In the “flashback quote of the day” at Taegan Goddard’s Political Wire, he highlights words from candidate Barack Obama, made in a 2007 speech (and referenced in Slate). That quote is as follows (spoken word differs slightly from the prepared text quoted by others, what follows is transcribed from the video):
And understand this: If American workers are being denied their right to organize and collectively bargain when I’m in the White House, I will put on a comfortable pair of shoes myself, I’ll will walk on that picket line with you as President of the United States of America. Because workers deserve to know that somebody is standing in their corner.
Well, will we see it? Or will it end up like the closing of Guantanamo Bay, a public option, or restoring constitutional checks and balances? He has given credence lately to false framing from the right with his freezing of pay of government workers, extention of the Bush tax cuts, a “deficit commission,” more budget cutting, and lip service to looking into deregulation when deregulation led us to financial collapse. Will he find those shoes?



130 Comments

The haters are gonna hate you for that!!
Heh, maybe we can help him find them? Your headline made me recall the Bush shoe thrower…
Sorry. Just asking.
Maybe we can find some here.
hey Michael Monk – thanks and rec.
here is video of that quote
http://splicd.com/bAkGr_Rrdn0/938/965
orig youtube here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bAkGr_Rrdn0
quote to be found at: 15:38 through 16:05
the app is called Splic’d and sometimes it saves and sometimes it reverts back to the original youtube – am having a great deal of trouble figuring out how to save the Splic’d version to my Mac
Great rhetoric; no follow through.
I see a pattern emerging.
I’m certain those shoes have waffle soles
My post reply was in the wrong place.
Thanks for the links
Yep. I’m ready to see the delivery.
I am sorry, but I though that Organizing for America has been essential in organizing protests in Wisconsin. Am I wrong? Thanks.
welcome to another episode of “simlple answers for complex question”;
Will Obama Find Those Shoes?
no
“Find those shoes”?????
Hell, this guy can’t find his butt with BOTH HANDS!!!
For the first time in over forty years, I plan to vote Repug-nican in “12…..and hold my nose all the way!
Thanks heaps for resurrecting that clip from the crypt. Great to get out into the light of day.
The only way we’ll shoes with Obama is if someone decides to go the GW Bush route, which wouldn’t surprise me if that happens.
I think Obama did his thing with DOMA yesterday solely and only to try to deflect attention from his *utter lack* of doing one d*mn thing about the situation in WI.
Obama actually, you know, go out and *support* the constituents that voted him into office???? Don’t make me laugh. Obama’s probably too busy *talking to David Koch on the telephone* to be bothered messing his head about the serfs in WI and elsewhere.
He can’t deal with labor, because he’s busy with Libya. He can’t deal with Libya, because he’s busy with Wisconsin. He can’t deal with Guantanamo, because he’s dealing with Afghanistan. He can’t deal with Afghanistan, because he’s busy with bankers. He can’t deal with bankers, because he’s campaigning…Oh wait.
He sounds like he really means it doesn’t he? Instead of a Nobel Peace Prize he shldve won an Oscar. Thx for the clip .
Candidate Obama’s support for collective bargaining rights has been filed at the WH with his support for a public option and his opposition to extending tax cuts for the rich.
With respect, I strongly urge you to at least check out third party candidates before you pull the lever for a Republican. I truly do not feel that is a “waste” of a vote. IF we don’t start supporting third parties, then they’ll never have a chance. Just my 2 cents worth…
Exactly… amongst other things that Obama supported or didn’t support during the campaign: most of that bunk is now filed in the “dead letter” dept.
No, he will not find those shoes, unless he intends to fill them with tax cuts and hand them out to his wealthy buddies.
Are you so sure you didn’t unwittingly vote for a Repug-nican in 2008?
Anyway, I agree with onitgoes. I’ll be voting for a third party candidate in 2012 for the first time in my life. Frankly, I don’t even care who the third party candidates are. I’m protesting the two-party kabuki bullshit by voting for anyone else.
Oh, he will find those shoes when he is ready to gather up millions of people to go to the polls for him! That is when the shoes will come out of the closet.
No, he won’t.
But really, I wouldn’t expect him to do this even if he wanted to.
