The Emerging Obama Meme: Obama Has Too Many Things On His Plate & He's Ineffectual

Community (This content is not subject to review by Daily Kos staff prior to publication.)

Wednesday October 07, 2009 · 5:25 AM PDT

2009/10/07 · 05:25

At the same time that a new poll shows Obama's job approval rising and disapproval falling (on all issues--including health care & the economy--except Afghanistan) a new meme is emerging that portrays the Obama Administration as too diffuse and incompetent. While it has its roots on the Right ("he's a great speech giver, but he can't do anything"), it's now being picked up by some on the Left.

Last week, SNL Skewered Obama for a supposed lack of accomplishment. Then yesterday, Obama supporter Chris Mathews acted as if the meme were accepted fact and debated the personnel changes Barack must make to get things done:

Poll

61 votes Show Results

Is this new meme partisan & unfair or is it legitimate? What should be done?

61 votes Vote Now!

Is this new meme partisan & unfair or is it legitimate? What should be done?

It's partisan and unfair. It should be strongly resisted.

33 votes

It's legitimate but I don't agree. It should be resisted.

4 votes

It's legitimate and though I don't agree, it's feedback that should be heeded.

12 votes

It's legitimate and I do agree. It's feedback that should be strongly heeded.

12 votes

Revealing Media Comparison Of G20 Coverage: "potential game-changer" OR "toothless and ineffective"

kloris

Community (This content is not subject to review by Daily Kos staff prior to publication.)

Saturday September 26, 2009 · 9:47 AM PDT

2009/09/26 · 09:47

Everyone knows that New Media, by design, brings a political perspective to everything they cover. Today, however, I was once again struck over the head by the inherent bias of the mainstream, "trusted" media ... including the ones I routinely rely on.

It's important to differentiate the subtle bias I'm talking about from the blatant bias of outlets like Fox News or MSNBC. In the blatant case, you know there's a spin so you're more on guard and questioning of what they're "reporting." In the subtle case, however, obviously partisan statements or views don't jump out at you, yet, the overall tone, use of language and what is emphasized does subconsciously convey a political perspective. And because you're guard is down, because you're libel to think these are "facts" describing a "truth," you're more likely to simply file away what you've read and let it unconsciously impact what you think and believe.

As I wrote the first time my eye's were opened to this, in June's 3 Divergent, MSM Views Of The Pending Obama Decision To End Federal Benefit Discrimination:

Poll

17 votes Show Results

How much does the subtle bias discussed here impact: (1) your views (2) the average American's views?

17 votes Vote Now!

How much does the subtle bias discussed here impact: (1) your views (2) the average American's views?

(1) Not at all (2) Not at all

4 votes

(1) Not at all (2) a little

2 votes

(1) Not at all (2) a lot

3 votes

(1) A little (2) Not at all

1 vote

(1) A little (2) a little

0 votes

(1) A little (2) a lot

4 votes

(1) A lot (2) Not at all

0 votes

(1) A lot (2) a little

0 votes

(1) A lot (2) a lot

3 votes

Are Seniors Being Selfish? What Do You Think?

kloris

Community (This content is not subject to review by Daily Kos staff prior to publication.)

Thursday September 24, 2009 · 6:27 AM PDT

2009/09/24 · 06:27

Last month, after I posted about Seniors being selfish and not wanting to share their lucrative medical insurance with anyone else, some commenters thought I was being unfair and even a bit inflammatory.

Then today I read a NY Times story on Florida Senator Bill Nelson's attempts to beat back Medicare Advantage cuts and I realized that I might have earlier understated the case:

Seniors as a class (not every individual Senior, of course, but as a vote-in-high-numbers political demographic) are being selfish and acting no different than bankers, the military industrial complex or any other group that Progressives routinely challenge whenever they try to protect their fiscal position without regard to anyone else or the greater good. So why should progressives turn a blind eye to what Seniors are doing?

The argument after the jump ... what do you think?

Poll

70 votes Show Results

Do you think (1) senior's opposition is important and (2) Obama needs to target their hypocritical, indefensible position?

70 votes Vote Now!

Do you think (1) senior's opposition is important and (2) Obama needs to target their hypocritical, indefensible position?

Yes and yes

32 votes

Yes and no

17 votes

No and yes

12 votes

No and no

9 votes

Does The Latest Poll Proves The Majority Of Seniors Are Selfish And Greedy?

kloris

Community (This content is not subject to review by Daily Kos staff prior to publication.)

Thursday September 03, 2009 · 5:27 AM PDT

2009/09/03 · 05:27

Karen Tumulty digs out more proof that Seniors Are Selfish: They Want To Keep Their Wildly Popular Health Plan To Themselves.

The Great Generational Divide Over Health Care is pretty clear in the latest CNN poll. Sixty percent of younger Americans favor the Obama effort; the exact percentage of older ones oppose it:

It's truly appalling that those over 65 who benefit from a government run insurance program (Medicare) would deny the same to those under 65.

