Hey! Does somebody out there want to interpret the sum-up of this latest
Washington Post poll?
A new Washington Post-ABC News poll suggests that the public is frustrated by the bickering and recriminations. According to the survey, 57 percent of Americans consider the loss of the Senate Democrats' filibuster-proof supermajority a "good thing," but few think Republicans should wield their new power to block bills frequently. Nearly six in 10 say that Republicans are not doing enough to forge compromise with Obama on important issues, while nearly half view the president as doing too little to overcome differences with the GOP.
On the issue of health-care reform, public attitudes about the stalled Democratic legislation remain virtually deadlocked. But nearly two-thirds of voters, or 63 percent, want Congress to keep trying to tackle the issue.
All in all, as contradictory as it might be, it seems to indicate that a majority of the public still wants reform and change and they tend to understand that the GOP remains the main obstacle to getting anything done.
Obama has now called out the Republicans, inviting them to a bi-partisan pow-wow during which both parties could seek common legislative ground.
Nice idea. But ain't gonna happen. Or if it does, it will be little more than a pointless Kabuki.
We are already edging into the November election cycle and the Republican strategy seems quite obvious: Damn the torpedoes, to hell with resolving any of our pressing needs, and full speed ahead in denying Obama any remote chance of even the hint of a legislative victory. Not a bad short=term strategy. For a party without a leader or a program (unless you count
palm reader and former Alaska Governor
Sarah Palin), why not just count on lingering unemployment and generalized frustration as your best weapon? It's a ploy that just might work --as I said, in the short term.
But it's one helluva of a gamble. if the Republicans stay this course they run the great risk of the American people catching on ever more to the truth that at this time of peril, the rudderless Republicans have opted for running the country into the rocks.
I can't think of a time in recent history when The System has proven itself so dysfunctional, so incapable of providing for the general welfare.
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February 10th, 2010 at 4:19 am
If Obama can’t turn overwhelming majorities in Congress into legislative progress, when can we start to question his basic competence?
February 10th, 2010 at 7:29 am
You’re on script Bob. Congrats.
February 10th, 2010 at 7:35 am
Marc – you’re right, of course, about the “Kabuki”, but I don’t think it’s pointless Kabuki. The Dems may actually be better off politically being seen as trying to draw resistant GOPers into the process than the current meme of their bickering among themselves and buying off Blue Dogs. I don’t know how this will play out, but if it’s part of a more aggressive strategy with a Plan B, I think Obama can use the type of engagement he showed with the GOP caucus to advantage.
February 10th, 2010 at 8:01 am
This is a well financed operation to derail any regulatory legislation in finance, health care…you name it. The corporate boys know they are living in a house of cards that has actually already come down and is now only being propped up– by the tax payers who must now be made to think the Dems and Obama are out to take what they themselves must finish stealing before their own beast dies.
Disinformation, money to wind up the ignorant…Palin…all being used to distract and bait the stupid Democrats and progressives who keep biting and responding to each attack like a pack of snapping turtles with no beaks.
It IS a conspiracy and the sooner there is some cohesion among those not bamboozled by the bullshit the sooner we can all get on with life.
Every time a liberal-Democrat-Progressive responds to a tactic as if its a separate bit of ignominy is when the opposition gains more ground. Palin’s parade of stupidity, Republican congressmen staging little coups, Tea Bagging bimbos and butt heads its all part of the same agenda.
There does need to be a coherent response with some well crafted rhetoric about what is becoming almost treasonous behavior. There should be a campaign that challenges citizens to become conversant with FACTS.
February 10th, 2010 at 8:04 am
There does need to be a coherent response with some well crafted rhetoric about what is becoming almost treasonous behavior.
Chortle.
Good heavens.
February 10th, 2010 at 8:04 am
I remember back in ’08 when Bob Williams was all over that “basic competence” question. His long, thoughtful comments here on the idiocy of Sarah Palin and the dangerously shallow waters of John (Palin is “exactly what we need in Washington today”) McCain were enlightening.