How the hell do you think the secret service would protect him? He’d have to walk around in some kind of bulletproof Mobile Popemobile Mobility booth or something.
And even then people would be letting off farts in his general direction.
we’ll just see if he finds those shoes waaaaay back in his closet. Personally, I bet he burned those shoes after the 2008 election, and since then has been wearing corporate shoes.
What is Pres O’s shoe size?
I’ll send him a pair of comfortable shoes and I will be willing to drive him to Madison, WI or Columbus, OH or both and walk with him and union workers.
In these shoes? Honey, I don’t think so..
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UJajw2mp3OA&feature=related
I’ve been making excuses for this guy but when he cut home-heating oil subsidies for the poor in half, I found myself out of excuses. I knew what to expect from Bush and was never ‘disappointed’ but from Obama? He continues, unfortunately, to be a surprise a minute.
Either leave that race blank on the ballot or vote 3rd party. Plenty of down ticket stuff to consider, referendums, local races, etc. The Rethug may win but at least you won’t have voted for him. I didn’t use him/her cuz it’ll be a cold day in hell when the Rethugs put a woman on the ballot for prez.
Oh he can’t find those shoes…the problem is he has sunk ‘em so far up our(ordinary Americans)asses to please the wealthy…well they are as good as lost.
Another in a long line of lying politicians.Just another “effing” creep.
Teflonman
Thank you for this post, Michael. I have been asking this for a week, and hunting for the quote with no success.
Mr. Obama, where are your shoes today?
Yep. It reminds me a movie I saw several years ago. “Tea with Mussolini”
I guess we can all call him Benito instead of Barak.
If Obama shows up at any demos it will be to order troops to fire on the demonstrators or to act as an agent-provocateur.
Come to think of it, any organization should consider themselves lucky that Obama doesn’t show up supporting a cause they espouse.
I am by no means an Obama apologist, but so far I am okay with him just stating that this was union busting and staying back. Otherwise it would end up being all about Obama. Let the focus be on Koch Bros/Walker vs American working and middle class people.
Actually I think Obama could make the Koch brothers very, very uncomfortable just by repeatedly mentioning them on air. They want to work from the shadows and the light this controversy in WI is shining on their corruption machine has to be unwelcome.
“Obama actually, you know, go out and *support* the constituents that voted him into office????”
I’m almost glad he isn’t supporting the people. This way, maybe they’ll figure out what a fraud he is before 2012, and maybe someone will step up to primary his sorry ass. What a poor excuse for a human being he’s turned out to be.
You have a point. But, he should step back into those shoes…for credibility…but he probably won’t.
Obummer gives me the strongest of impressions that he is just too darn busy living the bankster’s “Pop Life” (hat tip Prince).
If not now when?
The activity of finding broken campaign promises of Barack Obama is like shooting fish in a barrel. Isn’t it a given who and what he is already? Still waiting for that proverbial challenger for the primaries; I guess Richard Trumka’s off the short-list now?
and hey, where in bloody hell is Labor Secretary Solis ?!?!
what happened to all that “new sheriff in town !™” talk
That makes sense but when you consider that union families gave him millions of dollars to get elected, his silence is a slap in the face. If the republicans bust the public unions its game over for unions and working families. Right now we are in a war and right now is when we need to know if he has our back or not. In the words of MLK Jr. ” In the end its not the words of your enemies that you remember, it is the silence of your friends”. If Obama cant man up and stand up for working people now he never will. We cant keep giving this guy a pass.
I thought they had changed the title to Plantation Overseer.
bwahahahahahaaaa
rrriiiiiggghht. I expect to see him marching down the streets of Madison any minute now along with Harry, Nancy, Solis, the prez of the AFL-CIO…………….
Pulleeze. He couldn’t care less about Wisconsin. Then he’ss get his panties in a bunch when unions don’t support him in 2012. And we’ll get scolded again.
I don’t think so… though I will give him tentative credit for declaring that cutting SSI benefits are off the table. I’m reserving judgment on that issue, for now.
Obama will never walk a picket line. He may walk near a picket line, but it will be in the company of Pinkerton goons.
None of the leading elected officials in the Democratic Party are willing to be seen walking a picket line.
