How Net-Trash Nominated the Salesman-Only-of-Himself Barack Obama
The annual convention of political bloggers, Netroots Nation, is winding down right now in sunny Pittsburgh, and nobody cares, because nobody has to care. For all the influence any of those clowns have on anything, they might as well be Trekkies, Elvis-impersonators, or mice in an empty barn. What are the mice saying? Nobody cares, because nobody has to care.
But once upon a time the political blogosphere actually mattered for about five minutes, way back in 2007 when they still called it YearlyKos.
Even then, all that really mattered about the political blogs was confusion. Hillary didn't need them. Barack didn't need them. But for that one shining moment, it was possible that DailyKos and all its little siblings could put such a stink on Clinton or Obama that their candidacies would feel the pain.
Now there's really no point in discussing Hillary Clinton any more, since Obama got her out of the Senate and out of the way with a ceremonial appointment and endless world tour as Secretary of State...
But the mysterious Mr. Obama now occupies the Oval Office, and isn't it surprising that in the so-called "information society," with hundreds of thousands of bloggers blog-blog-blogging about anything and everything...
Isn't it surprising that nobody knew squat about Obama until he started giving away trillions of dollars to criminal bankers, making up new and even more-fantastic-than-Bush excuses for indefinite detention, and even newer and even more even-more-fantastic-than-Bush excuses for gutting Medicare, and waffling all over the map about NAFTA, the Defense of Marriage Act, and anything else that anybody who reads newspapers or the internet was ever naive enough to confuse with a principle or promise by Barack Obama?
So Obama sold himself to the Democrats, and then...
What else could he sell?
He can't sell single-payer healthcare, he can't even sell a public option, however weak it might be, he can't sell a reasonable stimulus that wasn't eviscerated by tax-cuts, or significant mortgage-relief for millions of distressed homeowners or assistance to state governments or a significant public-works program to re-employ millions of desperate workers who are running out of unemployment...
Barack Obama sold himself to the voters, and that was the end of his brilliant salesmanship, apparently forever, or at least until the next election cycle, when he rolls out the "new and improved" Brand Obama.
The election of Barack Obama was a triumph for fundraising on the internet, with the unthinkable sum of $750 million rolling in from credulous little donors, but for the "reality-based" progressive blogosphere, it was a screaming disaster. The progressive agenda is in the toilet, and for that we can thank...
The trash of the internet, the incredible mobs of brain-dead pseudonyms who shouted down (almost) all possible criticism and anything like informed discussion of the saleman-only-of-himself Barack Obama on DailyKos and all its little siblings, and covered him with a cloak of invisibility until Obama had finally conned and sloganeered his way into the Democratic nomination and the Oval Office.
I'm going to recommend this post rootie, if for nothing else but to build a fire under Obama's butt, that might help force him to start selling real reform. My feelings about how the healthcare 'reform' legislation is shaping up is nothing if not depressing. The insurance companies seem poised to rake in a windfall of even more profits as we mandate another 50 million captive subscribers to the plans they offer, with no effective means of reigning in costs, sans a public option allowed to pay medicare rates and having ostensibly surrendered our negotiating power for lower drug costs in advance for industry support. For this we will get in return some facsimile of universal coverage, probably the dropping of exclusion for pre-existing conditions, and portability of coverage. Those are worthy ends, but without the mechanism to actually control our healthcare costs, they amount to a big bonus for the insurance and medical infrastructure in this country. I wonder what the role of the insurance industry in our financial sector plays in how this is playing out. The financial sector is the biggest 'giver' to our elected officials, and the insurance industry is a huge source of funds for the financial sector with the steady stream of revenue generated from its already captive audience of policyholders.
August 16, 2009 12:51 PM | Reply | Permalink
Thanks for your thoughtful and well-written comment, miguelito.
I am also tempted to look for an upside with Obamacare, and his current editorial in the Times puts about the best face on it that I can imagine, but there's also this in it...
And when somebody starts talking about "hundreds of billions of dollars in waste and inefficiency in federal health programs like Medicare and Medicaid," I usually assume that whoever is spouting those Republican talking-points is really a Republican, no matter which party he conned and sloganeered into nominating him.
