Punting the Pundits

 What Digby said Goldilocks Triangulation

There’s a ton of discussion this morning about this article in which unnamed White House functionaries run to Politico to complain that nobody understands them. I think it pretty much speaks for itself, but there are some points worth discussing.

First of all, the central premise seems to be that liberals should be happy that Obama has “gotten something done” without regard to what that “something” is. But the fact is that professional politicians always rattle off a legislative laundry list while activists care about process, politics and policy — and average voters only care about the results. (The press cares about “the score”, however they decide to define it that day.) A successful president is expected to know how to manage all of that — and browbeating his voters is rarely a winning strategy.

Therefore, his political advisers should know that when the country is still reeling from unemployment and foreclosures after nearly two years, the passage of an inadequate stimulus bill, which unrealistic benchmarks and a giddy victory party ensured would be the only chance they got, the only people who will consider that a “success” would be beltway insiders. They should have realized that a health care bill that nobody in their right minds would have designed from scratch, the worst aspects of which liberals will be asked to defend for years to come, would be met with dampened enthusiasm by those who watched the process devolve from a sense of progressive purpose to an exhausting farce. They are expected to be able to predict that financial reform without accountability for what’s gone before, combined with the administration’s unwillingness to confront the civil liberties abuse of the last administration — indeed expanding on them in some cases — would show a lack of fundamental concern for justice among those who care about such things.

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Still, running to Politico to complain about the immature liberals would seem to be even more counterproductive than usual. Indeed, it’s so counterproductive that I have to assume this is a conscious triangulation tactic. After all, if what you are upset about is liberals failing to be properly supportive, it hardly seems wise to take to the Drudge Daily to complain about them, does it? But then even these anonymous whiners can’t be so stupid as to think browbeating a bunch of liberal bloggers has any meaning among anyone but the Village elite so that’s obviously what this is about — creating a Goldilocks meme among the media that says because Obama is criticized by both the immature bloggers and the radical tea party, he must be juuust riiiight. That won’t do the Democrats any good in the short run, but it sounds like a 2012 strategy in the making.  

Joan Walsh at Salon

White people to NAACP: Time to disband! White people to NAACP: Time to disband!

It’s good to learn that right-wing Caucasians know what’s best for blacks. Plus: Read Mark Williams’ racist letter

Ben Jealous, give it up. Your organization, the NAACP, is no longer needed. How do I know? I read it in a press release today from a group of “Nevada Conservative Leaders and Grassroots Activists,” which told me that “In 2010, the NAACP has outlived its usefulness.” Thanks, white people!

A lot of white conservatives are upset with the NAACP this week for daring to talk about racists in the Tea Party movement. The group passed a resolution asking the Tea Party to condemn the racists in its midst. It didn’t denounce the entire Tea Party, as simple-minded folk like Sarah Palin have claimed; it merely tries to take supporters at their word that only a tiny fringe of the movement harbors any racist sentiment, by asking those supporters to denounce that fringe. What’s the problem?

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Word to the Tea Partiers: You could learn from the NAACP, which has survived 101 years, despite plenty of strife from within and without. Tea Partiers seem so fractious they could kill their own movement before the voters get a chance to reject them in November.

Heather B. Hamilton at The Hill

Senate’s dereliction of duty a danger to U.S. leadership

As the Senate begins debate on the U.S.-Russia New START arms-reduction treaty, we must not lose sight of a glaring problem in our national security: the impact that the U.S. failure to join major multilateral treaties has on our capacity to exercise global leadership. This failure threatens to make us, in a sad parody of Madeline Albright’s famous phrase, the “dispensable nation.”

The world is not waiting for us. As it becomes clear the treaties we negotiate might never be ratified, our power to shape their formation will wane. The rest of the world will continue negotiating multilateral treaties to shape vital international issues – with or without the United States. This position is dangerous. Each of the threats we face today – terrorism, climate change, poverty, infectious diseases – can only be solved through global efforts and global rules.  

Joe Conason at Salon

Obama talks green jobs with Bill Clinton (finally)

The Washington press corps that used to bash Bill Clinton reflexively (and still cannot always resist the same old impulse) is suddenly fixated on a different kind of narrative: the highly popular former president as political savior for the current president and his endangered congressional majority. Polling data shows there is  substance in that storyline, but many news organizations exaggerated the meaning of Clinton’s meeting in the White House Wednesday afternoon with President Obama, other administration officials and a small group of corporate executives.

Depicted as an attempt to deploy Clinton to soothe corporate leaders who are furious at Obama, the Wednesday visit was actually devoted to a mundane subject: the energy efficiency loan guarantee program that Clinton has vainly tried to promote for many months as a source of fresh investment and as many as a million new jobs.