We didn’t see Boxer or Feinstein at any of the demonstrations by UNITEHERE in San Francisco. Neither did we see Durbin in the streets of Chicago. And where were Schumer and Gillenbrand when the workers in Upstate NY were fighting for their livelihoods?
Our Democrats view walking a picket line as beneath their dignity.
Just think how things have flipped since those heady days of “hope and change”. This guy went from worshipped to despised in two short years. We cut him slack time and time again and he kept on screwing us. He had support from all over the world. What a cowardly subversive PR.
“Say what people want to hear, then do whatever you want.”
Paris Hilton
And you thought Obama was mentored by Jeremiah Wright!
I seem to recall Obama had his fingers crossed when he said that.
Obama knew American workers and their families were going to get slugged when he agreed to extend Bush tax cuts to billionaires and millionaires.
Put
On
Your
Shoes
Obama!
Sent an e-mail to the WH asking that he not be such a coward and put on those shoes. Won’t help but makes me feel not quite so useless.
I disagree with all these 3rd party people – vote for yourself!
seriously, do NOT vote for a fascist, do VOTE, and vote 3rd party, vote for your aunt, vote Medicare ForAll (now there is a REAL loser!), vote for yourself …
I will NOT be wasting yet another vote on a f’king sell out / political pathetic.
From 1980 to 2008, when I voted for the winner in ’92, ’96, and ’08 I still got screwed … so – I’ve given the sell-0ut$ MORE than they deserve.
let 0bummer win 2012 with all those doorbelling phonebanking moderately independent swinging centrists.
rmm.
“…Organizing for America has been essential…”
Essential? No. They came in late and are helping those that got the whole thing going.
Please explain how this has anything to do with Obama breaking his promise.
all you negative naboobs of blog-0-topia —
at least the guy is being consistent! can’t any of you find something positive??
(and just conveniently ignore the fact that re-pukes run the House … and we don’t have 60 votes … and they didn’t do shit for us pee-ons when they were in charge … ooopsie! that last 1 isn’t 1 of the 0-bot excuses!)
rmm.
Or better yet, there won’t be a Presidential election at all, because a popular uprising will have led to a new form of governance that doesn’t as easily become co-opted by tyrants, corporate whores, warmongers, haters, and zealots!
Just call me Judy Tenuta. “It could happen!”
The problem with that is the focus is not on “on Koch Bros/Walker vs American working and middle class people.”.
Thanks to the complicity of the MSM, the focus is on “shared sacrifice”, “greedy unions”, and “Walker looking out for the taxpayer”.
Obama could change the focus in a heartbeat by living up to his promise. The focus would be on the workers struggle and why he was elected in the first place.
He could also speak out forcefully and unequivocally about what is really going on and force the spotlight on Walker, the Kochs, and the struggle of the working-class, but he won’t that either.
You may not realize it but you are apologizing foe him.
Yep. Oh but wait…
He will take our shoes instead, and will hand those to his wealthy buddies. He would never give up his own shoes unless his corporate pimp told him to.
Obama said it.
I believe it.
Find your comfortable shoes, Mr President.
(Or was this more Fierce Advocacy™ like for Teh Gheys?)
Great catch. I hope this goes viral.
Wow. How’s he going to talk his way out of this one? Security concerns?
Another Obama promise bites the dust.
C’mon, you already know the answer to your question is “no”.
Obama would cross a picket line before he’d walk one.
And by shoes do you mean those wing tipped shoes he’s currently wearing. This president has long since gotten rid of his “comfortable” shoes to walk in picket lines. Clearly, after all this time, the meek, timid statement he issued shows he still has no stomach for a fight. Does anyone expect Obama to stand up to the Republicans in Congress in this fight for the debt ceiling and budget cuts; I certainly don’t.
I wish I knew how to manipulate video to insert him into the old “These Boots Are Made for Walking” video. Maybe I”ll just start calling him Nancy Sinatra from now on.
Sure he wasn’t scratching his temple with his middle finger?
Expect ANOTHER Obamanible DEM RENEGE!
Barack “Nancy” Obama, Chairman of the Board of Betrayers!
I took it over to C&L and killed the thread.
“Will he find those shoes?”
It’s a GREAT question, Michael, and an excellent thread on it.
The old saying rears it’s head:
“Money talks and bullshit walks…”
And it evidently walks more than does Barack Obama.
