I believe in standing for something but I don’t believe in proving your impotence just to make yourself feel better about getting rolled. It was almost comical watching progressive organizations try to oppose the president’s deal with the Republicans. Obama didn’t have to break a sweat:
Other Democrats predicted the tax plan would be passed as is on Thursday, making clear that their initial fury at the prospect of extending Bush-era tax rates even on the highest incomes had given way to acceptance that the White House, its leverage weakened by midterm election losses, had negotiated the best compromise it could.
While House Democratic leaders have not pressured their members on the legislation, Obama has been calling rank-and-file lawmakers to argue for passage. A leading critic, Rep. Peter DeFazio (D-Ore.), said on CNN Wednesday that Obama has been telling lawmakers it would be “the end of his presidency” if the bill fails.
I don’t like the bill, but I could tell you that it was going to pass. As I said after the deal was announced, the most progressives could hope to do is to tinker with the Estate Tax a bit. I encourage the House to go ahead and do that and force the Senate to deal with them in Conference. But I doubt they will for the simple reason that they don’t have enough time to do that without it costing them something more important, like a vote on the New START Treaty or the repeal of DADT or something else. One thing I keep saying that seems to gain little currency is that the Party of No Strategy deserves a lot of credit for watering down our agenda, demoralizing our base, forcing us into painful tradeoffs that pit our supporters against each other, firing up the Republican base, and doing real damage to the Obama administration and the Democratic Party. The strategy has worked marvelously well in all these aims and also in avoiding blame from the media or even from us. We prefer to blame our leaders and ourselves and the intelligence of the people and the media and campaign finance laws and so on. But we are very reluctant to give any credit to the opposition for manipulating us and frustrating us and making us divided and demoralized.
I’ll keep giving them credit and asking people to take a step back and make sure they’re not acting like puppets on Mitch McConnell’s string. I remind you that this has been the most productive and progressive Congress since the mid-1960’s and this has been the most successful and productive administration since Eisenhower was in office. Yeah, maybe that doesn’t count for much when the competition involves a guy who was shot and killed, a guy who gave us the Vietnam War, a guy who was impeached and resigned, a guy who couldn’t fix the economy or get our hostages released, a guy who was embroiled in the Iran-Contra scandal, a guy who was impeached and acquitted, and two guys named Bush. So, yeah, our leadership has sucked for as long as anyone can remember. Our Congress is broken. Our budget is broken. Our foreign policy is broken. Our moral compass is on the fritz. It says something that we’ve never had it so good and we’re still so unhappy.
But I have some perspective. I don’t like having it proved to me everyday that our system sucks. But I am not disappointed. We had a great two years. It should have been a lot better, but we did well. We’ll be longing to have it this good for a long, long time. It should become clear shortly what we’re really facing and who is prepared to fight the real enemy. I wish it had been clear all along.
Well said.
The only workers who will get a tax hike under this plan are the lowest paid workers.
Thanks for the Bush plan, Obama.
Just don’t expect me to support you in two years. I am one of those low paid workers.
BooMan, this bill is a disgrace. Period.
Excellent post.
Gathering data is useful.
We no have almost 24 months of data that enable us to characterize the Republicans, beyond any reasonable doubt, as being willing to obstruct for the purpose of undermining the President and with total willingness to wreck our Nation and do enormous damage to the majority of American citizens.
What We now need to do is join with President Obama in creating a singular, unrelenting, laser focused, day after day, outreach into every nock and cranny of our USA, to explain that in the service of the ultra-wealthy and in the self-service of their own avarice, Republicans are not merely obstructionist, they are destroying, willfully, America.
It’s not a hyperbolic rhetoric type of message, it is a quiet, reasoned, evidence-based, structured in very local terms by those in each of those diverse locations committed to sharing the truth, message of we all must join in solidarity to ensure that President Obama and the many excellent candidates we can support prevail in Nov 2012. Our quest, largely begun on that very cold day in Chicago in 2007, has just begun.
Thank you.
That should be “We NOW have almost 24 months …” and not Chicago but Springfield … sorry … long day …
Certainly we are going to see who we are really fighting in the next few years. They are freaking crazy.
Impeachment, here we come.
nalbar
Many of us have only known this. Some of us have only known a fraction of this.
I believe you underestimate Clinton’s tax policy too much. It’s one of the bread and butter differences between conservatives and liberals.
That Obama finds it easier to roll over than to get rolled? Of course Obama didn’t have to break a sweat – all he had to do was lay there while the Republicans fucked him. Mitch McConnell hasn’t divided and demoralized us – Barack Obama has.
you’re worse than a puppet, you’re like a wind-up monkey.
You make endless excuses for Obama no matter how immense his failures get – he ducked another tough choice today with his damned stay-the-course assessment of his Afghanistan folly.
