The Old Double Standard

I just got done watching ABC News trot out 3 right wing commentators to criticize President Obama for taking a week of vacation, 7 months into his first term. So I did a quick web search and found this:

well-funded anti-reform group Conservatives for Patients Rights has been preparing a new ad attacking President Obama’s Martha’s Vineyard vacation.

Another quick search and I found this (note the date):

08/06/2001 - Updated 10:24 PM ET
CRAWFORD, Texas — Taking a 30-day working vacation at his ranch after six months in office, President Bush is spending too much time away from the White House, according to a USA TODAY/CNN/Gallup Poll.
...
Bush's advisers are sensitive to the perception that he doesn't work as hard as some of his predecessors. If Bush returns as scheduled on Labor Day, he'll tie a modern record for presidential absence from the White House — held by Richard Nixon at 30 days. Ronald Reagan took trips as long as 28 days.

I can't help but think that the current criticism is rooted in the idea that the President is predisposed to be, you know, "lazy and shiftless" (for reasons they finally learned to not call out explicitly in public.)

The Cards Are Starting to Fall

I know it's painful to watch when our President uses his strategy, but it works. It's not even that hard to figure out.

1. Let your opponent take the initiative, while appearing to be caught off guard


2. Offer weak enough resistance to make them think they have the advantage


3. Make public attempts to compromise with your opponent, which will be refused


4. Present your case while (rightly) pointing out that your opponent has:
   a) staked out an extreme position
   b) refused your repeated efforts to work together (or in the case of the campaign, to find common ground)
   

It's no secret that this is his approach. It's exactly what he did in the campaign. It continues to be effective with the conservatives (Rs & blue dogs) because they are so willing to charge ahead and overreach.

This is not "37 dimensional chess", it's poker.

Liberals have the right and the duty to pressure their elected officials to be responsive to our agenda. I won't tell others to STFU, but I will say that there is an observable pattern here. Remembering that, I suggest not wasting energy on the "Obama is selling us out" drama.

I suspected that he would make his play toward the end of the recess. It's coming a little earlier than I thought. I think the "public option is not essential" talk was designed to elicit the response we saw both from the left (getting stirred up and active) and the right (Republican Senators stating publicly that it doesn't really matter what's in a HC bill, they're not voting for it).

And I bring up C&L today to see...

White House may ditch Republicans after all on health care reform

Anderson Cooper of CNN did a report last night that echoes the NY Times piece.

Cooper: After negotiating with republicans, conservative democrats and seemingly themselves over parts of a plan CNN has learned that the administration could be getting closer to a very big change. Namely crafting a health care bill and try to ram it through the Senate even if it passes by only a single vote.

Henry: Well Anderson there is no final decision, but Democrats close to the White House are saying that they are now actively considering the possibility of doing a go it alone strategy. It's a budget maneuver, very obscure known as reconciliation where they would only need a simple majority, 51 votes instead of 60 votes to push through health reform. Republicans would scream that this is a power grab, it's an underhanded move but White House officials privately are already laying out the ground work by saying look, we've been working with republicans for months. If they don't get something done in the next weeks we're going to have to take drastic measures....

John Amato attributes the change solely to pressure from the netroots. That may be true. I think it's also possible that Obama didn't leave his brain and soul at the door when he got to the white house and actually has a left of center agenda and a plan to implement it...

What the Rest of Us (Including Fox Anchors) See...

Update II:

A total of 33 Fox advertisers, including Walmart, CVS Caremark, Clorox and Sprint, directed that their commercials not air on Beck's show, according to the companies and ColorofChange.org, a group that promotes political action among blacks and launched a campaign to get advertisers to abandon him. That's more than a dozen more than were identified a week ago.

When we see Glenn Beck. I defy anyone to find & post equivalent incitement coming from a nationally broadcast commentator on the left.
Color of Change Petition here.

Update
Apparently the "fans" took the call to non-violence with a grain of salt:

One photojournalist said that a fistfight broke out inside the building, reports WTSP.

Many of the hundreds of protesters said that they had been inspired by a conservative activist group promoted by Fox News host Glenn Beck and some received emails from the county Republican party, according to the St. Petersburg Times:

Instead, hundreds of vocal critics turned out, many of them saying they had been spurred on through the Tampa 912 activist group promoted by conservative radio and television personality Glenn Beck. Others had received e-mails from the Hillsborough Republican party that urged people to speak out against the plan and offered talking points to challenge supporters.

