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Comparison: the Democrats are like Philadelphia sports fans.
I’ll let that sink in.
Taste it. Rub a little on your gums. Circular motions. That’s it.
Philadelphia sports fans are known to be zealous, yes. They shot paintballs at Neil Armstrong. They hurled ninja throwing stars at Jesus. Or something.
That’s not the aspect I’m holding up for comparison. Rather, the aspect I find interesting is the one where Philadelphia sports fans run very hot or very cold depending on the success of their teams at any given inning or quarter. Someone gets a home run, it’s all, we’re going to the World Series! Someone makes an error in the outfield, it’s all, this team sucks, fuck your mothers, fuck your fathers, fuck yourself in the ear with the Phillie Phanatic’s otherworldly proboscis! (Seriously, what is that thing? I think he’s the scout of an ultraterrestrial invasion force. Frankly, I welcome our new Phanatic Emperors, fresh from the Hollow Earth dimension.)
…
It took Republicans — hell, Americans in general — eight years to start getting frowny at Dubya.
But it’s taking Americans, and Democrats in particular, only eight months to start dissing Obama.
I know I don’t agree 100%, but I’m not going to lie, this piece makes a good point. Your thoughts?
11 Comments
Good Point?!
Obama has sold us down the river on Bank Bailouts, Gay Rights, The Constitution, and Healthcare Reform.
He’s consciously trying to freeze out every ‘liberal’ independent group and stifle every primary challenge.
The only president worse than him would be John McCain!
The piece is a bunch of crap. What Obama has done so far has had little redeeming social value. -:) In particular, his failure to repair the Bush abuses of the constitution is outrageous, as are the choices he made about the bank bailout, the stimulus bill, and now health insurance reform. If Obama continues this way for the next four or eight years, by the time he’s done the US will be a plutocracy and a third world nation.
I was thinking about this today. Aren’t most of Obama’s sins those of omission as opposed to commission? By that I mean most of his failings are failings to reverse Bush policy enough. (The big exception to that in my mind would be Afghanistan.) So that would indeed be an argument for give him time. Bush had 8 years to screw it up.
Sorry, Jason. His sins on the stimulus package, the bank bailouts, and on health insurance reform are sins of commission, as are his sins on FISA and his decision not to pursue accountability investigations. Moreover the notion of sins of omission vs. sins of commission, has to do with inadvertently overlooking something something, versus deliberately doing something. In continuing or extending the Bush policies on State Secrets and preventive detention Obama is very deliberately doing something, and moreover what he is doing is very, very bad for American Democracy, indeed.
If there were a reasonably viable third party that was progressive and devoted to democracy, I’d vote for its candidate in a New York second. Obama’s best asset in getting re-elected is that any alternative with a reasonable chance of getting elected is likely to be even worse for America than he is.
Yeah, my analogy was probably a bad one, but I think the point stands on FISA, bailout, etc…
What Obama has done there is a not-as-bad version of what Bush did. That really doesn’t make it good policy, but it does put the actions in a certain context.
Basically, I think there’s an argument to be made that the decisions Obama has made that don’t walk back Bush’s policy far enough should be treated differently than the decisions he’s made that are all his own. Afghanistan and health care I’d put in the “his own” camp. FISA, detentions, Iraq, the bailout – those are all walkbacks of Bush.
“loud, dismissive, over-critical” could have been linked to specific examples, but weren’t. Major weakness of that post, imo. Jason, I know that this post fits in with your “Obama is our friend” framing. Good luck with that, but this piece (make nicer to Obama or we’ll get Bush back and it will be all your fault) is completely unconvincing.
I definitely disagree with the conclusion of the piece.
With the wingnuts obstructing Pres. O’s setting up his appointees, it’s not hard to see that he’s got a huge job to do just getting a gov’t in place. No, eight months isn’t enough time to undo all the harm of the past ten years, (two years of Clinton terms had domination by right in congress to undo the good he’d done) and if you recall, by Sept 11 of his first term, the worst president ever was given a free hand to do all the worst.
Yeah, I’m as critical of Obama on many fronts as anyone, but if nothing else, his tone of hopefulness over fear and his approach in dealing with other countries (with the exception of Afghanistan) is SO much better than what we got with Bush.
On the domestic front, we just need to realize that Obama is NOT some big, liberal Santa Claus who’s going to pull everything on our wish list out of his bag.
That’s just the fact. We can either piss and moan about it, or we can work harder at forcing his hand. We’ve begun to have an impact on re-framing the discussion in our society, but it’s just the beginning. If we want to see more, and longer-lasting change, we have a LOT more work to do.
Right-wingers spent 20-some years shifting the political continuum to the right, it won’t bounce back over-night — or even over 8 months or 4 years.
It’s a marathon, not a sprint people. Criticize Obama when he deserves it, but don’t take it so personally.
We haven’t even seen the real crest of the right wing, ‘Movement Politics’ tsunami. It’s been a well-funded effort, the latest incarnation of which has been over forty years in the making and we’re still making believe that ‘W’ invented it.
Bush was just the latest hood-ornament to grace the right-wing juggernaut express that ran us over in 1968.
Electing Obama wasn’t indicative of victory; it was evidence of the possibility that we might get a chance to take back our government.
We made the same mistake when Nixon resigned; we declared victory and let our guard down.
Between the rear-guard dead-enders who BushCo embedded in our government to carry on the fight when Obama took over, and the Military ‘leaders’ who are actually more dedicated to the Military-Industrial,Co-opted-Legislative Complex than to our country, I don’t see us getting control of our government without some real rough-and-tumble.
Our inability to reform Healthcare will be a clear indication that we’re going to have to march.
I’m afraid it’s going to take the American people waking up and walking to Washington en-masse, and by that I mean 2-3 million people clogging the roads in Maryland, Virginia, and Delaware before we get the point across to the best government that $ can buy that we intend change with or without them.
It’s time to put an end to this nonsense before our progressive leaders and our children start disappearing into the gulag.
Don’t tell me that video is just an arrest, it’s a clear example of state terrorism meant to send the message, “This could be you, or your children.”
it’s intended to quell dissent.
OBAMA HAS BEEN IN OFFICE ONLY 9 MONTHS!
OBAMA HAS BEEN IN OFFICE ONLY 9 MONTHS!
OBAMA HAS BEEN IN OFFICE ONLY 9 MONTHS!
I’m not throwing the towel in on him yet. I don’t like how he’s handled a lot of different things but I still like what he says. He’s spent a tremendous amout of political capital trying to fix the W’s fuck-ups. He’s still my man.