February 10th, 2010 at 8:06 am
I remember back in ‘08 when Bob Williams was all over that “basic competence” question.
No you don’t.
February 10th, 2010 at 8:11 am
Palin is rousing up the rabble in Texas about secession…and a Senate and House where half the members refuse to do their job to serve the public because they are in pay one way or another to corporate interests…are betrayals. So, Bob, whore your venality somewhere else.
Just to make a buck years of hard won legislation that incrementally is the way the civilizing process works is being shredded playing on the indigenous parochialism and stupidity of what passes for being an American.
People like you and Woody enjoy living somewhere clean and safe–relatively speaking–on the backs of the efforts of those who fought to make sure we live somewhere with an infrastructure that functions. So fuck you. Go to Haiti.
February 10th, 2010 at 8:12 am
…there you will know what the other end of the stick of right wing and corporate interests feels like so you can have the privilege of going: chortle and good heavens. You are a maggot.
February 10th, 2010 at 8:15 am
I’m a treasonous maggot, Dear.
February 10th, 2010 at 8:48 am
“No you don’t.”
Might want to get that irony detector checked out there, buddy.
February 10th, 2010 at 8:49 am
Turn on your sarcasm switch, Bob
February 10th, 2010 at 8:51 am
Why blame the Republicans when Obama is doing it so nicely…
http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/02/10/clueless/
February 10th, 2010 at 8:55 am
OMG! Treasonous maggot Paul Krugman just said Our President is clueless!
February 10th, 2010 at 9:00 am
I don’t think Obama’s using this conference to seek common ground. It’s a device to relaunch HCR and and finally get it done, to show that the oppostion has no real plan and to explain what’s good in the plan that’s out there (and perhaps what can be changed). In this light, I guess the exercise makes sense, and is perhaps necessary to get the Democrats to emerge from their holes and act. But there’s a downside to anything that consumes time, as we move into election season and politicians are more and more inclined to crawl back into their holes.
February 10th, 2010 at 9:07 am
“biting and responding to each attack like a pack of snapping turtles with no beaks.”
That’s a keeper Anna. May I use it sometime?
What we are looking at here is power politics between two powerful parties, both whose leaders try to govern too far from center, and always have after a win. They run in the center to win then, depending on how much power they won, veer off to the right or left forgetting how ‘reasonable’ and moderate they had to pretend to be to get elected in the first place. This is how Clinton, Bush, and now President Obama got into trouble, and I believe why we see big turnovers in midterm elections.
The generally apolitical ordinary American can
t stand the lack of co-operation and the fighting that goes, usually created when winning party begins to behave as if they won a mandate, and they always seem too even though he margins are quite small and created by the independent center.
President Obama is a very smart and reasonable person. The majority believe we need to get our bankrupting Healthcare costs under control so more can afford to have it. My position has always been if President Obama had began with this more obvious problem, rather than appearing to add to the problem by expanding it, he would be in a total different situation today.
It is not to late to get Healthcare reform in order to make it more affordable for all. This is the winning agenda, and one the Republicans will lose if they play politics with and fail to cooperate. Why? Because it is a centrist, reasonable, and identifiable problem every one of us can identify with, and the Republicans ‘claim’ they agree with.
Healthcare is busting our personal and national budgets and we all can agree on this at least. How we reform it is the disagreement. Too much gov’t control over people’s private insurance choices is a loser and so is too little gov’t control and DOING NOTHING!
February 10th, 2010 at 9:18 am
It’s interesting Mr. Krugman wants to blame the President for listening too much to him in the first place. Success has many fathers while failure is an orphan. Nice going dickhead.
Who’s the clueless one here Mr. Krugman…..add totally fucking blind. Give me orphan.
