couldn't agree more Steve, but will he ( Obama) do it?
Posted by John B. at January 27, 2009 06:56 AM"it only took the GOP minority a week to humiliate Obama for even trying to work with them"
Hopefully Obama learned a lesson in his second week in the Oval Office, a lesson we already knew all too well. You can reach out to the GOP all you want, but they are going to fuck you every chance they get.
Posted by Judith at January 27, 2009 07:10 AMObama's first crucial test pitting his will against the will of the GOP.
Posted by Judith at January 27, 2009 07:18 AMI can only hope that President Obama takes a two-by-four to their heads in the coming weeks.
Forget the 'pukes, Obama needs some surrogates to start working the refs. This morning, I heard on the radio during the newsbreak that the Dems are the ones trying stall the stimulus. WTF? Time to use the NSA's dirt on the media for good instead of evil, 'cos face it, we're living in a dictatorship already, and if our dictator doesn't start using his powers, he's gonna lose 'em.
And yeah, I'm joking...sorta.
Posted by iamcoyote at January 27, 2009 07:29 AMThe government can't even seem to run this conversion to digital TV thing right.
Read Greg Mankiw's blog yesterday on the word from the mature John Maynard Keynes.
Posted by Muck at January 27, 2009 08:10 AMyes Mucktroll, the Bush government totally screwed up the conversion. Firstly, the box should be way cheaper and easily available at any Wal Mart or Target....forget the stupid "coupon" - most of the poor and elderly who need the box can't/won't go online to get a coupon...that was idiocy. Secondly, there should have been half page ads put out in papers, and on the news showing the two cords that you have to switch...but no, Bush couldn't accomplish that so millions of non-tech savvy elders and poor think its really hard... and now they tell us they don't have any more money for the rebate....The Bush Admin screwed everything they touched, and the conversion deal is just another in a long line of simple things done crappy.
Posted by T2 at January 27, 2009 08:22 AMSo essentially the repukes answer to the financial disaster that their failed policies are responsible for after the past 8 years is pretty much, hey I've got the answer let's enact more of the same crap and try more of the same failed policies....that's pretty much the definition of insanity...trying the same failed policies over and over and somehow expecting a magical fairy tale ending this time around.
Gawd...the stoopid it burns...and btw...Obama what happened to the "I won" response here....speaks volumes. Repukes have never been concerned with actually governing for the betterment of all in this country...this again is proof positive...they'd rather spite the majority of murkans especially those dastardly demoncrats because that's all they care about...the resultant failure for the opposition party and with it the tanking of our country. They're all privately Rush Limpbaughs...hoping for failure here....they're just not ballsy enough like the Rush to openly admit it...they'll hide behind their stupidity and concerns about contraception funding (which will distract the media from the fact they're offering the same cure for the economy they've offered even for the opposite "problem" budget surpluses) but hey it's not the media's job to call them on that..it's just too complex for the media to wrap their pretty lil heads around something as logical as that...better to be distracted by that other repuke fauxrage, the "c" word, contraception.
Posted by emal at January 27, 2009 09:19 AM65,000 jobs went down yesterday.
When you have effective family planning you don't have unwanted pregnancies clogging...never mind. Let's go watch the Duggars on TV!
Obama is doing the exact wrong thing...the exact wrong thing. His response to the republi-KKKons has been nothing more than tepid.
Big "O". Look, buddy. You've been stabbed in the back by every republi-KKKon who promised support. I realize you think you can get these assclowns together and get them to go along with your plan. I assure you, you can't. I'll remind you of the old joke about the rattlesnake biting the coyote who helped him cross a river. It's in their nature.
Big "O", grow a pair and confront these people. I guess the other choice is you can get lessons from Harry "my boys are lobbyists" Reid in saying "We jus din't hay-ave the votes. Ah'm swoonin!"
And let me remind you that your job is to sell your plan to the American people, not the republi-KKKon Congress. Sell the plan to us and we'll take care of the r-KKKons for you.
Posted by phidipides at January 27, 2009 09:34 AMGuys:
Do not blame Republicans for opposing Obama's stimulus package. That is what they will do to see a Democrat does not succeed as a president. For them party is first and country is second.
I blame the Democratic leadership such as Pelocy and Reid who have no guts to tell these Repubs that go ahead and filibuster and we will expose you to the the American public as obstructinists.
Pelocy and Reid should be hitting airwaves exposing these unpatriotic Repubs who always talk about how everybody else except Repubs are unpatriotic.
Posted by suresh at January 27, 2009 09:47 AMGOPers doing what they do. Doesn't have anything to do with what's good for the nation. And what's more, the nation understands what they do, and don't like it. The same old losers doing the same thing over and over. If it worked, McCain would be president and they'd still have majorities....but it doesn't, and everyone knows it.
Posted by T2 at January 27, 2009 09:55 AMOpen letter to the Democratic Leadership,
This morning I heard Mitch McConnell on NPR saying that the problems that President Obama was facing getting his stimulus package passed came from Senate Democrats and others in the Democratic party.
I nearly shouted at the radio.