August 16, 2009 1:04 PM | Reply | Permalink
I found this NYT article even more exasperating, as at least in the finish to your quoted text he said "and in unwarranted subsidies to insurance companies that do nothing to improve care and everything to improve their profits".
Then we get these signals from the WH on how quickly the public option is to be surrendered in exchange for letting the Dems pass a mediocre at best healthcare reform bill.
Who knew that passing a healthcare reform bill would be accomplished so quickly through a long series of feints and retreats. Brilliant!
August 16, 2009 4:45 PM | Reply | Permalink
I only started thinking about Obamacare again after reading Dave Lindorff's raise-the-black-flag-of-anarchy article calling for progressives to help the zombies disrupt town meetings.
"This can't be right," I thought, and for maybe a minute while I was reading Obama's editorial in the Times, it sounded okay.
And then Newt Gingrich popped out of Obama's forehead, like a demented cuckoo, shrieking...
"It's time to eviscerate Medicare!"
August 16, 2009 5:02 PM | Reply | Permalink
LOL! Not for the reality of our situation but for the much welcomed fantasia of an automaton Newt springing out of BHO's forehead and shreiking R talking points. Lindorff's premise is interesting, as I see myself more and more, opposing the direction 'reform' is taking as we move further away from satisfying the interests of the electorate, (by increasing coverage while reducing costs), and more toward an industry lotto win. This has been one of the distinctions not addressed in the polling on whether we are satisfied with the way Obama is handling healthcare reform. Many of us on the left can only answer the question as a teabagger would, but for different reasons, and expecting, (hoping for), different outcomes.
August 16, 2009 5:22 PM | Reply | Permalink
From the oped cited: If you have health insurance, we will make sure that no insurance company or government bureaucrat gets between you and the care you need.
Wow. Frank Luntz could have written that. Oh wait, he did.
August 16, 2009 5:49 PM | Reply | Permalink
I think the reason we elected David Copperfield is because we desperately wanted some real and serious entertainment after 8 years of a dyslexic president who wasn't photogenic, metaphorical, high-minded and symbolic of anything pleasant enough.
But I don't agree that Obama is a one-trick pony, even though it sure looks like it now.
By the next election cycle, we'll see that he can sell himself not once but twice.
August 16, 2009 1:01 PM | Reply | Permalink
That's a jewel of a paragraph, Lalo!
August 16, 2009 1:07 PM | Reply | Permalink
I have thought there has been plenty of criticism of Obama from the left; it just doesn't get any play in mainstream media. Except when the Talking Deecee Bubbleheads all agree that is is his best inerest to piss off the left. If they gave any play to the criticism, it could help a lot to affect his policy salesmanship. Today's sunday Bubbleheads all agreed that the public option may as well be pulled back from consideration; apparently Sibelius said so, too, though I haven't watched her on This Week with the grouchy Jake Tapper hosting. Rachel Maddow did the best on Meet the Press; even Tom Daschle tried, and failed to make the case. It's easy: There will be no economic recovery for anyone except Wall Street without it. And even that can't last indefinitely. We hope.
August 16, 2009 1:39 PM | Reply | Permalink
Yeah, Wendy, after the election, when Obama... surprise!... started selling out the progressive agenda from his first day in the Oval Office.
But if you had bothered to read my diary, you would (probably) understand that after the election isn't when criticsm from the left could have mattered.
August 16, 2009 2:00 PM | Reply | Permalink
Where were you? I remember plenty of criticism of Obama before the election. I made lots of critical comments on DailyKos. I was never troll rated. I did have to face the indignity of arguing with people who disagreed with me. (Oh, the humanity!)
I supported Edwards before he dropped out. Then I switched to Obama when it came down to him or Hillary. In fact, I think that pretty much sums up the netroots as a whole. There was a lot of support for Obama too, but Edwards was the favorite of the liberal bloggers.
