I was just going to write about how we should rally the troops to fight for strong progressives (as I did in this video), when Obama dragged me back into the fight between real progressives and the Obama administration. As Al Pacino said in Godfather III, every time I think I'm done with it, he keeps pulling me back in.
I don't want to bore you with the details of why they didn't fight for real change and how they accepted Washington exactly as it was and made no effort to change its underlying structures and assumptions. We've been over it a million times. No, today the interesting part is why they brought up this old fight in the first place.
This was not a gaffe. It was not a slip about the "professional left" from someone who had grown frustrated. This was a coordinated strategy. Biden and Obama even used the same talking points. They hit their base for complaining and then both said it was time to "buck up." That's not an accident; that's planned.
One possibility is that they think yelling at their voters before an election is smart electoral politics. Accuse them of whining and taking their ball and going home. Treat them like children and maybe they'll comply? These are Democrats we're talking about so maybe they thought their voters would respond well to abuse. It is after all what Republicans have been using on Democratic politicians all of these years to great effect.
But I don't think that's it. That strategy is hardly inspiring and honestly I don't think I've ever seen a political party yell at their voters like this before an election. It's bizarre.
There is one other explanation. They think they're going to lose and they're setting up a scapegoat. It wasn't that they ran a bad campaign or that they didn't deliver on their promises -- it was their ungrateful voters and the damned professional left. Actually, Washington reporters will love this. There is nothing they enjoy more than beating up on progressive activists and the Democratic base. This strategy is tailored made for the DC elite. They're going to eat it up!
But to what effect? Obama is so immersed in the DC bubble that he has forgotten the end goal. He is under the delusion that if he can just get the Washington media and politicians to like him everything will be fine. But that wasn't supposed to be the end goal. As a politician, you're supposed to get the voters to like you, not some DC media jerk.
I think they still believe that the DC media is a good proxy for the mood of the country. That is a stunning and inexcusable error. But they're so deep in, they can't even see that losing the election and winning over the DC establishment is not a win or a wash, that's a gigantic loss. Do you think making David Broder happy will win you the 2012 election?
Scapegoating the professional left might send the DC crowd into orgasmic seizures, but what does it do to win the country over? What does it do about unemployment? What does do about our rising insurance premiums (remember, the ones you said wouldn't rise)?
In a recent AP poll about the healthcare bill, people - by a 2-to-1 margin - said that it should have done more not less in reforming the system. That isn't the professional left, that's America. The progressive base is so much larger than the Tea Party clowns running around in Koch brother funded protests. Remember, those are the same progressives who got you elected in the first place.
So, you can shoot the messenger all you like but it isn't going to change the message. You didn't do too much government intervention as Fox News claims, you did too little. Too little to protect the average American, too little to help him or her get a job, too little to change the same old games in Washington.
Almost everyone in Washington is there because they succeeded in this broken, corrupt system. If you make them happy, you've probably done the exact opposite of what you were supposed to do.
What got you elected was the promise to throw those bums out on their asses not to cater to them. But if you like, you can take another cheap shot at the people trying to help you and see if that changes the polls. My guess is it won't. And then when you blame us again, the only people happy will be the ones in DC who hate change.
Follow Cenk Uygur on Twitter: www.twitter.com/TheYoungTurks
WE voted for the president and went home and watched the tea BAGGER'S take over EVERYTHING.
We can't be bothered with anything but our tweets and post's but can only be vocal when we feel like we're being scolded. I really like how the Limp dick repubs are just some sort of rain cloud that has no involvement in any of this, they get a pass because we don't have a king that can make everything all better, hell I should have been rich the day after the election. The Spanish are in the street's rioting over the "austerity measures of the government, the weak Frenchies take CEO's hostage but we as whatever we are just complain. The repub's are having their way with ALL of us. It's funny because the repubs acted like this when Obama said in uncertain times folk cling to religion and guns, so along comes the town hall's with the gun's and of course Christine, Sharon and sister Sarah. We're toast! The Obama’s will still have healthcare and money. WE will still be whining. Ever heard this "A hit dog will holler" hint, we’re the dog.
