Linkin' Log

Time I used some of these links. If you've already seen all these, congratulations!

This blogger argues (via) that Obama's in the running for one of the worst presidents we've ever had.

He is not there yet, he has some powerful competition, but like a pitcher winning games after 300, he is rapidly going to pass many of them. Of course, no one can be as bad as Buchanan, who brought America to the brink of civil war, but the number two slot is up for grabs. And Obama's debt game, is him seizing a chance to be the most nakedly criminal President since Nixon.

Aside from the sheer relief of seeing someone say such things, the post is worth reading just for the history. I didn't learn much about Buchanan or Tyler in high school history -- I only knew of Tyler as half of a campaign slogan, "Tippecanoe and Tyler Too", and Buchanan as the only "confirmed bachelor" (nudge nudge, wink wink) President we've had. History really is interesting, if it's done right.
I do have to quibble with one of reasons the blogger thinks Obama is so bad:

8. Failure to engage in the simple act of removing the dictator of Libya once that course was decided upon, and allowing the rest of the Arab Spring to become like the Revolution of 1830 in France: replace one dictator with another. In case you don't know they are still beating protestors in Egypt

First, Obama has no business trying to remove a foreign dictator. That sort of meddling in other countries' affairs is exactly what the US shouldn't do. It's permissible to refuse to do business with such a person, but that's exactly what the US likes to do, and had been doing with Qaddafy since the middle of the Bush administration -- all the lovely oil, don't you know. Second, how should Qaddafy be removed? The US/NATO alliance has already tried to kill him directly, but only managed to kill family members and other civilians. The US pretended at first that we were attacking Libya solely to protect civilians, but we didn't stay with that course either. What we've got here is another case of the fallacy that you should always stick with your principles and finish whatever you start, even if your principles are awful and you're doing something you never should have started. (I know, it breaks my heart to kill all these civilians, but now that we've started we have to keep going until we've killed them all.)

Hm, his number ten, "Failure to address the ongoing protectionism in China", isn't so good either. The US is in no position to cast the first stone there; we built our economic power on protectionism, like virtually all developing countries.

Here's an interesting post on the effect of the debt ceiling deal on citizen activism elsewhere, as in Wisconsin. And did you know? "All of their [Ohio's, that is] Democratic House members voted no on the debt ceiling deal. And, if you're wondering about the Wisconsin delegation, I can tell you, just one of their three Democratic House members voted yes, compared to every Republican."

Here's Jane Hamsher on the "primary Obama" meme:

Whenever the talk of a primary comes up, I always ask “who is going to do this?” The answer is always someone like Bernie Sanders or Jan Schakowsky, the same people whose job it is to put the Good Liberal Housekeeping Seal of Approval on whatever piece of neoliberal shit the White House cooks up to please the bond vigilantes. The people who suddenly become okay with war when the White House says so, who shake their fists in the air with outrage right before they fold, the people you can count on to always be there when there’s nothing they can do…and are nowhere to be found when they can. ...

If you want my attention, tell me how you’re going to take out Bernie Sanders or Jan Schakowsky or Raul Grijalva or Peter Welch. Let me know how you plan to send a message and enforce discipline with the people who claim to represent your values, but betray them over and over again because they have no fear whatsoever of you. Dennis Kucinich is getting redistricted out of office, so the other side certainly knows how to make themselves heard. Message received.

Yesterday Bernie’s job was to stand up in the Senate and whine about Tea Party extremists. If Bernie had one-tenth of their conviction, his vote alone could have saved the country from the shitty health care bill that put them all in office.

If you want to have power, stop slobbering all over abject failure. And stop dreaming that you’ll ever have any influence at the top by elevating people whose only systemic function is to serve as an opiate for liberals when they’re getting screwed. Good lord, Mitch McConnell ran circles around the Democrats these past few weeks. Even as you watched him orchestrate the American decline, you had to marvel at his political skill — and acknowledge there was no one on the left who could do that.

Finally, there's this good piece on how the US smothered youth resistance. (I think "smothered" or "stifled" is more accurate than "crushed.") The upheavals of the Sixties were a signal to our owner-rulers that our young had too much time on their hands. A relatively affluent society that encouraged them to go to college just let them start thinking. Along with a surge in the corporate war against working people, we got a more or less conscious offensive on the young, to make sure they'd never have so much freedom again. The writer doesn't mention Obama's cooptation of their idealism in the service of his election, and of course schools have always "educated for compliance and not for democracy," but if you hadn't noticed the functions of some of the other social changes Levine mentions, read the article.

I've added emptywheel and Ian Welsh to the blogroll because they've written so much lately that I found helpful, and so I wanted to keep an eye on what they said next. You might want to do that too.

Linkin' Log

Time I used some of these links. If you've already seen all these, congratulations!