February 10th, 2010 at 9:34 am
Jim R – actually Krugman says the President is “clueless” for not listening to him enough. In this case it’s a minor snit over Obama not taking the opportunity to demagogue executive bonuses sufficiently in an interview with a business news service. In fact, Obama makes the essential point in his interview, which is that too often CEOs are compensated not for success but for failure – or short-term results that don’t really advance the interests of shareholders invested over time – and that the owners don’t have enough leash on the managerial elite. He said it softly, but that’s what’s wrong, not any particular numbers.
Krugman is a smart and diligent critic of Obama’s. I commend Bob Williams for consistently paying attention to Krugman’s POV, even when it’s a bit shrill. Perhaps Bob could do us the favor of posting a Krugman link several times a week.
February 10th, 2010 at 9:38 am
” I commend Bob Williams for consistently paying attention to Krugman’s POV, even when it’s a bit shrill.”
No I don’t!
February 10th, 2010 at 9:43 am
I consider Krugman to be the finest Nobel Prize-winning economist employed as a columnist by the New York Times, bar none. I hang on every word.
February 10th, 2010 at 9:44 am
Obama’s “cluelessness” in the Bloomberg interview:
“I do think that the compensation packages that we’ve seen over the last decade at least have not matched up always to performance. I think that shareholders oftentimes have not had any significant say in the pay structures for CEOs… the main principle we want to promote is a simple principle of ‘say on pay,’ that shareholders have a chance to actually scrutinize what CEOs are getting paid. And I think that serves as a restraint and helps align performance with pay. The other thing we do think is the more that pay comes in the form of stock that requires proven performance over a certain period of time as opposed to quarterly earnings is a fairer way of measuring CEOs’ success and ultimately will make the performance of American businesses better.”
I would like Bob Williams to weigh in on the “cluelessness” of Obama’s POV here. Or was that “Krugman says…” a cheap trick, unhinged from anything remotely resembling coherence.
February 10th, 2010 at 9:48 am
Well, if you want to say Krugman is the clueless one, I suppose I can live with that.
February 10th, 2010 at 10:27 am
Bob, you positively flounce when you write. Do you wear tights, carry a scabbard, wear a wig and your blouse cuffs fall below your wrists?
reg, don’t encourage him.
February 10th, 2010 at 10:28 am
Competence?
Apparently, Yosi Sergant has nothing on Obama. I kinda like this comment from The Vermin’s blog:
You are, of course, correct, Marc, when you argue that The System is dysfunctional. I don’t know how the system can perform any differently than it does when it is owned by the banker’s (See: Durbin, Dick). Lots of blame to go around, but it’s clear to me that Obama is making the circumstance in which he finds himself worse.
February 10th, 2010 at 10:45 am
Bob, you positively flounce when you write. Do you wear tights, carry a scabbard, wear a wig and your blouse cuffs fall below your wrists?
First, the accusations of treason; then the gay-baiting. You’re a piece of work, Sweetie.
February 10th, 2010 at 12:25 pm
Ooooooh. You called me ‘sweetie’. More flouncing. And so you admit you are a traitor to your country? I never named names…sweetie. You just took the bait.
Not gay baiting my little rabbit. Anima ridden baiting. You know, nasty, vituperative little males. Prigs, mean spirited. Right wing wankers…you know the type well.
February 10th, 2010 at 12:30 pm
Attention Marc!:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/feb/10/oxfordgirl-ahmadinejad-twitter-iran
I am sure you will uncover this but just in case I know its something you would want to track.
February 10th, 2010 at 2:01 pm
“nasty, vituperative little males. Prigs, mean spirited. Right wing wankers…you know the type well.”
But not you Anna. You not right-wing, so by definition….
It’s sad to see intelligent people lose their site.
February 10th, 2010 at 3:12 pm
my god, Jim R, you must have been a pain in the ass in the school yard…
February 10th, 2010 at 4:25 pm
Marc,
I think you’re right that the Republicans may run themelves into the rocks. In the last election millions took one look at Pallin and rushed to vote for Obama. Lightning could strike twice.