I do think Obama has fulfilled quite a few campaign promises (to me, most important was health care reform); and though he did have to make some concessions, I'd still rather see some of these bills passed rather than shot down.
As a democrat and Obama supporter, I don't feel insulted after his speech. I feel more determined than ever to get others to vote so we have a congress and senate that supports progressive thinking and can implement changes Americans want.
Obama has had to pull this country out of a mess and I don't think he gets enough credit for the good things he's done. Times are hard and some people are disappointed and many do whine and complain about it. I believe that if they're unsatisfied, then they should go out and vote to seat a congress and senate that can get the job done instead of blaming Obama for not fighting hard enough. He has fought hard, however, the republican party has blocked every piece of legislation and changed the rules for passing legislation.
The president has responsibilities to his voters and his voters have a responsibility to him to elect a congress and senate that will support the need for change.
More than anything, I would hate to see the republican and tea parties take control and destroy this country because democratic and liberal voters feel slighted.
Can't stand to watch him out on the campaign stunmp again--repeating the same tired platitudes of change and pumping his fist with empty emotional intensity about "fighting" and then has the audacity to scold us.
Give me a break. I will vote down ticket for Democrats worthy--but we can do and do deserve better than this.
By the way, I think that President Obama and VP Biden are correct in their message; progress is bound to be long, hard, difficult, and consist of incremental steps. After all, 48 current D house seats are from McCain districts and I've counted 12 D Senators from red states. Getting Congress to do anything at all is difficult.
But the VP and the President need to work on delivering the message correctly.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UPw-3e_pzqU
Because they don't give a rat's rear end about what you're willing to do for them. They just don't give a god damn. To them it's all about the POWER - and if there's a democrat in the White House - by definition - they DON'T have the power.
*
To innoculate himself, he surrounded himself with Clinton re-treads and tried to elevate triangulation--under it's born-again guise as bi-partisan unity, to a moral calling. All it serves to do is underline the failure of it. Obama's campaign signified not only a repudiation of Bush but a new shift away from the Clinton era which leaves us almost with less than zero.
I do not believe President Obama and his team are so naive as to believe otherwise. Rather, obstructionist Republicans give him an excuse to give us what he intended to deliver from the start, but then shirk responsibility for it. This setting up of "liberals" as a scapegoat is a perfect example of that strategy being implemented again.
This has nothing to do with any threats from the left to stay home during the midterms. In has to do with the fact that they insulted all of us because of the AFL-CIO spending money on someone other than Blanche Lincoln. They put their support behind Lincoln and it appears she is going to lose. It won't be due to the fact that people are staying home. It will be due to the fact that she rode the fence so much, and fell to the corporate side of it so often, that a significant number of Democrats, Republicans and Independents see her as absolutely worthless. Obama's support, due to the fact that he is resembling her more and more, was not enough to really help her prospects outside of a primary. But, rather than taking credit for that, they'll simply create a fiction and repeat often as if it was truth, because they know others will, and blame "the left" for their losses.
You know who else made a habit out of playing the same game? Karl Rove.
BHO never takes responsibility for anything.
It's ALWAYS someone elses fault.
He loves himself too much to admit he's in over his head.
BHO is a underqualified overachiever.
Big dreams, no substance.
Someday you will need to grow up and live in the real world.
BHO is oozing something, but is void of substance.
The truth is that, once their mindset has petrified, nothing will satisfy this small and self-righteous faction. They're like a mirror image of the teabag loons. If the public option had passed, they would have been outraged it wasn't single payer. If single payer was now the law, they'd complain it wasn't as good as some other country's. If it was as good as any country's in the world, they'd complain that it didn't guarantee immortality.
In fact, if for his next press conference Obama rode into the Rose Garden on a white horse and carrying a flaming magic sword, which he waved in all directions and instantly cured every ill the nation is heir to, these people would blog to their choir about how the president had betrayed us all because the horse left droppings on the White House lawn.
And we actually think for ourselves.
It seems like he more than willing to go the extra mile if you have republican after your name.