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    A Dose of Truth from David Frum

    By Red Planet on Tue, 06/28/2011 - 10:18pm |

    [Barack Obama is] not an alien, he’s not a radical. He’s just not the person the country needs. He’s not tough enough, he’s not imaginative enough, and he’s not determined enough.

    In the throes of the worst economic crisis since the 1930s, the president ran out of ideas sometime back in 2009.

    In the face of opposition, Obama goes passive. The mean Republicans refused votes on his Federal Reserve nominees and Obama … did nothing. Would Ronald Reagan have done nothing? FDR? Lyndon Johnson?

    With unemployment at 10% and interest rates at 1%, the president got persuaded that it was debt and interest that trumped growth and jobs as Public Issue #1.

    Read the article. It's brief, it's pointed, it hurts, and a whole lot of Democrats (including this one) will agree with his critique of the President. (h/t Brad DeLong)

    http://www.frumforum.com/obama-is-his-own-worst-enemy

    Comments

    Adding… 

    Here's my dilemma. Based on his leadership and performance, Obama does not deserve another term. 

    But since the alternative is likely to be a crazed fundamentalist of one stripe or another, I may have to vote for him.

    Hope he's not counting on it.


    by Red Planet on Tue, 06/28/2011 - 10:26pm

    Awesome.  It's starting to feel like 2000 all over again.


    by brewmn on Tue, 06/28/2011 - 11:22pm

    Since they link us together anyway (we all look alike), I may as well chime in with agreement with you.

    80+% of Democrats are happy with Obama, but oviously those are not "real" Democrats. While many want faster troop withdrawal from Afghanistan, 72% of over 1000 people polled approved of Obama's withdrawal plan.

    http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2011-06-28-afghanistan-obama-pol...

    The more folks learn about the debt ceiling, the more the public will favor Obama and the Democrats.

    I think enough people are going to be scared by the Republican plan come election time to usher in more Democrats.

     


    by rmrd0000 on Wed, 06/29/2011 - 12:25pm

    I may have to vote for him.

    Maybe you can figure out a way to pull the lever...reluctantly.

    This is a mathematical problem: Anyone who would otherwise be for the Democrat...who stays home or doesn't put in a real effort...is helping the other guy.


    by Peter Schwartz on Wed, 06/29/2011 - 10:28am

    I had to have been one of Obama's most passionate supporters in 2008. That passion is gone. As President he has underwelmed me, to say the least. He has done many thigs in the name of compromise that have left me speechless.

    But, in the grand scheme of things are we better off with him, or a repub? There is no question that we are better off with him than ANY repub. If we do get a repub pres, but keep the senate we may still survive, but if they get the WH and the senate, you'd better hope you have your own safety net, because the federal one will be GONE, and who knows how many generations it might take to get it back.

    A vote is a vote, given reluctantly or not. I have screamed from the rooftops and will continue to do so NO VOTE, OR A VOTE FOR A THIRD PARTY CANDIDATE IS A VOTE FOR THE REPUBS. Slice it, dice it, marinate it in olive oil all you want, that won't change. Maybe the dems might deserve it for not forcing him to act differently, but do you REALLY want to see how much damage they can do before we are able to get the WH, house and senate back again? REALLY?


    by stillidealistic on Wed, 06/29/2011 - 4:22pm

    After 30 years of the economic train that Reagan started, I don't expect Obama to fix the wreck it made in a couple of years. It is unfair to compare Reagan, FDR and LBJ with Obama because they did not have a congress with an opposing party insanely desparate to ruin the world economy on a failed idiology. We will see how all this plays out.

    by trkingmomoe on Tue, 06/28/2011 - 11:05pm

    Sounds like a tight argument!


    by Richard Day on Tue, 06/28/2011 - 11:31pm

    Many things are unfair. What's the point?

    Each President named here made his agenda work in the face of hatred, suspicion and powerful opposition. That's what Presidents are called to do.

    Obama was given a historically huge majority in Congress and a correspondingly huge mandate to change things for the better. What, John Boehner and Michelle Bachman intimidated him? Say it isn't so.


    by Red Planet on Wed, 06/29/2011 - 12:39am

    "Obama was given a historically huge majority in Congress and a correspondingly huge mandate to change things for the better."

    Historically huge compared to whom?  FDR?  LBJ?  Not even close.  And a "historically huge mandate?"  Now you're just making stuff up.

    Look, I don't care who you vote for.  If Obama's going to win, he's going to do so with or without the summer soldiers of the left anyway.  But please try to get beyond your hurt feelings and deal with reality.


    by brewmn on Wed, 06/29/2011 - 11:59am

    If Obama's going to win, he's going to do so with or without the summer soldiers of the left anyway.

    Some among the people you trash as "the summer soldiers of the left" will be among the hardest workers for, and strongest supporters of, Obama.  And there will be some who will vote for someone else or will decline to vote.   

    I think you paint with far too broad a brush when you sneer at and trash "the left" as you often do.  In my experience, there are many people, including some at this site, who self-identify as part of "the left" or see "the left" as more good than bad, who appear to believe a lot of the same things you say you do.  So I don't understand why you would go out of your way to attack those folks repeatedly and uncarefully--and then at the same time complain about disunity within the Democratic party, when many in the Democratic party self-identify as left or are sympathetic, and believe many of the same things you say you do.   

    What you do when you trash "the left" uncarefully is give Democrats or potential Democrats who see themselves as "left", or see "left" as more a good than a bad thing (in my experience some see it as more or less synonomous with "progressive" or "liberal"--do you really want to dis those folks, drive them out of the party?), reasons for wondering whether the Democratic party is a good political home for them.  Even "leftists" who, it turns out, believe a lot of the same things as you say you do.  Which seems to me counter-productive if what you want is to elect more Democrats.   


    by AmericanDreamer on Wed, 06/29/2011 - 12:20pm

    The current harsh critics are composed of the same folks who were harsh critics during the Obama v Clinton campaign. Many of the young campaign workers who toiled on Obama's first cmpaign, now have jobs and won't be free to work on the 2012 campaign. Obama will be able to recruit a new group.

