Wednesday Morning Reading

I Trust It Is Now Clear Democrats Hate The Left

by Ian Welsh, September 29 2010

Now that virtually everyone of any importance, up to and including the President has told you that they hate you, that you are a bunch of unrealistic ingrates who need to be drug tested, I trust no one still thinks the White House doesn’t hate the left’s guts, and that it comes from the very top, from the President?

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Not just that, but for whatever reason, these folks either don’t care about winning elections or are so incompetent they can’t see the obvious.  Everyone with any track record of being, y’know, right, told them the stimulus was too small and every political consultant knows the economy is the most important thing to reelection chances, yet they passed an inadequate stimulus anyway.  In a midterm election where they need the base to come out, they have spent the last six months insulting the base and engaging in policy after policy meant to enrage it.  They could have, for example, put off filing a brief arguing that government secrecy allows the president to assassinate any American he wants anytime until after the election, but they chose not to.

It is, for whatever reason, more important to Democrats to “hippie punch” than it is for them to win elections. It is more important for them to serve Wall Street, even if Wall Street gives more money to Republicans, than it is to win elections.  Further, they are  very happy to do very non-liberal things, like restrict abortion rights, forbid drug reimportation, gut net neutrality or try and cut social security.

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This is your Democratic party.  These people are the problem. As long as they are around, the problem can never be solved.  If it could be, they would have done so.  This means, sorry folks, that the only hope for liberalism and for America to avoid a complete economic meltdown, is for Democrats to be swept out of power and for as many Dems who aren’t reliable progressives to lose their seats as possible.

Yes, the Republicans will do worse things, but that’s going to happen anyway.  And in some cases, as with Social Security, it is better to have Republicans in power, because it is easier to fight Republican efforts to gut SS than it is to fight Democratic efforts to do so.

Obama Scapegoats His Own Voters

By: Cenk Uygur Wednesday September 29, 2010 3:05 am

They think they’re going to lose and they’re setting up a scapegoat. It wasn’t that they ran a bad campaign or that they didn’t deliver on their promises – it was their ungrateful voters and the damned professional left. Actually, Washington reporters will love this. There is nothing they enjoy more than beating up on progressive activists and the Democratic base. This strategy is tailored made for the DC elite. They’re going to eat it up!

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I think they still believe that the DC media is a good proxy for the mood of the country. That is a stunning and inexcusable error. But they’re so deep in, they can’t even see that losing the election and winning over the DC establishment is not a win or a wash, that’s a gigantic loss. Do you think making David Broder happy will win you the 2012 election?

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Almost everyone in Washington is there because they succeeded in this broken, corrupt system. If you make them happy, you’ve probably done the exact opposite of what you were supposed to do.

What got you elected was the promise to throw those bums out on their asses not to cater to them. But if you like, you can take another cheap shot at the people trying to help you and see if that changes the polls. My guess is it won’t. And then when you blame us again, the only people happy will be the ones in DC who hate change.

Obama’s CYA 2010 Talking Points for Rolling Stone

by Taylor Marsh, 28 September 2010 4:18 pm

Barack Obama is never responsible. What’s worse is that it doesn’t even occur to the President to show humility in the face of compromises with Republicans that manifested policies that haven’t solved the problems he was sent to fix. I won’t take you through the litany of bipartisan mush Obama and his loyalists call “accomplishments,” most of which any Democratic president elected in 2008 could have gotten done with a Republican Congress, though we’ll never know what a could have done with a Democratic majority if Pres. Obama would have been bold instead of compromising with the minority at every turn.

The hubris of Pres. Obama to point the finger at voters at a time when it’s his responsibility and that of the Dem leadership to make the case for Democrats is choking.

Pres. Obama obviously thinks Democratic voters are his bitch and an abused one at that; the more you whip the stupid wench the more she’ll perform for you, no matter whether she gets anything for her trouble. After all, she’s got nowhere else to go, right?