I am curious: What did you see as an alternative? Kucinich? Edwards? Clinton? Kucinich never had a chance. It doesn't look like Edwards would have turned out very well. Clinton had spent the last years running to the right and then hired an evil scum like Penn to run her campaign. I wish we had a Howard Dean as one of the options but we didn't. What are you actually suggesting? Nader?
August 17, 2009 1:28 PM | Reply | Permalink
Bothered?
August 16, 2009 2:49 PM | Reply | Permalink
I imagine you're going to get some flak for this one Ruta, but not from me. You are very close to the bone in this post and lots of people have trouble facing it. Each and every instance of glaring hypocrisy, deceipt or just plain reversal of position stirs up a whole new cycle of denial from people who refuse to see what is unmistakably clear. Change was nothing but the right marketing slogan used just right at the right moment. The left castrated itself when it pitched in with Obama and for those few who didn't, it matters little because they are lumped in with the Moveon's, etc... The most disappointing thing for me has been the nonstop blowjob for Wall Street and the betrayal on transparency, open government and return to the rule of law. Nothing Obama does or says can cover up his defence of Bush's illegal practices or his continuation and expansion of those same unconstitutional abominations.
August 16, 2009 4:17 PM | Reply | Permalink
Thanks for commenting, oleeb, with your usual intelligence, and especially for using exactly the right word about Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib:
Abominations.
August 16, 2009 4:21 PM | Reply | Permalink
I don't remember it that way, unless you are defining "netroots" differently than it has been in the past. Rather, it was as if the Obama fan base ran over the traditional "netroots" in numbers and zealotry.
Ian Welsh's July 2008 post for one example.
Obama never liked the "netroots" and they didn't like him. (There was a lot of atagonism even early on in the primary process, with things like his attitude towards religion and to gays, and even before, with the whole brouhaha at Kos over his attitude about the Roberts confirmation process.) The less ideological types like Markos went over to promoting him only when they saw the writing on the wall, as is their usual modus operandi, no surprise there. But if you visited more non-centrist original "progressive/liberal netroots" type sites rather than just more traditionally centrist Dem places like TPM and Huffpo, what you generally saw was disappointment after the race tightened to Obama v. Clinton, and they never got excited about the election, the Obama fans were the ones doing that.
August 16, 2009 5:19 PM | Reply | Permalink
P.S. I think it's important to get the narrative right for the historical record. Obama and his campaign machine dissed and looked down on netroots (of "Deaniac" type origination,) stole their methods and altered them, and stole their thunder. He was much more successful at what he did then they were, did it better than they did, and that grates many of them to this day, like any co-option usually does.
August 16, 2009 5:24 PM | Reply | Permalink
and another example is how upset and angry the Firedoglake crowd was when Ned Lamont endorsed Obama in Jan. 2008. If they aren't considered "netroots" activists of the "netroots nation" type, I don't know who is.
August 16, 2009 5:33 PM | Reply | Permalink
You are missing an important element which is that despite the Obama campas dislike of the netroots and how they looked down on them, it was Obama's endorsement by Moveon that turned the tide in favor of his candidacy at a crucial moment in the primary season. Once they threw their weight behind Obama everything else started falling in line. It was liberal support that beat Hillary on behalf of Obama dn it was liberal support that sustained his campaign. He and his organization willfully deceived his liberal/left supporters at every turn, used them and discarded them. That is exactly what they need to do to him come 2012. I hope a real leader, who isn't Republican Lite, rises to challenge him and defeat him in the primaries.
August 16, 2009 5:37 PM | Reply | Permalink
I appreciate your good-faith effort to get the narrative right, artappraiser, but I was here, and on DailyKos, and MyDD, and MyLeftWing, and HuffPo, and in general all over the progressive blogosphere, and unless you want to make a distinction between OldRoots and NewRoots, or something similar, the netroots are whoever shows up on the net, and who showed up after sometime in the winter of 2007-2008 was mobs of Obamabots, who drove anybody who criticized Obama right off DailyKos with autobanning, and fanatical support from Miss Laura and other trashy frontpagers, and likewise elsewhere.
