Tweet's Comments (60)

“I just realized that the first anniversary of what was supposed to be a world-changing election has passed without a single mention in the press. Even the Democrats didn't bring it up. Believe me, if anyone out there felt there was something to celebrate, they would be celebrating it.

That's how far Obama has fallen. And he's only half-way down.”

“It's really nice to know we had Mary Poppins in charge of the White House Office of Health Reform.

Here is a woman who has no comprehension of history, politics, capitalism, profit or human nature. How far up in the White House does the naivete go?

Not very far, I suspect. Proving herself a fool, this woman has also proved that cutie has placed a nonentity in what looks, from the title of her office, like a critical role. That's pretty cynical, I should say. The folks at the top know exactly what's going on. The problem is that they are abetting it.”

“Look here, now, people. Here is the final proof. Either Republicans or Democrats are from another planet. One of us isn't human. I don't know which.

The only thing I can think of that might be relevant is that Democrats want to save the earth, Republicans want to destroy it. But I don't know what that proves. Maybe Democrats want to save the earth because their previous planet was destroyed, or maybe as tourists they see the beauty of it. Maybe Republicans are like natives, you know, like in New York. They never see the beauty in the Statue of Liberty.

But one of us has to get out of here. I'm hoping it's them, because I'm tired of packing up.”

“The Republican tactics which are most effective these days are straight out of the National Enquirer. If you put them all together, they amount - literally - to: "Alien Eats Baby."

There have always been enough people who believe stories like that to keep papers like the Enquirer in the black. The Republicans have clearly enlisted them in the political wars.

Why is Obama still trying to get a deal with the party which believes stuff like that? Does he still believe there are people out there who think "bipartisanship" is the ultimate goal - that what America wants is for us to be nice to each other?

He took the tack, during his campaign, of not confronting political absurdities directly. It worked - but it can't keep working, because as absurdities pile up the whole situation begins to look absurd, including him.

There's an old adage in the law that a good settlement is one with which neither side is happy. I believe in that adage - but it doesn't apply here. Because there will be no bill which gets the support of the health care industry unless it benefits them - and I mean benefits them directly and big, not simply minimizes the damage they could have sustained.

If he really wants effective health care reform he's got to put himself on the line for it - and he hasn't. That Congressman who said Obama would give up a second term for health caremust be the only guy”

“This is an exact duplicate of Cheney's deal with the energy companies.

What this effectively means is that Obama loses the trust of many people who supported him - a development which was building anyway in view of his handling of the banks, the torture program and lack of transparency.

This doesn't mean that progressives won't vote for him. It does mean that they will now look at him as the lesser of two evils - in other words, as politics as usual. He has blown the great wave of good feeling that got him elected and on which he was supposedly counting to push through his agenda. So now, when Obama speaks, there is no more electricity - there is instead of sort of exasperation at having to listen to yet one more guy who doesn't back up what he says. Maybe that's why there's so little progressive pushback against Republican anti-health care reform tactics. People are disillusioned. They don't believe.”

“I'm beginning to get the feeling that they have gotten all the "good" publicity they are going to get out of these town hall protests. People are either bored or turned off by the tactic now. (Don't forget they had little impact when they did the teabagging thing.)

I'm sure the Republicans, who are masters of political theater, know the string is about to run out on this. So we can expect something new to start happening relatively soon.

They know also that the impact things like this have on specific issues is not high. After all the fuss over Sotomayor, she was easily confirmed without us having to hear anything further from Republicans. Nor have they stopped anything else from going through. What they are doing - and they've said so - is raising a sequence of fusses with the hope that the cumulative effect will be to drop the Democratic vote totals in 2010. Whether they accomplish that depends entirely on who the American people are.

The town hall story will fade in the next few days, giving the Democrats an interval - probably a short one - to put on a good sell for health care reform before the next Republican tactic is launched. It's too bad nobody knows what's going to be in the ultimate health care bill, which makes this opportunity mostly a wasted one.”

“Perhaps the most effective block against those trying to get a pro-health care reform enacted is not the teabaggers or corporate campaigns but the fact that there are five different health care bills being worked on in Congress. It is impossible to sell a coherent pro health care position when no one knows what the position is. You can't even answer legitimate questions, never mind the mindless propaganda.

The best chance of getting something real done - or at least something that could be explained and advocated - was for Obama to have met with all parties concerned - progressives, Republicans, insurance companies - and then presented a bill fully formed to Congress. Even if we hated it, at least we'd know what it was. (Of course I would have preferred him to meet with only progressives, but that would be asking for the moon.)

I'm reminded of Hillary Clinton's comment during her campaign, when she said that inspiration like MLK's is fine, but it was Lyndon Johnson's hard work that got the civil rights bill passed. Johnson would have gotten through health care this year, because he had real power over the Senate particularly and knew how to bend ears and break arms to get what he wanted. Obama has no clue. I'm afraid Hillary turns out to be right.”