    The number of small donations to the Obama campaign has increased from his first campaign.

    http://www.latimes.com/news/politics/la-pn-obama-small-donors-20110626,0...


    by rmrd0000 on Wed, 06/29/2011 - 12:33pm

    The current harsh critics are composed of the same folks who were harsh critics during the Obama v Clinton campaign.

    Oh come on, rmrd0000.  I really thought, and still think, you are so much better than what you wrote.  What a load of crap that is.  Do you include me in your broad brush charge?  What do you know about me?  I voted for Obama over Clinton in the Virginia primary.  It was not a no-brainer decision for me but one I thought about and was by no means certain all the way along I was going to make.  Your statement is demonstrably false because it is unqualified, and simply false in my case.  But thanks for the benefit of the doubt, for sharing your, false as it turns out, certitude with me and with us.

    Are you trying to further reify the already problematic "us" versus "them" dynamics at the site?  Or, rather, find ways not to fall into the same old, same old arguments over and over again, featuring, in some cases, people just talking past one another, not even bothering to make sure they are understanding one another? 

    When I write to you, it's as you, based on what I know (not am mindlessly attributing to you because I once, somewhere, thought I saw you agree with someone I don't like, or usually disagree with) about you, what you yourself have written, as an individual.  You know, trying to stay away from invidious stereotypes and all?  I would think anyone here would see the wreckage those do.   

    I don't write to you as one one of "them".  There may be less personal contexts where that is harder to avoid doing.  But this site isn't one of them.  Folks here, if they want to, have ample opportunity to get to know individuals here as individuals, to locate, tolerate and maybe even welcome nuance instead of making it their business to ignore it and insist on placing people into this camp or that camp.


    by AmericanDreamer on Wed, 06/29/2011 - 1:06pm

    Sorry, you took offense, but otherwise  I might run the risk of being accused of making a personal attack. It's a fine line


    by rmrd0000 on Wed, 06/29/2011 - 1:21pm

    To clarify the clarification (had to run out briefly). I was addressing people who were bashing Obama before the general election.If I name names, it would be called a personal attack, so I resort to general categories.


    by rmrd0000 on Wed, 06/29/2011 - 2:31pm

    AD, please.  The "Us vs. Them" dynamics have been almost completely driven by those in the anti-Obama camp.  There were no "Shut up and Sit Down" type comments or posts until the claims that Obama is a Republican, and anyone who supports him is either uninformed or completely drunk on oratorical Koolaid threatened to drown out any sense of perspective.

    In this thread, for example, look at the comment I took issue with.  A claim that Obama is weak president is supported by claiming that he had "historical" majorities in Congress and a "historical" mandate for change.  Well, if you consider Obama had less than 60% of the senate under Democratic control, while FDR had up to 80% of both houses under his party's control, while LBJ's majorities flirted with 70%, this claim is demonstrably false.

    Second, as to the mandate question, this is also, while more subjective, still very hard to support with facts.  Of the 56 presidential elections since 1789, Obama had the 25th largest Electoral College victory, winning basically 68% of the EC.  Well, since Bill Clinton won greater EC victories in both of his elections, why didn't we get health care reform or financial regualtions to prevent the next big crash?

    My overall point is, true liberals, "progressives," whatever are the red-headed stepchildren of American politics.  We have a responsibility to, at a minimum, not make things worse.  Yet I see all of these posts announcing the writers' intention to either not support, or to leave, or to blow up the Democrats' broad, fragile coalition on a third-party pipe dream.  Then they claim their deep, deep disappointment with Obama, and base it on demonstrably false readings of facts and history.  I'd like to find it ridiculous, but we just lived through possibly the most destructive presidency in our lifetimes, a presidency that resulted in part because a bunch of nincompoops couldn't see the clear difference between the parties throught the lens of their own perceived moral superiority.  And yes, with the future of this country at stake, I feel these people need to be smacked down.  Hard.


    by brewmn on Wed, 06/29/2011 - 2:54pm

    It may be quibbling, but Obama's majority in both the house and senate were never REALLY there. As far as I am concerned, the blue dogs were only useful in giving the dems a paper majority so they got the committee chairs. More often than not, and on nearly all bills of importance, the blue dogs stand with the repubs (or they will lose their seats in their conservative districts.)

    If there is a comparable group of repubs (liberal repubs) they are fewer in number, and their leadership is almost always able to keep them in line.

    Until we have an ACTUAL majority things will not change.

    Too many libs don't realize that this country is shifting dramatically right, at a time we NEED to go left. I don't know how to change that. I have tried and tried to make inroads with the MANY conservatives in my life, but to no avail. They are so blinded by hatred for the left they can't see the train coming right at them. They are bound and determined to do away with everything the left has fought so hard to accomplish, and the fact that they might actually hurt themselves in the process is of little concern.


    by stillidealistic on Wed, 06/29/2011 - 4:32pm

    Thanks for documenting my feelings so accurately!

    Politics is like traffic. The right side is for the slower traffic...conservative...while the left lane is for the faster traffic...liberal. IMO, I see the general public steering the nation away from the fast traffic lane to the far right side of the road where a majority of the road hazards lie waiting to puncture the tires forcing us to move further to the right and onto the breakdown lane. They seem to have a fear of the faster moving traffic and would rather stay in the slow lane regardless how much longer it takes to get where they're going or how much more it will cost in gas. And of course, they complain about those damn fast laners ruining their commute, but never realizing it's the slower traffic that bottles up traffic and creates the very congestion they're so livid about.

    One of the reasons why I plan to sit 2012 out is to let them drive off the road and into the breakdown area with 4 flat tires. I am assuming they'll realize they have only themselves to blame because the breakdown is the result of their own demands to go down a path avoiding the left lane at all costs while ignoring the hazards, on the path they chose, which lay front of them with no way around getting tripped up and breaking down.

    It's going to take breaking the one thing they cherish most to make them realize there are consequences for both actions and words. And once broken it will have to be fixed, but it will never be the same as it was before they broke it.


    by Beetlejuice on Thu, 06/30/2011 - 1:52pm

    I'm sad to hear you're planning on sitting out 2012. I understand your frustration, but the consequences to me are too dire. It's like when you have a kid who is about to do something incredibly stupid, and the rule of natural consequences says you need to let them do it and suffer those consequences, but they are just too great!

