The Hoover Dems Are Breaking...

The new coalition of "conservadems" have decided that less than 3 months into Democratic control of the government that they have had enough. They have towed Obama's barge and carry his water far enough! I mean, What do you expect? It's been nearly seven weeks and aside from the stock market going up, first time home sales rising and a 68% approval rating... things are still horrible! Egads! (Clearly their leader Evan Bayh took the shock that he was not going to be VP a lot harder than we knew.)

And this is a serious group of Democrats by the way! I mean Joe Lieberman is one. Y'know the guy who sided with Bush, spoke at the RNC and sh*t-talked Obama every chance he got until 3 days after election day. This is a seriously principled group!

To make sure we new they were bubbling over with principles, they released a press release that they distributed as a WaPo Op-ed. It was meant to reassure Democratic voters and people in the blogosphere who would surely misconstrue their purpose, and view them as hostile, simply because they appear to want to jump up and down on any significant change until it stops moving or taps out.

One of the funnier things about them, and by funny I mean aimless and depressing, was that the Op-ed they penned in the Washington Post is called...get this...

Building Bridges On The Hill

...let's not even get into the idiotic metaphor. (...Okay.. let's...You build bridges between hills. Not on them. Right? That's like "Islands in the sand" or "holes in the ocean"... the kind of dumb metaphors that make for great Seventies Gold Hits but make for... er.. stupid Op-ed titles.) You'd think after 8 years of things called "The Patriot Act" and "No Child Left Behind" they would know that we have figured out the "Call it what it ain't" PR ploy by now, but..um..no.

Here's the first memorable quote... after they spend 2 small paragraphs telling us not to worry, that they split with the rest of the Dems and Obama to... Help!... they say...

These are titanic and complicated tasks, and we believe that many worthwhile policy solutions can be found in the practical center

"Practical Center" aside..they actually have the gall to use the word "TITANIC" when describing the presidents plans. What?!? Titanic! That's cute. Guess what? That makes you the iceberg!

They wrap it up with this little gem.

In 1993, the three of us, as much younger politicians, stood with great expectations as the last Democratic president was sworn in with big plans, a head of steam and a Democratic Congress ready to begin a new progressive era. In less than two years, it all came crashing down, with disillusioned moderate voters handing the GOP broad congressional victories in 1994.

First. Don't you mean "stood by"? And secondly this is not the 90s! That new Pearl Jam Album you see advertised everywhere is A DIGITALLY MASTERED RERELEASE! It's not a new record! You have not fallen through a time portal. You have not been given a do-over. The problems we face economically right now make the tech bubble look like the shock you get when you realize how much the Columbia 12 CDs for a penny plan actually costs.

By now we know, thanks to the fine folks at Firedoglake that Evan Bayh's VP chances were more than likely sunk because of his propensity for crap like this and...um... one other thing... What was it?... oh yeah..Goldman Sachs gave him $123,750 from 03-08 along with heavy contributions from other industries that have "nothing" to do with the crisis we are in...
Securities & Investment $1,005,186
Real Estate $432,200
Misc Finance $255,701
Insurance $241,748

oh...AND his wife works for E-trade and made $335,000 from a company called Wellpoint that opposes health care reform to the tune of $890,000 in lobbying under the Bush Admin. But I'm certain that over a quarter of a million dollars in potentially lost income would have no effect on Bayh and his "moderate" plans to move Obama to the "Practical center". Yeesh.

It seems that the members of this group who aren't getting huge lobbyist funds to oppose Obama's plans either have a bad case of Helsinki syndrome or worse -- and possibly closer to the truth -- they never wanted to go along with these plans in the first place and, using the cloak of fiscal conservatism, now they can continue the soft obstruction they were trained to perform under Bush without constraint.

