Took the Words Right Out of My Mouth

Read this now:

So it is hard for me to reconcile this mass approbation of blatant stupidity with the achievements we Americans have given to the world. We as a nation and as a culture have had so many shining, glorious moments where stupidity was forced to STFU. We put a man on the moon - several, in fact - and it was the Failure Is Not An Option inventiveness that got Lovell, Swigert and Haise back to earth alive. We split the atom. We invented the light bulb, the telephone, the airplane, peanut butter and chocolate chip cookies.

We invented the circular saw, the electric hot water heater, the elevated railway system, the engine muffler, the fire escape, Kevlar, the life raft, the medical syringe, the railway crossing gate, the rotary engine, the submarine telescope, the windscreen wiper – all inventions by American women, by the way.

The pictures are priceless...

8 Years and No Conservative Mentions Him

Funny how quickly that conservatives erased the name "George W. Bush" from their vocabularies. How quickly he went from God's Warrior to the invisible man. But then again, I guess it's hard to lecture people on the constitution when you supported a man who violated American's 4th amendment right to be free from illegal search and seizure and whose administration was successfully sued for violating the first amendment rights of citizens:

The Ranks, who wanted to attend the President's Fourth of July address without being mistaken for supporters of his policies, wore homemade t-shirts bearing the international "no" symbol (a circle with a diagonal line across it) superimposed over the word "Bush." One t-shirt said "Love America, Hate Bush" on the back and the other said "Regime Change Starts At Home." Event staff and law enforcement ordered them either to leave the event or remove or cover their shirts. The couple responded by insisting they had a First Amendment right to remain and express their views. The two were arrested for trespassing, handcuffed, and hauled away in a police van. The charges against them were later dismissed and the City of Charleston, not a defendant in the case, apologized for the incident.

Another great example of the conservative's "free speech for me, but not for thee" attitude. I guess their mistake was not showing up with guns strapped to their legs.

I'm also guessing that it also could put a crimp in your "Obama is Hitler" meme if you start counting the unprovoked wars he's started compared to Bush (0-1), or if you start talking about Bush's refusal to comply with the Geneva Conventions prohibiting torture.

But the main reason why they have erased him from view is his legacy:

Bush's record on poverty is equally bleak. When Clinton left office in 2000, the Census counted almost 31.6 million Americans living in poverty. When Bush left office in 2008, the number of poor Americans had jumped to 39.8 million (the largest number in absolute terms since 1960.) Under Bush, the number of people in poverty increased by over 8.2 million, or 26.1 per cent. Over two-thirds of that increase occurred before the economic collapse of 2008.


The trends were comparably daunting for children in poverty. When Clinton left office nearly 11.6 million children lived in poverty, according to the Census. When Bush left office that number had swelled to just under 14.1 million, an increase of more than 21 per cent.

That's what the healthcare fight (and more fights to come) is really about, the fact that Americans are suffering tangibly from Republican policies. If healthcare reform and other "liberal" policies are successful, it will be a huge blow to conservative ideology in the eyes of non-partisan americans. It's telling that the conservatives are fighting so desparately to prevent people from ever seeing those policies in action.

They're so desparate that they are willing to incite the simple-minded in their ranks to violence, while trying to maintain plausible deniability ("I had no idea you would interpret my calling the President a 'grandmother killer who must be stopped at all costs while we still have our guns' as a call to violence".) It's working, and it's dispicable.

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...