    If the repubs get the senate and the WH, they will dismantle the safety net. Now if they could do it for themselves and not the rest of us, no big. Have at it. But the rest of us have to live with those consequences, too, and it may be generations before we can restore it. I'm not willing to take that chance and I hope you'll reconsider as the time draws nearer.


    by stillidealistic on Thu, 06/30/2011 - 8:30pm

    Until we have an ACTUAL majority things will not change.

    Yes, yes, and yes.

    Too many libs don't realize that this country is shifting dramatically right, at a time we NEED to go left.

    Yes. The basic background assumptions undergirding most arguments have been captured by the right, e.g., is the country broke, who pays most of the taxes.


    by Peter Schwartz on Thu, 06/30/2011 - 4:05pm

    I don't see the country, as in public opinion, as having shifted dramatically to the right in any enduring way.  I see the terms of public debate as engaged in by public officials and the mainstream media as having shifted dramatically to the right.  Those are two different things, with some implications which are the same and some which are different.

     


    by AmericanDreamer on Thu, 06/30/2011 - 4:14pm

    My sense, though, is they accept basic rightward arguments, e.g., we're broke.

    Thanks for your detailed answer elsewhere. I appreciate it.


    by Peter Schwartz on Thu, 06/30/2011 - 5:19pm

    I dont know how to query this assumption.

    (American Taxpayers have to work until July or August to meet the tax liabilites owed per individual. After August what you earn is yours).

    Someone better figure out how this message irritates the wage slaves.

    A worker is a slave to the government for 8 months, before he gets to keep the fruitage of his own labor?   

    The rich have accountants to figure out how to avoid taxes, the poor are barely able to pay taxes. That leaves the middle class to work 8 months before they can reap what should be theirs.

    A man is going for water and another fellow sitting under the shade tree says, "since your going to get water, heres my bucket;  fill yours and mine, and when you pass by, you can drop mine off.

    No need for both of us to go fetch water.  


    by Resistance on Thu, 06/30/2011 - 5:36pm

    The goal should be to get the rich to pay up.

    It's the poor and middle class (who pay the taxes) who are most dependent on what those taxes buy. The rich can always find ways to opt out, including leaving the country, or buying a private this and a private that.


    by Peter Schwartz on Fri, 07/01/2011 - 8:41am

    The rich can always find ways to opt out, including leaving the country, or buying a private this and a private that.

    YEAH ....They are leaving, and so are corporations.

    That leaves only one choice ..............the poor and the middle class have to live within our means.  

    The rich dont need us, they have the whole world, ready to bow before them. 

    We'll sell them the raw materials and we'll have to buy their imports.

    Who else can afford to build a large corporation in America, when Americans don't support them anyways?

    America got what it paid for.

    I heard Costa Rica is a good place to live.  


    by Resistance on Fri, 07/01/2011 - 6:45pm

    Normally I'm in complete agreement with you, AD, but my circle of "peeps" are getting crazy conservative. Not scientific, by any means, but it scares me. These are people I used to think of as being just good old fashioned regular folks. Not particularly political, just doing their best to get by. Now they are all hollering about everything the dems try to do, and are almost literally cutting off their noses to spite their faces in their efforts to protect their corporate masters. I hear comments like "when was the last time ypu got a job from a poor person?" and I don't want to give the government a nickel so they can turn around and give it to some fat mama who doesn't want to get off her ass and work!"  It's frightening to me how much the sense of caring for the larger community is going away and the selfishness is setting in.


    by stillidealistic on Thu, 06/30/2011 - 8:45pm

    Curious to hear more about your peeps.  Do you think it's possible they believed that stuff, more or less, all along, but didn't say so openly to you because they saw you as "one of them" (back when you were a Repub) and presumed agreement on your part, no need to say it?  Were they Democrat-haters when Clinton was President, similarly venomous towards him?  Are these folks just off the cliff at this point, not open to hearing any new information or answering a simple question such as "which proposal that you have heard was offered by the Democrats that would supposedly give money to fat mamas who won't get off their asses to work are you referring to?"

    Don't get me wrong--I know full well there are plenty of folks out there who think like that.  Is there more of that out there than there is growing alarm at the extremism of the Medicare-gutting, would be dollar-wrecking, Republicans?  Don't know.  


    by AmericanDreamer on Thu, 06/30/2011 - 9:55pm

    There was certainly no love lost for Clinton, but I don't remember it being so venomous. We snorted and laughed at what ever his latest problem was, but I don't recall the "hatred" that I'm hearing now. I don't remember people talking in such a hostile manner about poor people and the help they needed. I don't remember being embarrassed as a Christian that my fellow Christians were sounding hateful.

    So, I don't know, Dreamer. Seems to me that neither Nixon or Reagan could get elected as republicans in today's environment. Reagan raised taxes 11 times in 8 years...he'd get skewered today! State governments are turning on state employees in a way I don't remember ever seeing. The attack on women and women's issues seem to be increasing dramatically. The ideas of getting rid of the EPA and trusting corporations to do what's best for the country are laughable. And yet the poll tracker at TPM for generic repub over over generic dem is on the rise. WTH? If the country is not tacking right, wouldn't that be going the opposite direction?


    by stillidealistic on Fri, 07/01/2011 - 12:25am

    This is my experience too.

    All those old arguments and stereotypes have come roaring back.

    I can't tell you how many of my HS classmates talk about the "undeserving" who are too lazy to work and just want to collect UE.

    I keep asking them: Who do you think these people are, the undeserving and lazy who won't work? They really can't say, but they are sure they are there.

    And then they talk about how the rich are paying 51% of all income tax...and on and on.


    by Peter Schwartz on Fri, 07/01/2011 - 8:44am

    And then they talk about how the rich are paying 51% of all income tax..