Dude, I'm not making this up, or throwing out some shaky generalization based on limited experience. My diaries on DailyKos started attracting hundreds of insulting comments after March 2008, and every comment I made was immediately disappeared, and even after hundreds of die-hard Hillary supporters migrated to MyDD, it didn't really get any better, because the Clintonistas quickly turned into just another centrist mob almost like the Bots, but without some of the Bots' really idiotic devices like jamming threads with empty posts, obscene insults, and ugly pictures.
August 16, 2009 5:51 PM | Reply | Permalink
No need to point to dkos to see the mob jamming threads. The same thing was attempted here. If the management had not banned massdem the "open thread" concept would have silenced the last few remaining dissenters of the Obama line. For those who might claim it was just "trolls" who were targeted, Seaton, whose blogs now almost always get to the rec list, was the first person targeted.
August 16, 2009 6:56 PM | Reply | Permalink
Thanks for reminding me about Seaton, and I also agree with the rest of your post. It's hard to forget scrolling down screen after screen of spam recipes on threads jammed by... whoever!
I don't want to conjure up those ghosts!
August 16, 2009 7:08 PM | Reply | Permalink
Well now the crazies are letting out their frustration by boycotting Whole Foods for the offense of speaking his opinion. The Right to Free Speech seems always precious when in the hands of those who agree with us, and cause for destroying someone mercilessly - financially, job-wise, any what way - should they disagree with us. Or so show both wingnuts and "progressives".
I just don't know where we'll get enough reasonable people for a movement.
August 17, 2009 11:18 AM | Reply | Permalink
The right to free speech is precious. So is the right to boycott someone whose speech you didn't like.
August 17, 2009 12:21 PM | Reply | Permalink
No, the right to boycott or lynch someone you don't like is hardly precious, it's typically vindictive and mendacious, especially if it's just over speech.
Yes, there are times it's morally justified, but it's hardly up there as the basic virtue of listening to what those you disagree with have to say.
"Now that you've had your say, I must respond that I very much respect your opinion and your right to speak it, and now I must bomb the shit out of you and everyone around you."
Such is the thin fabric of modern liberal democracy. My way or the highway in whatever guise.
August 17, 2009 5:31 PM | Reply | Permalink
How is Boycott = Lynching? I missed that memo.
I can shop where I want, why I want. That has zero to do with lynching, and that is conceptually not rocket science.
August 17, 2009 5:35 PM | Reply | Permalink
It's attempting economic destruction. Companies do this against people all the time, both to employees and those on the outside who try to interfere with their efforts. But lots and lots of people work in management in successful companies, so you can always say they have no right to free speech because they represent their companies whether they like it or not.
Unlike lynching, there's no law against spending your money how you like, even if you organize a boycott. Whether this works against open opinion and healthy debate and liberal democracy, I stated my thoughts on the matter.
August 17, 2009 7:40 PM | Reply | Permalink
It's not simply free speech when a guy like Mackey writes an op ed. He is given a bullhorn precisely because he's a CEO who has an alternate plan for how health care should be done (a stupid, asshat alternate plan that will not work for any workforce other than a place like Whole Paycheck where all the "partners" are 20-somethings)
The editorial is signed
It nowhere states that this is his opinion and not the opinion of Whole Foods or its employees and investors. Nowhere. That's not simple free speech by a lone individual. Sorry.August 17, 2009 7:58 PM | Reply | Permalink
No, the right to boycott or lynch someone you don't like is hardly precious, it's typically vindictive and mendacious, especially if it's just over speech.
--------------------------------------------------
Wow you are going off the deep end here. People can spend their money where ever they want for whatever reason. Boycotts have always been a accepted tactic that has advanced rights and freedoms. For example Rosa Parks and the Montgomery bus boycott or the South Africa boycotts that were supported by Desmond Tutu.
I recognize that you feel that Mackay's article is an insignificant reason to launch a boycott, I may even agree with you. But this almost wholesale repudiation of boycotts is ridiculous.
August 17, 2009 7:07 PM | Reply | Permalink
So you see yourself as Rosa Parks? Whole Foods is the racist Selma Public Transportation Department? Mackey is perhaps Bull Connor with a German Shepherd and water cannons? Can you be any less serious?
