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Now that the president has signaled yet another collapse in agreeing to tax cuts for the rich, there is a hidden cost to this capitulation. He is now stuck defending this deal for the rest of his term. I predicted this on the show yesterday and today it’s playing out exactly the way I imagined, with the president sending out advisers to talk about what a great idea it is to give tax cuts to the rich.
Once you sign off on a political position, you own it. This could be a corollary to Colin Powell’s doctrine on foreign policy. Powell said if you break it, you own it. In this case, if you make it, you own it.
The president claims he will fight hard against these same tax cuts two years from now. It’s hard to stop laughing long enough to make a point against that, but I will try. If you are sending out your people to talk up polls about how the right the Republicans were on the tax cuts for the rich now, how are you going to send out the same people to talk about how wrong they were – and how wrong you were – two years from now?
These are the things that make me wonder if President Obama has a firm grasp on basic political fundamentals. Yesterday he said that the political reality is that he just didn’t have the votes in the Senate (by far his favorite excuse). He even said “I can’t win” in the Senate. That’s a damning reversal for a man who ran on “Yes we can.” . . .
But more importantly, he doesn’t seem to understand Politics 101. You don’t just count the votes based on how the other side says they’re going to vote. From time to time, you call their bluff. Which means you go to the home states of swing senators like Scott Brown in Massachusetts and Olympia Snowe in Maine and you campaign on this winning issue there until you make them feel the political pain. Then you put them to a decision — do you want to risk your career voting against me on this issue where I have huge popular support or do you want to vote with me? Then you take the vote and they will bend. If he doesn’t understand that, boy did we elect the wrong guy.
Of course, the alternative is that he does understand that but doesn’t ever have the stomach for a real fight. Or even worse yet, secretly likes this deal and will always find an excuse to get more tax cuts and sweet deals for the rich and powerful. In which case, boy did we elect the wrong guy.
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28 Comments
Yes, it is amazing that he has offspring given his lack of balls.
Well, the real hidden cost to THIS capitulation is Social Security.
This “tax deal” is a Trojan horse attack on SS. Once the “tax holiday” is over SS will face a massive, massive assault.
Hey, who knows? Maybe he found his wife screwing some other guy and just said “Well, I still get to sleep with her sometimes. Marriage is founded on compromise and I just can’t win in the bedroom.”
“boy did we elect the wrong guy”
Yep, I think that pretty much hits it on the head.
Well…There was no right guy…or girl.
Bravo.
never ceases to amaze me. democrats were impotent with the presidency and majorities in both houses. republicans are omnipotent with control of one house. how can this be? do the repubs have a powerful druid? or what?
Cenk, loved your response to yes we can. No we Can’t!
Average citizens have been railroaded by Obama. There is no hope or change in his efforts. If he even cared a little about all those millions out of work, losing their homes, living in cars and tents, he would not have agreed to any of the repugs wants.
You can use this if you like:
In his analogy of the republicans driving the car into the ditch and now want the keys back, he caved and gave them the keys along with cash to party on!
This reminds me of a post by Arthur Silber a few years ago
than-shit.htmlStupider than shit
Better link
http://powerofnarrative.blogspot.com/2008/09/stupider-than-shit.html
Cenk, once you look at Obama through the prism of what he’s done once in office, not what he said to get elected, the answer becomes very simple…and very obvious. He is doing this because he wants to.
It’s not like he hasn’t telegraphed his punches either…the FISA filibuster flip-flop, the (unintentional and honest) comment that the President he most admires is Reagan, the insipid flailing on a too-small stimulus, the pure Kabuki of HCR and the Public Option, and now the utter cave to Repubs on tax cuts for millionaires. Hell, when he picked Liebermann as his mentor in the Senate and campaigned for that asshole should have been enough to cause progressives pause.
The fact that when he does talk about his “achievements” he saves his scorn and contempt for his “friends” on the Left, while praising his “enemies” on the Right for their ability to make one-sided deals in their favor tells you everything you need to know about where this two-faced bastard’s allegiance really lies -and it ain’t with anyone whose net worth isn’t north of the high seven figures.
Your third hypothesis is correct, ” Boy did we ever elect the wrong guy”.
I would be willing to take my chances with Kucinich.
Silber’s the best.
