dagblog - Comments for "A Special Message from the President of the United States"

I'm perfectly happy to

Dan Kervick — Sun, 08 May 2011 23:32:22 +0000

In reply to "My psychological reading of

I'm perfectly happy to entertain other hypotheses that explain why Obama is such a crappy, wealth-loving, Republican-loving president.

"My psychological reading of

brewmn — Thu, 05 May 2011 18:54:52 +0000

In reply to My psychological reading of

"My psychological reading of Obama is that he is an ambitious a deferential upward-focussed "pleaser"."

In other words, I don't like what Obama does, so I have to pull shit out of my ass to explain it. As an awkwardly out-of-place black kid, he is obviously trying to overcome his ingrained sense of inferiority by playing at President, rather than being president. Condescend much?

This line of argument, of which you're very fond, is ridiculous and insulting to any sensible person's intelligence. You should be embarrassed to keep pimping it.

My psychological reading of

Dan Kervick — Thu, 05 May 2011 18:21:06 +0000

In reply to I'm bothered by what I see

My psychological reading of Obama is that he is an ambitious a deferential upward-focussed "pleaser". Wherever he is in life, he is focussed on the people who he regards as either his teachers, the representatives of the establishment around him or his social superiors. He is always sucking up and trying to win the confidence of these symbols of power, and throwing under the bus the people who helped get him where he is. He is the eternal brown-nose student, gipping a test in his hand, hpoing for a gold star and saying, "Did I do good? Are you happy with me?" He's the awkwardly out-of-place black kid in a white world, trying to get his white grandparents to approve of him.

Now the people he regards as the authorities to be pleased are the folks represented by investment bankers, Republican businessmen, the US Chamber of Commerce, Jeffrey Immelt, etc.

I'm bothered by what I see

AmericanDreamer — Wed, 04 May 2011 13:10:54 +0000

In reply to I think Obama identifies

I'm bothered by what I see as excessive and puzzling detachment, appearing to me almost as diffidence, about the unemployment situation writ large--affecting Latinos, native Americans, Asian Americans, caucasians...

He comes across to me as far more concerned about hurting the feelings of some of the big bankers who used taxpayer money to give themselves ginormous bonuses after almost crashing the global economy than he is about doing everything in his power to address the devastation that the unemployment situation is bringing to millions of Americans. That is a tone deafness I perceive in him which has resulted in there being no widespread perception of him as a peoples' President during a time of great suffering by many of our fellow citizens.

I think Obama identifies

Dan Kervick — Wed, 04 May 2011 03:31:00 +0000

In reply to Dan, on rereading your post I

I think Obama identifies equally with black people and white people, since he is mixed race. And I think he takes African-American voters completely for granted, since he believes that they will vote for him no matter what. So I don't think he is particularly troubled by high black unemployment.

Dan, on rereading your post I

AmericanDreamer — Tue, 03 May 2011 23:27:35 +0000

In reply to A Special Message from the President of the United States

Dan, on rereading your post I still think it's clever.

I'm puzzled by the 2nd paragraph, though. Is the point that you think Obama isn't "really black"?

If so, what/who is a "real black"? And what/who isn't? And what do you see as the relevance of that?

On the economic policy issues, you know, I think, that I am one who is very dissatisfied and upset with what I see as an inadequate response to the jobs situation by Obama. I think the failure to do more on jobs was one of the major factors accounting for the midterm debacle.

Many of those whose jobs were saved as a result of the two stimulus bills will end up losing them soon because there will be no stimulus spending bill this year. I agree his jobs policies have been inadequate. I do give him a measure of credit for temporarily saving some jobs. And there is some amount that is being spent on infrastructure--not nearly enough for the need and my response to the "not enough shovel ready projects" argument is "You're the President of the United States and we've got 300 million people in this country and millions of our fellow citizens, many of whom voted for you because you gave them hope, are desperate. Find your Harry Hopkins--or 5 or 10 or 20 people who combined will have the resourcefulness and energy and wits of Harry Hopkins--and make it happen."

So maybe you give him an F on that issue and I give him a D. Or a D and a C. We can't afford a President who gets even a C on the jobs issue right now.

Well done, Dan. One of the

AmericanDreamer — Tue, 03 May 2011 13:34:55 +0000

In reply to A Special Message from the President of the United States

Well done, Dan.

One of the "what next?" questions is what Obama will do with his sure-to-ensue bump in the approval polls. How big a bump and for how long it lasts should tell us something about what, if anything at this point, the public expects out of the President on the jobs issue. There have been times--notably in the middle part of the last century--when high unemployment was a seen by many not themselves unemployed as a public, societal problem that the peoples' government really might want to consider doing something about.

