President Obama on Boehner Leaving Debt Talks

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1. Delaware Dem says:

   July 22, 2011 at 10:38 pm

   I like angry hulk smash Obama. I need more of this. We all need more of this.

2. anon40 says:

   July 22, 2011 at 10:42 pm

   Sorry, but GWB (a moron in President’s clothing) had a much better “tough guy” persona than Obama does. I voted for Obama & he’s been a colossal disappointment.

   He’s been a pushover to this point. No one w/ a brain in his/her head will ever consider him to be “tough” on ANY issue until/unless he actually GETS TOUGH on an issue that matters to voters.

3. El Somnambulo says:

   July 23, 2011 at 8:21 am

   Obama has given away the store, and has let everyone know he’s a total pushover. Boehner storms out of talks. Inevitable result? Obama gives away even more.

   Everything has fallen apart, and I don’t mean the budget deliberations. I find this to be the single most depressing era in my lifetime. Unfettered business has won, unalloyed crazy is winning. Progressivism is irrelevant, at least in the way that this country works, or doesn’t work, now.

   Koch Bros Uber Alles.

4. puck says:

   July 23, 2011 at 8:59 am

   Obama hasn’t given anything away.* It’s all just swirling around right now.

   I think Obama may have heard the useless Internet bitching of the purists, and is now trying to win himself an election.

   *recently

5. puck says:

   July 23, 2011 at 9:22 am

   Crap, do I have to give props to Tom Coburn? A perpetual nominee for Senator Least Likely To Find Sanity? But there it is:

   “I think it’s terrible that we would have to raise more taxes,” Coburn said on C-SPAN’s “Washington Journal.” “But if we’re going to get an agreement in Washington to fix our problems, when those of us that don’t want to raise taxes control the House of Representatives, don’t control the Senate, don’t control the White House — I think it’s pretty stupid and naive to think you’re going to win that battle.”

   and

   “I would rather fix the country and lose a battle with Grover Norquist than send our country down the tubes and pay attention to a point of view that is just suicide,” Coburn said. “And the fact is that there’s a lot of ways to enhance the revenue to the federal government. Reforming the tax code is a way to do it but we have to get $4 trillion.”

6. El Somnambulo says:

   July 23, 2011 at 9:54 am

   Seriously, Puck, please. From the beginning of his administration, Obama has demonstrated he can be easily rolled. On issue after issue. Nobody of note even goes to jail after stealing billions, BILLIONS, from the taxpayers.

   Even the ‘layups’, serious financial reform in the wake of the banking scandal, for example, turned out as victories for the big financial institutions.

   Obama has already made it clear that he’s willing to sacrifice much of what remains of a true Democratic legacy. You think he’s gonna suddenly grow a pair now? He’s probably trying to figure out how he can ‘help’ Boehner round up the votes he needs. You can bet they won’t be progressive votes.

   And need I remind you that even when the D’s controlled both houses, Obama and his D leaders governed as if they were demonstrating that they wanted to be bipartisan partners with the Rethugs. Where, exactly, did THAT get us?

   I haven’t been one of the ‘one-notes’ over here constantly bashing Obama. But I think that the pattern is now unavoidably clear. Rethugs draw a line in the sand, Obama caves, Rethugs march forward and draw YET ANOTHER line in the sand, Obama caves. Wash, rinse, repeat.

   Meanwhile, the safety net shreds, and we as Democrats stand for, what, exactly? ‘We’re marginally better than Republicans’ is not exactly a rallying cry that gets my blood coursing.

7. El Somnambulo says:

   July 23, 2011 at 10:12 am

   Oh, and as for Coburn, of COURSE he’s pushing this.

   He realizes that his Rethugs have gotten 90% of what they want. Probably stuff they never IMAGINED they’d get. Social Security and Medicare are, for the first time, being hit. When a whacko tells his fellow whackos not to be even more whacko than he is, that doesn’t make him a statesman. Just a Cheshire Cat realist.

   So, for a few really modest prospective tax increases, the R’s continue to dismantle the New Deal.

   Aided and abetted by Obama and the Corporatocrats, like Carper, who owe their allegiance to industries, not people.

   Oh, and by the way, have you noticed that the country is in a deep recession with seemingly no way out?

   Is it too early to start drinking yet?

8. puck says:

   July 23, 2011 at 1:01 pm

   Okay, but amid the landscape of all these failed Democrats, Obama is at this moment standing up and saying we need to increase taxes on the rich and defend the safety net. Among Democrats he is almost alone in this right now. We need to give him credit for that. Whether you believe him or not is another matter. I obviously am skeptical myself. He just cut taxes for the rich eight months ago.

   Go ask Carper, Coons, and Carney if they will refuse to support a deal without taxes on the rich, or that cuts Medicare or Social Security. See what they say – will they make the same commitment as the President? They won’t. Obama has finally gotten to the left of the Democratic caucus.

   And it is more than empty rhetoric – Obama has issued a veto threat against budget-cutting deals that don’t include revenue. This is how a Democrat is supposed to use the power of the Presidency. This is how he should have handled the expiration of the tax cuts last December. I think he may have learned from that mistake.

   Obama has proposed devastating cuts to the safety net – but safe in the knowledge that as long as tax increases were attached, Norquist would prevent them from ever being accepted. And as a result he has snatched the “grownup” mantle from Republicans.

   If Obama really wanted to attack the safety net, he’d drop the insistence on revenue and the cuts would be signed by now.