    And when you reply to that GOP talking point that that's because the rich are taking virtually every dollar of increased earnings generated in the economy over the past few decades?  But that even with what they are paying, they are continuing to do better and better and better, after paying said taxes, while the rest of the country is stagnating, hanging on by fingertips, or has already fallen off the cliff? And maybe, maybe it might be a good idea to work together, smartly, to rebuild the middle class job base in the country, which ain't gonna happen with the Republicans who don't give a rip whether the middle class can make it any more or not, or on account of the rich and the wealthy corporations making it their business to do that when almost all of the pressure on wages and compensation continue to be downward ones, even as a very few are awarding all the profits that are going to compensation for themselves?

    As a citizen, I don't know of any way around challenging and pushing back on the kind of thinking exhibited by folks such as this.  It being a given that there are better and worse times and places for doing that, that different individuals respond to different approaches, some harder, some softer/subtler, etc., etc.    

    Maybe you two are right in your assessments and I'm wrong.  And in this threatening situation with much unease about what the future holds, what we are witnessing is our fellow citizens increasingly just turning on one another, dog eat dog.  Are we really, in the last analysis, that far gone?  In the aggregate, I mean.  When there is much anxiety, now and about the future, and the perception is that the Top Dog is, at best, a nice man, but does not appear to be up to the moment, then power/confidence vacuum dynamics can start to take over and things can pretty quickly go in a dog eat dog direction in a society.  That just has to be stopped and reversed. 

    The alternative seems to me to be a (some would say further) descent or collapse into authoritarianism, including the continued erosion of limits to government's police powers.  The voters will elect a tough, mean, uber-decisive son of a gun who promises to create order out of perceived chaos.  

    That's the alternative--not sure how long a period of time it would take to play out--that I see unless the authoritarian, blackmailing, treasonous, anti-democratic thugs in Congress and today's GOP are confronted, faced down, and thrashed decisively at the polls.  Soon. 

    If it sounds like I'm hyperventilating a bit here, well, sure, people who say things like I just said get written off pretty readily as kooks.  It's not nearly that bad.  Don't worry, be happy.  The dust will settle.  We'll get back to normalcy.   

    I say no to that line of thinking.  I see it as blinkered and complacent in the face of the brazen conduct of today's GOP, enabled as they are by a minority of our fellow citizens who are prone to extremism and demand ever-escalating levels of demagoguery and "action" to provide the sense of order their panic and desperate, heavily stoked fear of a society out of control demands.  Because I really and truly believe that bit about eternal vigilance being the price of liberty. 


    by AmericanDreamer on Fri, 07/01/2011 - 12:21pm

    On thinking about your assertion that "the basic background assumptions undergirding most arguments have been captured by the right," I still think that statement is at best very overbroad.

    But one cultural change that seems to me to have taken place over the past 3 decades especially is that the social fabric seems to me a good deal more strained.  There seems to be less of a sense of social solidarity, always a challenge in our country historically in any case given the extent of our diversity.  We seem more fragmented as a society, and to think in more self-isolating, less broadly social ways.  I hadn't thought of these as "right-wing" developments per se and I'd like to think they are reversible.  But that trend seems to work in the opposite direction from other developments, particularly the financial crisis and its fallout, which would appear to make enacting progressive economic policies easier.   

    As a bit of suggestive evidence of the above, following Katrina, the Gulf Oil spill, the financial meltdown, and trade policies which in some cases have not panned out as advertised, I would have thought that there would have been a pretty strong public reaction by now discrediting pretty hardline laissez-faire governmental policies which contributed to each of these happenings.  Not so.  Not yet, anyway.  Laissez-faire, market fundamentalism is like a creature from one of those monster movies that never seems to die but keeps coming back to wreak havoc, in increasingly mutilated forms. (sorry, that was kind of a gross image).  


    by AmericanDreamer on Thu, 06/30/2011 - 10:12pm

    I would have thought that there would have been a pretty strong public reaction by now discrediting pretty hardline laissez-faire governmental policies which contributed to each of these happenings.  Not so.  Not yet, anyway.  Laissez-faire, market fundamentalism is like a creature from one of those monster movies that never seems to die but keeps coming back to wreak havoc, in increasingly mutilated forms.

    My theory and, like evolution it's only a theory, is that the Reagan Revolution really did change the thinking of this country in ways that even his opponents support.

    What you are talking about is logic. I do, too. It seems, well, logical. But as a copywriter, I know that people buy or act on the basis of emotion. They then use their rational minds to support and justify decisions they've made on an emotional basis.

    Conservatives make their appeals based on emotion. That's how they're able to make totally crazy statements and not get thrown out on their ears. For example, Steven King IA actually said that if the country got the abortion thing right, the economy would take care of itself.

    How can he get away with this? Because he's defending the sanctity of life. That's more important than any theory about how the economy works.

    Similarly laissez-faire government policies have been discredited based on the evidence, but what is that compared with the sacred principle of individual freedom? Wanting a bigger government, like Dan does, smells unAmerican in principle, if not in fact.

    Conservatives use very basic, common sense arguments and analogies that everyone can easily relate to based on their own lives. "You can't keep spending more than you take in. That's not sustainable." And since it's hard to impossible for the average person to increase his revenues, especially right now, it feels more logical to cut spending. And in the abstract--which is how the argument is often framed--$14 trillion in debt!--the average person can't make the connection between "government spending" and his own life.

    Liberals got a hoot out of that proto-Bagger who yelled, "Keep the government away from my Medicare." But actually this is pretty close to how the average person thinks, IMO. And if government is cut and services are curtailed, then the average person see that not as a failure to provide sufficient revenues to government, but as a failure of government, once again, to do what it has promised to do. Which will only fuel the anti-tax fervor even more.

    Liberals need to recapture the emotional side of the argument and reclaim basic bedrock American principles and symbols.


    by Peter Schwartz on Fri, 07/01/2011 - 9:27am

    But we've had corrections repeatedly in our history when things went too far in one direction.  As during the Gilded Age, as an example.  Enough people saw what was happening and organized and acted and there was a correction.  They didn't say to themselves "it's impossible to turn things around because citizens are arational creatures driven by emotions and can't be reached by appeals to reason or through education."

    To what do you attribute earlier corrections in our history? 

