Wednesday Open Thread [2.11.15]
Andrew Sullivan, in one of his last blog posts, writes:
I’ve long insisted that his record will only be fully understood after eight years, that his role as the liberal Reagan of our time could not be glimpsed fully in real time – the only time a blog can function in – but needed some perspective. […]
The Republican Congress, as one might expect from a brain-dead party, has staggered or meandered out of the gate in 2015. It awaits a message and a platform from a presidential candidate. And look a little at what they’re (the prospective GOP candidates) saying. Romney wanted to run on tackling poverty. Jeb Bush is running on economic mobility. There is, in fact, a budding consensus that social and economic inequality is a real problem – and that the right should have some sort of answer. […] But as growth has returned, the Democrats have the advantage: “middle-class economics” may well only work by raising some taxes on the extremely wealthy, in order to de-rig the system, and the Democrats may be the only party prepared to do this. The last six years, moreover, have vindicated the Democratic strategy of using a stimulus to get out of recession, rather than the Republican one of following Angela Merkel toward deflation.
The wars? They’ve become minimalist. The economy? It’s growing faster than anywhere else in the world. The deficit? Plummeting. Unemployment? Lower than before the recession. Gay rights? A revolution. Climate change? A decisive shift in government spending and regulations. Healthcare? A new guarantee of security for millions (including me) that will become very hard to take away – unless the Supreme Court decides to politicize itself more profoundly than it has since Roe vs Wade. Iran? Still very hard to tell if the negotiations can work – but we seem to have avoided premature Congressional meddling. Legal weed? He got well out of the way. Iraq? So far, the ISIS containment strategy seems to be holding. Israel? The final showdown with Netanyahu is imminent – but again, Bibi may have over-reached in the last few weeks. If he is not re-elected, it will be a huge triumph for the president. Torture? Ended with at least some formal, public accounting. There is much more work to be done. But we have made a start.
Knowing Obama – and history – some of these assumptions will shift in the next two years.
He’s always worked our nerves – and so can events unknown. But the case for this unlikely president as a pivotal figure in American history – ridiculed by so many for so long – is mounting. I have mixed feelings, of course. [I] can see this presidency as a critical balancing out of the excesses of the Bush-Cheney years – and the Reagan legacy – in order to keep the ship of state on an even keel. […]
I’m known for changing my mind, when the facts change. But on this, I remain convinced that we were more than right to elect Obama twice. His even temperament, his endurance of so many slings and arrows, his integrity and his patriotism loom large at this moment, but will seem, in my view, even larger from the rear-view mirror. We will miss this man when he is gone; and I am deeply proud of having played some small part in framing the case for him, and in seeing it through.
Ah yes. One last time with feeling.
Meep meep, motherfuckers. Meep Meep.
“With about two weeks to go before the Department of Homeland Security runs out of funding, congressional Republicans appear to be stuck. You have House Republicans saying they’ve done their part by passing their DHS spending bill, which includes language rolling back President Obama’s immigration actions. And you have Senate Republicans throwing the ball back in the House’s court, because the House GOP measure — due to Democrats’ successful filibusters — can’t get 60 votes in the Senate. And right now, no one knows (or at least is telling us) how we get out of this mess.”
“Now two weeks is a lifetime in Washington politics. But if cooler heads are going to prevail, they need to start working on a solution ASAP. Don’t forget this reality of governing in times of divided government: For legislation to become law, it needs to get 1) 218 votes in the House, 2) at least 60 votes in the Senate, and 3) the president’s signature. In other words … compromise. And that’s something that’s been missing all too often over the past four-plus years.”
