on lefty blogs to defend him. Only the ocassional O troll. /s
It would seem TruthHurts2′s comment was just a hit and run. Evidently reading the truth about Dear Leader hurts 2 much.
They are all over @ Daily Kos having one big happy party …
– regardless what’s compromised, and can never be changed.
Daily Kos is one destructive element that democrats could do without, but hey it’s a blog.
What do I think of Obama’s Bi-Partisan policy? It was naive and badly implemented from day one and allowed the GOP to roll him.
What can he do now? Go for broke, give a deadline, and expose those who won’t play.
But you know what? His policies are doomed due to his lack of intuitive connection to the average person, and if nothing getsdone it’s obama’s fault. Why? Because he played with the silly notion that he was going to be a Democratic Reaganesque creature and clearly cannot intuit the game of politics on this very challenging and dangerous level.
Not to know that Republicans were waiting to carve him up is stupid,naive,inexperienced, etc. To have dallied and said nothing about healthcare and leaving it to the house and senate to louse up was unforgivable. Dealing with BigPharma in the backroom was equally unforgivable, and the Republicans knew he could be had.
He can only go for broke if he has the guts and the strength, but with Axelrove and Rham and his financial team,…….I dunno.
He would have to make the kind of change from within his cadre and change himself, and I really don’t think he can do this or even knows how.
Nah, just a quick drive by as you say, and off to the next blog to get his quota in and the paycheck.
It’s tough being a paid troll, so many blogs and threads to hit to meet yer quota.
ah, the continuing censorship. i shall post anyway.
the warmongering must be arrested. the military-industrial complex must be shaved.
and the troops withdrawn from all of the imperial bastions outside of the united states. iraq, afghanistan, qatar, turkey, japan, colombia, guyana, germany, uk, greenland, guam, diego garcia, et alia.
the usa must finally recognize it can no longer afford empire. until that recognition occurs, until those bastions of empires are abandoned, the usa economy will continue to swirl down the drain.
that is the truth that few care to acknowledge. neither purported progressives nor reptillians want to admit to that reality.
and that is the real problem. neither left nor right, in the usa, want to relinquish the trappings of our imperialist ways. and all of them will kill the usa so as to continue to support us imperialism.
post this one you secret imperialists.
Daily Kos has become irresponsible. The childishness and stubborness reminds me of the other side of the dime…the right wing.
Kos carries the same dreaded toic rigidity as the right and they both do no service to any real governing.
Just pass anything, eh? Sounds just like Bush tax cuts for the rich or other right wingnut positions. This kind of water carrying will doom Obama even further from connecting with the important issues that most people need asap. Kos does no favor to Obama in their driven toxic pursuit to “get anything done, just get it done”.
In fact this is political suicide.
Too complicated unless you are writing a term paper or a weekly assignment.
Simple version?
He was bought and sold buy and to corporate feudalism, as all politicians are, to enact THEIR agenda.
Party has NOTHING to do with it, it’s class warfare.
End of story.
Well, yer partly right, but you are purely wrong about the leftist tendencies in this country.
THEY, not faux neolibs, are antiwar, anti interventionist, and are all about domestic and social improvements for the masses.
The right, in general, is racist, misogynist, anti education, and anti poor as long as they have THEIR cut of the spoils. As are most libertarians, who claim constitutional rights to deny women and minorities their place at the table of the American Horn Of Plenty (which has rotted and decayed beyond recognition).
But thanks for feeling like you were gonna be banned . . . that’s a SURE heads up you don’t agree or care to discuss the REAL issues most on this blog care to discuss . . very adversarial and whiny, victim like, up front.
Karl Rove couldn’t have laid that stinking turd of preamble any better.
NEXT!
“But if Obama does that now, they’ll say he didn’t change the tone in Washington and he’s being too partisan by attacking the Republicans. So, he’s in a lose-lose situation. If he doesn’t put the Republicans on the spot he can’t deliver on the change he promised, but if he does attack them then he didn’t deliver on getting beyond partisan bickering.”
Maybe the 81-diminsional chess player purposely created this seemingly lose-lose situation knowing that it’s a win-win for his corporate pals … and eventually him.
I don’t think obama is a very good person, which is a premise too many people blindly believe despite the bad that has been effectuated by his actions and inactions. It’s hard to believe that a guy can be that smart and then constantly make moves that effectuate the opposite of what he says he’s for. And it is especially hard to believe when the person has been caught purposefully breaking campaign promises … while trying to deceive the american people that he isn’t … in the healthcare debacle and other issues that would benefit the american people over his corporate pals.
Z
It is disheartening to see my colleagues continually discussing politics in terms of party affiliation. Sadly, party politics are no longer relevant in the U.S. At this point, U.S. politics makes sense only when the fundamental unit of political analysis is economic class rather than political party.
In other words, it is not Democrats vs. Republicans. It is rich vs. not rich. if you want to understand politics, follow the money. That is, trace the flow of money both to the lawmakers and to those that will benefit from the passage of a particular law.
Both parties are vying to develop the best schemes to enhance the money flow from working people to those obscenely rich people that own the business corporations and the government.
I think that there is a method to Obama’s “madness” here: It seems to me like he’s actually taking a rather well justified approach to the problem that is in fact based on what most Progressives think: that the core of the Republican Party are Paranoid Schizophrenics.
Now if you’re trying to get someone like that to do what you want without resorting (well, being able to resort) to cattle prods and straight-jackets, you have to appear to reason with them and be accommodating.
What doesn’t work is ruthlessly attacking them. Let’s try:
“You folks who think Obama’s goal is to support the status quo and is a traitor to the cause are a bunch of moronic idiots who live in a fantasy world populated by fairness fairies where money is irrelevant because everyone has what they need and are nice to each other all day long!”