August 18, 2009 4:48 PM | Reply | Permalink
Me? I never said I was going to boycott Whole Foods. I haven't looked into Mackay or Whole Foods deeply but I said I may agree that the op-ed is an insignificant reason to boycott.
But you just compared a boycott to a lynching and claimed boycotts were, "typically vindictive and mendacious." I'm just calling you on your hyperbole.
August 21, 2009 12:22 AM | Reply | Permalink
Seaton's an ass.
August 17, 2009 10:57 AM | Reply | Permalink
You are mixing up your Obamamaniacs with your netroots. They are really different groups. Obamamaniacs don't go to functions like "Netroots Nation," they have Obama parties while the netroots nation nurses their wounds. I agree that they took over sites like you mention in force during the primaries. That's part of what I was saying: he and his supporters co-opted netroots original tactics, and were much more successful at it than they were. I do agree that in doing that, they managed to pass Obama fever to some regular denizens of the sites you mention, which merely once again backs up what I said. However, what evidence do you have that Obamamaniacs are the same people going to the current Netroots Nation? I'd be surprised if it isn't still mainly the same old "a pox on both Hillary and Obama" crowd that they were back then.
August 16, 2009 7:22 PM | Reply | Permalink
It's hard to forget the love fest for Obama that took place amongst most of the prominent blogs of left blogistan in 08 particularly after the Moveon endorsement. That really was a key turning point because it tipped huge numbers of liberal Democrats to Obama as opposed to Hillary (who many were looking for an alternative to)and also away from Edwards who offered a far more Democratic and liberal platform than either Clinton or Obama. The Moveon endorsement essentially put Edwards in limbo and his campaign never took off even after a second place finish in Iowa. As Obama gained strength his campaign was propelled in large part by liberal bloggers and those who visit their sites and I'm talking here about their regulars and not the Obamabots. It was the liberal momentum on the net and all teh money that came with it that propelled Obama to victory despite the Obama camps disdain for them.
August 16, 2009 10:02 PM | Reply | Permalink
Expectation of omnipotency, eternal foe of the optimist.
I think you misdiagnose the correctly identified symptoms but I suspect no headway can be made re-rehashing that.
August 16, 2009 7:25 PM | Reply | Permalink
It is not lupus, by the by. For one, you are missing one brother.
August 16, 2009 7:27 PM | Reply | Permalink
Ruddy you hit the nail on the head. Democrats = Republican Lite. Obama = Extra Lite
C
August 16, 2009 9:20 PM | Reply | Permalink
Paul Krugman made this catch about Obamacare way back during the primaries, March 4, 2008...
And in the same column...
August 16, 2009 10:08 PM | Reply | Permalink
I agree with a lot of what you have to say but I think it would not have mattered if Hillary won. The problem that leads to Republican Lite is structural, not specific to the chosen leader.
Obama is Bill Clinton. When he leaves office he'll probably say he is for single payer, like Clinton is suddenly for gay marriage. Know this: when it counts, America is run by rich people for the benefit of rich people. Only when rich people disagree on what is needed is there an opening to do anything at all (barring massive street action by enraged millions who, right now, cannot be bothered to look up from watching the latest Larry King interview about "They ate Michael Jackson's Brain!"...)
So the main problem in America is that our rich people got stupid. They forgot that America was at its peak when FDR managed to get the workers tossed a few bread crumbs of the loot and Truman and Ike didn't do much to wreck that. The corporate manager and owner class today are so thoroughly indoctrinated in poisonous ideology that they wouldn't support single payer, even though it would save hundreds of billions of dollars and offer them a competitive advantage (as was testified to in Canada by auto company executives who are not nearly as stupid)
Our rich people are stupid. But they can always move to the Caymans and leave the rot behind.
August 17, 2009 4:25 AM | Reply | Permalink
They're not stupid, they're just beyond patriotism. It's not an important factor at all to them.
They've gotten everything they want, and have more power than the rich have had at any point in history.