“If there is going to be meaningful health care reform, three big things are going to have to happen in August. And they are all things Obama once did very well.

1) there is going to have to be a massive ad campaign making very clear what is going to happen and what is not. The Republican plan is the usual one: creating confusion and doubt to erode support. Every lie they tell must be directly countered.

2) the insurance industry must be attacked with facts. This can't be subtle; it must be direct and aggressive. And people in Congress who oppose health care must be exposed.

3) after these are run for a few weeks, Obama has to put it all together in an aggressive attack against tactics like birthers and deathers. The opposition has to be shown as crazed and disingenuous. A heavy dose of ridicule is sbsolutely necessary, combined with a clear prediction of how much better life will be with health care reform. Sense must counter nonsense - big time.”

“If you take Sanford at the word of his emails, his involvement in Argentina was glorious! It was not only the best sex but the best interpersonal relating Sanford had ever known. This would seem to meet the definition of "good". So what is the "bad" that he is going to make "good"? The fact of cheating Sanford was perfectly okay with. It's the concept of cheating - i.e., the rule, meaning other people's opinions - that Sanford has so much trouble with that he's gone back on his knees to his wife, who, considering she was a high-ranking Lazard beancounter, must have brought emotional satisfaction to a whole new level. God is Sanford's problem - that is, God as his C Street brethren see Him. How sad for Sanford that he believes God is against extravagantly beautiful love. Doug Coe, I'm sure, is a hell of a lot smarter. He uses God against Sanford to get him back to the point where he can be a useful power tool. Sanford had almost made his escape. How awful they've dragged him back in.”

“Why is it the only people who still want to relive Woodstock would have shot hippies in 1969?”

“Mark Sanford is not a hypocrite.

I;m sure he believed the things he said about the sanctity of marriage when he said them. I'm sure the idea of adultery offended his sense of the rightness of things. And then he grew up. He fell hopelessly in love, and he learned that marriage is only a legal matter, and that God is not the only thing that rules your life. The commitment comes from the soul, and when it's overridden it's gone. So now he's known the pain of love and the complexity of life. He's learned something valuable about what matters to him, and he should become a better person because of it.

"Forgiveness opens the door for Mark to begin to work privately, humbly and respectfully toward reconciliation with me"? Is that what you're offering him? Why come back to that?

So, Jenny, forget it. He can't be happy back with you unless he's an amnesiac. Maybe after four or five years he'll forget about her, and forget about the joy he had with her - and could have even more of. And re-accept the life that he now knows isn't what he wants. I don't think you really want him back that way.”

“Fifteen people? And this gets top of the line coverage? Never let it be said the progressive media is less sensationalist than the tabloids. Shame on you for giving these people what they want.”

“What does the US do about Iran now? Very tricky.

The goal is regime change and democratization. Does that mean encouraging counter-revolution? No; that will only get a lot of people killed. Will US military threats encourage democratization? No; they will likely have the opposite effect.

What the US needs to do is to hold out the promise that Iran will be welcomed into the community of nations once it is a true democracy. Beyond that, the best thing the US can do is infiltrate agents into Iran - not CIA, but MoveOn operatives and people from the Obama campaign, to help the reformists organize. The truth is that conditions in Iran right now are not much different from what they were here during the Bush Administration. The same skills that brought about regime change in the US can be and should be used in Iran.”

“If California falls apart, it's their own fault. The theory of representative government is that the public elects someone to use his or her judgment on issues, theoretically taking a long and informed view. Of course, plenty of representatives don't do that. But to replace that system with one where the public makes all the decisions directly, most likely ill-informed and acting on emotions of the moment, you likely get laws that cause a trainwreck down the road. The trick is to elect good people and let them do their job. But here's the conundrum: if the public were smart enough to elect good people, they might also be smart enough to do the right thing themselves. So I guess it comes down to this: ignorance does not bring bliss.”

“The settlement movement is right wing and religious. Progressive Jews - and don't forget 80% voted for Obama - want to see Israel move to the”

“The a”

“Add me to that comment.”

“Geithner refuses to endorse the bill to tax bonuses issued by TARP recipients. He's right, but for the wrong reasons.

The bill is an ex post facto bill of attainder. It's about as constitutional as hardboiled eggs. But that's not why Geithner opposes it.

He said: "We need to balance the basic objective that we not reward failure against the hugely important imperative that we get the financial system doing what it needs to do for recovery."

No, Tim, we don't.

If the government expands direct lending, we can let the banks go down. New ones will spring up, which will be better regulated. And maybe we can find some bankers who don't believe that their excrement is not malodorous. (They may be in Minnesota, up near the Canadian border.)”

“Suppose the stock market makes a quick and substantial recovery, everybody starts making money, things are heading back to where they were. Everybody's exhausted by what they've just been through, they're tremendously relieved and all they want to do is go back to their favorite expensive restaurant.