)
crikey ! just remembered Earl Butz’s racist crap
Very soon now, we’ll have to ask, and answer, the question of just what it will take for enough democrats to turn their backs on this political hack to ensure that he won’t get a chance to keep hosing us?
I mean, at this point I don’t give a shit WHICH republican gets into the White House: the main thing is that we not roll over like little puppies and reward him, while he ass-scoots across the last vestiges of a progressive agenda.
Good job, Stephen. I just put it up at Digby’s…where she’s probably working on a hard-hitting herring-drag-of-a-thread about Sarah Palin’s really shitty choice of lip gloss.
One for my very favorite kiss of death pecks on the cheek from Obama was when he said in 2007: “The first bill I will sign is FOCA. That’s the first bill I will sign.” That was at a Planned Parenthood event: Now look whose head is on the chopping block.
So, he is there then, right? I can see that this is another one of those echo chambers. Unfortunately, I stumbled upon this site via Reddit, but I will make sure that I ignore it from now on. Goodbye and have a nice life.
“So, he is there then, right?”
No, he hasn’t.
“I can see that this is another one of those echo chambers. Unfortunately, I stumbled upon this site via Reddit, but I will make sure that I ignore it from now on.”
Apologists do have a rough time with the truth.
Goodbye and have a nice life.”
So long.
If he were going to find his shoes, he would have found them by now. Good reminder about how much the promises diverge from the reality. He had no problem to find his shoes and walk across the street to address the Chamber of Commerce.
Unfortunately Obama has proven himself to be a con man.
He never fights for anything other than himself and his position.
He has left the middle class, the poor and seniors to fend for themselves. As for shoes, he has given us all the boot while he pursues big money corporations.
Fascism has been embraced in this nation by our politicians.
Only Bernie Sanders seems to care and is left hanging with zero support from his colleagues.
I am so ashamed that his president turned out to be a democrat in name only and lacks true principles and has no concern for the People has so abandoned
hey, I am sharing that clip on facebook!! thanks!
Bizarroworld alert.
Lawrence O’Donnell must be reading this diary because he just ran this clip and is talking to Hoffa right now asking why Obama has not put on his walking shoes.
Great post. He actually used the same line (more or less) when he spoke to the 2007 national convention of Change to Win labor unions. Video here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P3Ilv8A1a6M#t=3m34s
I was there when he made that speech, but it took your post to jog my memory of that particular bit… guess I’m getting old
I have this wonderful fantasy of every progressive in America buying a pair of comfortable shoes at Goodwill and mailing them to the White House. That could be pretty hilarious.
My other fantasy is contemplating whether he could duck as fast as George Bush. That man had pretty fast reflexes, if nothing else.
Of course he won’t. He’s sold us out or abandoned us at every turn. He sits on his hands as the middle class is hollowed out, then rolls over for the Corporate Right.
Obamas shoes are next to his balls…
Encased in cement by rahm emmanuel alongside his dignity, patriotism and decency and tossed out to sea.
Maybe the unions will throw him some confortable shoes.
Anyone remember the Machinist Union President or GS,Barfenbarger(sp)….remember during the primary,he said all the yrs of the unions picketing in Chicago,Barack Obama never joined the picket line to support the Unions.He was saying at the time Barack Obama is not one you can count on to support Unions & ordinary workers…..
So apparent with each passing minute.
President Obama is being paid very well to sell out the middle class of America. Anyone who thinks that he needs them to throw their shoes at him in any of his public appearances is mistaken. Just like Bill Clinton, who grew up on welfare and then paid 3 million dollars for his daughter’s wedding, he really doesn’t need you to throw your shoes at him. For the most part, your leaders don’t need you for a damn thing so shut up and get in line.
Actually, miketaylor, that gives me an idea. How about 10,000 of us each go buy a pair of cheap, comfortable 9 1/2-sized shoes and dump them on the sidewalk in front of 1600 Pennsylvania?
Nice photo op, don’t you think?
Holy Shirt…! Did Ed Schultz just have his Cronkite moment…?
I really hope so, but most likely Ed Schultz’s words are going to fall on deaf ears.