This blogger argues (via) that Obama's in the running for one of the worst presidents we've ever had.

He is not there yet, he has some powerful competition, but like a pitcher winning games after 300, he is rapidly going to pass many of them. Of course, no one can be as bad as Buchanan, who brought America to the brink of civil war, but the number two slot is up for grabs. And Obama's debt game, is him seizing a chance to be the most nakedly criminal President since Nixon.

Aside from the sheer relief of seeing someone say such things, the post is worth reading just for the history. I didn't learn much about Buchanan or Tyler in high school history -- I only knew of Tyler as half of a campaign slogan, "Tippecanoe and Tyler Too", and Buchanan as the only "confirmed bachelor" (nudge nudge, wink wink) President we've had. History really is interesting, if it's done right.
I do have to quibble with one of reasons the blogger thinks Obama is so bad:

8. Failure to engage in the simple act of removing the dictator of Libya once that course was decided upon, and allowing the rest of the Arab Spring to become like the Revolution of 1830 in France: replace one dictator with another. In case you don't know they are still beating protestors in Egypt

First, Obama has no business trying to remove a foreign dictator. That sort of meddling in other countries' affairs is exactly what the US shouldn't do. It's permissible to refuse to do business with such a person, but that's exactly what the US likes to do, and had been doing with Qaddafy since the middle of the Bush administration -- all the lovely oil, don't you know. Second, how should Qaddafy be removed? The US/NATO alliance has already tried to kill him directly, but only managed to kill family members and other civilians. The US pretended at first that we were attacking Libya solely to protect civilians, but we didn't stay with that course either. What we've got here is another case of the fallacy that you should always stick with your principles and finish whatever you start, even if your principles are awful and you're doing something you never should have started. (I know, it breaks my heart to kill all these civilians, but now that we've started we have to keep going until we've killed them all.)

Hm, his number ten, "Failure to address the ongoing protectionism in China", isn't so good either. The US is in no position to cast the first stone there; we built our economic power on protectionism, like virtually all developing countries.

Here's an interesting post on the effect of the debt ceiling deal on citizen activism elsewhere, as in Wisconsin. And did you know? "All of their [Ohio's, that is] Democratic House members voted no on the debt ceiling deal. And, if you're wondering about the Wisconsin delegation, I can tell you, just one of their three Democratic House members voted yes, compared to every Republican."

Here's Jane Hamsher on the "primary Obama" meme:

Whenever the talk of a primary comes up, I always ask “who is going to do this?” The answer is always someone like Bernie Sanders or Jan Schakowsky, the same people whose job it is to put the Good Liberal Housekeeping Seal of Approval on whatever piece of neoliberal shit the White House cooks up to please the bond vigilantes. The people who suddenly become okay with war when the White House says so, who shake their fists in the air with outrage right before they fold, the people you can count on to always be there when there’s nothing they can do…and are nowhere to be found when they can. ...

If you want my attention, tell me how you’re going to take out Bernie Sanders or Jan Schakowsky or Raul Grijalva or Peter Welch. Let me know how you plan to send a message and enforce discipline with the people who claim to represent your values, but betray them over and over again because they have no fear whatsoever of you. Dennis Kucinich is getting redistricted out of office, so the other side certainly knows how to make themselves heard. Message received.

Yesterday Bernie’s job was to stand up in the Senate and whine about Tea Party extremists. If Bernie had one-tenth of their conviction, his vote alone could have saved the country from the shitty health care bill that put them all in office.

If you want to have power, stop slobbering all over abject failure. And stop dreaming that you’ll ever have any influence at the top by elevating people whose only systemic function is to serve as an opiate for liberals when they’re getting screwed. Good lord, Mitch McConnell ran circles around the Democrats these past few weeks. Even as you watched him orchestrate the American decline, you had to marvel at his political skill — and acknowledge there was no one on the left who could do that.

Finally, there's this good piece on how the US smothered youth resistance. (I think "smothered" or "stifled" is more accurate than "crushed.") The upheavals of the Sixties were a signal to our owner-rulers that our young had too much time on their hands. A relatively affluent society that encouraged them to go to college just let them start thinking. Along with a surge in the corporate war against working people, we got a more or less conscious offensive on the young, to make sure they'd never have so much freedom again. The writer doesn't mention Obama's cooptation of their idealism in the service of his election, and of course schools have always "educated for compliance and not for democracy," but if you hadn't noticed the functions of some of the other social changes Levine mentions, read the article.

I've added emptywheel and Ian Welsh to the blogroll because they've written so much lately that I found helpful, and so I wanted to keep an eye on what they said next. You might want to do that too.

Our Used-Car Salesman

I'm still not sure there's any good reason to write about this -- I mean, everyone who reads this blog must surely be aware of what's wrong with Obama's budget deal, right? -- but I've been collecting links and thinking about this for over a week now, and seeing the defenses of Obama by his slobbering fans, so I might as well get this off my chest.

