I would just like to point out that after Obama called for bipartisanship, met with the Republicans, and altered the stimulus package in order to please them, they are attacking him and the bill. Now he has two alternatives: One, he could further alter the bill, making it less effective after already allowing it to be tainted by Republican horsecrap. Two, he could tell the Republicans TFB, take out all the tax cuts, jack it up to a trillion dollars like he should have in the first place, and pass it without them.

I suppose he could also do something in between those options. But the point is, what did Obama gain from trying to work with Republicans? Attacks and delays, that's all. These are not sane, decent people. They see compromise as weakness and will never stop trying to make the world a lousier place. We'll see how long it takes Obama to figure this out.

This is minor, but it bothers me. A lot of leftish blogs are commenting on Rush Limbaugh's statement that he hopes Obama fails. In case you haven't seen it, here's a link:

http://thinkprogress.org/2009/01/20/limbaugh-obama-fail

I think all this outrage and questioning of Limbaugh's patriotism on this basis is silly. Do you really not understand what he meant? He did not mean, "I hope Obama fails, thus throwing the nation into greater crisis." He meant, "I hope Obama fails, because the success of his policies would do great harm to the nation."

This is a family Website, so I won't post all the words I've used to describe Rush Limbaugh over the last twenty years, but, seriously. He obviously did not mean that he wanted the country to fail. When Bush took office in 2001 I hoped that none of his policies would pass, because doing nothing would have been better than what he did. I wanted the country to succeed, which would require Bush to fail.

Limbaugh is a wackjob and an authoritarian expletive, but what's wrong with his statement is the premise that Obama's proposals will hurt the country, not the conclusion that he is opposed to them for that reason. If Rush Limbaugh said that he thought Obama's proposals were terrible and would destroy the country, and that he is rooting for him to succeed, that would make no sense. Personally I'm pleased that Rush Limbaugh made a statement that was logically coherent at all.

A good idea for practical and symbolic reasons, but if he wants to make an impact on this problem he is going to have to call Ismail Haniyeh as well.

There doesn't seem to be a way to comment on a wire report on the TPM front page. Hence this entry.

WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!!!!!

Stupid crackers.

Hyperpartisan left-wing tribalism is out of style, but I think we all need to adopt it if we want the next forty years to be better than the last forty. My position that President Obama should not work with conservatives has not been met with much agreement, here or elsewhere. As a practical matter, because of the anti-democratic design of some parts of our government, Obama may need to hunt down a few Republicans to get his agenda through. But as far as ideas go, it's a waste of time. Does any liberal on this site disagree with any of these positions?


Universal health care coverage (single-payer, national, or social insurance).

Full reproductive freedom (abortion and birth control access).

Zero carbon emissions by 2030.

Complete withdrawal from Iraq.

Full autonomy for the Palestinians.

Fierce protection of civil rights and personal privacy (includes full citizenship for sexual minorities).

Re-regulation of markets and industry.

Real protections for unions (includes EFCA).

Fair taxation.

A trillion dollar stimulus package focused on infrastructure and aid to the poor.


I think most of us would agree on most of these. Among other things, what do all these positions have in common? They are all opposed by the Republican party. We can disagree about whether France or Canada provides a better model for providing health care, but the Republican party wants people to have less access to health care, not more. We might disagree on whether we should have a progressive income tax or a VAT, but the Republican party would rather use taxes to transfer money from the poor to the wealthy. The Israeli-Palestinian conflict is controversial, but if it were left up to the Republicans we would keep funding the Israeli military forever with no conditions whatsoever. Perhaps we disagree about the timetable for ending the war, but the Republicans wanted to stay there permanently, effectively turning Iraq into a U.S. territory. And so on.

Does any liberal or leftist believe that the positions listed above are completely wrong? Or do we disagree about implementation? I think it's mostly implementation. How, when, how much? But not if. Whereas the vast majority of the Republicans Obama is faced with would not agree with these policies at all, regardless of how they were implemented. There may be issue-by-issue exceptions on both sides, but the fact is that on the vast majority of issues the Republicans, especially the Republican leadership, will try to keep Obama from accomplishing anything at all.

This is why I say that working with Republicans is a waste of time. It's one thing to disagree on the details of a policy proposal, but the Republicans are explicitly against progress. Their agenda is to make the air and water dirtier, our health care system less effective, and our political system less fair. What does Obama think he is going to learn from these people? The only effect their participation can have is to pull a proposal away from the best solution and toward the worst.

Viewpoints and issue positions are not all equal. Some are right, and some are wrong. History demonstrates that the right wing has been wrong about everything, and that the left wing has been right about everything. There is not a major issue of the last fifty years on which conservatives were right and the non-Communist left was wrong. Not one. Opening the door to the Republicans will only do harm to the country and to Obama's presidency. 

I'm glad everyone seems so happy today. It's good that Democrats get to be happy after being robbed and spit on for eight years. But I can't share in this happiness. I've been lowering my expectations for weeks. I've yet to see the evidence that Obama is going to do what needs to be done to repair this country and the planet. His team so far is very weak. There are few real progressives or leftists. I don't see how an economic team led by Lawrence Summers and Timothy Geithner is going to fight for the radical changes we need in our economic orientation. Most of the appointments are Clinton-era moderates, who in a real democracy would be members of the center-right party, or are actual Republicans.

I think that Obama's fundamental message is inspiring but unwise. It would be nice to come together as one nation and work together to solve our problems, but that is not how problems get solved. Not everyone has worthwhile ideas, and not everyone wants to solve these problems. Some ways of thinking simply cannot be reconciled with each other. One side has to win and the other has to lose. Tactically, Obama's tendency toward conciliation and accomodation could lead to disaster. Every minute he wastes trying to get Republicans on board with his program takes us further away from where we need to be. We need a national, universal coverage health care system, period. No serious person believes anything else. Are the Republicans going to help us get there? No, they're not. They're going to impede and delay and dilute and every time that happens people will die uncessarily.

We need a stimulus in the range of a trillion dollars, focused on infrastructure and aid to the poor and unemployed, and we need it now. Republicans will do everything they can to divert that money to wealthy donors, to make sure the poor get less, and will use any leverage Obama gives them to reduce the effectiveness of programs like Medicare and Social Security. How does the country gain from that? It doesn't.

The fact is that if Obama wants to put an effective program in place, he needs to stop going to dinner with right-wing nutball columnists and stop trying to get a bunch of Republicans to support his plan. He needs to get left and stay there. That is where the necessary expertise and motivation is. Every inch he gives to the Republicans is a loss.

This is war. It is a war for democracy and for basic human decency. Republicans and conservatives are not on our side and they never will be. Obama needs to go through and over them, not give into them. Instead he's opening the door and inviting them to destroy the country. I knew all along that Obama was not a left-winger. He will be an improvement over Bush, of course, but that's the lowest bar imaginable. I am moved by the historic nature of his election and inauguration, and as an individual he seems intelligent, knowledgeable and well-intentioned. But I don't think he's going to get the job done because he is not the kind of person that can get this job done.