I really think that Obama was mendacious from day one. Most likely he was blowing smoke up our asses during the entire campaign, and he knew it at the time. And, of course, all those other blatantly broken campaign promises don’t seem to bother him. Still, enough heat and he might have to act. The role of pretend champion of working people can only get you so far…
Sure sounded like it to me. I nearly fell out of my chair. If labor turns its back on Obama the way he turned his back on all of us, then we might really have someone to look forward to working for in 2012…
That’s a fantastic idea.
Obama is a liar & a complete gut-punching disappointment. I threw his fucking shoes @ W. I would never, repeat, never vote for a gd Cant (repugnicant), nutsack tbagger OR a spineless bs “libertarian!” Taking back the DEM Party from the DLC DINOs is probably gonna b the best way unless a NEW PARTY emerges.
I reckon the President is going to have to search through a lot of closets to find those walking shoes. Maybe he has a storage unit somewhere…
Anyway, good question, and I’d say I’m with the majority of commenters on this one.
I hope so. The text survey (a standard part of Ed’s show) asked whether Obama should go to join the Wisconsin picket line. He got 91% yes, 9% no. I was one of the yeses.
I agree – DO vote, but do NOT vote for anyone (Republican, Democrat, or independent) whom you do not trust, if they have a serious chance of winning. Either cast a protest vote for someone who cannot win, or (if you have such a choice available) vote for someone you sincerely believe would be a good candidate (NOT just the least of evils!) and who can win.
I’ve fallen for “least of evils” trick in the past. I’m now convinced that it’s part of the fraud of this so-called “democracy”, which is in reality a plutocracy based on legalized bribery. You personally may know you’re just picking the least of evils, but the PTB use your vote to deceive other members of the public into thinking that the puppets nominated and elected through their bribery are really the expression of the public’s will. I will never again be a party to that. People like Scott Walker, Barack Obama, and Dianne Feinstein claim to have the consent of the governed? Not my consent!
If a candidate I really trust and believe in has a realistic chance of winning public office, of course I will vote for that person. Otherwise, I will cast protest votes that serve solely as comments on the system. I will not vote, ever again, for a “mainstream” candidate who does not really represent the way I want this country governed. That rules out Obama, but it also rules out essentially all Republicans.
Exactly right, onitgoes. The 2-party system is nothing but 2 sides of the same coin. Who could push the “center” further to the right, and faster, with no pushback from “the left”? Barack Obama, that’s who.
Sincerely,
Former D voter, now a 3rd party voter.
Sadly the President has been trying to break the teachers unions, as part of the waiting for superman, blame the teachers ed reform movement. Our sec of ed Arne Duncan pushes for removal of the very union protections we are fighting for in Madison. (tenure, salary based on experience, pensions, due process, etc.)
I wish Obama would walk his talk, and stand with the people who worked so hard to elect him. Looks like he prefers the big money gang to laborers and regular Americans.
When you’re sick of all the candidates and parties, I like the idea of voting for an issue. I thought of that last summer as the Gulf died. “Vote for a whale, send Tony to jail.” Write in whale. Write in peace. Write in planet. Write in democracy. Write in what you want to win. Vent. It’s a thought anyway.
The Daily Show had a good collection of Candidate Obama clips a ways back — segment called Respect My Authoritah I think. Oh SNAP, what happened to THAT guy? Good segment. They’ve probably done a ton since, but I don’t get TV now and so that’s the one I remember.
Like he cares. He doesn’t.
Remember how he was going to filibuster any FISA bill with telecom immunity?
http://tpmelectioncentral.talkingpointsmemo.com/2007/10/obama_camp_says_it_hell_support_filibuster_of_any_bill_containing_telecom_immunity.php
Ha. ha. ha. Constitutional scholar liar.
Wait, I’m thinking… didn’t Obama support the workers at the Chicago window factory when they occupied it? It was a scene in Michael Moore’s Capitalism: A Love Story. A newspaper headline, he said something supportive.
I’d vote for Ron Paul.
why when their would be greens and social democrats to vote for. if you like privatizing social security their is no reason to leave the dems for paul.
Walker is doing this to the unions because he is a paulite. I mean seriously how could any union supporter vote for Ron Paul.
down thread you said Ron Paul. Ron Paul defended bp and thought Obama was being stalinist for the moratorium.
Exactly, mamabear. And so far his deform agenda has flown mostly under the radar for progressives IMO.