Not because McConnell was right, but because I only heard a Republican voice. And I don’t necessarily blame NPR for that.
When are elected Democrats going to learn to work effectively to get their message across? And I hate to say it, but when are they going to grow a spine and learn to show the bankruptcy of most Republican ideas? Where are the Democrats talking about how Republicans are threatening America’s economic recovery by threatening to hold up the stimulus?
This isn’t an isolated incident. I feel like this has been happening for years. I can still remember a newspaper headline saying that the Democratic controlled Congress had failed to pass a bill. It was a publicly popular bill and Republicans were threatening a filibuster. Why wasn’t the headline Republicans filibuster another popular bill?
I know that we have a “free press” and politician don’t control what papers print, but I also know that with better messaging and a real desire to get your message out there you can influence what people write.
Don’t mistake Obama’s victory with a sudden upwelling in solid support for Democratic ideas or a permanent repudiation of Republican ideas. I offer my friend, a liberal medical doctor, as an example. She said she almost voted for Dino Rossi (Republican) for Washington State Governor because she didn’t see Christine Gregoire (Democrat)as an effective leader. What it came down to was that my friend just didn’t see or hear enough about what Governor Gregoire had actually accomplished.
Get on it people! I am not saying create acrimony for the sake of it, but don’t be so afraid of challenging Republican talking points and the news people who parrot them. Don't be afraid of pushing Democratic values.
Posted by SeaMBA at January 27, 2009 10:13 AMWhat it came down to was that my friend just didn’t see or hear enough about what Governor Gregoire had actually accomplished.
Exactly! Not to mention on the classical station I listen to, it was 3 weeks of non-stop Rossi commercials exclusively before Gregoire's team finally got one up. By then, much damage was done. Obama's looking at the same kind of damage here if he doesn't get those surrogates in front of every camera out there.
Posted by iamcoyote at January 27, 2009 10:45 AMGawd Dammit. When is the Democratic Caucus going to figure out how to play the game of political theatre?! I am so sick of the friggin' Republicans spread all across the airways with their "message." Thier message, of course, is all lies and fairy tales, but at least they are telling it.
The Dems need to be on the TeeVees just as much - no, wait - we are in the Majority by a large amount...we need to be on the TeeVees MORE than the Republican hacks. We need to be on speaking in sound bites and sell what it is that needs to be done.
The Republicans are crying about how the House Leadership just will not work with them.
For gawd-sakes you dumb ass Republican Hacks - YOU LOST! You lost bigtime and we do not need to "work with you." Your ideas do not work. Your ideas wrecked our economy and wrecked the world economy.
We do not need more "tax cuts" for the wealthy and the corporations. We do not need more "de-regulation." Stupid pricks. We do not need more of what poisoned us.
Screw the Republicans.
Posted by Anjha at January 27, 2009 10:55 AMexcellent points.
Obama will soon see that the only thing that Repubs respect is raw power and defeating your opponent totally. Like lizards and other lower animal forms, they don't understand compromise and they only fear (and respect) being beaten to a pulp and having their eggs and young lizards smashed on the rocks. They CANNOT be cajoled into doing something for the sake of the country, or because they lost an election (that's only relevant to participants in a democracy). Repubs only respect the execise of power, like the crypto-fascists and militarists they are and idolize.
So that means they must be crushed like rats by a full court Dem press, both branches, 24 hours a day. And we'll need to see if the corporate press is willing to dispense the undiluted Dem message---most likely not, they only repeat Repub talking point verbatim, Dem points are challenged, watered down and distorted. The Repubs will either be destroyed or they will win. There's is no middle ground.
It was folly to think the Repubs could be talked into going along for the price of a few business tax cuts, but now Obama knows the reality, or better know. The attack should be that the Repubs are threatening the long-term economic health of the country solely to preserve the failed Bushco tax cuts for the rich and corporations. And that the Repubs are openly attempting to flout and block the results of our national election, just as they did in 2006 by blocking an Iraq timetable.
If you don't go 100% against this rump fascist party 24/7 and beat the brains out of their heads, they will keep using their corporate press to frustrate every policy proposal, in every area.
The Repubs have no moderates left to lose in the House, they just don't care about appearing obstructionist because the people they represent are 100% brain dead reactionary Fox watchers. So don't treat House Repubs as a group to "work with". They are a group to threaten with extinction by thrashing them at every turn, castigating them for every disaster, blaming every national problem on them directly. That has the benefit of being the truth.
Posted by euzoius at January 27, 2009 10:55 AMfolks;
If you feel strongly that President Obama should confront Repubs with strength because he did get the mandate in the election and do what is right for the country, please send an e-mail to Whitehouse or call at 202-456-1111. I did.
Posted by suresh at January 27, 2009 01:25 PMIt could be that President Obama is letting the Republicans show themselves for what they are, he offered them his hand and they gave him theback of theirs.
The more the bipartisan is played up, the hardeer it will be for the gopper thugs to do what they are already doing and get away with it.
Of course that sounds like the Harry Reid ji=jutsu we were all counting on back in the day, but it sounds more realistic to me.
Posted by Duckman GR at January 27, 2009 11:39 PM