Of course, it's not only liberals and Obamaristas who are twisting the story to their own ends. The right-wing media have aimed for balance by pretending that it's only the Democrats, and Obama, who are obstinate and unyielding; the New York Daily News front page here (via) is a good example. RWA1 linked on Facebook to a column by George Will, "Congress Stands Its Ground", with the comment "Right on target." George Will! George Will, who couldn't hit a target three feet away with a shotgun! First Will praises Speaker Boehner:

Amid these tawdry episodes, House Speaker John Boehner signaled constitutional sanity regained: “Congress will forge a responsible path forward.” Congress. Obama has marginalized himself.

Then he attacks Obama:

When he was a lecturer on constitutional law, he evidently skipped the separation-of-powers doctrine. But, then, because this doctrine impedes the progressives’ goal of unleashing untrammeled government, they have long loathed it: Woodrow Wilson, the first president to criticize the American founding, considered the separation of powers the Constitution’s “radical defect.”

But for Congress to go it alone is also to ignore the separation-of-powers doctrine, and Boehner conveniently forgot that there are two houses of Congress, and his party only controls one. It would have been more honest to speak of the Republican Party instead of Congress. A couple of days later, it emerged that Boehner didn't even control his own party: those eighty-seven Teabagging Congressional freshmen whom Will praised for their principled intransigence handed him his ass on a platter. (Another reminder that it's not enough to have principles, you have to have good ones.) And, of course, it's not just the executive who unleashes untrammeled government: Congress has also been the right-wingers' scapegoat for their supposedly out-of-control spending.

Considering the source, I make free to doubt whether Wilson was the first president to criticize "the American founding," but in any case he wasn't the last. George W. Bush denounced the Constitution as "just a goddamned piece of paper," and few Republicans objected to his trampling on our sacred charter while he was in power, just as few Democrats object to Obama's doing it now.

RWA1 also linked to "Debt Ceiling Chicken," a Town Hall column by Thomas Sowell, arguing that the debt ceiling should be repealed. This one was a little better; though Sowell is a fierce a partisan as RWA1. Sowell blamed only Obama and the Democrats for out-of-control government spending, with not a word about Bush or Reagan, both of whom had to raise the debt ceiling in order to continue their out-of-control spending.

One thing that became very tiresome early on was the fake even-handedness of much of the media and the ordinary citizens they liked to quote, accusing "both" sides of refusal to compromise. It was pretty clear that neither the media nor their people in the street had any idea what issues were involved, but it didn't help that Obama played the same game. Anyone who paid attention saw that Obama "compromised" at every turn, giving the Republicans what they asked for, even offering to outdo them in terms of spending cuts, and getting nothing back - which is not compromise. Whatever It Is I'm Against It cited his own critique of Obama's position from last December, which was eerily prescient: Obama is saying the same stupid things he said then:

“This country was founded on compromise.” Er, the American War of Semi-Independence? (Update: Rick Perlstein writes on his Facebook page, “Give me liberty or give me illness.” “Loosen my restraints somewhat or give me death.”) “I couldn’t go through the front door at this country’s founding. And if we were really thinking about ideal positions, we wouldn’t have a union.” Oh, I see, the compromise of slavery. That’s your standard for a really good deal, is it? I guess the unemployed should be happy the Republicans weren’t demanding a repeal of the 13th Amendment. Yet.

And Obama's apologists are rushing into the breach to defend the Collaborator in Chief. I waded through a couple hundred comments under this post at alicublog on Sunday night, and watched them thrashing around. Accusations of "conspiracy theories" flew at Obama's critics, even after it was pointed out that no conspiracy was involved where the malfeasance was carried out in plain sight. "You'd rather they addressed the debt ceiling a year and a half ago?" Well, yes; and "they" could have.

Then it was time to blame the "masses": "In all of this, there is one segment that cannot be fixed or even addressed: The overwhelming ignorance and apathy of the voting public." No explanation, or any recognition that polls show consistently that overwhelming majorities of the voting public oppose entitlement cuts and favor raising taxes on the rich. The trouble is that there's no one for them to vote for. After pointing this out I commented:

Both parties like the "overwhelming ignorance and apathy of the voting public," and spend a lot of effort making sure it continues. The question, then, is to figure out how to get candidates who will represent our interests. That's not going to be easy, but unless it's impossible I'd like to know how to make it happen. As others have already suggested here, I don't think it's going to happen through voting, or even through getting involved in local politics, though local politics can be more responsive to voters' wishes. It's going to include direct action of various kinds.

Another alicublog regular replied:

I'm not a believer in the idea of destroying everything so a perfect Utopia can arise from the ashes; if I were, I'd be out there in the Tea Party screaming about getting gubmit tyrants out of my Medicare. When you mention "direct action" you make me very, very nervous ... although I admit that sometimes, the thought of pitchforks and lampposts is heartening.