Compounding their Scrooge-like hypocrisy is that they also benefit from a government run pension (Social Security)!

Poll

108 votes Show Results

Do you think (1) senior's opposition is important and (2) Obama needs to target their hypocritical, indefensible position?

108 votes Vote Now!

Do you think (1) senior's opposition is important and (2) Obama needs to target their hypocritical, indefensible position?

Yes and yes

60 votes

Yes and no

18 votes

No and yes

20 votes

No and no

10 votes

The Truth Depends On How It Is Covered

kloris

Community (This content is not subject to review by Daily Kos staff prior to publication.)

Tuesday September 01, 2009 · 5:53 AM PDT

2009/09/01 · 05:53

On the 17th of June I wrote the following in 3 Divergent, MSM Views Of Obama's ...,

Over the course of the 16 months I've been blogging every day, I often read about the same event from multiple sources and the differences in the way mainstream, theoretically impartial, unbiased news outlets cover a story has been eye opening. Bottom-line: there is no such thing as objective reporting, everyone has a partisan slant, some just acknowledge and/or are more obvious about it.

So here in, their entirety, are how 3 "legitimate" sources--not partisan blogs but major newspapers spanning the political spectrum from right to left--reported Obama's decision to stop the Federal government's discrimination against gay & lesbian employee benefits.

So what's the truth? Is Obama's decision a break through or an incomplete bone thrown to his supporters? It all depends on which story you read it seems.

This reality struck me again as I read the NY Times' and Boston Globe's coverage of the same story: how Massachusetts, during these times of fiscal stress, is treating legal immigrants' health coverage under its breakthrough plan.

Poll

23 votes Show Results

Are you an intelligent consumer of news?

23 votes Vote Now!

Are you an intelligent consumer of news?

I believe everything MSNBC or Fox (depending on your persuasion) tells me

2 votes

I dont believe anything I see on cable

3 votes

I search the Net for opinions that confirm my own

4 votes

For important stories, I seek out multiple points of view

14 votes

I live in a cave and dont care

0 votes

Cash-for-Clunkers Update: $543M And 1.8M Metric Tons Of CO2 Saved

kloris

Community (This content is not subject to review by Daily Kos staff prior to publication.)

Thursday August 27, 2009 · 5:43 AM PDT

2009/08/27 · 05:43

The final numbers have been released and the Clunker program has done even better that I initially reported (here and here).

Continue to the numbers ...

kloris

Community (This content is not subject to review by Daily Kos staff prior to publication.)

Tuesday August 25, 2009 · 1:45 PM PDT

2009/08/25 · 13:45

Given that the Cash-for-Clunker program ended yesterday, I started wondering how much it actually lived up to its promise (A Reminder Why Cash-for-Clunkers Is Such A Brilliant Idea and A Threefer: Stimulate The Economy, Reduce Foreign Oil And Help The Environment).

Based on my analysis below, I'd say it is a Threefer that far exceeded its potential.

Poll

117 votes Show Results

Do you agree that Cash-for-Clunkers was brilliant (pls read the linked to arguments before voting)

117 votes Vote Now!

Do you agree that Cash-for-Clunkers was brilliant (pls read the linked to arguments before voting)

Yes

96 votes

18 votes

Too early to tell

3 votes

Are The Unruly Health Care Mobs The First Tentative Steps Towards Brown Shirts?

kloris

Community (This content is not subject to review by Daily Kos staff prior to publication.)

Wednesday August 12, 2009 · 5:31 AM PDT

2009/08/12 · 05:31

The unruly mobs at this August's health care town halls have me worried. Now I know America in 2009 is a long way away from Germany in the 1930's but, as the social conservatives like to say, there's a slippery slope and I fear that the right's fear mongering propaganda, and its telling effect on the boisterous, ill educated mobs shouting and acting out on their irrational fears, means we've taken the first steps down the hill.

But am I doing what I claim the Right does: being too irrational and fearful? Are there really any parallels between America today and Germany just before Hitler came to power? Can we learn anything useful from that period of time; are there any warnings that we should heed so that we don't go further down the slippery slope?

Thanks to the way back machine at YouTube I was able to get some actual data.

Poll

82 votes Show Results

What do you think about comparing then and now?

82 votes Vote Now!

What do you think about comparing then and now?

There aren't any good parallels between America now & Germany then

10 votes

There are some parallels but we wont go down that road

10 votes

There are some parallels and we may go down that road if we don't work to prevent it

47 votes

We're too far down the slope already; we're just gathering speed now

15 votes

Why Are The Blue Dogs So Damn Powerful?

kloris

Community (This content is not subject to review by Daily Kos staff prior to publication.)

Friday July 24, 2009 · 6:15 AM PDT

2009/07/24 · 06:15

It's because the Democrat Party has been so damn electorally successful!