Picking up on a discussion that arose somewhat oddly, I thought, within A-man's thread yesterday, with Bill Clinton there just wasn't a damned thing he did on policy that remotely surprised me. I thought he was for the most part very clear and consistent about his vision and his priorities. Contrary to the image of him as the typical unprincipled pol, he fought tenaciously to expand the Earned Income Tax Credit in budget negotiations, which has probably done more to help working poor people than any federal policy initiative over the past couple of decades (not saying a whole lot, granted). When he lost the Congress, he worked the deficit while trying to protect education, health care and environmental programs he thought to be of the highest priority, and with a good deal of success. Nor was he hardballed into accepting irresponsible tax cuts for wealthy people. These were, again by-and-large, the rational, constructive things to do under those circumstances of a Republican Congress after the '94 debacle which he knew he had done much to bring about. He was always for welfare reform. He got antsy enough about losing his re-election bid on that issue to sign instead of again veto a really bad Republican bill. He and others then worked to try to correct some of its worst provisions. He was very clear--agree with him or not--that he thought reducing trade barriers in ways he thought represented by NAFTA, for example, was a path to prosperity, not a race to the bottom. On his uses of military force he was consistent--in the face of criticism from many of the chicken hawks ready to trumpet their willingness to shed the blood of other Americans as a badge of their own toughness and honor, and who portrayed his frequent resort to bombing as weak and cowardly on that account--in seeking to minimize US troop casualties. He tried to keep us out of wars and tried to minimize the length and extent of those military actions we did engage in, taking criticism for those decisions.

None of this is to say he didn't make some bad mistakes, including on financial deregulatory policy in his last 2 years in office, where his actions on 2 laws contributed to the circumstances that led to the meltdown. He seems clearly to have felt he made a bad mistake in not intervening to stop the genocide in Rwanda and has been at pains to try to atone for the sin he felt he committed there. Somalia was botched. Health care failed. All presidents make bad mistakes, and he is no exception.

With Obama I don't have the slightest sense, not even on a gut level, of what he cares about so much that he would use an uptick in his approval ratings to push the envelope on it more.

I could as easily imagine him using it to try to continue to accept the premises of the austerity agenda and accept some cuts he otherwise might not think progressives who voted for him last time would swallow as I could imagine him pushing to get more done on the supposedly "liberal"/"progressive"/"left" agenda items of jobs, further financial reform, or climate change--which I among many others here would very much like to see him do instead.

With this Congress the latter direction would obviously entail a fair amount of staking out of positions forming the outlines of a re-election campaign narrative. But there are things he can get done without Congress' approval. And he can certainly work to reclaim the narrative. The questions are whether he thinks the narrative needs reclaiming, what he thinks the right narrative is, and whether he is willing to challenge his opposition openly, forcefully and consistently in the service of asserting or reasserting it.

He has not been in clear command of the public narrative in a governing context since the initial stimulus legislation where the fight was over how big, not whether it was needed. As opposed to now, where the argument has become not about whether austerity is the right agenda, but over its near-term contours. Notwithstanding nothing in the jobs situation which would warrant such a 180 degree shift.

So, once again and probably as always with this President--we'll see what he does with the uptick. The one issue--which you identified, Dan, some time ago--where there may be a possibility of bipartisan movement is immigration. I think the broad contours of what needs to be done lend themselves to a compromise, a compromise the GOP might opt to make--and which many Democrats would oppose vehemently for the same reason--if it thinks doing so would weaken Democrats' hold on the Latino vote without resulting in greater Democratic inroads with other parts of the electorate.

Shoot, Mr. President. Ya

we are stardust — Tue, 03 May 2011 01:23:17 +0000

In reply to A Special Message from the President of the United States

Shoot, Mr. President. Ya shouldda killed bin Laden, and people'd be cheerin ya now, and yelling "USA! USA" in unison and unity. I think, though, Mr. President, your numbers are skewed a bit: real unemployment is hovering near 19%, and you forgot to mention that one is five of us is on food stamps, and that your cuts to Dept. of Ag were almost miniscule, but that you have your Secret Economic Forces working even harder cuz of that.

I am proud that you reminded us that We Can Do Anything We Set Our Minds to; not because we are rich and powerful, but because 'we are one nation, under God, completely divisible, with liberty and justice for a few'. I concur, Mr. President, and aspire mightily to one day, with God's help, being One of the Few. Like you. And Jamie Dimon.

You tell 'em Danno! Sooner

Dr. Julius Strangepork — Tue, 03 May 2011 00:38:42 +0000

In reply to A Special Message from the President of the United States

You tell 'em Danno! Sooner or later it'll porkulate down to the masses, as it has in the Middlle East, as citizens come to realize that there is nothing they can do or say which will detract the oligarchs from serving the needs of their true constituency: The Rich and Corporate rentiers.