All the way through the 2008 election I watched millions of fawning jack-in-apes deify Obama as if he was an old Roman emperor winning yet another province. He was the smartest this, the smartest that, a new man for a new century. Nobody was allowed to question his complete lack of political savy. He was two un-things, he wasn`t Hillary and he wasn`t Hillary. Jesus Christ couldn`t live up to the expectations of his followers and now the same cruxifiction seems awaiting Obama. He has made dreadful errors; he has made foolish statements; however considering the circumstances who could have done any better or any worse. Grow up you spoiled brats of privildge and get off his back.
Zenostoa
This is snark, right?
They are all Right guys too far right
First, I’ll just repeat that this isn’t political capitulation on Obama’s part. It’s what he wants. However, this is true:
In fact, I may have to quote it the next time some fool tries to explain that Obama got the best deal he could. We learned in the health care “reform” debate that legislators don’t always vote the way they say they will.
Got their mojo workin’.
Some times I am wrong and I am certainly no political wonk, but, it seems to me that Obama, whether he had the ability to or not, negotiated for us. We encouraged him to do so.
What he negotiated is a proposal. That is all. He perceived that this was the best “deal” he could get. Okay. If you think this is the final offer, then you are wrong. He owns the proposal. It is up to us to make certain -we- do not sign this proposal, by, among other things, sitting on our collective asses.
This is a test. For us. Not Obama.
Get out in the streets and protest, damn it. Show your feelings. This is something even the tea baggers could join in. Do it, now.
Political 101: sell out as soon as you can. Especially if you were a piece of _____to begin with… Watch out for any of these “firsts of… ” IE> why do we fall for the “first of… ” as in wouldn’t it be somewhat better to … implore the character quotient… as we were long ago… told to do… ?
He could be like an old attorney pal of mine who married the richest harlot in Central Florida. We were all getting our weekly drunk on at a local hotel when another old pal said,” Your wife has bedded everyman in the city,how can you keep looking the other way ?” ” I probably couldn`t if this was New York or Chicago but Orlando is still a small town.”
Zenostoa
To John in Sacremento,I hope I hit the correct reply button. No it wasn`t meant to be snark. In the future when responding to my essays, please reply in Almighty God`s language,Elizabethan English laced with iambic pentameter. ” This is Snark,right? ” may be the vilest assault on our mother tongue since William the Bastard of Normandy.
No,it is not snark. It is an insight that might have been gleaned from the Iliad, .” The Book of Luke ” or Shakespeare`s
minor work about the death of a Roman dictator.
Zenostoa
Dear IntelVet: You are casting pearls before swine. The progressive movement has become one big Starbuck`s meeting where the main topic of conversation is what private school has French classes or if Turtle wax will harm the finish of your Lexus. The only usage of the street for most is a place to get you a cab on your way to Bloomies. This is why I wanted Obama not to cave and if the unemployed all 2 million of them were three weeks from hunger, it would have been Rouge River Detroit all over again. It would have been glorius. It is time to write off progressive intelligentia and find new leaders in Union halls and tear gas filled streets.
Zenostoa
Excellent post. I’d go one step further. At best, Obama is a moderate Republican. At worst, he’s a fascist. By fascist I mean Mussolini’s definition of using the power of the state to enhance the power of large corporations. If someone wants to argue that point, show me one thing Obama has done that has actually decreased corporate power in our government.
Has anyone heard the Joke about the president that pass the Bush tax cuts and made them permanent?
It goes like this, it was this trojan horse president named OBAMA that hated the bush tax cuts before he pass them.
he told the world in 2 years I will kill the bush tax cuts
the people said trojan horse president OBAMA how are you going to kill something you juse made permamnent?
the trojan horse president OBAMA said?
i thought all of you were as dumb as BUSH! :)
Bingo. Well said.
Corporate. Fascist. Oligarchy.
Owns it all, executive, judiciary, congress, we the people and all our social systems . . . lock, stock and barrel.
But that wouldn’t work since he’D have to use Airforce 1 which we now know has an effect like kryptonite on him.
I’m afraid that’s it. If you haven’t already, read Matt Taibbi’s Griftopia cover to cover – especially Chapter 6, about Obama’s systematic deceit in furtherance of the healthcare sellout. Taibbi’s exposé thoroughly documents the following claim:
Note also that your “alternatives” aren’t mutually exclusive; incompetence, cowardice, and treachery can quite easily coexist in a single person.