We're stupid. Bill Clinton is still adored by most on the left, because Republicans tried to impeach him.
August 17, 2009 10:20 AM | Reply | Permalink
I suppose that's true that the rich have gotten just about everything they wanted, since Reagan-time. And they're certainly not patriotic. But they've also been killing the goose that layed their golden egg. The so-called "American consumer" is pretty tapped out and afraid of losing their job. And other nations aren't falling into line with the American playbook.
China will play it differently, and so will Russia, India and Brazil. Europe doesn't rely so much on consumerism either. So while this period has been a golden era for the American wealthy class, they've used up all their silver bullets... and that's because they actually believe their broken ideology in spite of the real world proving it's broken.
As someone once said of so-called libertarians, when the world doesn't match their ideas they wonder where the world went wrong. The same can be said not only of libertarians but of everyone who thinks the 21st century is going to be a new American century. The only thing we're gonna lead the world in is bankruptcies and prison population.
August 17, 2009 12:18 PM | Reply | Permalink
I think you are correct that many of the ruling elites have consumed their own koolaid. But I think you are missing one point. Past a certain level of material comfort, extra wealth is not satisfying. It is more power that satisfies, and power is a zero sum game. You cannot gain more power by increasing wealth for everyone. You don't gain power by having the same size slice of a bigger pie. Your power is relative to the lack of power of others. You, as a class, can gain power by grabbing an increasing slice of a decreasing pie. Even if you have less wealth, you have more power.
What happened with the New Deal is that some of the elites started to shit their pants about an actual socialist revolution. They made the deal less shitty for the masses to appease them and avoid losing the whole system.
August 17, 2009 1:11 PM | Reply | Permalink
Point taken.
August 17, 2009 5:36 PM | Reply | Permalink
Thanks for your thoughtful comment, thotful spot.
Before I checked into TPMCafe, I was looking to see if my latest comment about fashion in the Times had been cleared by the moderator, and...
No.
I was commenting on one of their assemblages of "Excessories of the Times," which included a $7000 "clutch," some boots for $2500, and a belt marked "for pricing contact Versus," and my comment was...
"If you already own this garbage, poke your eyes out with the heel of the boot and hang yourself with the belt."
But I'm still not sure that "stupid" is the right word for whoever buys the excessories in the Times. A lot of people who vote for Republicans can't afford that garbage, but they want a shot at it, however unrealistic their hopes may be, and for them the Democrats represent a dismal world where everybody wears a Mao jacket or one of those gray-on-gray "matushka" outfits from the old Soviet Union... although Democrats are only about a millimeter to the left of Republicans.
If everybody who can't figure out the long-term economic trajectory of the United States is stupid, that only leaves a very few people like Paul Krugman who aren't, and although I keep trying to match wits with him, the moderator of his blog also deletes my comments, just like the moderator of "Excessories of the Times."
August 17, 2009 9:08 AM | Reply | Permalink
Rec'd Rootie! Though frankly I'm tired of talk about Obama at this point. At what point do we stop feeling disappointed in the administration, and try to find people capable of taking them on? I see Feingold has started on detentions, Maybe Dodd is crapping himself enough to maybe reject the administration's fig-leaf banking reform template. Pelosi should stand up to whatever crap comes out of the senate on health care. But overall, this is heartbreaking. And I say that as someone who expected very little from Obama in the first place, at a minimum not making things worse...
August 17, 2009 10:06 AM | Reply | Permalink
About challenging Obama in the primaries in 2012, Obey, I'm not very hopeful. Obviously I would still like to see Kucinich as the Democratic candidate, or Feingold, and even Dodd has some commitment to something. His one-man filibuster of the telecom-FISA bill was a very rare moment of greatness in the Senate, like Robert Byrd banging his desk at midnight before the invasion of Iraq, and calling down all the great old ghosts of the Senate Chamber to judge his spineless colleagues.
But I don't think it's impossible that Obama could be successfully challenged in 2012, and Obama himself has already demonstrated that one little victory in the Iowa caucuses can make an obscure candidate famous overnight.
