Meet the New Boss
Same as the Old Boss
Glenn Greenwald:
It appears to be true that the President wanted tax revenues to be part of this deal. But it is absolutely false that he did not want these brutal budget cuts and was simply forced -- either by his own strategic "blunders" or the "weakness" of his office -- into accepting them. The evidence is overwhelming that Obama has long wanted exactly what he got: these severe domestic budget cuts and even ones well beyond these, including Social Security and Medicare, which he is likely to get with the Super-Committee created by this bill...
Send in the clowns.
(Cross-posted at Whiskey Fire)
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12 comments:
Yeah, I think at some point you just have accept the fact that, for all intents and purposes, Obama is just a moderate republican. Im so jaded now I can't even feel heartbroken.
Time to make some comfort food. Sorry guys.
I think it's worse than just him being a moderate Republican, vs.
The failures of 30 years of Reaganism are coming home to roost and Obama is taking ownership of them on behalf of the Democratic party.
P.S. From wiki:
Hoover sent U.S. Army forces led by General Douglas MacArthur and helped by lower ranking officers Dwight D. Eisenhower and George S. Patton to stop a march. MacArthur, believing he was fighting a communist revolution, chose to clear out the camp with military force. In the ensuing clash, hundreds of civilians were injured. Hoover had sent orders that the Army was to not move on the encampment, but MacArthur chose to ignore the command. Hoover was incensed, but refused to reprimand MacArthur. The entire incident was another devastating negative for Hoover in the 1932 election. That led New York governor and Democratic presidential candidate Franklin Roosevelt to declare of Hoover: "There is nothing inside the man but jelly!"
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Ol' Doug was a bit of a hothead. Of course, against poor people. "Believing he was fighting a Communist rebellion" is a bit much. "realising that he could get away with it" more likely.
Cross-posted at Whiskey Fire
Whoa, cool! Congratulations. How long have you been doing that?
I'm just helping fill in for Thers on his vacation. Which he hasn't started yet, I jumped the gun a bit.
This is the first one. (I was going to use the prior post, hence the "this blog needs more butterfly pictures"**, but never quite got around to it.)
** This blog as in 'this blog here' has plenty of those.
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One of these days, the majority of Murkans will figure out that both parties are useless to all but their corporate puppetmasters.
Naw.
Obama can best be understood by analyzing any and all positions and moves in the context of politics - electoral and party.
He has NEVER believed that the left wing of his party had the numbers and enthusiasm to get him elected and keep him in power. Also, contrary to much (well deserved) mockery, he actually IS aware that there is a substantial portion of the electorate that will NEVER pull the lever for him. His calculation (working so far, we'll see what happens next November) is that by acting as a less brutal, less extreme Republican he can co-opt enough votes, along with people like me, who will vote for him again because the alternative is even worse, to give him another term as President.
The calculation is obvious, mikey.
But the calculation ignores the results of policy.
In particular, the Republican policies he's adopted have been failing most of the country for 30 years, and the enormity of the sh*t hitting the fan is growing too huge for anyone to ignore.
Obama and David Plouffe are executing "Clinton's swing towards the right" like it's some famous battle used in textbooks at War College. But unemployment was 5.4% in 1996.
It wasn't lefty bloggers that cost the Democrats in 2010, although Administration loyalists love that excuse. It was failure to do anything about unemployment.
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Sadly, that's actually not cynical enough.
The calculation LEAVES OUT the results of policy. Because it is not intended to generate any specific policy outcomes. It is supposed to generate ELECTORAL outcomes.
If there was an overwhelming demand for liberal policies in the US, Obama would be happy to represent them - not because he operates from the standpoint of a liberal ideology, but because it would in that counterfactual represent the effective path to power. But since the liberal ideology has no representation in American politics or governance, he chooses the path that will maximize his return both among the voters and the funders.
And, to be fair, he is one helluva lot better at it than Mitt Romney...
In particular, the Republican policies he's adopted have been failing most of the country for 30 years, and the enormity of the sh*t hitting the fan is growing too huge for anyone to ignore.
These policies aren't failing for the top 2% of the socioeconomic heap, which seems to be all that the mainstream politicians care about.
If there was an overwhelming demand for liberal policies in the US, Obama would be happy to represent them
Yep. He even told us so, in his famous "We're the change we've been waiting for" speech, where he said "If you want something different, you have to make me do it."
Of course, he didn't say he was going to be crapping on our heads while he waited for his mandate.
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