I think the system works just fine for the top corporations, the military industrial complex, the investment banks but for the rest of us–it’s not supposed to work. It’s supposed to be dysfunctional.
February 10th, 2010 at 4:43 pm
”If Obama can’t turn overwhelming majorities in Congress into legislative progress, when can we start to question his basic competence?”
Bob would be dead right here if rapid “legislative progress” were the benchmark.
Fortunately, it isn’t. The president isn’t a legislator, Bob. Says so right there in the Constitution.
Maybe it’s easy to forget that in our desperation for hope and, yes, change. And how very rich it is that Republicans, after controlling the presidency for 20 of the past 29 years and controlling all three branches of government for most of the past decade are now wetting their pants for big, fast change.
And, Bob, isn’t your core position that there’s way too much legislatin’ goin’ on? Or is that just another disposable talking point?
It’s silly to expect a president to right so man wrongs, no matter how much they vow to do so.
The measure of presidential success is long-term, big-picture. What direction has the president set the country in? And how does that direction differ from his opponent?
How is Obama doing on that score? The question for me is always: How is he doing compared to how McCain would have done. Not, how is he doing compared to how I’d like him to do or how is he doing compared to some imagined combination of Martin Luther King, Benjamin Disraeli, FDR and Jesus Christ.
I get a feeling that if John McCain were president, we’d have escalated Iraq and be fighting a hot civil war there now, instead of getting out this summer. Would McCain have any more of a clue how to extricate from the mess in Afghanistan? No way. He’d be portraying it as a classic Cold War good and evil clash wherein escalation is the only option, with anyone disagreeing being “weak.” Granted, Obama has walked us part of the way in that direction, but note that his administration is backing away now and talking about negotiating with the Taliban. That represents and important change in direction, if not in policy itself.
Then there’s Iran. Does anyone doubt but that a Republican administration would be beating the war drums as a way to distract from the sagging economy? That’s their bread and butter. And McCain was nothing if not the the candidate who stood AGAINST change.
On financial regulation, who would expect McCain to be LESS friendly to special interests than is Obama? McCain has quite a history there, and were he elected, he’d have no reason to believe people wanted something else, would he?
Having said all that, I am a little disappointed with Obama. I did expect more. It is a little depressing, until I think about how very much worse it could have been and about how terrible it may yet become if someone like Sarah Palin regains control of the White House.
February 10th, 2010 at 7:55 pm
Iran…tomorrow…let’s pay more attention to folks who are putting more on the line than their mouths:
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/11/world/middleeast/11tehran.html?ref=world
February 10th, 2010 at 8:10 pm
Yeah, reg, saw that today. Did you catch my link about the former Iranian journalist hiding out in England and using twitter to help organize protests etc in Iran?
Not too long ago I came across an article on how clever Iran’s intelligence apparatus is…anyway the situation can only blow up and probably within the next few months.
February 10th, 2010 at 8:19 pm
Charlie Wilson has passed away, and it’s reported that John Edwards has become engaged to his baby’s mother. In other words, both are dead.
February 10th, 2010 at 10:38 pm
Prayer Request
February 11th, 2010 at 12:40 am
Wow, Woody. I generally steer of all the mudthrowing at you but I gotta say… you really want to say that? You want to joke about hoping the President of the U.S. dies? Funny thing, but the Secret Service usually treats this kind of stuff the way the TSA treats those making jokes about bombs on planes.
Poor taste doesn’t begin to describe this remark. I would ordinarily take down a post rooting for the death of elected officials. I think I will leave this one up, though, for educational value.
While you’re at it, why not pray for a virus epidemic that will kill off the MAJORITY of Americans? You know those 100 million or so who actively support the president you hope will die? That would be a good house cleaning.
