Both Steve Clemons and Jane Mayer look at some failures of Obama’s first year, both policy and political, and can report based on multiple, highly-placed sources, that Rahm Emanuel sucks. Good to know.
Rahm Emanuel may well suck, but laying the blame for the disaster that health care reform has become, and the relentless back-tracking on civil liberties, and the overall decline in political fortunes that this White House has presided over on his shoulders is not that useful. Obama is the guy in charge. Obama doesn’t have to keep him around, he doesn’t have to listen to his advice, he doesn’t have to let him do anything but exactly what the President wants. The White House is a black box – it’s not important how it works, only if it works. And it doesn’t.
Jane Mayer quotes AG Eric Holder:
This is something that can get a rise out of me, the notion that somehow Eric Holder and Barack Obama, this Administration, is not tough. We have the welfare of the American people in our minds all the time. We’ll fight our enemies, and we’ll do that which is necessary, and we won’t turn our backs on the values and traditions that have made this country great. That is what is tough.
This comes after twenty paragraphs detailing – in touching detail – how the White House spent all year scratching Lindsey Graham’s tummy, at the end of which, predictably, he shit all over the Oval Office rug. And then a bunch of Democrats shit all over that shit pile. And then nothing happened. It’s the hard-bitten story of how a man with a girl dog’s name punked the White House, and how Obama’s supposed allies ditched him because, really, why not?, and I’m sure America’s enemies now know the type of tough, take-no-prisoners badasses they are dealing with. Shit’s gettin’ real, Osama. Shit just got REAL.
Also, I’d like to take this moment to remember Joe Biden, who tragically died a few months ago. I can’t remember just when or how he died, but I’ve really noticed his absence these past few months. It’s real tragic.
February 8, 2010 at 7:51 pm
biden – right? wasn’t he supposed to be doing something this whole time?
February 8, 2010 at 7:59 pm
The White House is a black box – it’s not important how it works, only if it works. And it doesn’t.
You have to know how it works to fix it.
Rahm is a major reason – you could replace him with Joe Lieberman, Ben Nelson, or Mary Landrieu and get the same results, for the same reason. The most influential white house aide is a short-fused hippie-bashing conserva-dem blue dog who loves to kiss Republican ass.
Obama likes to avoid conflict and can’t understand why anyone on the right wouldn’t like to work with him, so he gets his agenda set by Rahm.
Now to fix things, you’re going to have to replace one of those two components.
(A pity the Commander in Chief won’t do anything, but apparently he has it on very good advice that the “fucking retards have no one else to vote for, so fuck ‘em.”)
February 8, 2010 at 8:36 pm
I beg to differ regarding Biden. He is doing precisely what a vice president is supposed to do. Not a fucking thing.
February 8, 2010 at 8:41 pm
But you know, he’s pretty good on those TV interviews.
February 9, 2010 at 8:08 am
Yeah perzackly. We ALL KNOW how well that ‘other’ V.P. scenario worked out.
February 8, 2010 at 8:37 pm
There’s only one answer to the last line of this post…
February 8, 2010 at 8:40 pm
I think we’re all frankly flummoxed, frustrated, and afraid we’ll soon be infuriated. After all, pony abuse is not a pretty thing.
Me, hard as it is to do so, I will extend more or less another year’s patience, continue telling myself that Obama is letting both sides, Rs&Ds, grow soft, ungrateful but ingratiated, and then kick some major hope and change ass.
If one can’t be self-sufficiently delusional, what hope is left?
February 8, 2010 at 8:41 pm
All of this proves the point I would have been making all along if I had bothered to do it: Presidential candidates should be required to say who their top staff will be before the goddamn election. You know, so’s we know who the fuck we’re actually voting for.
February 8, 2010 at 8:51 pm
Funny. I really don’t know what the fucking strategery is up there on HCR, it polls well when you point out the features, I like Rahm, I mean, http://www.hulu.com/watch/126490/saturday-night-live-rahm-emanuel
but, yeah, a 98% success record in the Senate, 95% in the House with legislation the President has endorsed, better then LBJ or anyone else and people don’t know what the hell they got for it, it is and issue, but we we do have the support to push harder,
According to the Gallup Daily Tracking Poll, (Rolling average. N=approx. 1,600 adults nationwide. MoE ± 3), President Obama was even at 47-47%, approve, disapprove on 1/27-29/10, now he’s up 51-41%, approve,+10, (2/5/10.) The working over of the House GOP Caucus has paid dividends. The President has to stay on the offensive.
The job approval rating for the GOP in Congress is 34-56, Congressional Democrats are at 44-48, (+/-) 3.
http://pollingreport.com
Get the House to pass the Senate version with an agreement from 50+ Senators that they will vote for the House provisions in a year. That’s it. No magic needed. If the GOP wants to filibuster, make them do it in the physical, and let them speak day after day on why they suck and their approval will decline back down to 24%.
Also, http://thepragmaticprogressive.blogspot.com/search?q=accomplishments+of+the+Obama+Administration
my blog shouldn’t be the number one destination for people who search “accomplishments of the Obama Administration”
That’s a communication break-down, always the same. Communication break down, drive me insane.