I asked who had endorsed destroying everything, because I hadn't. As for her reaction to "direct action," I asked:

Do you know what "direct action" means? Ever heard of this guy called Martin Luther King, Jr.? Some other folks called the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee? I'm not calling for "pitchforks and lampposts." If you are, you're dreaming, to put it nicely.

"Acting at the grassroots level" is direct action. Of course, it makes the bosses/rulers very, very nervous. Consider both national party conventions in 2008, and 2004: any serious grassroots action will be met with state violence, and if you think Obama would never do such a thing, think again.

This is why liberals are so useless. I admit, I'm not sure what sorts of direct action, or where. But we've seen very forcefully how useless voting by itself is at bringing about change.

Funniest, though, was alicublog regular Chris V, who kept asking people what they thought should be done. When someone invited him to answer his own question, this was his response:

You may wish to drop a line to the Washington Post, explaining that decreasing revenue is also a way to get to a debt crisis, for fuck's sake, and although opinions are welcome, this clown's [referring to Teabag leader Judson Philips] contribution is not informed opinion, it's stupidity, and their readers (that's us) are not served by a moron lying in their faces.

Repeat as needed. Apply as necessary to other infected areas as well.

Whoa! Radical! That'll get their attention! Someone else replied, "Repeat as needed? This is The Washington Post you're talking about. Repeat forever is more like it." The Post, it will be remembered, has on its staff such intellectual luminaries as Dana Milbank, William Kristol, and George Will, and it has continually urged Obama to move to the center.

And then longtime Obama groupie (I'm using the term advisedly) aimai offered up this startling comment:

I'd also like to add that Obama seems to invoke in his Republican opponents an almost sexual panic, a fear of seduction. Good negotiating includes a large element of seduction--read any account of Teddy Kennedy or any of the old masters of the Senate. But Obama's opponents are for a variety of reasons chief among them race but also including class, age, religion, and modern partisan culture wars, absolutely predisposed to reject any kind of negotiation with him. They are deathly afraid of liking him, of doing what he wants because he convinces them and seems reasonable. That's partly because they know their caucus and their voters think he's black satan. And its partly because he's very seductive and they fear being seduced because they know it loses them the upper hand. I really can't imagine what it must be being Obama and being forced to work with this hysterical, ugly, meanspirited, bigoted, lying, corrupt group of intransigent Senators and Representatives. I mean I literally can't imagine having to go to work every day and work to get anything done with people who do not scruple to sit with you and eat your food and then go out and lie about you and attack you personally on the steps of your house.

Obama? Seductive? This is one thing that continues to baffle me. He's a good speaker only by comparison with Dubya. I avoid listening to his speeches (and read them instead, which makes his dishonesty even more blatantly obvious) because I can't stand his hectoring tone. Obama loyalists really need to get rid of the idea that because they find him adorable, everybody else (except Republicans) does too.

[P.S. Let's also try plugging some other values in for those variables there. Imagine being asked -- no, demanded to support and vote for someone who does not scruple to sit with you and beg money from you and assume that he's entitled to your vote, and then goes out and lies about you and attacks you personally on the steps of your house. To say nothing of acting, consistently, against your interests and needs, while collaborating assiduously with the other party. That's what Obama does to so much of his constituency, not just the "left." Maybe if this commenter looked at the situation from this perspective, she'd understand why the Democrats lost the House in 2010, and why Obama's approval numbers have dropped.]

Yes, the Republicans are insane. The trouble is, Obama isn't: he's quite sane. (IOZ did a good post on that after one of the debates with McCain.) But that's not a recommendation. He's highly pragmatic, he's as dishonest as Nixon (and increasingly as full of self-pity), he's looking out for number one, and if the Tea Party didn't exist, he'd have had to invent it.

Look: I heart lust. But this is sheer projection. aimai, you may recall, was the wannabe courtier who gushed, earlier this year:

Whatever my feelings about Obama's centrism I've got to say that he and Michelle really adorn the White House. As a couple they are just...well...magnificent and the children are fucking adorable (same age as my two so I really feel for them). The huffpo lineup of former first ladies and their dresses at these state dinners was like the evolution of humanity from grotesquely old and billowy faux victoriana to blooming, statuesque, youth.

What's depressing is that these people are intelligent, well-educated, capable of rationality. But party loyalty and adherence to a cult of personality, even of Fuhrerprinzip, have taken their toll. Or as Glenn Greenwald put it, more kindly,

A mere three years ago, huge numbers of people invested substantial time, attention, energy, emotion and "hope" in fighting to put Barack Obama in the White House. The very human incentives not to reach this conclusion are both obvious and overwhelming.