Every time he drops the ball you’re there to claim somebody knocked it out of his hands.
But I’m the wind-up monkey.
A sane post is worth three cups of coffee.
Thanks.
here’s the thing; if the Congressional Democrats had DONE THEIR JOBS, then the President wouldn’t have had to make any deals. Because of the Blue Dogs, who held things up, this is what the President had to do.
I don’t pretend, like others, that the GOP is full of anything but soulless parasites who would have had absolutely no problem in throwing 2 million people who need UI to the wolves. Anyone who doesn’t think they would have done it, ask the 9/11 responders for whom the GOP just blocked the bill concerning their medical benefits.
stop pretending that the President was dealing with anything other than the conscienceless GOP.
Been making this same argument until I’m blue in the face. The brilliance of the obstruction is that it divides and conquers the democrats and makes the President look weak and ineffectual.
I think the President miscalculated severely in allowing his agenda to be driven by the Senate, and I would like to see more resolve from him overall, but anyone who thinks that “knocking heads together” or drawing mythical “lines in the sand” clearly have not been paying attention to whats going on in the Senate on the GOP side. They will burn the whole damn town down if it means denying the President any movement on his agenda.
GaBuck, I think we basically agree with each other (though I don’t want to put words in your mouth), but notice the contradiction in your second paragraph.
In the world as it is, Obama only passes legislation if it passes both houses of Congress, including the Senate which currently operates under rules that allow 41 members to almost everything (not to mention the rules that allow a single anonymous member to block all sorts of actions).
Until there’s a Senate majority that will vote to change those rules, Obama is stuck “allowing his agenda to be driven by the Senate”. Beginning next month, he’ll be stuck allowing his agenda to be driven by a Republican House as well.
I think Obama’s made his share of mistakes, but Booman is right: this is the most progressive and productive session of Congress in decades.
My writing is a little clumsy, but what I meant by “allowing his agenda to be driven by the Senate” was simply, that, I would have liked for the administration set the agenda instead of reacting to the legislative process. For all that was accomplished (which I agree was a great deal) there might have been a wee bit less dithering if the White House had stated exactly what they wanted. But thanks for the civics lesson!
I can blame the President, and do. Isn’t Axelrod supposed to be some brilliant political strategist? Or does he only know how to run campaigns? The Pukes have telegraphed this stuff since the beginning, yet Obama thinks he needs to be more accommodating. You can’t get cohesion in the face of Puke obstruction when you reward bad behavior(see the DNC running commercials for Ben Nelson .. or their support for Blanche Lincoln). You can say it’s always been done that way, but times change and you have to adjust with them. The DC Democrats have shown an increased unwillingness to adjust to the times. You can say that this has been the most productive Congress in memory, but so what? The most significant changes to health care won’t come for another 3 years. What’s going to be done about housing? Especially since a recovery won’t take off until that’s fixed.
Calvin, it may well be that Axelrod only knows how to run campaigns, or at least, that running campaigns is what he does best. Rove was great at getting Republicans elected, not so great at actually governing.
You say “the DC Democrats have shown an increased unwillingness to adjust to the times”, and I think you’re onto something there. I’d place the emphasis differently. Old-time DC Democrats (e.g., Dodd and Bayh—both of whom are sons of Senators as well) have generally been slow to adjust to the new obstructionist game Senate Republicans have increasingly mastered.
Some good news though: Dodd and Bayh are leaving the Senate, and the newer Democratic Senators (e.g., Bennett, Merkley, Udall) seem like they 1) recognize the game has changed; and 2) are trying to adapt—and adapt the rules to reflect the new reality.
Have other newbies(Begich & Webb as two examples) recognized that times have changed? I am not sure.
The next election is in 2012. Unless something changes, the Dems are going to lose the Senate and the WH.
What needs to change?
All of these will take a major effort by the WH to demonize the Republicans. If they do not pin the tail on the Republicans, we will lose both the Senate and the WH.
Will they be doing that?
dataguy, I don’t know what the White House will be doing in the next two years, but here are a couple of thoughts:
1 – As for the Affordable Care Act, based on what’s happened in Massachusetts, I think there’s a good chance that the longer people live with it, the more they’ll approve of it.
2 – If unemployment is dropping and median income rising throughout 2012, then Obama will get reelected—regardless of what the White House does to demonize Republicans.
Just don’t expect me to support you in two years. I am one of those low paid workers.
A little fucking perspective? Now that Obama gave the GOP all that they wanted for 2 cans of coke and a used sucker, they spiked the spending bill.
Let’s face it, folks. Obama is a crappy moron as a president and is out of his depth. He doesn’t give a shit about anything that anyone here cares about, and he’s stupid to boot.