February 8, 2010 at 9:27 pm
one term president
February 8, 2010 at 9:53 pm
Yeah but someone has to beat him. You have to knock out the champ. I don’t see many contenders who can campaign like Obama. We’re playing in the 47-53% range, the GOP is operating in-between 35-45%.
Maybe Petraeus, but he probably wouldn’t be a good campaigner. I know all the horses, dark and otherwise, they don’t have anyone on Obama’s level as far running a political campaign. Jimmy Carter was not a charismatic person, neither was GHW Bush. Palin is supposedly charismatic, but she is really so ish it’s not even funny.
Now my biggest fear is maintaining the same levels of voter turnout from 08′ amongst all socio-economic and racial levels. Turnout, turnout, turnout, that’s the whole ballgame, the Conservative try to turn people off of politics, while keeping their minor voting block sectors enthused, Liberals try to get as many voters as possible from the whole population. The working poor stay home and we always lose, because White Men with property and their wives are always the most likely voters. Voter turnout is predicated on base exuberance and energy. So I would suggest finishing HCR and going hard on campaign finance reform.
http://www.gqrr.com/index.php?ID=2425
February 8, 2010 at 9:59 pm
Bloomberg running as a third party candidate with Palin as the GOP candidate:
Obama-44-Palin-29-Bloomberg-15.
http://pollingreport.com/2012.htm
Now Bloomberg couldn’t get the GOP nomination, but if he could, after CU v. FEC, that would concern me.
February 8, 2010 at 10:16 pm
President Starbursts. Bank.
February 8, 2010 at 10:42 pm
I like it but only if Jack in the Box is on the ticket, he’s a regular joe like me, he understands my wants and I would like to consume mildly alcoholic malted barley beverages with that corporation.
February 8, 2010 at 11:20 pm
I’m voting for “Cop Out” for Preznit. This such a unique and clever narrative. A black cop buddying up with a white, older cop? What the fuck? Is it in 3-D IMAX?! WOW!
February 9, 2010 at 12:40 pm
“Turnout, turnout, turnout, that’s the whole ballgame, the Conservative try to turn people off of politics, while keeping their minor voting block sectors enthused, Liberals try to get as many voters as possible from the whole population.”
I think that dynamic is o longer so fixed in that position. Crazy/pathetic as she/they are, Palin/teabaggers strike me very much as a voter outreach effort.
Sure, they’re appealing to a defined base, but that base’s definition is based not just on God Bless America/Jeebus rules/negative taxation (which is not welfare! not!) but what I’ll call Constitutional fundamentalism, something with a politically evangelically generic appeal that could potentially attract a number of independents who still cherish the illusion of independent thinking ability and see learning to read the Constitution as the latest life enhancement strategy since online Bible study.
February 9, 2010 at 5:08 am
If he keeps the corporate masters happy (and so far he’s doing a pretty good job), he’ll get two. If not, not. For all the talk of legislative “accomplishments” (or not), most of that’s just smoke and mirrors to keep the politicos happy and yapping. OBama’s been trained well. He knows his lines, sticks to the script, and takes direction well. Everything you’d want in professional politician.
February 9, 2010 at 5:42 am
Don’t hate the player, hate the game. Literally, and I think someone like President Obama, whom I seriously underestimated, because when you consider the he is the first black man from a former slave nation that wiped out umpt million native people, and he did it while being name Barack Hussein Obama when 40% wants to invade the Islamic world, it think Obama would be good in any political system, he’s adapting to the environment that he has to operate in. Obama did not create all these issues, or the influence of money in politics, but to walk away from the process in protest is what the Conservatives want.
I love how Bush and Reagan could do what ever they wanted. Bush could say the most retarded shit in the world and then write 2.7y trillion in bad checks, fucking lie about WMD, invade Iraq, and he’s just chilling in Dallas. If Obama did any of that….. Oh shit.
On the legislative front, 8 million kids have health care insurance that wouldn’t otherwise have it, it is what it is. When your cup is empty 1/4 cup is better then nothing. Of course you fight for a full cup, but just like court, sometimes you have to settle or get nothing. It gets better the more you support him. If he has the public behind him, then he will pass more and better progressive legislation. Jesus Christ it’s been one year of his policy.
February 9, 2010 at 5:49 am
If you told me in 2002 that someone named Barack Hussein Obama would win Virginia, North Carolina, Nevada, Ohio, Florida, and almost Missouri? I would have slapped the shit out of you and me. So I have a tiny bit of faith that we will turn the momentum back in the right direction, and hopefully with eight years we can give it a hard push that doesn’t get interrupted by more Republican bullshit. They suck so bad. There is a direct correlation between their policies and almost destroying the US Economy, New Orleans, starting WW III, haw much evidence do we need that Democrats are safer at least then Republicans? At least I don’t wake up every morning to some crazy ass W Administration scandal with Jeff Gannon’s and Mark Foley’s, Larry Craig’s, forged “intelligence documents” about aluminum tubes from Niger, (perfect lie with the double entendre GOP Rat fuckers, I salute you), Dick Cheney’s and Jesus Christ, need I go on?