Our Used-Car Salesman

I'm still not sure there's any good reason to write about this -- I mean, everyone who reads this blog must surely be aware of what's wrong with Obama's budget deal, right? -- but I've been collecting links and thinking about this for over a week now, and seeing the defenses of Obama by his slobbering fans, so I might as well get this off my chest.

Of course, it's not only liberals and Obamaristas who are twisting the story to their own ends. The right-wing media have aimed for balance by pretending that it's only the Democrats, and Obama, who are obstinate and unyielding; the New York Daily News front page here (via) is a good example. RWA1 linked on Facebook to a column by George Will, "Congress Stands Its Ground", with the comment "Right on target." George Will! George Will, who couldn't hit a target three feet away with a shotgun! First Will praises Speaker Boehner:

Amid these tawdry episodes, House Speaker John Boehner signaled constitutional sanity regained: “Congress will forge a responsible path forward.” Congress. Obama has marginalized himself.

Then he attacks Obama:

When he was a lecturer on constitutional law, he evidently skipped the separation-of-powers doctrine. But, then, because this doctrine impedes the progressives’ goal of unleashing untrammeled government, they have long loathed it: Woodrow Wilson, the first president to criticize the American founding, considered the separation of powers the Constitution’s “radical defect.”

But for Congress to go it alone is also to ignore the separation-of-powers doctrine, and Boehner conveniently forgot that there are two houses of Congress, and his party only controls one. It would have been more honest to speak of the Republican Party instead of Congress. A couple of days later, it emerged that Boehner didn't even control his own party: those eighty-seven Teabagging Congressional freshmen whom Will praised for their principled intransigence handed him his ass on a platter. (Another reminder that it's not enough to have principles, you have to have good ones.) And, of course, it's not just the executive who unleashes untrammeled government: Congress has also been the right-wingers' scapegoat for their supposedly out-of-control spending.

Considering the source, I make free to doubt whether Wilson was the first president to criticize "the American founding," but in any case he wasn't the last. George W. Bush denounced the Constitution as "just a goddamned piece of paper," and few Republicans objected to his trampling on our sacred charter while he was in power, just as few Democrats object to Obama's doing it now.

RWA1 also linked to "Debt Ceiling Chicken," a Town Hall column by Thomas Sowell, arguing that the debt ceiling should be repealed. This one was a little better; though Sowell is a fierce a partisan as RWA1. Sowell blamed only Obama and the Democrats for out-of-control government spending, with not a word about Bush or Reagan, both of whom had to raise the debt ceiling in order to continue their out-of-control spending.

One thing that became very tiresome early on was the fake even-handedness of much of the media and the ordinary citizens they liked to quote, accusing "both" sides of refusal to compromise. It was pretty clear that neither the media nor their people in the street had any idea what issues were involved, but it didn't help that Obama played the same game. Anyone who paid attention saw that Obama "compromised" at every turn, giving the Republicans what they asked for, even offering to outdo them in terms of spending cuts, and getting nothing back - which is not compromise. Whatever It Is I'm Against It cited his own critique of Obama's position from last December, which was eerily prescient: Obama is saying the same stupid things he said then:

“This country was founded on compromise.” Er, the American War of Semi-Independence? (Update: Rick Perlstein writes on his Facebook page, “Give me liberty or give me illness.” “Loosen my restraints somewhat or give me death.”) “I couldn’t go through the front door at this country’s founding. And if we were really thinking about ideal positions, we wouldn’t have a union.” Oh, I see, the compromise of slavery. That’s your standard for a really good deal, is it? I guess the unemployed should be happy the Republicans weren’t demanding a repeal of the 13th Amendment. Yet.

And Obama's apologists are rushing into the breach to defend the Collaborator in Chief. I waded through a couple hundred comments under this post at alicublog on Sunday night, and watched them thrashing around. Accusations of "conspiracy theories" flew at Obama's critics, even after it was pointed out that no conspiracy was involved where the malfeasance was carried out in plain sight. "You'd rather they addressed the debt ceiling a year and a half ago?" Well, yes; and "they" could have.

Then it was time to blame the "masses": "In all of this, there is one segment that cannot be fixed or even addressed: The overwhelming ignorance and apathy of the voting public." No explanation, or any recognition that polls show consistently that overwhelming majorities of the voting public oppose entitlement cuts and favor raising taxes on the rich. The trouble is that there's no one for them to vote for. After pointing this out I commented:

Both parties like the "overwhelming ignorance and apathy of the voting public," and spend a lot of effort making sure it continues. The question, then, is to figure out how to get candidates who will represent our interests. That's not going to be easy, but unless it's impossible I'd like to know how to make it happen. As others have already suggested here, I don't think it's going to happen through voting, or even through getting involved in local politics, though local politics can be more responsive to voters' wishes. It's going to include direct action of various kinds.