So they don't want to hear about systemic problems. They don't want to try to make sure it doesn't happen again. All they want is the sweet glide they used to be in.

So Obama becomes annoying with his overarching plan. They want him to go away like they made Churchill go away after W.W. II. They don't want to be reminded of any of it.

All you have to do is bring the market back fast to put an end to all of Obama's initiatives. It's like when gas prices drop, we all go back to SUV's. Obama becomes the embodiment of a bad memory.

And it can be done.”

“Geithner's plan:

1) Create a bad bank to buy up toxic assets. Much of the money is to come from private investors. Geithner says "there's a lot of private capital out there that wants to come in. It just can't get the financing.­" If it needs financing, how is it private capital? If you have to borrow money, you don't have capital; the guy who loaned it does.

2) A trillion dollar fund to make direct government student loans, car loans, cover credit card debt and maybe mortgages. That's the part I really like.

3) Money to help homeowners renegotiate mortgages.

And then giving $350 billion to the banks. So we offload the toxic paper from the banks. We make direct government loans so the banks don't have to, since they really don't want to. So why are we giving money to the banks?

Geithner's not imposing an executive pay restriction except on very senior execs. So the CEO of Citibank can only get $500,000 but the guys below him can get billion dollar bonuses. Maybe we're going to have round-robin CEO's with 3 month terms so everybody gets a shot.

Bank shareholders are protected from taking a hit. Geithner is not demanding replacement of bad management. And he won't tell the banks what they have to do with the money. Paulson Redux.

Geithner is tipping his friends.”

“I've been trying to figure out why Obama's speech left me flat. And I think it wasn't what he said, but how he said it.

"I stand here today humbled by the task before us, grateful for the trust you have bestowed, mindful of the sacrifices borne by our ancestors.­" Three cliches in his first sentence. Not a good start.

"The still waters of peace ...", "amidst gathering clouds and raging storms ..." Amidst? In 2009? This isn't poetry, it's bad 19th century prose.

"They packed up their few worldly possessions and traveled across oceans"? You mean, like, they picked up the few things they had and got on a boat?

Obama missed here because, rather than respond to the history he was making, he was responding to history already made - by Lincoln, by Roosevelt, by Washington. Those guys were great, but they are unfortunately dead. And nobody talks the way they did anymore.

There was a lot of JFK material in Obama's speech. JFK used a lot of salad greens (a lot of "let us"). But JFK did not say "Today I say to you .." And that was fifty years ago.

So now I wonder whether Obama's other speeches - to which we thrilled - were as rhetorically weak, and only powerful because Bush was still out there and Obama was challenging him. But I'm too lazy to go back and read those speeches. So I guess I'll never know.”

“The Obama concert brought back thoughts and feelings I haven't had since Bobby Kennedy was shot. Of course, it was theater - but I never thought I'd see America want to hear the message they were delivering.

From Tiger Woods on, it degenerated into the Grammys. Renee Fleming was awesome, and Stevie Wonder meant a lot because he was there the first time (and it was great to watch the joy on the pit musicians' faces). The rest - even Obama's speech - was redundant and over-produced. But then Pete Seeger. Pete Seeger!

And I felt like doing what I used to love to do - get in the car, put down the top and go see what's out there in America.”

“The Israeli view is driven by extreme religion. It is the worst kind of imperialism, because it uses religion as its excuse for expansionism. What Israel wants is the reinstitution of Israel in its biblical size. Not because it needs more lebensraum - it doesn't - but because inclusion of territory it does not now possess is required before the Messiah returns. And any policy towards Israel which does not understand this is doomed to failure unless the rational secular population of Israel retakes control of national policy. We are hopeful that has happened in America. What hope do we have that it will happen in Israel?”

“Proposition commonly advanced in the US media: Israel can't negotiate with Hamas because Hamas wants to exterminate the Jews.

Response: This is bulls**t.

1) Arab rhetoric is historically extreme. Whether they actually believe the things they say I don't know, but historically what they say has very little to do with what they do. You can find plenty of Jewish statements which, if taken seriously, would eliminate any possibility of Hamas negotiating with Israel.

2) They can't exterminate the Jews. They just can't. This "threat" is a fiction.

If politicians and media can't get beyond tabloid thinking, no one is ever going to know the truth.”

“Why wasn't Dean invited? Try this on.

Back in 2004 when Dean introduced the 50 state strategy which produced the victories in 2006 and 2008, two prominent Democrats fought him tooth and nail. Who were they? Chuck Schumer and ... Rahm Emanuel.

They didn't believe the strategy would work. But more to the point, I think they recognized that if it DID work, it would divert Democratic power away from the party's old fundraising base, particularly in Wall Street and finance. In other words, Dean believed in Democratic populism. Schumer and Emanuel did not - and still do not.

I take this insult to Dean personally. For me, it is a very black mark against Obama and one I will never forgive him for. Not that he cares.

But he should care.”