August 17, 2009 10:44 AM | Reply | Permalink
Glad to hear something positive about Dodd, who I don't really know. Though he's not really 'presidential' material; The media just won't find him swoon-worthy. But just keep in mind that Obama was no more than a twinkle in the MSM's eye three years before the last election.
August 17, 2009 11:02 AM | Reply | Permalink
Holy crap, you're an asshole.
Take your childish "nettrash" imbecility elsewhere. This level of garbage is not the standard at TPM.
Go away, TROLL
August 17, 2009 10:08 AM | Reply | Permalink
One of the weirdest aspects of "the Obama phenomenon" was that Obama really did bring a lot of people into the "political process" who had never been anywhere near it before... not even in a voting booth, much less a caucus or on the political blogosphere...
But what was their conception of "the political process?"
Obviously this wasn't everybody, and maybe 5% or 10% of the Obama mob was intelligent commenters like NCSteve, but there were at least as many intelligent commenters who favored Edwards or Hillary or whoever else in the primaries, and only Obama attracted all those hundreds of pseudonyms on DailyKos whose list of comments revealed a never-ending series of "comments" like...
Way back then, with hundreds of them, it was a major annoyance, but now, with only one...
...on a page full of thoughtful comments, it's just pitiful.
But Obama is already in the Oval Office, and no amount of intelligence on the blogs can replace him with an honest progressive, or any other political flavor which would help millions of people who are going under in our melting economy.
August 17, 2009 10:35 AM | Reply | Permalink
I think Kos is CIA controlled opposition.
He admits to completing training at the CIA, liking and respecting the CIA, and willing to work for them in the future:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OcyirdM1UI0
That would help explain how he got so much MSM exposure so early on.
Bob Barr, the Libertarian candidate in 2008, is also CIA.
August 17, 2009 10:46 AM | Reply | Permalink
You are nuts.
August 17, 2009 1:45 PM | Reply | Permalink
I'm so tired of hearing about Obama being a "disappointment" to you people who wanted the triangulator, Hillary. He's been dropped in a cesspit left him by the Bushies and a weak-kneed congress, and he's doing the best he can, and it's seven months in, for Christ's sake. STFU. Clinton was rolling over for the Repubs, at six months, and you pinheads claim that he was progressive.
August 17, 2009 11:02 AM | Reply | Permalink
Didn't you say Obama was different?
The difference between triangulation and capitulation is a third corner.
August 17, 2009 11:23 AM | Reply | Permalink
Oy. Obama represents the worst of the Democratic party. The allure of power and getting elected is so much more important than what he wants to do with that power. Increase our majority by becoming more and more like the Republicans until there is no distinction left. While Bill Clinton was also a "triangulator," at least he gave full consideration to the views on the left and the right, and usually settled into some middle ground. Obama starts out in the middle (public option), tells the left to shut up (single payer) and caves to the right ("co-ops" that will basically be a giveaway to the insurance companies). He telegraphed this from the primaries when he used Republican arguments to battle progressive policies (about foreclosure relief for homeowners & health care reform etc). I am beyond disgusted but not surprised.
August 17, 2009 11:41 AM | Reply | Permalink
The Clintons were the ORIGINAL sell-the-party-down-the-river-for-ten-pieces-of-silver political team. NAFTA, Deregulation, Extraordinary Rendition for the purpose of torture, etc. The option was between someone we KNEW was beholden to corporate interests and had no problem invading Iraq and committing torture - or someone that was a less known quantity.
Amreica chose well given the options. Get over it.
August 17, 2009 12:10 PM | Reply | Permalink
Now this comment I agree with. Obama was, for the purposes of the primary season, the anti-Clinton candidate. The reason is that the system forces you to dismiss a legitimate lefty like Kucinich and Edwards was scarily Clintonesque (even down to good hair and not keeping it zipped, as we later found out... I fell for Edwards' slick talk myself, although I always suspected he wasn't genuine since his voting record is actually DLC Dem all the way)
So we picked Obama because he wasn't her, and she might have turned out like him. But it is now clear beyond doubt that Obama is just like him too. They're all like him! That's what I meant by the problem being structural.