Another alicublog regular replied:

I'm not a believer in the idea of destroying everything so a perfect Utopia can arise from the ashes; if I were, I'd be out there in the Tea Party screaming about getting gubmit tyrants out of my Medicare. When you mention "direct action" you make me very, very nervous ... although I admit that sometimes, the thought of pitchforks and lampposts is heartening.

I asked who had endorsed destroying everything, because I hadn't. As for her reaction to "direct action," I asked:

Do you know what "direct action" means? Ever heard of this guy called Martin Luther King, Jr.? Some other folks called the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee? I'm not calling for "pitchforks and lampposts." If you are, you're dreaming, to put it nicely.

"Acting at the grassroots level" is direct action. Of course, it makes the bosses/rulers very, very nervous. Consider both national party conventions in 2008, and 2004: any serious grassroots action will be met with state violence, and if you think Obama would never do such a thing, think again.

This is why liberals are so useless. I admit, I'm not sure what sorts of direct action, or where. But we've seen very forcefully how useless voting by itself is at bringing about change.

Funniest, though, was alicublog regular Chris V, who kept asking people what they thought should be done. When someone invited him to answer his own question, this was his response:

You may wish to drop a line to the Washington Post, explaining that decreasing revenue is also a way to get to a debt crisis, for fuck's sake, and although opinions are welcome, this clown's [referring to Teabag leader Judson Philips] contribution is not informed opinion, it's stupidity, and their readers (that's us) are not served by a moron lying in their faces.

Repeat as needed. Apply as necessary to other infected areas as well.

Whoa! Radical! That'll get their attention! Someone else replied, "Repeat as needed? This is The Washington Post you're talking about. Repeat forever is more like it." The Post, it will be remembered, has on its staff such intellectual luminaries as Dana Milbank, William Kristol, and George Will, and it has continually urged Obama to move to the center.

And then longtime Obama groupie (I'm using the term advisedly) aimai offered up this startling comment:

I'd also like to add that Obama seems to invoke in his Republican opponents an almost sexual panic, a fear of seduction. Good negotiating includes a large element of seduction--read any account of Teddy Kennedy or any of the old masters of the Senate. But Obama's opponents are for a variety of reasons chief among them race but also including class, age, religion, and modern partisan culture wars, absolutely predisposed to reject any kind of negotiation with him. They are deathly afraid of liking him, of doing what he wants because he convinces them and seems reasonable. That's partly because they know their caucus and their voters think he's black satan. And its partly because he's very seductive and they fear being seduced because they know it loses them the upper hand. I really can't imagine what it must be being Obama and being forced to work with this hysterical, ugly, meanspirited, bigoted, lying, corrupt group of intransigent Senators and Representatives. I mean I literally can't imagine having to go to work every day and work to get anything done with people who do not scruple to sit with you and eat your food and then go out and lie about you and attack you personally on the steps of your house.

Obama? Seductive? This is one thing that continues to baffle me. He's a good speaker only by comparison with Dubya. I avoid listening to his speeches (and read them instead, which makes his dishonesty even more blatantly obvious) because I can't stand his hectoring tone. Obama loyalists really need to get rid of the idea that because they find him adorable, everybody else (except Republicans) does too.

[P.S. Let's also try plugging some other values in for those variables there. Imagine being asked -- no, demanded to support and vote for someone who does not scruple to sit with you and beg money from you and assume that he's entitled to your vote, and then goes out and lies about you and attacks you personally on the steps of your house. To say nothing of acting, consistently, against your interests and needs, while collaborating assiduously with the other party. That's what Obama does to so much of his constituency, not just the "left." Maybe if this commenter looked at the situation from this perspective, she'd understand why the Democrats lost the House in 2010, and why Obama's approval numbers have dropped.]

Yes, the Republicans are insane. The trouble is, Obama isn't: he's quite sane. (IOZ did a good post on that after one of the debates with McCain.) But that's not a recommendation. He's highly pragmatic, he's as dishonest as Nixon (and increasingly as full of self-pity), he's looking out for number one, and if the Tea Party didn't exist, he'd have had to invent it.

Look: I heart lust. But this is sheer projection. aimai, you may recall, was the wannabe courtier who gushed, earlier this year:

Whatever my feelings about Obama's centrism I've got to say that he and Michelle really adorn the White House. As a couple they are just...well...magnificent and the children are fucking adorable (same age as my two so I really feel for them). The huffpo lineup of former first ladies and their dresses at these state dinners was like the evolution of humanity from grotesquely old and billowy faux victoriana to blooming, statuesque, youth.

What's depressing is that these people are intelligent, well-educated, capable of rationality. But party loyalty and adherence to a cult of personality, even of Fuhrerprinzip, have taken their toll. Or as Glenn Greenwald put it, more kindly,

A mere three years ago, huge numbers of people invested substantial time, attention, energy, emotion and "hope" in fighting to put Barack Obama in the White House. The very human incentives not to reach this conclusion are both obvious and overwhelming.