February 11th, 2010 at 6:04 am
Woody hates America. The real America that’s a mix of all kinds of folks and not just a suburbanized enclave of old white people. Under pretense of being a “clown”, he daily gives ammunition to the cranks and crackpots who aren’t that far from Tim McVeigh in their paranoia, bitterness and resentments.
February 11th, 2010 at 7:23 am
Of course if someone wrote “Woody is my favorite commenter” he’d be outraged.
February 11th, 2010 at 8:24 am
Ok. Anybody now doubt my attacks on Woody are warranted?
I told you he was a scrofulous maggot. He ratchets up the pathology from time to time like getting a thrill over being able to use the word “nigger” by equating calling someone a Tea Bagger as equally insulting. There is NOTHING as insulting as calling someone a Tea Bagger because they are proof that the gene pool in white America died. A Tea Bagger is nothing but walking offal.
Dan O in the other thread thinks I am being too harsh about Woody…
Gee, Dan, ya think Woody has now made my point for me?
February 11th, 2010 at 8:25 am
Liberals have no sense of humor.
There is a disease for Obama supporters. It’s called sickle cell anemia, and you get it from the glue on the back of food stamps.
Yeah, I know it’s in bad taste and I really don’t want anyone to die, but once I’ve dug myself in deep with you guys, what’s one more?
God bless America and grant wisdom to our President who is so lacking in it.
February 11th, 2010 at 8:44 am
Anna,
I’ll indulge this for one more post. My issue is not with you taking issue with Woody. My problem (actually it’s your problem), is that you accuse Woody of being gay (not an insult unless you’re a homophobe), and you accuse him of being a pedophile.
Anna you’re a childish, thuggish, self-important, narcissistic bore who is utterly incapable of self-analysis or insight. In words you can grok? A jerk.
Woody’s transgressions in no way whatsoever excuse your transgressions. They just don’t.
OK, I’ll go back to letting you wallow in your own filth in peace. Enjoy!
February 11th, 2010 at 9:15 am
I’d much rather be accused of having no sense of humor (demonstrably false in my case) than to relentlessly display a lack of basic decency.
February 11th, 2010 at 12:26 pm
One of Woody’s biggest conceits is that he has a sense of humor. I’m sure he can slay the room with stuff like fart jokes or ethnic slurs, but he lacks anything resembling wit.
February 11th, 2010 at 1:01 pm
When Obama’s Secret Service tracks me down and after they read me my Miranda rights (assuming they treat citizens the same as terrorists), I’ll turn in several million people who have been circulating that joke through email. Talk about a full emplyment bill. They would have to hire more people than would expanding the NBA to 10,000 teams, which would take care of the minorities.
February 11th, 2010 at 2:57 pm
Woody, you’re missing a golden opportunity to pray for Bill Clinton’s death–he’s been hospitalized! LOL! And get this–he’s a DUMBOCRAT! What a knee-slapper!
February 11th, 2010 at 8:59 pm
This post by John Cole may be the most cogent description of the substance and process of contemporary “conservative politics” I’ve seen…
http://www.balloon-juice.com/2010/02/11/this-is-what-obstructionism-nihilism-the-wurlitzer-looks-like/
February 11th, 2010 at 9:30 pm
Teabaggers are so sensitive–don’t they have a sense of humor?
They get their panties all in a bunch from comic books making fun of them? Awwwww.
February 12th, 2010 at 8:06 am
From now on, when you people use the term “teabaggers,” I’ll assume that you’re talking about
queershomosexuals, and the radical “movement identified with them is right up your alley” (not a euphemism) — not the tea party.Why do you hate gays?
- – -
Isn’t it amazing that liberals can co-opt an image like Captain America and turn it into something that goes against everything that was the basis for the founding of this nation?
- – -
Sorry that I’m not touchy-feely like the rest of you. However, if everyone was of your mindset, who could hold things together while you try all sorts of wild experiments that pull down society and our economy? You can thank me on your way out.
February 12th, 2010 at 8:30 am
“Sorry that I’m not touchy-feely like the rest of you.”