No one expects lock step behavior. Honestly. But this kind of grandstanding is just cheap political theatrics paired with old school CYA.... and..to quote the redneck kid I used to be.. "It's ShickenChit"

Comments

[BarbaraA]

I voted for Barack Obama and the agenda he promised! I did not vote for obstructionists!! If you agree please sign this petition!!

http://www.thepetitionsite.com/1/conservadems-you-should-be-replaced

[Lauren SoFlo]

I think people are getting too worked up over the "conservadems." I think its a brilliant move by democrats...people can vote for a would-be "opposition party" while still voting Democratic. Therefore the Dem majority can stay in effect even though Pelosi and Reid are pretty unpopular with most of the country and seem too "liberal" for many. Overall the Conservadems share the same guiding principles as other democrats, but can counterbalance the extremes of the left and give conservative voters some reassurance that the country isn't going to dive into an era fiscal irresponsibility. They make the Republican party even more irrelevant and marginalize them as extreme-right crazies. Its freakin' brilliant!!!

[Warren Holstein - Huffpost Blogger]

Really like this line:

"the kind of dumb metaphors that make for great Seventies Gold Hits but make for... er.. stupid Op-ed titles"

[nomobull]

i say keeping the light on these dinos will either cause them to change or will allow fresh faces in in the next election. but either way we the people are no longer buying what they are selling.

[mommadona]

Eliminate that oxymoron, the Democratic "Leadership" Council.

That's their little clubhouse of choice.

'Business as usual, on K-Street"
"Some are more equal than others"
"TRUST us...WE know what's bestest"

Eliminate the DLC.

[mmerose]

Yeah, well, you gotta figure the fix was in on that one when we got Robert Rubin, Larry Summers and Geithner for money, and Hillary Clinton, good grief, at State.

[mommadona]

I know - was duly dissappointed.

[mmerose]

I was just at an economics conference with a lot of radical "Austrian School," free market guys. The dogmatic academics are hopeless, of course, but the ones who were in touch with reality amazingly mentioned, with regret, the gutting of the infrastructure-building stimulus part of the "stimulus" bill, largely due to these "conservadems."

The thing that really makes me mad is that these people are, yet again, running scared from talk radio/neutered Fox propaganda for shallow political positioning. Instead of going back to their constituents to boldly reassure them that the President has a plan working for them and Hannity and Limbaugh are cynical, empty fearmongers, these wimps are acting to appease and confirm the empty fearmongers!

[caphillprof]

Wikipedia: "An Indiana newspaper listed eight corporations of which Bayh was a director as of 2006 and stated, "Susan Bayh’s position as a director for eight businesses puts her in the league of 'professional directors', a term used to refer to people who sit on multiple corporate boards and are not otherwise employed."[1] Bayh began serving on corporate boards in 1994 and since then she has served on the boards of 14 corporations in the insurance, pharmaceutical, food processing, and other industries."

"Hadassah (Lieberman) has also worked for the lobbying company, APCO Associates, that had many pharmaceutical and healthcare corporations among its clients, as well as four major drug companies such as Pfizer. In March 2005, Hadassah was hired by Hill & Knowlton as "senior counselor" in the firm's "health care and pharmaceuticals practice." Hadassah's close relationship with pharmaceutical and healthcare corporations while her husband introduced legislation benefiting these exact companies has raised questions about improprieties and conflict of interest.[1]"

[mmerose]

Great info! See under "Ralph Nader: Tweedle Dum and Tweedle Dee!"

The other reflection I have is the damage done by the myth of "equal opportunity" and "pull yourself up by your bootstraps" and "God helps those who help themselves" and " any honest, hardworking person can make it in America." Part of the evil is that children raised by this mantra can feel guilty later, since it must somehow be thrir fault they haven't "made it." Or their grandpa's fault, that he apparently wasn't as honest and hardworking as the grandpas of the hereditary super-rich. The truth, of course, is that most of our aristocracy's grandads made it the old-fashioned way: by the government giving it to them, and the bulk of the rest made it illegally, eg Joe Kennedy, bootlegger and (not the only) arms dealer to Hitler. Now we have the merely "well-connected." People need to understand that these two lovely ladies are NOT smarter and harder-working than even many guys sleeping under overpasses...