As I wrote earlier this month after Al Franken was finally awarded Minnesota's Senate seat:

Contrary to the knee jerk, superficial analysis of cable blowhards, the impact will have little to do with preventing filibusters or giving Obama & the Dems a blank check to easily get whatever they want passed ... To understand why, we have to go back in time to this 19 February 2009 post:

I've written extensively in A Blue View about how the GOP has been reduced to a rigidly conservative, ideologically pure rump of its former self. The flip side of this contraction of course is that the Democratic party has expanded its ideological basis to encompass many of the liberal to moderate Republicans turned off by the GOP's far right bent.

So if you were to diagram this out ...

Poll

66 votes Show Results

Are the Blue Dogs good or bad for the Democratic Party?

66 votes Vote Now!

Are the Blue Dogs good or bad for the Democratic Party?

Good - they'll help Dems maintain a majority far into the future

8 votes

Good - they help keep the Dems in the middle of American opinion

13 votes

Good - for some other reason

1 vote

Bad - they water down legislation creating ineffectual, "designed-by-committee" bills

22 votes

Bad - they pull Dems to far to the right end of American opinion

17 votes

Bad - for some other reason

2 votes

Don't know

3 votes

The GOP's False But Effective Smear Casting Liberal Judges As Activist, Conservative Ones As Umpires

kloris

Community (This content is not subject to review by Daily Kos staff prior to publication.)

Tuesday July 14, 2009 · 5:38 AM PDT

2009/07/14 · 05:38

One of the things that has burned me over the years, and that is threatening to become a raging inferno during Sotomayor's hearings, is the oft repeated GOP charge that liberal judges are "activists" who make up law to suit their ideology while conservative judges mechanistically "apply" the law without cognition or emotion. And while progressives like EJ Dione below have pointed out the hypocrisy of this charge, Democratic politicians haven't been very effective at refuting the accusation ... until Sheldon Whitehouse yesterday.

Progressives need to get better at getting this counter argument out because in many ways, this whole confirmation hearing isn't really about Sotomayor (who everyone, including Republicans, say will be confirmed) but is about setting the standards by which Supreme Court nominees are to be judged. So if we want the American public to accept Obama's next nominee (one much more likely to progressively shift the balance of power on the court) we need to be laying the ground work now. And preventing the GOP's mantra of 'liberal judge = activist = bad' while 'conservative judge = impartial umpire = good' from taking hold in the American zeitgeist is therefore absolutely critical.

Poll

56 votes Show Results

Will progressives be able to prevent the GOP's 'liberal = activist' argument from taking hold with the American public?

56 votes Vote Now!

Will progressives be able to prevent the GOP's 'liberal = activist' argument from taking hold with the American public?

Yes

10 votes

Maybe

17 votes

6 votes

It's too late. It's already taken hold.

23 votes

Student Loans Show GOP Uses Free Market Talk But Just Always Support Business

kloris

Community (This content is not subject to review by Daily Kos staff prior to publication.)

Saturday July 11, 2009 · 8:06 AM PDT

2009/07/11 · 08:06

A 3 part argument.

First, the good news on student loans, from the NY Times:

The chairman of the House Education Committee [CA Dem George Miller] has dismissed a last-ditch plea from the private student loan industry and is throwing his support behind President Obama’s plan to end the role of private banks in the federal education lending systems.

Mr. Obama’s plan remains deeply contentious in Congress, and still faces strong opposition from private banks [and Republicans] that for decades have earned big profits for handling federal student loans ...

The president’s proposal, first outlined in his initial budget in February, would save the government roughly $87 billion over 10 years, according to the Congressional Budget Office — money that the White House says should be used to aid impoverished students.

Second, the story offered the typical Republican argument about big government, reducing choice, Obama is a socialist, etc.:

Poll

31 votes Show Results

Where there be a public option in the final health care bill?

31 votes Vote Now!

Where there be a public option in the final health care bill?

Yes

19 votes

Don't know

6 votes

Often It's The Little Things That Make You Realize How Large The Problem Is

kloris

Community (This content is not subject to review by Daily Kos staff prior to publication.)

Saturday June 20, 2009 · 8:35 AM PDT

2009/06/20 · 08:35

I was struck by this little "news brief" from the AP:

Gay Couples May Use Married Names on Passports

Gay couples traveling overseas can now show passports that feature their married names ... [the change] allows same-sex couples to obtain passports under the names recognized by their state through their marriages or civil unions.

Now I certainly "knew" that the Americans who live in the 6 states that no longer practice marriage discrimination were still being denied Federal marriage benefits, but until seeing this brief, I didn't realize what this might mean on a daily, human level.

Poll

50 votes Show Results

Do you think DOMA will be repealed during

50 votes Vote Now!

Do you think DOMA will be repealed during

Obama's first term

21 votes

Obama's second term

18 votes

It wont be repealed while he's the President

11 votes

Newer
Older

RSS