Let's see what ol' Glenn has to offer...






Even Fox anchors think he's an idiot.


Here's some nice doublethink. Just one act of violence will get my show cancelled ruin the republic. Pay no attention to the acts that have already occurred...
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Before the Birthers Out Me...

Escape From L.A. California

Ok, Here's another "what Digby said" post. The Reagan revolution has reached its logical conclusion out on the west coast. I'm assuming that all the people who were counting on the state services that the Governator slashed will get food, shelter and medical care from the God-fearing Republicans and their private charities.

From Digby's post today:

Today we witness the damage that the line-item veto causes in the hands of a right-wing governor bent on using it to achieve his long-desired destruction of public services. Arnold's vetoes include:

• An additional $6.2 million cut from state parks, which will likely cause as many as 50 more parks to be closed (potentially 1/3 of parks - 100 total - will now have to close)

• Elimination of state funding for community health clinic programs

• $80 million cut to child welfare services

• Total of about $400 million in health care cuts, including further Healthy Families cuts

• Elimination of funding for the Williamson Act programs to preserve farmland from development

• Deeper cuts to HIV/AIDS programs, as Brian noted.

• Cut 80% of funding for domestic violence shelters

...

I sure hope the wealthy won't have reason to tread beyond their gated communities for the next few years because it's going to be a disease riddled, environmental hellhole out here for the rest of us. I suppose they can have supplies helicoptered in and bring their "concierge medicine" behind the fences. They're going to need to.

It's going to be expensive, but at least the losers won't be getting things they don't deserve.

Jeez, Perry must be jealous...

Repairing the Damage

New Pew poll on international opinions of the U.S. here.

The image of the United States has improved markedly in most parts of the world, reflecting global confidence in Barack Obama. In many countries opinions of the United States are now about as positive as they were at the beginning of the decade before George W. Bush took office. Improvements in the U.S. image have been most pronounced in Western Europe, where favorable ratings for both the nation and the American people have soared. But opinions of America have also become more positive in key countries in Latin America, Africa and Asia, as well.

Signs of improvement in views of America are seen even in some predominantly Muslim countries that held overwhelmingly negative views of the United States in the Bush years. The most notable increase occurred in Indonesia, where people are well aware of Obama's family ties to the country and where favorable ratings of the U.S. nearly doubled this year.

A sample:

Chuck Todd, White House Correspondent

Glenn Greenwald allows Chuck Todd of (MS)NBC to demonstrate his thought process. With "reporters" like this, it's no wonder that king george was able to break the law at will...
(the previous article they reference is here)

a sampling:

GG: So what do you think happens - I think what has destroyed our reputation is announcing to the world that we tolerate torture, and telling the world we don't --
CT: We have elections, we also had an election where this was an issue. A new president, who came in there, and has said, we're not going to torture, we're going to do this, and we're going to do this--
GG: What do you think should happen when presidents--
CT: Is that not enough? Isn't that enough?
GG: When, generally, if I go out and rob a bank tomorrow, what happens to me is not that I lose an election. What happens is to me is that I go to prison. So, what do you think should happen when presidents get caught committing crimes in office? What do you think ought to happen?
CT: You see, this is where, this is not - you cannot sit here and say this is as legally black and white as a bank robbery because this was an ideological, legal --
GG: A hundred people died in detention. A hundred people. The United States Government admits that there are homicides that took place during interrogations. Waterboarding and these other techniques are things that the United States has always prosecuted as torture.
Until John Yoo wrote that memo, where was the lack of clarity about whether or not these things were illegal? Where did that lack of clarity or debate exist? They found some right-wing ideologues in the Justice Department to say that this was okay, that's what you're endorsing. As long the president can do that, he's above the law. And I don't see how you can say that you're doing anything other than endorsing a system of lawlessness where the president is free to break the law?
CT: Well, look, I don't believe I'm endorsing a system of lawlessness; I'm trying to put in the reality that as much that there is a legal black and white here, there is a political reality that clouds this, and you know it does too.

So, the lesson I take from this is that no matter what a President (past, present or future) does, the corporate owned media (in this case, a joint venture of MSFT & GE) will be cheerleading (unless it impacts their bottom line). No wonder people are abandoning traditional media as fast as credible alternatives become available.