I’m with Rachel here. Maddow NAILS it, when she uses the unrequited love analogy to describe the mindboggling “bi-partisan” courtship that ultimately betrays President Obama’s base.
The Republican’ts (y,gctt) are alternately amused by, and annoyed by Obama’s apparent infatuation with them, and his utter abject heartbreak at not being able to evoke the same feelings in kind.
“They’re just not that into you…”
The full segment is here but msnbc changed their embed code and I just couldn’t tweak it enough to make it work. This 3 minute YouTube covers most of it, but the full 5 minutes is greatly suggested.
I’m befuddled. No, actually I’m not. I’m angry.
The Republicans should be apologizing all over themselves for what they have wrought on this country the last 8 years. Instead, they are preening and opposing every GODDAMNED thing Obama has tried to do, despite his attempts to invite them over to watch the Super Bowl in his new digs. Despite his Courtship of them, which is downright embarrassing.
Not unlike the Football Star who laughs behind the back of some ugly groupie, while still encouraging her attention; the Republicans will use him like a starry eyed bimbo, and toss him away like a cheap whore afterword.
Only instead of driving her Daddy’s Porsche, or playing her because she “puts out” before turning on her; they are gaining appointments in his cabinet that undermine every freaking thing we voted for him to “Change.” Then bragging about it in the locker room Republican Strategy meetings.
President Obama?
Some people will never love you no matter how much you love them, dude.
Enjoy that fantasy in the privacy of your own domicile, and come back to REALITY in the public specter. No matter how much you dream of it, sir, it will never happen. They just aren’t that into you, indeed.
Senator Judd Gregg, a darling of the Neo-Cons, as Commerce Secretary? You REALLY think that another Conservative Republican in charge of Commerce is a good thing? You do know Commerce is a broad term for Business and Trade, and realize that those two things are the basis for our current collapse of all things economic and the death of the middle class?
Judd has demanded that a Republican be his replacement (Gov. John Lynch-D would be filling that seat if vacated) so as not to tip the balance to the magic filibuster-proof Senatorial number that Franken’s seating would assure. I’m sorry, nowhere in the rules does it say you have that choice. I could almost rationalize this move under those circumstances before hearing his “price.”
Worse? Obama’s second choice has no bearing on that precarious balance. This is proof positive that this choice was no brilliant “chess move” in his naming J. Bonnie Newman as runner up.
Like this resume? (my bold)
“Newman served as assistant secretary of Commerce for economic development in the Reagan administration. She was in charge of administrative operations for the George H.W. Bush White House. She was chief of staff to Gregg when he was a congressman in the 1980s, and she was one of the first Republicans to publicly endorse Lynch in his 2004 challenge of then-Republican Governor Craig Benson, and co-chaired Republicans for Lynch. She has held a number of high-profile positions in higher education, including several important posts at the University of New Hampshire (including interim president) and executive dean of Harvard’s John F. Kennedy School of Government. She has also led the New Hampshire Business and Industry Association.”
A Reaganite trickle down insider?
What the fuck, President Obama? You need an intervention.
I realize the draw of the “hard to get” one, but if you continue down this road, will Anne Coulter be next? If you have to have crushes, at least keep it in the same species, man. Ewwwwwwww.
I for one, am tired of the yelling tirades telling me I must not speak up or object to President Obama’s choices. Yes, its only been weeks, but these appointments are key in what happens the next 4 years. I tire of being shouted down and told I am doing the opposition’s job for them by daring to be dismayed, or angered by his capitulations to the Party that has destroyed our lives. If I hear even one more time that my questions are akin to naming a “Failed Obama Presidency” wrongly and prematurely, I may have to find a little rubber room somewhere.
One cannot serve two masters, so it is written. He has to choose, or lose his base seeking approval to the ones who scorn him.
My conclusion can only be logically lead to one truth.
Obama isn’t that into us.
Pining for someone who’s just not that into you isn’t healthy. Trust me. Been there, done that. Who has not?
He’s pining for GOP love, and we are pining for his.
This isn’t High School. This is reality.
There are no knights in shining armor, no saviors, no messiahs.
(scrolling up, I noticed post-fact that I dropped the titular “President” in naming Obama repeatedly above, subconsciously already distancing myself from him I guess…)
Obama, we get it. We’re not that into you anymore either. Grown ups don’t do Unrequited Love.
You can’t lose what you never had in the first place…..
who will surely post his WWL comment here:
The “Right” wins, AG,
because the ball-less left never stands up to them.