August 17, 2009 12:29 PM | Reply | Permalink
Agreed with all but one tiny point. I don't think Edwards' disgraceful conduct outside of his marriage proves at all that he didn't mean what he said on the campaign trail. We'll likely never know, but his deceipt in his marriage isn't proof of deceit about what he said he was for as a candidate. It may be that he was always a fake, just mouthing platitudes for votes but that wouldn't make him any different from Clinton or Obama now would it?
August 17, 2009 12:50 PM | Reply | Permalink
I supported Edwards in spite of my gut reaction that he was a phony. He was indeed DLC all the way as a Senator, but that was in a red state. I figured that it's impossible to look into someone's soul. Might as well support whoever is saying the right things. How else do you support liberal policy besides supporting the politician who supports the policy?
August 17, 2009 1:41 PM | Reply | Permalink
I supported Edwards in spite of my gut reaction that he was a phony. He was indeed DLC all the way as a Senator, but that was in a red state. I figured that it's impossible to look into someone's soul. Might as well support whoever is saying the right things. How else do you support liberal policy besides supporting the politician who supports the policy?
August 17, 2009 1:42 PM | Reply | Permalink
Agreed. I don't really know for sure how he'd have done if he had become President of the USA (and not been tarred and feathered for infidelity)
But I'd rather get to vote for a guy in the mold of Wellstone, rather than someone who talks about poverty lately. We just need a few clones of Paul Wellstone, first. Sigh.
August 17, 2009 5:39 PM | Reply | Permalink
You keep telling yourself that :). Obama was a known entity - he telegraphed compromise, capitulation and republican arguments against progressive policies. So I guess that's the change you were voting for. But lack of transparency, giving the previous admin a pass on torture investigations and carrying on the same bs state secrets arguments as Gwb? Ruts has it right. Obama's a skilled con man. Even I, sho never bought into him as other than to the right of bill Clinton on economics policy, had no idea he would be this antithetical to the platform he ran on.
August 17, 2009 12:38 PM | Reply | Permalink
i have to say i largely disagree with this post as it ignores the reality facing obama in getting anything progressive passed in this country.
obama is trying to turn around an oil tanker in very tight straits.
does anyone think mccain would be doing a better a job with palin in the wings? that's why he raised so much money. the thought of a mccain presidency and another 4 years of republican mismanagement was anathema to millions.
for comparison, consider FDR. even FDR's great depression stimulus was less than what was genuinely needed, abandoned early and faced huge resistance.
i don't think a president clinton or edwards or even kucinich would be dealing with the entrenched money interests opposed to real reform any more effectively.
obama is only 7 months into his presidency and is struggling to get positive changes passed no matter how incrementally. the republican brand is still in the trash and we've got a progressive thumb on the scale.
i'm not thrilled with the pace of progress, but it's in the right direction and i'm not sure it can move much faster.
paraphrasing FDR, Obama has declared that he essentially agrees with the progressive agenda, but now we must make him and congress deliver it, and that means providing an effective counter weight to the scared, the shrill and the rich.
August 17, 2009 12:44 PM | Reply | Permalink
Give me a break. Obama's hardly tried to turn anything. He took TARP just the way Bush gave it to him and kept handing out untended bailouts to Wall Street. Tell me the big new direction we're headed with this version of "insurance reform"? Same players, same name tags, a few new rules maybe but they'll still control all the cards.
August 17, 2009 5:26 PM | Reply | Permalink
Not just the Republican brand is in the trash. The Democratic brand is also in the trash. The American brand is also in the trash. The country runs on illusions: We have mountains of debt piled into the next century to keep running the empire with military bases astride the globe, meanwhile Americans prattle on about being #1 when there are very few good things we are actually still #1 in.
[Which gives me an idea for a new reality television show -- one that shows actual reality, e.g. what it's like to live in humane countries where people aren't in constant fear of crime, debt, losing their job, and losing their health care... but I digress...]
August 17, 2009 5:44 PM | Reply | Permalink