    I think you hinted at an answer to that in your comment--the trick is to figure out how to win people over by being better at appealing to emotions--or, more broadly perhaps, just the kinds of ways ordinary people think--than the opposition.  (It helps make the case if there are real-life, large scale events everyone knows about which lend themselves well to the story you want to tell.  Which is part of why I am surprised that with Katrina, Gulf oil spill, financial meltdown, etc.,---so many major major events everyone knows about that would seem to lend themselves to a relatively simple narrative storyline--that we haven't had a correction yet.)

    This is what folks saying liberals/progressives need to do more story-telling and less policy argumentation, such as Drew Westen and George Lakoff, are saying.  Westen has lambasted Democratic presidential candidates such as Mondale, Dukakis, and Gore for talking policywonk language to the public instead of using narrative language to convey simple, compelling messages or tell interesting, digestible stories that don't bore or lose ordinary folks. 

    I think different things work with different individuals.  The kind of a factually-based, "rational" policy argument that might work with one person won't work with another person.  There are folks I know who, if I tried to talk to them about politics by telling them a story would think I was a complete flake.  


    by AmericanDreamer on Fri, 07/01/2011 - 12:35pm

    Axis of Evil Bush speech writer David Frum, author of An End to Evil, How to Win the GWOT and loud mouthed frothing advocate for years to invade almost every country in the Middle East including pulling the rug out from under Saudi Arabia, and who believes we should surge on in Afghanistan also while relegating Palestinians to limbo, and Applebee's salad bar aficionado David Brooks (from Frum link  Brooks on Obama:  "He has not laid out a plan, aside from one vague, hyperpoliticized speech. He has ceded the initiative to the Republicans, who have dominated the debate by establishing facts on the ground.")  GOP Facts?? Like death panels, Bush 'deserves credit' for getting OBL, the rich pay too much in taxes, banks need more deregulation, we already have universal health care in emergency rooms, Sarah Palin is qualified to be Prez, cutting taxes spurs jobs...etc. they are both lunatics, dangerous nutcases. Obama is showing some increased moxie recently in rejecting Petraeus troop requests for Afghanistan, and, far more than Frum and Bush ever did, he tries to solve the nation's problems, recognizing that the GOP and its nitwits have the will and the means to block him every step, and that those who write in the Frum Forum will oppose him and call him a traitor every step of the way.


    by NCD on Tue, 06/28/2011 - 11:44pm

    You're right about Frum, NCD. And Brooks is another one. But Obama standing up to Petraeus? Please.

    Unfortunately, Frum and Brooks have articulated a strong critique of Obama, one that will resonate with many outside the Republican base. And Republicans really have succeeded in establishing "facts on the ground." From a political perspective, they are facts not because they reflect reality, but because they are perceived to be facts by very large numbers of people, most importantly, the media.

    Lately, some voices have been trying to turn those facts on their ear. But Obama's voice, so far, is not one of them.


    by Red Planet on Wed, 06/29/2011 - 12:22am

    Petraeus: The four-star officer, celebrated by many lawmakers for his role in salvaging the war in Iraq, said Obama ended up deciding on a more "aggressive" troop withdrawal in Afghanistan than he or his fellow officers recommended.

    Admiral Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, also said Mr Obama's plans was more aggressive than he considered prudent.

    Sen. John McCain, the ranking Republican on the committee, declared that Obama should publicly abandon the date. Potential allies are less willing to back the U.S. mission in Afghanistan because they believe American troops will leave in July 2011, he said, and announcing a date to begin troop withdrawals is making the war "harder" and "longer."

    Withdrawal a 'dangerous risk'.

    For anyone following the details, the withdrawals will cut short the traditional Afghanistan summer 'fighting season' in 2012.

    This is when ISI funded Pak Haqquani Taliban terrorists who receive sanctuary in Pak, after resting up all winter, go into Afghanistan to kill people and create havoc. 

    The Obama plan will make it impossible for the Pentagon to deploy their insane 2012 plan to surge into the Af/Pak border provinces next year, including Logar province where cross border terrorists from the Pak Taliban blew up an Afghan hospital last week.

    Obama's approval of the OBL raid was also a huge game changer as it revealed Pak to be double dealers playing both sides of the war, and profiting nicely from doing so from war money and US aid.

    This fact about Pak is why Obama knows surging into the Af/Pak border areas will be a fruitless and wasteful endeavor, and why his decision to end the surge is a huge step in the 10 year old war.

     


    by NCD on Wed, 06/29/2011 - 12:57pm

    Petraeus himself offered a more balanced appraisal:

    “The ultimate decision was a more aggressive formulation, if you will, in terms of the timeline, than what we had recommended,” Petraeus told the Senate Intelligence Committee during a hearing on his nomination to head the CIA. “That is understandable in the sense that there are broader considerations beyond just those of a military commander.”

    As did Mullen: 

    Testifying before the House Armed Services Committee, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff said “there is no jumping ship here."

    "Quite the contrary,” he said. “We will have at our disposal the great bulk of the surge forces throughout this — and most of the next — fighting season.”

    He did acknowledge that the decision was not risk free, but said those risks were within acceptable margins. “Only the president, in the end, can really determine the acceptable level of risk we must take," he said.  "I believe he has done so.”

    You might have noted that there was also significant pressure on Obama to draw down more quickly, and that his drawdown compromise landed quite close to the military's preference. He envisions maintaining a strong presence in Afghanistan for the foreseeable future.

    And bringing an additional 23,000 troops home by the end of next summer? That's going to be just in time for re-election.

     


    by Red Planet on Wed, 06/29/2011 - 1:38pm

    The Obama plan does scrap the Pentagon scheme for an eastern province surge.


    by NCD on Wed, 06/29/2011 - 7:57pm

    Yawn.

    Let's see, in 2000  97,000 Florida leftists voted for Nader to punish the Democrats for not being leftish enough. That resulted in ..

    ...a Republican President who among other things so destroyed the world wide economy that

    ...Obama had to use his first two years rescuing it but the things he had to do to do that caused leftists....

    ...to stay home in 2010  to punish the Democrats for not being leftish enough..That resulted in....

    ....a Republican House which has behaved in such a way that leftists intend to stay home in 2012 to punish the Democrats for not being leftish enough.

