Good Morning Kossacks.
I always check out what’s going on today in Greg Sargent’s "Morning Plum" on his blog, The Plum Line. It gets me going for the day as far as the political news of the now is concerned. Plus I love Sargent’s often sarcastic tongue-in-cheek writing style.
Today, however, I read something that brings me great feelings of disconcerting. I’d say "pissed off", but it’s too early for that. I haven’t had time to get mad yet, but there’s a chance that I will.
Greg links to a blog on the New York Times which offers up a look at an interview that President Obama had with Peter Baker; an hour-long interview which will be published this coming Sunday in the Times magazine.
As I read some of the quotes that claim to come from Barack Obama, I actually am in disbelief that the President could be saying some of these things.
Because the political tone-deafness of them is so obvious that I have to wonder just what this man thinks he’s going to accomplish if this is the way he views the political reality in this country right now.
For example:
"It may be that regardless of what happens after this election, they feel more responsible, either because they didn’t do as well as they anticipated, and so the strategy of just saying no to everything and sitting on the sidelines and throwing bombs didn’t work for them," Mr. Obama said. "Or they did reasonably well, in which case the American people are going to be looking to them to offer serious proposals and work with me in a serious way."
Um. Excuse me? Mr. President, please tell me you’ve got a punchline and some canned laughter after a line like that.
See, Obama apparently/allegedly thinks that after the mid-terms – you know, the ones coming up in which the Republicans are dutifully bound by the Beltway media narratives (set, bought, sold and marketed of course by right wing propaganda machines likes FOX News) to destroy Democrats because Democrats just plain suck – yeah, that after those mid-terms that the Republicans will somehow see some sort of divine light or whatever and decide that governing is actually important as opposed to obfuscation and obstructionism.
"They will feel more responsible"?
Mr. President, they only "feel responsible" to their foaming-at-the-mouth base of lunatics who piss on the graves of the Founding Fathers by bastardizing every message and ideal they had at the founding of this country. They certainly do not feel responsible to Middle America or the working man or woman or the single mom or the disabled dad. No, they are only interested in making their corporate overlords more rich who will in turn fund their re-election campaigns like there’s no tomorrow.
"The strategy of...throwing bombs didn’t work for them"???
Forgive my crassness Mr. President, but what the fuck are you thinking?
The fact of the matter is that there will be a series of races in the country in which Republicans win and will have won because they threw bombs and sat on the sidelines.
Look at all the more sane Republicans who got the shit beat out of them in primary elections.
Mike Castle, Lisa Murkowski, Bob Bennett, Bob Inglis, Charlie Crist (by default)...just a handful of people railroaded out of the Grand Old Party because they were not crazy enough to satisfy the super ultra mega conspiracy theory-laden right wing of the electorate who think that they should pay nothing in taxes and "fuck you" because they "got theirs".
And you think these people are going to be "responsible"?
So, it is clear that President Obama is setting the narrative now and is planning on complete and utter gridlock for the next two years.
This is either naked triangulation (which would not surprise me at this point) or it is completely blind ignorance.
Maybe it is both.
Don’t believe me? Want to call me a traitor or something? Want me to clap louder?
Keep reading:
In the magazine article, Mr. Obama reflects on his presidency, admitting that he let himself look too much like "the same old tax-and-spend Democrat," realized too late that "there’s no such thing as shovel-ready projects" and perhaps should have "let the Republicans insist on the tax cuts" in the stimulus.
...I really am not even sure what comment to offer here.
It is bad enough that we have weenie Democrats and corporate DINOS running away from Obama at every turn.
Yet as I read that statement there, it would actually appear that President Obama is running away from...President Obama.
Seriously?
The president has spent a lot of time campaigning on what he’s gotten done. A lot of Democrats have not because they’re morons.
But now it sounds like even "The One" is running away from what he’s done.
And he seems to be preparing to functionally get nothing done in the next two years:
"Even if I had the exact same Congress, even if we don’t lose a seat in the Senate and we don’t lose a seat in the House, I think the rhythms of the next two years would inevitably be different from the rhythms of the first two years," he said. "There’s going to be a lot of work in this administration just doing things right and making sure that new laws are stood up in the ways they’re intended."
So instead of trying to hammer out any more legislation, he’s going to spend time doing nothing.
Republicans are going to work to make sure any laws passed in the first two years are undone, unfunded, dismantled, shredded, anything they can do to stop that damn soshulist gubmint from taking their guns, money, racism, bigotry, or anything else away.
So I guess you can definitely kiss every other platform of this man’s presidency goodbye, at least in the near term.
ENDA? DADT? DOMA? EFCA? DREAM? DISCLOSE?
D. O. A.
All of it.
For all the browbeating that Obama, Biden, and others have been doing around here and in the media about getting "fired up" and to "stop whining" and to "buck up" and get it through our thick heads to keep voting for Democrats, I’ve got to wonder why.
I stated before in a previous piece, that as long as Democrats keep acting like Republicans, I’m not sure what the difference is. If we’re going to get right-of-center political policies that are designed to keep the rich plutocrats even richer and do minimal for the normal man in this country, then why the fuck should I bust my ass working for someone with a D next to their name?
If this piece is accurate as to what POTUS is thinking then I am going to have a real hard time continuing to support him.
I vote to elect people to get stuff done, not simply stop someone else from not doing something else.
If Mr. Obama is for whatever reason not interested in governing, then I believe this country will need someone who is.
Flame on.