Ooooh. Did I hear some blood vessels popping? Get down off your pedestal’s folks: this is the issue. While there are clearly lots of really really evil folks on the right who are indeed manipulating the situation, they benefit tremendously by being able to tap into that sense of “being put down by those oh-so-superior libtards”.
I think Obama gets this, and is trying to simply lower the temperature of the debate by trying to eliminate the name calling while still presenting the facts to the folks who don’t want to listen to them (apparently on both sides! [Buffy ducks]).
Whether he’s going to be successful in this really does depend on whether or not people see what he’s doing and at the very least not engage in calling him names and calling him apostate….
i am completely accurate, amigo[?].
the imperial state must be dismantled. until it is, you and your fellow citizens will be impoverished.
i hear you say that i am whingeing[a brit locution]. hardly. i am just telling you how it is going to be. the usa either suspends its imperialist ways or you and your fellows citizens will become much poorer.
you cannot afford imperialism any longer. nor afford sustaining the armaments industries. that is just a reality. that you would prefer to ignore.
the usa citizenry cannot continue to finance the bill clinton, george bushits, tony blair, and now the barry soetero militarism. if you want a democratic republic to survive.
but, there are a large number of usa citizens who favor a totalitarianist government. are you one of those statists?
in closing, i have long had a complaint with the censorship on this site. censorship that i found made no sense. as i wrote jane months ago, censorship was her privilege…after all, it was her site and she could do what she wanted. i just thought that she should reveal her censorship to her community. so that we could all evaluate those ground rules.
For a long time I thought Obama knew the Republicants for who and what they really are and was playing a rhetorical game of reaching out to the mob that only wants to break his thumbs. But I’m starting to wonder if he’s certifiably crazy since they’re breaking his thumbs and he still keeps doing it with no sign of a willingness to go around them in order to accomplish what he can, and no sign of a willingness to be a real leader of his own party. I’m not ready yet to wonder whether he’s certifiably corrupt.
And his latest cheerleading tour is already getting stale. You need some meaningful results yesterday, Mr. President.
Big O needs to call them out? How about holding an icepick to their throats? I think he should wake up every day and ask himself, what would LBJ do?*
* and ignore the part about escalating unwinnable wars.
Obama can do anything he wants. The Republicans will still say they were left out of the process. Republicans will always say roughly the same things about any Democratic President, no matter what.
I’m hoping progressives will figure this out soon. Most of them still repeat smears about Clinton that the Repubs were repeating back in the 90s, which is kind of creepy.
Are you kidding? Bi partisanship is non existent if Obama is the only player!
Bush reached out to no one but his own party. The Great Uniter and Decider sowed more division politically than any other President of recent memory. Republicans will not come on board even if the President offers them offshore drilling or their own ideas! The problem as I see it is that our President read a poll somewhere that Americans want more bi partisanship and a working Congress. Of course we all do! It takes two sides to do that and the GOP is content to do the usual nothing! Obama needs to acknowledge this failed experiment and get on with the business of the country. [and I think he will eventually] Did Lincoln ever bring the country together or solve bipartisanship?
He is such a pussy cat. He is going to keep reaching across the aisle until there are no democrats left to reach out to. He is so used to kissing ass and being a goood negro that he does not know how to roll up his sleeves and kick a little ass. I cant wait to hear his eloquent concession speech in 2012.
you’re on to something with the analogy — apparently the desire to please the man is deep in obama’s bones; he’s probably not even aware of it. it’s a little different from just being an inside player; it’s more like a split personality.
I’m remembering seeing Bob Herbert some weeks ago, with Bill Moyers I think, saying something to the effect that it was a class war and we lost.
Well, I don’t know, I was saying Clinton was destructive and a poor excuse for a Democrat back in the 90′s and I still think so, and I didn’t hear any Republicans saying that. Who needs to repeat Republican smears–truth works.
Completely agree. It is class warfare. I said in an earlier post, we no longer have a 2 party system. “Democrat” and “Republican” are convenient terms to toss out to the base to make us think we’ve got some kind of say in the situation.
Unless or until the working class starts working together against the oligarchs, we will be ruled by the aristocracy. It’s all a kabuki show.
we can debate until the cows come home whether BHO is a “good guy” or because of his absent dad or whatever that he’s some kind of “pleaser.” Fine, whatever, nice dinner conversation, I guess. But all that’s window dressing and beside the point.
BHO is nothing more than Bush or Reagan or Rove or Cheney in so-called “Democratic” clothing. This “bipartisanship” junk is just that: junk tossed out to fool the base and independents into thinking he’s “doing something” for us. He’s not. And he clearly gets that Republics will be obstructionist; that’s what Rahmbama wants. That’s what the corporations want. It’s the corporations and the plutocracy who’re calling the shots here; not us plebs.
BHO is not that into us; we need to get over it. Turn the page; move on.
That sounds like a pretty good idea, Cenk, but I’m afraid having Obama’s “wrath” unleashed on you would be like getting pelted with marshmallows. He seems utterly incapable of doing ANYTHING that he thinks might make people dislike him. Even the people who already DO dislike him.
That was Trumka ~ he was very strong, the question was aren’t you guys re-starting the culture wars (I think)? and Trumka tells Moyers: it was a class war and we lost. Made me hopeful for a moment. But seeing someone tell the truth always does.
Damn good piece, Cenk!
Link’s up at Digby’s, on the “Stop Being Condescending” thread…
Woops! Here it is:
http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2010/02/stop-being-condescending-by-digby.html