You Say Tomato, I Say Tomahto

(via)

Something that has occurred to me often when I've observed administrators talking to the proles about policy and long-term finance: either they are lying, in which case they shouldn't be in charge, or they don't know what they're talking about, in which case they're incompetent and shouldn't be in charge.

(P.S. Much as I enjoyed, and agreed with, the economist in the clip above, I was even more tickled by both speakers' careful, anxious tiptoeing around the racial politics in the scene they quote from Blazing Saddles. Though many Obama fans would like to think otherwise, however, Barack Obama is no Sheriff Bart.)

You Say Tomato, I Say Tomahto

(via)

Something that has occurred to me often when I've observed administrators talking to the proles about policy and long-term finance: either they are lying, in which case they shouldn't be in charge, or they don't know what they're talking about, in which case they're incompetent and shouldn't be in charge.

(P.S. Much as I enjoyed, and agreed with, the economist in the clip above, I was even more tickled by both speakers' careful, anxious tiptoeing around the racial politics in the scene they quote from Blazing Saddles. Though many Obama fans would like to think otherwise, however, Barack Obama is no Sheriff Bart.)

Follow the Money

One of my Facebook friends, a fellow blogger, posted a link today to this article from the Fiscal Times, "Why Taxpayers Are So Angry and So Wrong About Spending." The author, Mark Thoma, begins:

Republicans, emboldened by public support for spending cuts, have taken the country to the brink of default as they fight to dial back government programs and vehemently oppose any tax increases to attack the deficit. But is the fight over the debt ceiling really an ideological battle between the two parties over the size and role of government? Or is a lot of the public support for GOP positions driven by myopia about entitlement spending and misplaced public anger?

I immediately wondered about this. From what I've seen, polls show that most Americans vehemently support tax increases (for the rich, anyway), and do not support the Republican / Obama program of cutting government programs that help ordinary Americans. So I clicked through that first link, which took me to a Gallup Poll report on the debt ceiling, which not only didn't mention tax increases but explained, "The question wording did not mention the rationales for or against raising the debt ceiling, nor did it explain that any such move would ultimately be a part of a broader budget bill involving spending cuts and perhaps tax increases."

Next I did some digging to see what polling on taxes showed. This FAIR blog post pointed out that in the political mainstream, "raising taxes on the wealthy is considered a non-starter--even though most Americans would support it." As evidence, two links: one to a Reuters poll which found that 12% of respondents favored tax increases to reduce the deficit, and 56% favored a combination of spending cuts and tax increases, for a total of 68% who were willing to increase taxes, with only 19% favoring only spending cuts. A Pew poll came up with exactly the same numbers.

The second link was to a Bloomberg article which begins:

Americans want Congress to bring down a federal budget deficit that many believe is “dangerously out of control,” only under two conditions: minimize the pain and make the rich pay.

That aversion to sacrifice is at odds with a spate of recent studies, including one by President Barack Obama’s debt panel, that say reductions in Medicare, Social Security, military and other spending are necessary to curb a deficit that totaled $1.29 trillion in the fiscal year ended Sept. 30, or 9 percent of the gross domestic product.

Of course that debt panel was packed with men whose biases toward cutting social programs was well-documented before they began their "study."

The article goes on to cite polling data and interviews. Some of the poll results are surprising at first glance, but maybe not so much when you think about it. It turns out that it's at best a half-truth even to say that "Republicans ... vehemently oppose tax increases to attack the deficit." For example,

While Republican congressional leaders have opposed increases in taxes paid by high-income families, sentiment among the party’s rank and file is mixed. Republicans are divided on eliminating the tax cuts for the wealthy, with 50 percent opposing and 47 percent supporting. An increase in the cap on earnings subject to Social Security taxes splits Republicans almost evenly.

The poll shows there’s little appetite across all parties and demographic groups for changes to entitlements.

Eighty-two percent of respondents opposed benefit cuts to the Medicare health-insurance system for the elderly, with about half of Republicans wanting to see both the current Medicare and Social Security systems preserved. Just 35 percent of all respondents back a system in which government vouchers would help people pay for their own health insurance.

“Nobody wants to fail to take care of children who need medicine or the elderly,” said Tea Party supporter Randy Thorman, 45, a high school social studies teacher in Pryor, Oklahoma. “We don’t want to throw people out without some type of help.”...

Cathy Freeman, a 64-year-old Republican and retired bookkeeper from Waco, Texas, said the deficit should be addressed by ending tax breaks for the wealthy and corporations, not slashing the entitlement programs her family relies on.

“We need to look at that before you start hurting the little guys,” Freeman said. “Let’s look at some things that aren’t fair in our system.”

