I like Cenk Uygur a lot but he is desperately confused. He’s kind of on the right track in the beginning of his analysis but he makes a common mistake. He correctly identifies Obama’s move to the center when he got to Washington but he attributes it to some kind of character trait rather than simple arithmetic. He thinks Obama made a choice that wound up empowering Joe Lieberman, when the truth is that there isn’t a single bill that can pass through the Senate without Lieberman’s vote if the Republicans are united against it. That isn’t by anyone’s design. In fact, things could be worse. It was Biden who flipped Specter, and Obama tried to get rid of Judd Gregg and replace him with a better vote. It was the Obama administration that orchestrated the change in Massachusetts’ Constitution, allowing Paul Kirk to become the 60th vote needed for health care reform. These moves weren’t centrist or progressive; these moves were practical and necessary.
Something a lot of progressives don’t understand and haven’t understood all year is that we could not have a health care bill that was one iota more progressive than Ben Nelson is progressive. Unless, that is, the bill was catered to Olympia Snowe instead. She wanted a triggered public option and had no interest in anti-choice language. But, boy howdy, did a lot of progressives throw a fit in August and September when the administration was trying to win her vote. We wound up having to satisfy Nelson instead, and look at how much worse we did as a result!
It’s not even Cenk’s analysis of Obama’s character that bothers me. It’s his proposed solution.
We have to attack Obama relentlessly from the left. Right now he is a giant that is unmoved by anything in his left flank, he keeps looking to his right and ducking and worrying and moving to accommodate them. They are so loud and so visible. It’s hard to miss them. We have to make him look left. We have to shake him off his foundation.
Rahm Emanuel gave a wonderfully condescending interview to the Wall Street Journal where he explained that the White House has nothing to worry about from the left. That’s exactly what we have to change. Unfortunately, the only way to capture their attention and make them accommodate us rather than Fox News Channel is to hurt them. When we can put on the same kind of pain and pressure on the Obama White House as Fox does, that’s when they’ll have to move, at least to get out of the way.
You inflict political pain by voting things down. So far progressives have been completely unwilling to do this. They got rolled on healthcare because they had no intention of putting their foot down – and everyone knew it.
But this is all fantasy. Progressives didn’t get rolled on health care. Progressives failed to convince at least five Democratic senators that a public option was necessary. They pushed and pushed and pushed to get a public option into the base Senate bill without realizing that it would be as simple as Joe Lieberman saying ‘no’ to kill it prior to Conference. Do you think Joe Lieberman doesn’t hold a grudge against Jane Hamsher after the whole blackface campaign she waged against him during the Lamont challenge? That’s only one reason among many that I don’t need Hamsher fighting for anything I support. She thinks she can get progressive senators to kill a year’s worth of work on the president’s number one priority, but she can’t. What she can do is convince Joe Lieberman that he isn’t going to do anything to please a woman who is attacking his wife. Hopefully, Rahm Emanuel won’t take the same attitude and punish us all for the sins of one loud-mouthed blogger.
Yelling louder isn’t going to change shit. Progressive politicians aren’t going to do what these progressive activists are asking them to do. Attacking the president relentlessly, as Cenk advises, isn’t a strategy. The president should be criticized when it is warranted, but not attacked relentlessly. If you want to change outcomes in Washington, you have to look first and foremost at the Senate. And you need to realize that the people who hold the real power are the Dem centrists. And you can’t influence them by attacking them relentlessly or by attacking their wives. You need a better plan.