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The Democratic party just won a historic election, taking control of the White House and increasing its margins in the House and Senate – so of course its time for the Dems to do what they do when they get in power: Tear down the leader of the party and leave him open to Republican attack.
Today’s edition of the stupidest game in politics involves some congressional bellyaching about the plan to save the economy, poorly written opposition to a possible appointee, and of course anonymously sourced news stories about supposed discord between the President-elect and the outgoing chairman that’s treated as gospel.
And Obama’s not even president yet! This bodes well as usual. While the Republican party runs around squawking about Twitter in search of a clue, the Dems are already on schedule to kneecap their president.
If Obama was a less capable person I would be even more concerned. Jesus.
Defeat from Victory. It’s what they do.
I don’t know what is up with Conyers’ letter. Where is the damn proofreader? DiFi is an idiot. The more people that know that, the better. The one beef I do have is the tax cuts. I want more details as to who they are going to. The Bernie Madoffs of the world don’t need tax cuts right now.
Oliver, there is nothing wrong with putting principles over partisanship. If someone disagrees with someone else, the former shouldn’t hold back that disagreement just because the latter belongs to the same political party (end of lecture). Would you have faulted liberal Democrats in Congress in the 1950’s/60’s for criticizing conservative Southern Democrats for opposing and blocking civil rights legislation?
Fucksakes, let’s not do this boys and girls. This is not just a matter of ideological disputes at the moment; this really could be a matter of economic life and death. I personally disagree with the big tax cuts that are being floated as part of the stimulus package, and I’d like to see the military budget gutted, but let’s take this step by step and be civil about it. It’s in all our best interests, at the moment, not to weaken Barry’s hand. Everyone needs to keep their powder dry and chill the hell out for a minute or two, at least.
Meh. Obama’s in a weird spot — he’s putting together a cabinet while the outgoing president has effectively gone AWOL from his duties. If Obama made it too obvious though, the press would claim he was being “uppity” (literally).
So I’m not too worried. Obama can’t really throw his weight around yet, but in a few days I’ll expect him to crack the whip and get his people in line (i.e., Reid, Pelosi, etc.).
He’s got a hell of a task ahead of him — eight years of Republican damage to our country. But he’s the best man for the job. Can you imagine how fucked we’d be if Palin had been put in charge? Yeesh.
As a long time “social democrat” who has tangled in the political realm, and in Unions, with “libertarians” “conservatives” “”socialists” “trots” “CPers” “Maoists” “liberals” and many other ilk of political species let me tell you that I GUARANTEE you that the “collective left” will eat it’s own babies. We NEVER fail to eat our own. Sometimes we actually accomplish something before all the babies are dead.
It’s one of our more charming traits.
I reckon this is pretty much business as usual for politics. You guys are just so used to Republican lock-steppery that you don’t recognise normal any more.
Yup–that’s our party. But we are who we are. We whine, howl, complain and punch each other in public. And yes it can be embarrassing and yes it’s probably why we’ve only had two Dem presidents in twenty eight years. But when we get it together and do the thing– we can shine. But I have to admit it can be painful;
like your family having a fist fight in a mall parking lot.
Obama’s GOP-appeasing tax cuts need to be panned as an ineffectual solution to the looming economic disaster. He needs to quit worrying about catering to the right…their policies caused this mess and they just got smoked in the elections. Put the screws to them and make them defend their obstructionism.
An extra $20 a paycheck is not “Change We Can Believe In”.
Uh, Oliver, Obama has been elected president, not dictator. Until they overthrow the constitution, the Congress remains in charge of the country. The president may make suggestions, but it’s the Congress’ job to determine policy and to allocate funds. The Democrats would not be doing the job they were elected for if they didn’t question what Obama wanted, and if they didn’t correct the mistakes he’s making, which are numerous. There are some interesting ideas in Obama’s plans, but it’s just a draft, and there’s still a lot of work to be done. For one thing, Obama seemed to forget the necessity of drastically cutting the military budget, which is essential. And tax cuts are definitely not the way to stimulate the economy. And so on.
On the surface it looks like PeO bashing, but I tend to agree with Pete.
Also, it wouldn’t surprise me if this was engineered by the party’s leaders – PeO, Pelosi, Reid, etc. – as some sort of double fake to throw off the Republicans.
I’ve waited so long for this, that I’m comfortable to hold out until after the inauguration on 1/20/09 to see what PBO says/does.
People, let’s not forget that the Democratic leadership has mostly sided with Bush and the GOP on the issues. I believe they did it because that’s where their hearts really are–those are the positions they believe in.
Of course they’ve formed a firing squad around President-Elect Obama. To them, he’s the opposition.
We need new leaders in Congress. Vote for the challengers.
In addition to some cuts in the military budget what the country and the democrats really need is to source more military contracts to liberal and democratic persons and companies. The far right Republicans and their DINO friends have had a lock on that funding for a very long time. It’s time for real solutions not just partisan hackery solutions which only benefit a certain small part of the right wing.