    Brilliant!

     


    by Flavius on Wed, 06/29/2011 - 8:45am

    Trying not to bore you with this, Flavius, but:

    1. Banks deemed too big to fail now bigger, more profitable than ever.
    2. Weak bank regulation (but unlikely to be enforced, anyway).
    3. Doubling down on Afghanistan.
    4. Buying into Republican framing of deficit and need to gut the working class (Erskine Bowles and Alan Simpson, alas).
    5. Extending the Bush tax cuts.
    6. Doubling down on government snooping, government secrecy, whistle-blower prosecutions.
    7. Inability to articulate a progressive vision for recovery.
    8. Failure to hold corporate criminals liable for their behavior (does anyone here remember how we handled the Saving & Loan collapse?)
    9. More and merrier so-called "free" trade agreements.
    10. Deciding there's nothing more he can do improve job prospects.
    11. The bait-and-switch public option.
    12. Guantanamo, DADT, same-sex marriage, and the beat goes on.

    I'll agree with you that things could be worse. Can you not agree that things could be better?


     


    by Red Planet on Wed, 06/29/2011 - 9:15am

  • Banks deemed too big to fail now bigger, more profitable than ever

    • fixing the banks was necessary .

    Weak bank regulation (but unlikely to be enforced, anyway).

    that was all congress would pass

  • Doubling down on Afghanistan.

    • a mistake

  • Buying in to Republican framing of deficit and need to gut the working class (Erskine Bowles and Alan Simpson, alas).

    • I think the idea of Simpson was that he is independent in his thinking and might agree with some positions that the Tea Party rejects. Bowles was his mirror image.Some of the findings of that commission might still be useful in negotiations

     

  • Extending the Bush tax cuts.

    • Arguably useful given the slow recovery. And in exchange Obama got extended unemployment compensation.

  • Doubling down on government snooping, government secrecy, whistle-blower prosecutions.

    • I agree. A serious failure

  • Inability to articulate a progressive vision for recovery.

    • Yawn

     

  • Failure to hold corporate criminals liable for their behavior (does anyone here remember how we handled the Saving & Loan collapse?)

    • Corporate criminals like the poor we will have always with us. There were neither more nor less of them during the sub prime fiasco.

  • More and merrier so-called "free" trade agreements.

    • I agree. Free trade spells death to the american blue collar class.

  • Deciding there's nothing more he can do improve job prospects.

    • That was like deciding the sun rises in the east. There is nothing more he can do with this House.

  • The bait-and-switch public option.

    • What had to be done to pass the ACA

  • Guantanamo, DADT, same-sex marriage, and the beat goes

    • I distinguish among these.He did as much as he could do about GITMO. He acted correctly about DADT.Same sex marriage is moving in the right direction.

    Ultimately the conclusion is the same. For those who believe Obama has failed on any of these  issues is the correct prescription to elect someone who will be far worse? Certainly not.

     


    by Flavius on Wed, 06/29/2011 - 3:31pm

    I'm with you on this, Flavius. Do I wish I had a better reason to vote for Obama? That would be a resounding YES! But I'm not going to do a single thing for the foreseeable future to do or say anything that would aid in another repub getting elected to ANY office. Prior to 2010, I only felt that way about national politics, and was open to the possibility that a repub might be okay on a state level, but with what they are trying to do to the unions in so many states, I am now about as partisan as a person can be. NO REPUBS ELECTED, ANYTIME. ANYPLACE until they start showing a shred of humanity, and only then in VERY small doses.


    by stillidealistic on Wed, 06/29/2011 - 4:41pm

    Shorter Frum: Obama's incompetent because he tried to compromise with people like me.


    by Peter Schwartz on Wed, 06/29/2011 - 9:28am

    One could make a decent case that the country needed him to keep it and the global economy from going off the cliff in 2009, and otherwise agree that he shows few, if any, signs of being the person the country needs in that job right now.   

    There are GOP pretenders contenders who might be tougher--but they're tougher on behalf of  insane policies.  Or they may be more imaginative (gee, how about we seriously threaten to block raising the debt ceiling to get more of what we want?  that would be new!), but if they are offering positive as opposed to insane or just bad imaginative policies I haven't heard any of that and don't expect to. 

    So, sure, he does not appear to be the best person some of us might imagine for what the country needs right now.  That theoretical best person might or might not exist.  But in any case she or he is not running for President.

    Sanders opted not to challenge Obama in the Democratic primary, which would have required him to change his registration from Independent to Democrat.  Some of us, me included, would have welcomed the opportunity to have voted for him in the primary as one way to express strong support for positive policies we believe are much more nearly adequate to the need, not just to express severe dissatisfaction with many of Obama's decisions and choices. 

    Some here felt that, had that happened, it would or could have fatally weakened Obama for the general, and to no positive end. 

    In any case, it didn't happen. 

    Unfortunately, there aren't any national or global saviors running for President this time, unless Obama grows in the job in a way where he acquires or develops some different substantive policy commitments, not just incrementally better technical job skills.  That's been known to happen with holders of that office when there appeared to be little or no evidence or advance indication that it would happen.   

    We concerned citizens are going to have to do what so many of our predecessors have done, which is organize and mobilize and agitate and advocate, smartly and persistently and effectively, to save our country and our world.  In our spare time, that's right.  Unfortunately. 

    That's what the folks on the other side--I'm talking about the irreconcilables, most definitely not all self-identified Republican ordinary citizens--see themselves as doing.  They have pushed and dragged their party farther and farther to the right, to the point where it is so far to the right you can't imagine how there could be anything farther to the right.  Until they do it again.  

    We have to be better than them to win these fights.  They will never give up--we know that.  We must do no less.


    by AmericanDreamer on Wed, 06/29/2011 - 11:41am

    I'm the one who introduced into this thread the question of how to vote in the next election. I should not have done so.

    Not everything is about the next presidential election. In fact, not much is. Over the last several decades, we've swapped Presidents a few times, which has affected the pace of change without affecting the course of the country. It's all been trending toward concentration of wealth and power in the hands of a few, and cutting the bonds that bound those few to the fate of the USA. Obama continues the trend, with diversions here and there, and not as quickly, perhaps, as McCain would have.

