dagblog - Comments for "Get him out of there"

The best we could get?

oleeb — Mon, 13 Dec 2010 07:19:05 +0000

The best we could get? Hardly and not even by a long shot.

The deal Obama presented to the nation was the best deal we could get without resisting the Republican demands in any way, in other words it was the best deal we could get via capitulation. The policy of appeaement of authoritarian bullies has proven over and over again that it doesn't work. I'm getting sick of these guys who get eleced (like Obama) who are clueless as to what has been going on in US politics for the past 30-40 years.

Sorry. No luck. What's clear

Flavius — Sun, 12 Dec 2010 22:37:00 +0000

In reply to Flav,I am trying to find what

Sorry. No luck.

What's clear is that FDR would have scorned appeallng for sympathy from his enemies or , lord knows, from his supporters.

I think it has something to

Richard Day — Sun, 12 Dec 2010 21:11:55 +0000

In reply to Please explain how

I think it has something to do with a guy named Euclid and something about being three sided which wont work well in America since we only have two parties.

the end

Another fruitful thing about

artappraiser — Sun, 12 Dec 2010 18:36:26 +0000

In reply to Let's not forget G HW Bush's

Another fruitful thing about the comparison--the whole "voodoo economics" thing which is very apropos to the tax cut deal.

Bush started that in 1980 with a speech at Carnegie Mellon according to wikiquote

http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/George_H._W._Bush

That was him "triangulating" if you want to call it that against the Reaganite trickle down branch.

It is ironic--maybe not--that Obama is using that group to make a deal with?

And it is widely argued that Bush lost his base and the election by breaking the "no new taxes" promise. I do remember him trying to get it back towards the end of the 1992 campaign by saying something along the lines of "watch your wallet, America, the Dems are coming for it" more than once or twice. I also remember thinking that didn't seem natural for him but rather something a campaign advisor made up for him to say in the final desperate days.

Let's not forget G HW Bush's

Elusive Trope — Sun, 12 Dec 2010 18:24:50 +0000

In reply to Here's a comparison that

Let's not forget G HW Bush's successful presidential campaign in which his basic proposition was that one doesn't want to change horses mid-stream. If the situation is improving, even if it isn't great, Americans are unlikely to want to risk going for a new untried approach.

The day when we can all

Elusive Trope — Sun, 12 Dec 2010 17:28:13 +0000

In reply to I need to add to that

The day when we can all consistently embrace the notion that we only know our perception of reality, rather than reality itself, is the day we can really move the collective dialogue forward.

But I would add regarding this whining vs. lecturing notion that basically one could just make to the comment to most political blogs out in the blogosphere "you're just whining" or "you're just lecturing" and leave it at that. Another way one can see it, just as one can see all those authors of those political blogs, is that it someone saying "this is how I see it" and "this is how I feel about that." People complain that politicians are all fake, throwing up their little public personas. But when one of them like Obama just lets us see them as a real person, who gets frustrated and peeved, we all freak out about it. Just one more inconsistency in the voting public to drive a politican to frustration.

Obama don't got game. Never

NCD — Sun, 12 Dec 2010 17:22:05 +0000

In reply to Get him out of there

Obama don't got game. Never did, never will. Forget a bank crackdown. Maybe he will defend his healthcare plan. Maybe he will modify it and do what Boehner or Kyl instruct him to do. Artappraiser has a link to Jon Meacham in the NYT, this is the guy who compared Tony Blair and George W. Bush and their war to Roosevelt and Churchill on the Fox News O'Reilly Show, Meacham seems to think Obama is a courageous guy for giving away his principles to nudge the economy up a little, all while hoping to get re-elected. I think that is the opposite of courage.

Meacham sees honor and courage wherever he looks, he writes big books on it. He thinks Obama is like Bush One, and Blair is like Churchill, Bush 2 like FDR. Many don't agree.

Obama either delegates legislation and leadership to others, or pre-emptively capitulates to the GOP with excuses he is saving the country.

From the Olbermann show, Feb, 2008, machinist union president from Illinois. After saying Obama 'didn't stand with the unions', and 'didn't help us with Maytag' he said:

TOM BUFFENBARGER, MACHINIST UNION PRESIDENT: This guy won‘t last a round against a Republican attack machine. He‘s a poet, not a fighter.

I need to add to that

artappraiser — Sun, 12 Dec 2010 17:20:54 +0000

In reply to Here's a comparison that

I need to add to that something. You saw Obama's comments as whining. I didn't, I definitely agree with Oxymora's take--he was lecturing, that's the way I often see him and did see him during his presidential campaign. It puzzled me that so many found him "inspirational," just because with his speechwriters he conjured up a few speeches channelling MLK and RFK and delivered them with the cadence that he learned from studying preachers after he lost his first try at getting elected. Most of the time he lectured, he lectured like the part time law professor he was. He lectured about people trying to get along with each other, he lectured to stop the fighting.

I think people who were his strongest supporters from early on understood the lecturing and liked it and the message. I think of those people as his "base." especially the young folks of the Obama website who weren't into the liberal blogosphere but seemed to see bipartisanship as an alternative to the kind of political bickering they grew up seeing on cable TV, that's the main message they liked. They didn't want to be part of the gridlock and the liberal vs. conservative fight, they wanted to be part of a new bipartisan kind of movemnet. Others, especially a lot of progressives/liberals seemed to dislike the lecturing thing about him at first but then started to jump on the bandwagon when he gave the more vague "inspirational" speeches, and invest in him something that wasn't there, ignoring the lecturing thing.

He lectures people, he does it with the GOP peeps, too. GHW Bush did that, too, that's one place where I see strong similarities. Bush would often say to his base "now you're being unreasonable" type stuff, i.e. that guy is not as evil as you say, or there are some good ideas to their argument, they have good intentions if mostly wrong, etc.

Of course, the whining vs. lecturing thing is in the eye of the beholder. If you see it as whining, you are not wrong, it's what you see, and he's the one with the problem that you see it that way.

Flav,I am trying to find what

artappraiser — Sun, 12 Dec 2010 17:18:00 +0000

In reply to Since I considered it a

Flav,

I am trying to find what early FDR speech Bill Clinton said Friday that he recommended to Obama regarding triangulation/progressivism. Read the problem we are running into trying to find it,

here in three comments:

http://dagblog.com/reader-blogs/aint-1936-7782#comment-97263

Any ideas?

Cubs fan, perchance? "Wait

SleepinJeezus — Sun, 12 Dec 2010 17:00:21 +0000

In reply to I agree that " itching for a

Cubs fan, perchance? "Wait 'til next year!" is somehow beginning to sound like a pretty pathetic excuse for supposed leadership that has cowardice matched with incompetence as its hallmark.

Or maybe he's the New Age President? He really can't get anything done until the planets are in the correct alignment? Methinks the only moon rising here is his own, as the Republicans kick him square in the ass every time he bends over - which is far too often for my liking.