A majority of 72 percent also opposes reducing benefits for the Medicaid health program for the poor. This is true even of Tea Party supporters who have built a movement around smaller government, with 66 percent against reducing Medicaid benefits. Seventy-two percent of those earning $100,000 or more also are opposed.

And so on. I should mention that Thoma's article turned out not to be quite as bad as I thought: he favors social spending and professes himself disappointed by Obama's failure to be the progressive Thoma had hoped for when he was elected. The trouble is that Thoma has bought into the corporate media line that most Americans support the Republican program. A much more accurate headline would be something like "Why Republican and Media Elites Are So Angry and So Wrong About Spending." But that wouldn't be news, I guess.

Follow the Money

One of my Facebook friends, a fellow blogger, posted a link today to this article from the Fiscal Times, "Why Taxpayers Are So Angry and So Wrong About Spending." The author, Mark Thoma, begins:

Republicans, emboldened by public support for spending cuts, have taken the country to the brink of default as they fight to dial back government programs and vehemently oppose any tax increases to attack the deficit. But is the fight over the debt ceiling really an ideological battle between the two parties over the size and role of government? Or is a lot of the public support for GOP positions driven by myopia about entitlement spending and misplaced public anger?

I immediately wondered about this. From what I've seen, polls show that most Americans vehemently support tax increases (for the rich, anyway), and do not support the Republican / Obama program of cutting government programs that help ordinary Americans. So I clicked through that first link, which took me to a Gallup Poll report on the debt ceiling, which not only didn't mention tax increases but explained, "The question wording did not mention the rationales for or against raising the debt ceiling, nor did it explain that any such move would ultimately be a part of a broader budget bill involving spending cuts and perhaps tax increases."

Next I did some digging to see what polling on taxes showed. This FAIR blog post pointed out that in the political mainstream, "raising taxes on the wealthy is considered a non-starter--even though most Americans would support it." As evidence, two links: one to a Reuters poll which found that 12% of respondents favored tax increases to reduce the deficit, and 56% favored a combination of spending cuts and tax increases, for a total of 68% who were willing to increase taxes, with only 19% favoring only spending cuts. A Pew poll came up with exactly the same numbers.

The second link was to a Bloomberg article which begins:

Americans want Congress to bring down a federal budget deficit that many believe is “dangerously out of control,” only under two conditions: minimize the pain and make the rich pay.

That aversion to sacrifice is at odds with a spate of recent studies, including one by President Barack Obama’s debt panel, that say reductions in Medicare, Social Security, military and other spending are necessary to curb a deficit that totaled $1.29 trillion in the fiscal year ended Sept. 30, or 9 percent of the gross domestic product.

Of course that debt panel was packed with men whose biases toward cutting social programs was well-documented before they began their "study."

The article goes on to cite polling data and interviews. Some of the poll results are surprising at first glance, but maybe not so much when you think about it. It turns out that it's at best a half-truth even to say that "Republicans ... vehemently oppose tax increases to attack the deficit." For example,

While Republican congressional leaders have opposed increases in taxes paid by high-income families, sentiment among the party’s rank and file is mixed. Republicans are divided on eliminating the tax cuts for the wealthy, with 50 percent opposing and 47 percent supporting. An increase in the cap on earnings subject to Social Security taxes splits Republicans almost evenly.

The poll shows there’s little appetite across all parties and demographic groups for changes to entitlements.

Eighty-two percent of respondents opposed benefit cuts to the Medicare health-insurance system for the elderly, with about half of Republicans wanting to see both the current Medicare and Social Security systems preserved. Just 35 percent of all respondents back a system in which government vouchers would help people pay for their own health insurance.

“Nobody wants to fail to take care of children who need medicine or the elderly,” said Tea Party supporter Randy Thorman, 45, a high school social studies teacher in Pryor, Oklahoma. “We don’t want to throw people out without some type of help.”...

Cathy Freeman, a 64-year-old Republican and retired bookkeeper from Waco, Texas, said the deficit should be addressed by ending tax breaks for the wealthy and corporations, not slashing the entitlement programs her family relies on.

“We need to look at that before you start hurting the little guys,” Freeman said. “Let’s look at some things that aren’t fair in our system.”

A majority of 72 percent also opposes reducing benefits for the Medicaid health program for the poor. This is true even of Tea Party supporters who have built a movement around smaller government, with 66 percent against reducing Medicaid benefits. Seventy-two percent of those earning $100,000 or more also are opposed.

And so on. I should mention that Thoma's article turned out not to be quite as bad as I thought: he favors social spending and professes himself disappointed by Obama's failure to be the progressive Thoma had hoped for when he was elected. The trouble is that Thoma has bought into the corporate media line that most Americans support the Republican program. A much more accurate headline would be something like "Why Republican and Media Elites Are So Angry and So Wrong About Spending." But that wouldn't be news, I guess.