    Of course, when the time comes to vote, I expect to vote for the Democrat. In the meantime, in the 17 months between now and the next election, I plan to bear down as hard as I can on helping elected Democrats to do the right thing, not just on helping them get re-elected. Criticizing them is a citizen's duty, and if they don't do the right thing they may find an electorate that just isn't that into them.

    Just because the media has not much else to do besides whip the horse race for the next election (liberal blogs are just as guilty of this as CNN), let's don't get sucked into it so early. Not much will change after the next election, especially if we roll over for whatever the guy we elected last time wants to do to us.

    Change starts here.


    by Red Planet on Wed, 06/29/2011 - 12:52pm

    Understood. Perhaps we all can try to do point-counterpoint without being disagreeable. I think there will always be flare ups


    by rmrd0000 on Wed, 06/29/2011 - 1:59pm

    I like your thinking Red Planet.


    by Dan Kervick on Wed, 06/29/2011 - 10:29pm

    Obama press conference today:

    He repeatedly framed the debate in class terms, accusing the GOP of shielding the rich and powerful from sacrifices while demanding more hardship for poor and middle-class Americans.

    "Before we ask our seniors to pay more for Medicare, before we cut our children's schools, we should ask corporate jet owners to pay more," he said. "I don't think that's real radical. I think the majority of Americans agree with that."

    tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2011/06/president-obama-demands-action-from-house-gop-on-jobs-taxes.php


    by lamont (not verified) on Wed, 06/29/2011 - 3:47pm

    There was a time when I would have been really excited by that kind of talk, but it's nothing more than a slight escalation from what he's been saying all along. Saying and doing are two different things. He has to figure out a way to force them to do what's right. Shaming won't do it. Shame means nothing to them. Obama ought to know that by now.

    The Republicans in Congress don't give a damn about his lectures. It's clear to everyone that they're trying to take him down, and with him, the rest of us. Going for the joke, waiting for the laugh -- it's another distraction in a long line of distractions.

    When I see some real action behind those words I'll get excited. When I see Elizabeth Warren given the job she's so well suited for I'll know he's serious.

    When I see him inviting someone other than Republicans or business leaders to the White House for confabs I'll know he's serious.

    And when I see him actually force Congress to put up or shut up I'll know he's serious.

    Yes, I need to see some action, but I'll be voting for him in 2012. I know that, given the chance, he'll still do better than anyone else. (Calm down, guys, steam coming out of your ears can do real damage, you know.)


    by Ramona on Wed, 06/29/2011 - 10:59pm

    "And when I see him actually force Congress to put up or shut up I'll know he's serious."

    And when I see someone on a blog explain exactly how a president can "force" Congress to do anything, I may change my opinion of the vast majority of criticism that has been leveled at Obama over the last two-and-a-half years. 


    by brewmn on Wed, 06/29/2011 - 11:03pm

    How about he steps up to the bully pulpit and he chooses a side; then he looks at the American people and says "this is what I think should be done, I understand Congress writes the bills, and if I were back in congress this is what I would do; because I do, have an opinion"

    Then give us the reasons he believes this way and he might find his army backs him up.

    If he wants to sit on the fence, then dont get mad when your voters sit on the fence. Doing nothing.  .


    by Resistance on Wed, 06/29/2011 - 11:15pm

    um, this is what's at the top of the Whitehouse.gov home page right now:

    White House dot gov

    If you can't read the photo, it says

    The President holds a press conference to address action Congress can take right now to create new jobs and the tough choices that must be made to cut the deficit

    Sheesh that sounds to me exactly like what you're asking for. Whether you like what he said or not.or how he said it or not or whether it was successful or not, that's apparently what he thought he was doing go figure.

    BTW, Nancy Pelosi liked it, a lot.


    by artappraiser on Wed, 06/29/2011 - 11:38pm

    what he said

    But nobody believes him...Indeed, why should they?  I don't.  

     

    Do you?  (Please don't make me catalog the tiresome flips and flops)


    by jollyroger on Wed, 06/29/2011 - 11:39pm

    So,even when he wins, he loses.  Example No., oh hell, I've lost count, of why "progressives can't be taken seriously.


    by brewmn on Thu, 06/30/2011 - 11:29am

    even when he wins

    He won something?  I wasn't impressed by his diffidence at the presser.  I want to hear him come straight up to the McConnell/Limbaugh/Cantor issue.

    Let him say "you lowlife motherfuckers are sinking the country so you can win in 2012".

    Let me be clear: I am ok with him being a counterpuncher who lets the Repugnants hang themselves on their own petard--But at this point I don't see that his feckless economic policy which includes embracing the idiotic proposition that reducing the debt will create jobs represents the "rope-a-dope" so much as the "I'm-a-dope".

    I am dismayed by what I see as a serious timidity problem in his deepest being. And I am on record as recognizing that the route to progressive outcomes is not necessarily a straight line

    That said, his repeated refusal to grasp the low hanging fruit of adminstrative power(how can he not have a Comptroller of the Currency, a full complement of Fed Governors, a full bench of judicial appointments, etc. etc.??) and his refusal to confront the right wing framing that is now dragging us to catastrophe makes me seriously doubt either his perspicacity or his chops.

    I can no longer pretend that his laudatory remarks about Reagan, his nod towards Rick Warren, his horrendous  civil liberties record, are just part of the public pretense.

    I fear that this is the real Obama.


    by jollyroger on Thu, 06/30/2011 - 9:25pm

    You've done a good job of expressing the concerns about Obama. It isn't that he needed to win one for us on every issue. It's that there is no evidence he put up a fight, and he seems to be pleased with the outcomes, even when those run counter to the best interests of working people. Counter even to the prospects of the Democratic Party.

