Comment Rescue: I see your Matt Damon, and raise you a George Clooney
I endorse this message wholeheartedly. As I do this comment from commenter think123:
President Obama’s in a second term will be less fitful than his first. The agenda that Obama ran on was totally upended by the economic crisis of late 2008. That was the game changer. Remember the DOW dropped 6000 points. Most all the biggest banks and brokers were dead. The insurance company that insured a lot of the risk, AIG, was insolvent. President Bush declared an economic “emergency”. So let’s get real. Obama focused rightly on the financial fires. By no fault of his own, the Obama agenda was reset by crisis not design. A tough way to come to the White House. Administer TARP, design a recovery program, save the auto industry. None of that was in the works during the 2007-08 campaign.
Even so, we got the Credit Card Act, Healthcare Reform, Dodd-Frank, with the new Consumer Financial Protection Agency, lots of less heralded initiatives like a big new push for exports that’s paying off. We’re just now regaining financial equilibrium. The DOW recovered. Up from 6000 to 12000. We’re adding jobs instead of losing them. The GDP is positive instead of negative. If this was baseball instead of politics, the numbers would speak over all else.
On foreign policy, the campaign promises – to disengage from Iraq, go after Al-Qaeda in Pakistan were met. Obama adroitly managed a number of tricky foreign challenges from pirates, bin Laden, to Libya. Each time passing the test of leadership.
Not sure what people were expecting. Obama is perfect for the times. Smart, cool, collected. A calm poised presence in a great national storm. That alone, is worth re-election. We can never tell exactly what a president will decide. That’s why character does count. A good solid character. A good family man. Father and husband.
No President in modern history has encountered the kind of mindless opposition heaped upon Obama. White politicians demanding our first black president produce his birth certificate. The leader of the Senate vowing defeat of Obama was goal one. A joint session marred by a Republican yelling liar. The Rupert Murdoch hack news propaganda campaign. Obama hates white people, but likes communists. That’s been Murdoch’s Glenn Beck message for most of this first term. Murdock using all of his resources in America to defame and defeat Obama.
Obama is a good Christian man. It’s up to us voters to shield him from the barbarians at the gate.
I have no doubt George Clooney thinks it has been a very successful three years.
I stand by my prior comment. By not fighting for himself, in effect he was not fighting for us. That is not easily forgivable.
Explain to me how the hell he fights the Birthers. Or the insane conspiracies of Glen Beck? Sometimes ignoring it and mockery are the only answers.
The President is powerless argument. Here we go again.
And here we go again with your argument that the President should have done something and then offer no suggestions whatsoever.
Tell me what he could have done to silence the Birthers or Glenn Beck or shut up about it. Seriously.
One thing he could have done is issue a veto threat on the crown jewel of the 1%, the Bush tax cuts for the rich. That would have shut them up in a hurry when they realized they had to vote for the middle-class-only cuts, or nothing.
And after smacking Republican ass in that way, and with that restored revenue flowing in, a lot of bullshit that happened this year probably wouldn’t have happened, especially around the debt deal. And Democrats like John Carney would have had less cover to go around calling for austerity.
Maybe.
However, remember, a year ago, the Occupy protests had not happened yet, and the Occupy protests did a lot to finally change focus the media and Congress away from harsh austerity to jobs and income equality.
But I will grant you that he could have done that and maybe the media would not have crucified him.
It would have been worth it to see Grover Norquist’s head explode. It would have taken Grover out of play for the debt deal.
But my comment to Jason was really about the crazy attacks from the Birthers and Glenn Beck. I will grant that there are things Obama could done policy wise and it was a mistake on his part not to do it.
But the screaming from the Birthers and Glenn Beck and the Tea Baggers is something else entirely, and I can see nothing the President could have done to either rebut them or silence them. Indeed, when he did finally release the long form, it did nothing to shut them up.
I think that is kind of the point though. Obama showed weakness in the HCR battle, and like any good bully, the Beckers and the Birthers smelled blood and stepped up their attacks. Remember the RNC memo, suggesting Republicans attack Obama with those Joker caricatures? And Obama behaved like a victim, next giving in on the tax cut extension.
Everyone, including Republicans believed Obama would capitulate to anything Republicans threw at them. Paul Ryan was totally and genuinely shocked that Obama would not instantly accept his budget, remember? Because Obama had built up those expectations of weakness, which he has still not fully shed.
“One thing he could have done is issue a veto threat on the crown jewel of the 1%, the Bush tax cuts for the rich”
Please look at the bill (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tax_Relief,_Unemployment_Insurance_Reauthorization,_and_Job_Creation_Act_of_2010). It was not a bill that ONLY extended the Bush tax cuts for the rich (this cost $53B). it also extended unemployment benefits (this cost $56B) and had the one year payroll tax cut ($111B).
To say that Congress gave Obama a bill to extend the Bush tax cuts and he failed to veto it is a crock.