“The attacks on teachers and unions are not about educational reform, but turning the teaching profession into a service industry.
Ironically, the new push against teachers’ unions, cloaked in discourse about the damage done by “bad” teachers, comes from Democrats.”
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2011/feb/04/usdomesticpolicy-schools
Reps and Dems are both following the same market-uber-alles neoliberal playbook. Public assets and institutions will be sold off to cronies and public unions will be busted. I believe the destruction of public education is their key point of attack.
First, Obama isn’t going to watch it. Waste of 10 minutes fake talking to the president. Second, he’s still a (media) liberal who refuses to face reality. He bought the marketing campaign and refuses to let go of it. He’s disappointed the president isn’t stepping up, but he can’t accept reality.
He could of showed that clip and called the president yet another manipulative politician who will say anything the audience wants to hear to get elected. Then spoke to the viewers, Obama not being one of them, and tell them why this is important, what they can do to get involved, and to stop believing in politicians, that we have to fight for our lives.
Democracy Now is much less aggravating to watch.
The destruction of public education is certainly going to favor the conservative policy agenda in the long term. I expect the cons know this instinctively.
Yes, Mr. President, where are those shoes? Party because Obama has finally made me realize I can’t trust any politician and partly because of the present horrendous and corrupt situation of the two party political system, this life long Democrat has recently switched to the Independent party. And I will be voting for any viable 3rd party candidates in the future.
Did he stand with ‘em on the picket line ?
All the yrs of picketing in Chicago Barack Obama never joined the picket line to support Unions.
Obama just discovered something called Unions during the Democratic primary & Presidential campaign.And just like he is now,standing with ordinary workers is beyond is dignity.
Take a look folks.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oKJVHjZVD60
Obama is a FRAUD.
DE-Elect this HORRIBLE President in 2012.
Fire ALL the GOP-lite Democrats.
Here Buffenbarger on MSNBC a few months ago.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WN62Xz3EDD0&feature=related
Look,it’s simple people…the reason you can’t hear anything from the Democratic party leadership is cuz they don’t care about ordinary Americans,I know we are supposed to think that the Dems care about us,ordinary Americans & poor Americans,but that Dem party died a long time ago.
So no,no Dem politican in congress or the Senate is going to say anything on our behalf….besides the Prez & congressional Democrats have to get permission from the Corporations to speak on our behalf,and the Corporations are not going to give ‘em permission.
Obama is trying to kill the teachers Union more over he is trying to take more jobs out of America with his Nafta style trade agreement with South Korea.
We’ve all got pairs of old comfy shoes, don’t we, Michael? I suggest we package them up and send them to the White House with a note for him to join the protests. I’ve got just the pair. Terrific post!
LOL, he’ll show wearing Jack Boots stumping on Labor protesters that voted for him. Obama is a disgrace.
Don’t vote Democratic or Republican regardless of the candidate(Obama) or the opponent(Palin).
The White House has an email address. I’m thinking of emailing a picture of my walking shoes to the Prez. And offer to walk with him to support those people fighting tom maintain collective bargaining in Madison, Wisconsin. With of course a copy of (or link to) Mike’s great post as well.
Don’t hold your breath.
Before you do that, check out Feingold’s Progressive site, ronbon.
http://www.progressivesunited.org/
And we thought Dick Cheney was fond of his document shredder.
I just refer to him as The Mallomar Man.
He serviced…er…addressed…the CoC wearing 4″ pumps…and fishnets.
You need to have your visionthing checked out.
The most intelligent thing Obama can do right now is exactly what he is doing: nothing-doing.
I will be at Love Park tomorrow. I got Obama’s back and I and a great many other Americans are handling it.
The stupidest thing Obama could do right now is comment any more than he has or interfere in any way.
The fact that so many people here do not have the political sophistication to understand WHY Obama should continue to do nothing is disappointing. Stop advertising yourselves as a “Progressive” site. You are far from that as can be.
You all need a decent education in government and politics. Start the The Prince by Machiavelli, The Art of War by Sun Tzu, and the Tao Te Ching. And stop your fricking whining. Its a pukefest.
Why Ron Paul? Because: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r3BbIPbLSRw
I see this in Ron Paul: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r3BbIPbLSRw