Comments on: The Congressional Black Caucus Continues To Demonstrate How Useless It Is

By: pluky

pluky — Fri, 26 Dec 2008 02:09:59 +0000

“I’s the nature of an advocacy group.” No, that’s the nature of a faction convinced their playing a zero-sum game. The real beef here is that they had minimal input on the selection process. In the game of N-dimensional chess PeOTUS Obama has begun the CBC are so many pawns.

By: Duros62

Duros62 — Wed, 24 Dec 2008 14:38:17 +0000

Quantity is not the same as quality.

By: Amused Observer

Amused Observer — Wed, 24 Dec 2008 08:32:19 +0000

For several years it has been said that a way to measure racism is when the percentage of fireman, policemen, college stedents, etc. doesn’t match the racial demographics of the area. So with blacks at roughly 12-13% of the population does this mean that blacks are over represented in Obama’s cabinet and that he is a racist?

By: Parthenon

Parthenon — Tue, 23 Dec 2008 23:22:33 +0000

EL! I thought you gone for good!

I’m not too hard on the CBC over this. A little silly, maybe. But it’s the nature of an advocacy group, as Quaker points out above, to take a ‘never satisfied’ policy, and contest everything as though they’re the underdog, even if they’re in a better position than they’ve ever been. The cost of that is probably a bit of credibility for some folks, who are likely now to believe that the CBC would find a reason to bitch about anything.

By: soullite

soullite — Tue, 23 Dec 2008 23:04:20 +0000

The ‘too many women’ line isn’t really a problem in politics. But it is already a problem in education.

When women made up only 30 % of students, it was considered a huge problem. When women make up more than 60% of those same students…

Chirp, chirp, chirp.

Anyone who brings such a thing up is woman-hating scumbag.

By: soullite

soullite — Tue, 23 Dec 2008 23:01:59 +0000

Obama has nominated southerns.

He just hasn’t nominated any WHITE southerners.

That’s what that line of attack is really about.

By: Enlightened Liberal

Enlightened Liberal — Tue, 23 Dec 2008 22:11:55 +0000

Another reason we only hear about Democratic squabbles- Republicans simply don’t matter anymore (for now). The battle now is to see what aspects of the Democratic agenda get implemented. Republican agendas don’t matter, save for the corporatist agenda that has been pushed by mainstream Democrats as well.

By: Robert

Robert — Tue, 23 Dec 2008 18:53:59 +0000

That said, Barbara Lee is my representative in Congress, and I’m very glad she got to be the head of this superfluous entity.

By: Quaker in a Basement

Quaker in a Basement — Tue, 23 Dec 2008 18:14:29 +0000

Yeah, I’m with you, OW.

Here’s the thing, though: this is one of the problems with advocacy groups in general. I mean, what else can the CBC possibly say? “Allright! Black President. Four black cabinet secretaries. Our work is done!”

By the same token (no pun, honest!), you’re not going to hear NOW ever say, “Enough! That’s enough women in office! Let’s elect more men now!” and you won’t ever gay advocacy groups or Christian groups or any other kind of group decide there’s nothing left to accomplish.

By: The Reality-Based Dave

The Reality-Based Dave — Tue, 23 Dec 2008 18:07:25 +0000

Getting congressional Democrats on the same page is like hearding cats.
Getting congressional Republican on the same page is as easy as, as, as… Shit. Just threaten the loners with loss of future campaign funds. The rest are all under the same hypnotist.

By: Sean D. Martin

Sean D. Martin — Tue, 23 Dec 2008 18:02:50 +0000

OW: We win the White House and it’s like we don’t even need the Republicans around to make life difficult.

You were expecting the Dems to change their basic DNA?

By: KXB

KXB — Tue, 23 Dec 2008 15:40:18 +0000

Over at The Economist, this is what they had to say:

“Are they serious? Sort of. A feminist group (or an African American group) that announces it’s run out of grievances is a group that doesn’t matter anymore.”
http://www.economist.com/blogs/democracyinamerica/2008/12/annals_of_protesting_too_much.cfm

By: anotherbozo

anotherbozo — Tue, 23 Dec 2008 14:28:54 +0000

“And he hasn’t even been sworn in yet. We win the White House and it’s like we don’t even need the Republicans around to make life difficult.”

Even my foreign-born wife sees the diff, Oliver. The Republicans are usually a shoulder-to-shoulder army and the Dems are a chaos of squabbling backbiters.

How about the complaints that Obama hasn’t nominated any self-proclaimed gays, or any Southerners? Not to mention dwarves, Eskimos, etc. etc.

By: mambohicken23

mambohicken23 — Tue, 23 Dec 2008 13:41:36 +0000

Totally agree with you, Oliver. First black president, 4 black people in the Cabinet, first black attorney-general… the CBC should be just a little pleased right now, at least until after Inauguration Day.

Obama is still a month from taking office, and yet there are those that are already trying to tear him down. There’s not enough blacks in the cabinet! Obama and Blagojevich had inappropriate communications! OMG HE’Z IN HAWAII!!!1!!1ONE!1!!!

By: Amused Observer

Amused Observer — Tue, 23 Dec 2008 13:07:16 +0000

“When the Congressional Black Caucus isn’t working the corner for big business, protecting crooks like William Jefferson, or working against reformers like Donna Edwards”

Maybe it’s because basically they are corrupt. But Holder ought to go over real well because basically he is corrupt too.