This President has done more to set back the fight for civil liberties, equal justice under law, and human rights than any other president in my lifetime, including George W. Bush. Meanwhile, he continues to slaughter hundreds of innocent people in secret wars, send Americans to kill and die fighting the Taliban, while his VP, Biden the Clown, declares yesterday that “The Taliban, per se, is not our enemy.” WTF. Who does he think is shooting and killing American Soldiers?
And if you’re a partisan Democrat, you have to be deliberately blind to not see how he destroyed the progress that Dean made in rebuilding the party. The fact that the House is now run by repubs is a direct result of Obama’s failed political leadership.
Blaming Beck and the Birthers is just laughable.
Paul, Obama’s defunding of Social Security while extending the Bush Tax Cuts for the wealthy is nothing to brag about.
Neither is lying about the circumstances of those votes. Maybe lying is too strong a word. Forgetting the circumstances.
“To say that Congress gave Obama a bill to extend the Bush tax cuts and he failed to veto it is a crock.”
Read what I wrote and try again.
By the way, Clooney is full of it. If Obama had had been a firm believer in sticking by his own promises and standing up for the people who voted for him, none of this discussion would be happening.
puck, we have a communication problem.
you wrote “One thing he could have done is issue a veto threat on the crown jewel of the 1%, the Bush tax cuts for the rich. That would have shut them up in a hurry when they realized they had to vote for the middle-class-only cuts, or nothing.
And after smacking Republican ass in that way, and with that restored revenue flowing in, a lot of bullshit that happened this year probably wouldn’t have happened, especially around the debt deal. And Democrats like John Carney would have had less cover to go around calling for austerity.”
I think that you are expressing frustration that Obama did not veto or threaten vetoing the bill that NOT ONLY included a 2 year continuation of the Bush tax rates, BUT ALSO provided necessary support to the unemployed, and a one-year hand up for workers (very progressive, as it capped the benefit on only the first $105,000 or so of earned income). I think that my response was and still is appropriate, even given your complete posting.
There was no other bill that he could veto than this one, which had a BUNCH of stuff in it, including MUCH for those hardest hit with the financial meltdown (which occurred on Bush’s and Republican’s watch).
I question that ‘revenues would roll in’ simply from letting the Bush rates expire. Look at the math–one year of earlier tax rate restoration brings in $27B. this would be coupled with $111B less in the economy (and, granted, more in the SS trust fund), which would have SOME negative impact on federal tax revenues. This doesn’t seem to me to be a prescription for revenues rolling in, at such an early point in the economic recovery.
My point is that vetoing the bill that extended the bush tax levels for two years would have been at the price of even more foreclosures and homelessness and a possible ‘double dip recession’, given the lack of unemployment benefits and economic stimulative impact of the one-year payroll tax cut–not exactly a Democratic high point.
puck, Unlike anonone, your comments here are always clear and honest. Please help me understand what you see that I am missing.
I am just curious, Anonone. Who are you voting for? I know it isn’t Obama. Is there a Green candidate this year? Is Nader running again? Or will you more directly help the Republicans in actually voting for them?
Del Dem, I will wait and see what my choices are. Maybe no one.
The House passed a tax cut bill on December 2, 2010, the Middle Class Tax Relief Act of 2010, that exactly fulfilled Obama’s signature campaign promise to expire the Bush tax cuts over $250K.
On December 3, Obama turned up in a surprise visit to Afghanistan while the House bill representing his signature campaign promise was on the Senate floor. That gave the game away that Obama had already capitulated. It’s hard to fight for your bill when you aren’t even in the country.
On December 4 the House bill failed in the Senate 53-36 (That is Senate math. I am always unnerved to see it).
Now my dear Watson, why did Republicans filibuster a tax cut, when they love tax cuts so much? You see how they are sweating today to think they might be held responsible letting the payroll tax cuts expire. So why didn’t we make them sweat like that last December?
The answer is simple: Because Obama gave them an out. Obama sent Biden around to reassure Senate Republicans that Democrats would capitulate and there would be another bill the following week for the whole extension, so don’t worry about voting No on middle class tax cuts.
Had there been a firm veto threat on the full extension and no second bill, I firmly believe the Senate would have passed the House bill, and our economy and our politics would have been very different in 2011.
Can you imagine the chaos in Republican ranks if Obama had let them know it was the House bill, or nothing? But Obama caved. Not only did he cave, but he pre-caved, signaling his capitulation before he had made the Repubs sweat over it.
I am not impressed by the linkage between the UI and other extras in the bill. All of those things could have been fought and won later.
Obama and the fearful Dems had it exactly backward: The most important thing was the expiration of the tax cuts for the rich, even if it meant giving up the middle class cuts and other add-ons. Rarely in politics do you get an automatic tax increase on the rich just by keeping your pen in your pocket.
So the point of all that was – I remain to be convinced the past is not prologue.