When they were in power they shut us out of EVERY fucking meeting, and committee; yet here is the hired Head-Dem, licking their sacs.
I cannot abide Art, no matter how you say it.
If I can stand up under the continual flaying, verbal abuse and absolutely TIRELESS debate-to-kill tactics of my own household, you can’t change my mind.
I’ll listen to your opinion, always, and respect where you’re coming from, but to me the FACTS say he is choosing poorly.
Period.
But I keep hoping that people will see how hard Obama worked to gain the support of republicans and how they totally snubbed him. His approval ratings are around 75% and I can’t help but think that this reflects poorly on the GOP. Now when he does just push things through on the strength of a dem majority, no one can say he didn’t try for bipartisanship.
We shall see, but you don’t get out of the snake pit by inviting more cobras into your bed….
and morning after remorse.
how’s that bi-partisan stuff working out?
if you’re concerned about things that help people, keep them safer, and create jobs, not so well.
the RATs in the senate today blocked billions in the stimulus bill funding for highways, mass transit, and water projects. as well as funding for the NIH.
there is no honeymoon, it’s time to slap these asshats down, and hard.
the ploy w/ gregg to commerce had better produce results, or we’re going to be relegated to looking forward to a very high level of disappointing actions for the next two years.
the more things change, the more they stay the same, eh.
RTFO!
Your tag line says it all… nothing like a little Gil Scott, eh?
Diane, I must agree with you to an extent, maybe it’s my hopeful nature that keeps me wanting to see something different, (as promised) in the hope that there will be a light at the end of this tunnel we’ve been shoved down.
But like you in so many ways, I am allready sick and tired of being lied to, and worst yet to see the Dems fold like a cheap suit to a minority. A group that blatently caused the current situation.
Bi-partisan bullshit will be the final blow of the blunt force trauma that has almost crushed a once great place to be…..
I am concerned, that if things don’t change quickly, and some real nads show up on our elected officials, total collapse is imenent.
Bravo for your diary, and I would hope that you will post this for more to join in, across the web, afterall…..this is the way that the voice started, some years back ; ) …..I beleive we need to RAISE our VOICES again….just a reminder to those in DC,,the whole world is watching…..
Kudos to ya lady…..
Thanks so much for your kind words….
I TRY and TRY to believe, I am a hopeless romantic at hear, but at what point do you start blocking the body blows coming your way?
At what point do you say “No More!”?
Good read.
It’s less of “unrequited love” as it is “co-dependent relationship”. The Dems still haven’t figured out the GOP want to sink the stimulus and the <ientire economy in order to get back in power.
Awesome Diary Diane. You said it much more creatively than I could but I share your sentiment.
There are two things to consider here.
First, Obama has only been president for what? A couple of weeks?
Second, while he’s not anywhere near as far to the left as I’d like — which is unsurprising, since I’m essentially a socialist — the man is not stupid. It’s unlikely that he’s going to be a doormat for the right, and it’s quite likely that he’s simply laying the necessary groundwork to say, “Hey, we tried to get along with you, now shut the fuck up and get out of the way.”
Which is why i did not vote for him. Instead I voted, once again, for Ralph Nader who is a real social justice liberal.
Obama is quickly alienating the drug policy reform community because of his campaign lies. Medical marijuana advocates are feeling distinctly burned at the multiple medical pot raids in California since the inauguration after Obama won their support and stopped them from aggressive lobbying in the campaign by promising to stop the medical pot raids of the DEA.
On inauguration day Obama appointed, as interim Drug Czar, a career drug warrior who is aggressively opposed to medical marijuana.
Obama has, on the White House site, an assertion that he will support allowing needle exchange but his U.N. delegation is actively opposing needle exchange and Harm Reduction practices in the new U.N. drug policy conventions.
And then there is Jim Crow Joe Biden as V.P. Biden who has made a career of growing the war on drugs policy that has mass disenfranchised millions of minority poor kids. Biden, who coined the term “Drug Czar”.
And the list goes on.
Obama is a proud co-sponsor of the 2005 Combat meth Act that took meth production out of the back alleys of America and instead gave the meth production to Mexican drug cartels that have turned it into a major industry that has empowered them, enriched them and spurred both their growth and new levels of violence in both Mexico and the U.S.
The drug policy reform community are the first constituency to feel the sting of getting dry butt humped by the right-winger Barack Obama. I doubt that they will be the last.
He didn’t stop a pre-planned clinic raid two days into his presidency? Wow. What a slacker.