I know let’s vote Nader and lose Florida to a functional illiterate, a bet the Palin Administration will be Ironically hilarious.
February 9, 2010 at 7:52 am
In reply to Kleber,
True to all that, no arguments whatsoever. Point is, he’s getting what the corporate interests will allow him to get, with prospective HCR the prime (but surely not the only) example. That’s the nature of the beast these days, and its now so culturally ingrained that they’ve even got us thanking them for the few crumbs that fall off the table (the still illusory HCR benefits), even as we agree to massively expand their share of the pie. Is he better than the alternative? I guess, but these days that’s faint praise indeed. Although I’ve gotta admire the GOP and the Tea Baggers for their slapstick. I’m not sure they even take themselves seriously anymore.
February 9, 2010 at 10:23 am
“someone like President Obama, whom I seriously underestimated, because when you consider the he is the first black man from a former slave nation that wiped out umpt million native people, and he did it while being name Barack Hussein Obama when 40% wants to invade the Islamic world, it think Obama would be good in any political system, he’s adapting to the environment that he has to operate in.”
This is the basis of my not yet fully flaccid hope. (‘fully flaccid’ has a nice oxymoronic tinge, eh?)
I tell myself that his wimpy endorsement of Bush’s civil liberties abuse is Obama preserving the ‘tough on terror’ capital for now. A pact w/ the devil.
And so on down the line, until the pacts w/ the Devil become a Pax Diablo in which Osama can then unleash his barbaric hordes currently hiding in the hinterlands of the Democratic party, like chardonnay wineries in the deserts of the Inland Pacific Northwest, where I reside.
And I still like Rahm, if only because he uses the f-word ten zillion times a day.
February 9, 2010 at 7:42 pm
I agree we settle for less when we don’t have to.
On HCR, you either have health insurance or you don’t. It’s a big deal when you don’t, it bankrupts people. KIlls people, I’m sure we agree. If I can save 20,000 Americans a year, then I will.
The idea that we are trying to get people comfortable with a more public single payer system by slowly showing them the benefits of these basic reforms, ending recessions, caps, and pre-existing conditions, it’s true. We know that if we get our foot in the door, the people will like it and want more/more progressive solutions.
The corporations will go away when we have campaign finance reform that trades the dollar for some other regulatable currency tied to public funds. Not a day sooner.Small State Senators represent more ears of corn then people, so they lean on these corporations, and the rest take the money like a Camorra protection scheme. Campaign Finance reform precludes all other issues because it infects the possibility of progress and the path to effective solutions on all issues.
February 8, 2010 at 11:02 pm
Kleber gave me renewed hope. He also gave me this rash. Being some funny guy’s straight man sucks.
February 8, 2010 at 11:12 pm
Ah, Kenny there’s no “I” in team, but there is an “M” and a “E”.
February 9, 2010 at 12:14 pm
Like I said: sucks. And there’s a ‘U’ in sucks.
February 9, 2010 at 7:01 am
I can’t help thinking Obama is constrained – consciously or not – by what I call the Jackie Robinson factor.
Jackie Robinson could only succeed by keeping his head down, playing the shit out of the game, and not letting the crazy bastards in the stands get to him.
February 9, 2010 at 9:04 pm
Agreed, also “Nixon in China”.
February 9, 2010 at 9:31 am
Okay, but what about the crazy bastards on the other team? Jackie Robinson didn’t become great by saying, “Let’s all play this game TOGETHER.”
And if Rahm is so malign an influence, why are we still talking about bipartisanship? Or is now just talk, a ploy to fake out the opposition?
February 9, 2010 at 3:40 pm
Excellent point.
February 9, 2010 at 3:50 pm
“…why are we still talking about bipartisanship? Or is now just talk, a ploy to fake out the opposition?”
You mean there’s an alternate… *sincere*… version?!?
February 9, 2010 at 7:13 pm
I’m pretty sure this is so that next month we can say, “see we tried..” Now we’re going to do it our way.
February 10, 2010 at 9:03 am
This has been my fond hope since early on.
February 9, 2010 at 10:25 am
You see, politics is a lot like baseball,
February 9, 2010 at 12:23 pm
(seriousness AND ponderous wisdom alert) We stand at the fissure where hopes subducts under cynicism, and cynicism cools into a brittle pumice crust.
Just HOW powerful are corporate interests? How deranged and degraded is the vox populi?
How close to a right angle can we beat/tack against the wind on a zigzag course before the compass and rudder commit suicide?
How crazy like a fox is our newly elected pony-prez, and how much of his dodging is to elude the hounds or to give the illusory appearance of a right and proper chase?
How close are we to the darkest hour just before the dawn or the dawn of a truly dark hour?
Me and the ghost of G.K.Chesterton want to know before we submit on spec our collaborative graphic novel, Obamaman: the afe au Laitening.
February 9, 2010 at 12:24 pm
ahem: Cafe au Laitening