     


    by Red Planet on Fri, 07/01/2011 - 9:34pm

    seems to be pleased with the outcomes,

    This was a real component of the stimulus debacle--even as it was apparent that he had been flummoxed by the political arm of his team and set his sights too low, he was unwilling to forthrightly come out and say "this sucks--the pugs have forced an inadequate remedy and we won't get the needed result"--there was a pollyannish insistence in 2010 on pretending that the "green shoots" were bustin out.  Thus, he ended up getting the bad jobs outcome hung around his neck, and was subject to the repeated refrain "your shit didn't work--it stinks" (sorry for bad pun...)


    by jollyroger on Fri, 07/01/2011 - 11:55pm

    Oh yeah.  Let's not forget that he had the bankers by the short and curlies, and all he could think of to do was bury AIG (read Goldman Sachs) in money.

    The whole way the financial crisis/repair played out is a straight line to our present deficit issue cum foreclosure fiasco.

    Given the way fannie/freddie became wards of the treasury, there was no excuse not to leverage that into serious homeowner relief.

    No excuse. 


    by jollyroger on Thu, 06/30/2011 - 9:37pm

    He's been reading Dagblog and maybe he realizes he's going to lose his base?

    Those of us who have been critical of him should feel vindicated.

    It only took him 2+ years.

    Maybe he had Low  T ?  


    by Resistance on Thu, 06/30/2011 - 12:01am

    Dagblog

    Prolly not, but I did used to hear that he visits with Josh from time to time.  Who knows? Anyway, Josh threw us (wait for it...) under the bus.

    (And please don't blame me just because they front paged "Blue Dog: Fuck the fisc, make doctors richer" after which Cafe voices disappeared from the front  page...)


    by jollyroger on Thu, 06/30/2011 - 12:05am

    So you're the one who messed that up! =)

     


    by stillidealistic on Thu, 06/30/2011 - 1:12am

    Well, I didn't write the algorithm--If Josh didn't want my foul mouthed headline on the front page, he could have set one of his staff of thousands to do a last minute drive by, as it were...But, yeah, I guess I was..


    by jollyroger on Thu, 06/30/2011 - 1:22am

    It was cool, for a while though.  I loved being on the same page as Steve Clemons--everybody's crazy 'bout a sharp dressed man...


    by jollyroger on Thu, 06/30/2011 - 1:23am

    I have to admit, I did a screen shot the first time I was there...


    by stillidealistic on Thu, 06/30/2011 - 10:09am

    Obama made no changes in policy at the press conference.  He just tried to spin the current approach with a little bit more left curve.   He's still claiming that the big economic issue facing the country is the public sector deficit.   And his philosophy of job creation is still basically a Republican philosophy of job creation, including more deregulation to "get the government off the backs" of business.


    by Dan Kervick on Fri, 07/01/2011 - 11:26am

    Well a President who had credibility could threaten to veto nonconforming legislation. (but that President is not the one we have.)

    Or, to follow the LBJ model, a President with balls can force individual congessmen to cave to his demands by fucking with their home state/district shit.  But that President (the one with big balls) is not the one we have.

    A President with 13 million grass roots supporters can threaten recalcitrant legislators that he will campaign against them, and set the dogs loose on their ass.  But that's not the President we have.

    So based on that analysis, I guess you are right, the President ain't shit. (that's the one we have.)

     


    by jollyroger on Wed, 06/29/2011 - 11:18pm

    Or, to follow the LBJ model, a President with balls can force individual congessmen to cave to his demands

    "Returning to the alternative universe in which Obama has balls, we find the following:.....Since a US default would be catastropic, and Prez has independent control only of the military, he announces the closure of all bases in Repugnant represented states and congressional districts, so that the necessary cash may be re-directed to default prevention pending raise of debt ceiling"

    By jollyroger

    I like your thinking


    by Resistance on Wed, 06/29/2011 - 11:27pm

    Tonight I'm puttin' on the ruby slippers (no snide remarks), I'm clickin the heels three times, and when I open my eyes, I'll be in that alternate universe, and all you other guys can just envy me for my heroic president...


    by jollyroger on Wed, 06/29/2011 - 11:30pm

    That's the way it is, Ramona, and thanks for saying it so well. Leaders should be judged by what they accomplish, not so much what they say. Sometimes, the accomplishment may only be a fight well fought, but these days a fight well fought would excite me.

    If the President conducts himself as a leader who is on the side of the country, not the corporations, who improves the lot of the working class, not just the coupon-clipping class, who will begin to delivery the transparency and accountability he promised, and undo the perpetual-war mindset of the Bush-Cheney years and the ensuing damages to civil liberties he once decried, then he will earn and deserve and receive not just our votes in 2012, but our joy at his re-election.

    But the election is a long way away. There's work to be done today. Fretting about the election this early is a distraction. The more I read about it, pro, con, undecided, the less it matters to me. Let's take care of the business of the people, and the election will take care of itself.

     


    by Red Planet on Wed, 06/29/2011 - 11:32pm

    If Obama can't say, what I just quoted from Jollys blog, then he aint worth the effort;.primary him NOW  we cant impeach him for being weak, we just dont have to give him any more respect.

    LEAD OR GET OUT OF THE WAY. 


    by Resistance on Wed, 06/29/2011 - 11:47pm

    See Red Planet's comment and my comment below his. This is how it's going to be done. Forget about primaries and impeachment. Stick to the issue, which is a country falling apart. Go after Obama and the rest of them to fix it. To FIX it. Forget about 2012 for now. We don't have time for that.

    by Ramona on Thu, 06/30/2011 - 9:16am

    The squeaky wheel always gets the grease.

    If we are going to get the change we want, we need to keep complaining.

    The politicians will only do the minimum if we don’t.

    No complaints, is perceived as satisfied.   


    by Resistance on Thu, 06/30/2011 - 1:05pm

    Amen to all of that. I don't know why, but everyone including the president seems to forget that we're in the middle of the deepest crisis since the Great Depression. It's the leaders who have to get to work to fix it. All the rest is distraction and does nothing except get in the way of progress.

    by Ramona on Thu, 06/30/2011 - 9:14am

    You don't really believe the President has forgotten this do you Ramona?  Doesn't it seem like the Republicans will do anything to make sure this country makes no progress until they have the Presidency back. I would like some detailed evidence that the President has forgotten we are in a crisis.


    by tmccarthy0 on Thu, 06/30/2011 - 9:40am

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