He hasn’t appointed a Drug Czar, he put in an interim director.
I see no recent news on any UN drug policy convention.
And you’re seriously blaming Obama for ridding meth labs from our neighborhoods?
The New York Times critically editorialized about the U.N. conventions issue last week. The Guardian of London reported on it last week as well. I related those reports in my essay The Two Drug War Faces of President Barack Obama
You blithely ignore the resume of the interim drug czar and his ardent support for medical pot raids. And you don’t mention that the raids have continued into this week. As I related in this essay Of Course Obama’s Medical Pot Raids Continue. Instead of Obama living up to his campaign promises to end such raids the raids are continuing. That makes Obama a liar.
As to the meth labs, sure the 2005 Combat Meth Act reduced small domestic production but at the price of giving the meth production over to Mexican cartels. Just two years after Obama’s Combat Meth Act the U.S. National Drug Intelligence report of 2007 predictably described the outcome of the act this way:
“Methamphetamine production and distribution trends are undergoing significant strategic shifts, resulting in new challenges to law enforcement and public health agencies. For example, marked success in decreasing domestic methamphetamine production through law enforcement pressure and strong precursor chemical sales restrictions has enabled Mexican DTOs (drug trafficking organizations) to rapidly expand their control over methamphetamine distribution–even in eastern states–as users and distributors who previously produced the drug have sought new, consistent sources. These Mexican methamphetamine distribution groups (supported by increased methamphetamine production in Mexico) are often more difficult for local law enforcement agencies to identify, investigate, and dismantle because they typically are much more organized and experienced than local independent producers and distributors. Moreover, these Mexican criminal groups typically produce and distribute high purity ice methamphetamine that usually is smoked, potentially resulting in a more rapid onset of addiction to the drug.”
What is described here by the U.S. drug intelligence organization is called the “ballooning effect”. When you stifle an economy in one place it simply pops out someplace else. So the real and predictable outcome of Obama’s 2005 Combat Meth Act was more pure meth sold more aggressively by better organized and more violent international gangsters who are now more rapidly growing their distribution in the U.S. thanks to the profits provided by Obama’s 2005 Combat Meth Act.
rather than the color of his skin I, as a lifelong social justice, civil liberties and human rights advocate, found it impossible to vote for or support Barack Obama for president.
I realize that Barack has only been president since January 20, but in this short time he is burning political capital faster than the Big 3 are burning Benjamins from the US Treasury. It’s not a question of Obama ignoring his progressive/liberal base, its the public spectical of Obama acting as if he’s obsessed with getting and form of acceptance from the Republicans.
Meanwhile the Republicans are hitting Obama hard via his first major Presidential project, “The Stimulus Package” with every political brick that they can lay their hands on. They have successfully created a confluence between their news releases decrying “unacceptable spending” in the Stimulus Bill, with flood of media reports of excessive spending and CEO Raises paid out by wall street firms using TARP money.
Also the MSM keeps raising questions as to all the Washington Insiders that Obama has appointed to form the core of his administrative team. However, the applause for the 4 Republican appointees to his team is distinctive by its muted absence.
So in these two short weeks after leaving port in stormy seas, ship Obama shows signs of taking on water. In a recent interview, even the man himself was using the “IF” word in regards to his being a one term President if he not successful in turning the American economy around.
All of this becomes quite trivial when compared to the new controversial issue now burning on the political front. Barack had better get on this one fast and handle it right or his administration will be in trouble for these next two years. This bubbling sucker is known by the catchy phrase “Buy America”. Buy America has been written into the house version of the Stimulus Bill for all funds to be spent. The arguments pro and con are certainly worthwhile considering possible problems with the WTO if the Buy America provisions are in the final bill when it is signed.
Obama has released a statement that under NO circumstances does he want the Stimulus Bill to kick off a trade war. However this is an explosive issue that left unresolved will divide the Democratic party and eventually torpedo the entire Stimulus package. It needs IMMEDIATE ATTENTION by the President who must speedily find a means to pacify the American public on one hand and our trading partners on the other.
One does not have to be a rocket scientist to expect that the republicans will be all over this like sharks sensing blood in the water. Obama needs to formulate a policy on this matter and then incorporate it into a speech to the American people and our trading partners around the world. He also must realize that setting aside the BUY AMERICA provisions in the Stimulus Bill is non-negotiable with the American public. As Harry Truman once said, “The buck stops here.” Now I say, “President Obama, the buck stops here”.