Except you weep and whine about comic books making fun of rightwing extremists. Why are rightwing extremists like children, who cry when their comic books are big meanies?
Rightwing extremists are touchy-feely crybabies and have no sense of humor.
February 12th, 2010 at 8:52 am
I never cried about comic books, and the writers weren’t funny nor tried to be.
February 12th, 2010 at 9:13 am
“I never cried about comic books”
Sure you did: “liberals can co-opt an image like Captain America”. You’re whining about it.
“the writers weren’t funny”
Of course you didn’t think so–because you’re obviously very sensitive about childish objects like comic books, and your status as a teabagger. When I saw the teabagger sign I found it hilarious: it’s funny ‘cuz it’s true! You need to stop being so sensitive.
February 12th, 2010 at 1:41 pm
Not working, jokerman.
February 12th, 2010 at 2:02 pm
Dan O you are a chauvinist prig. I called Woody out on doing something its very evident he does. You are the one casting slurs equating being gay with being a paedophile. I never did that. YOU did, buddy.
Woody is a sociopath and about any other form of “path” thats been given a classification.
You, on the other hand, are a weenie. A self righteous, puritanical, prig.
February 12th, 2010 at 2:15 pm
Jesus Christ Anna. I was going to leave this alone, and I apologize for not doing so, but I have to respond to your latest bullshit. For someone constantly berating others for their poor reading skills you’re remarkably dense.
1) You accuse Woody of being unmanly, a closet case, and gay. That is one kind of insult you lodge.
2) You accuse him of being a pedophile. That is another kind of insult you lodge.
Those are *two separate insults* (I numbered them so you can keep them straight).
They are *both* unbecoming, childish, and destroy the tone here. I don’t care *why* you do them, that is the result.
I think you have weird issues. I will do my absolute best to leave you alone with your rants. I think they’re unproductive and annoying, but it’s not my blog, and it’s evident my meager attempts to raise the tone are pointless, and at this point just spurring you on, and making things worse.
I’ll merely sign off from engaging you by noting that I categorically did not equte homosexuality with pedophelia. If you’re gooing to insult me, please at least be factual.
February 12th, 2010 at 2:19 pm
So, country desperately needs progress, new ideas.
They elect a New President. The opposing party stands in
the way of everything the majority tries to do. And the
blame for this goes to (according to Marc Cooper and
the Mainstream Press)….both parties. Well, if you read the
signals right, the Democrats are always worse.
It wasn’t that Obama “didn’t demagogue bonuses.”
He said he had no problem with them. And he doesn’t.
I guess you can’t wake up and smell the coffee when
your nose is pressed against the glass.
February 12th, 2010 at 2:24 pm
“Not working, jokerman.”
You’re right: you lost another argument.
February 12th, 2010 at 2:29 pm
Still not working. You can’t get my goat, but keep wasting your time.
February 12th, 2010 at 2:46 pm
What’s funny is that you keep hanging around and responding, contradicting yourself. You should stop being so sensitive.
February 12th, 2010 at 2:51 pm
Charmer:
Here’s a theory to try on. I know it’s true of me. Since my sympathies lie mainly on the left/progressive side of things I am inclined to be much harder on that group of people. I expect more of them.
On the other hand I expect very little of the vote-in-bulk Republicans who are willing to harm the country to make a point. I expect all of the mendacious bullshit, and the dirty tircks, and the robo calls, and misuing the procedural votes of opponents, the Willie Hortons, the welfare queens, the breathtaking hypocrisy and all the rest of it. It’s just not that notable to me. It’s totally expected.
Democratic cowardice and the general chickenshit attitude of most of them, is not only not what I want, but particularly offensive because this party is ostensibly about making things better for the less priviledged. When they act like morons, and assholes, I’m more offended because I expect more.
February 12th, 2010 at 2:51 pm
robo calls was meant to say “push polling.”
November 29th, 2010 at 10:08 pm
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