I just read this recommended diary at DailyKos. I, personally, didn't learn anything from it. I know there is a moratorium on deep water drilling and the diarist is outraged this doesn't extend to shallow drilling as well. Given the need for oil which lubricates every sector of our economy; I don't understand the tradeoffs of stopping all drilling and what that would do to a nascent economic recovery already threatened by this disaster.
But what I do know: James Carville saw BP CEO Tony Hayward and Coast Guard Adm. Thad Allen eating dinner together and that is apparently VERY fucked up people. I mean, WHOAH, how about that shit.
We all complain about the MSM.
We complain the administration isn't doing enough to sell progressive policies.
But on a day when the President makes a forceful case for the good of government; we have folks tearing him down without facts. The repetition of right wing memes by progressives against a liberal president is not only disturbing; it's a key reason for progressive failures to date IMO.
If we have no public option in health care, if we have no climate bill, if we have no second stimulus it can all be traced back to progressives joining in right wing frames of this president to create an echo chamber that limits the space this administration has to work within.
I see a lot of people with that FDR quote; make me do it. You know what; pushing right wing frames isn't making Obama do shit. It's reinforcing Republicans who were prior to this discredited completely in the public sphere.
Jane Hamsher did a post a while back about teabaggers and liberals joining together; yeah right (how did that work out on financial reform by the way?). The naivete of this sentiment and the blindness with which I'm watching progressives discuss the issues of the day is staggering.
I hope I'm being coherent because if I'm not, I apologize. But there is something REALLY wrong with what I'm reading and I'm not sure how to best present it. The only way I know how to begin is with this Carville thing.
That anecdote is political bullshit. It's grade A political bullshit; but it's political bullshit all the same. The Admiral and Hayword having dinner together isn't an issue; especially given the tougher line the White House has taken. What it is, just a way of saying hey Obama is a corporate suck up. This is a favorite progressive meme. Despite the fact, they hate the man too.
So when I read slinkerwink's diary I felt like I needed to educate myself; which is great. But I feel like that because I feel like I'm being played as opposed to informed; which is basically how journalism comes across this day and age. It's all spin.
I also felt like it was a cheap shot; given the global energy needs how is it helping to not do this drilling? I also wanted to know if MMS was requiring a relief well be drilled at the same time. If so, I don't have a problem with this news.
What I do have a problem with: the framing of this administration by slinkerwink.
She's not alone.
Romanoff's middle finger
Andrew Romanoff's release of an email from Jim Messina listing three senior government positions does some real damage to the White House, showing governance at its most transactional.
But it's also a sign of something else: How little Establishment Democrats like Romanoff fear the White House. It's a remarkable act of defiance.
Sen. Bennett with the full support of the White House is running for re-election. He was smart enough to move left and support this administrations goals. For that, he's getting a lot of help from the White House. Sen. Bennett has been a good democrat and taken a lot of progressive positions and has become MORE progressive facing this primary. He wasn't the idiot Blanche Lincoln has been; he knows Obama is the most popular democrat around and he needs to be on his side and likely to the left of him on some issues.
Romanoff, losing and pissed off, has pulled a Sestak. (ETA: Apparently, disingenuously. He applied for the job and the White House followed up and did so when he was thinking about running. But he wasn't guaranteed anything.)
The difference is that Romanoff isn't running against a Republican turned Democrat and Romanoff isn't going to gain much IMO from this; what he did do is validate Congressman Issa to the MSM and give them a reason to obsess over this story instead of focus on the President's speech yesterday making the case against Republicans.
I have yet to see push back on this story by progressives; which isn't surprising because the White House has been alone on a lot of issues.
I think Smith is wrong. This was not an act of defiance, it was the death throes of a campaign deciding that they're going to try something desperate to shake up the race no matter if it's good for the party or not. The President has done a remarkable job holding Democrats together to pass his agenda and holding on to his base. But the MSM likes the Obama is weak storyline.
What I don't understand is why so many at DailyKos like to validate that same point.
What's really weak is how progressives handle disappointments from the president.
George W. Bush screwed Republicans on a number of things; but they didn't say boo. Why? Because you protect the principal player in the administration no matter what. You don't reinforce the he's an idiot meme by parroting it; you say he's a strong swaggering cowboy.
And yet, I see progressive MORE than willing to call Obama weak. To say Obama is a coward. To say Obama isn't doing enough, that Obama lied, that Obama this or Obama that...to the point that people were defending Hamsher joining with Grover Norquist in a political witch hunt against the administration. That's how far down the rabbit hole some folks are.
That's what that Carville anecdote symbolizes.
The result: making less room for the White House to maneuver.
How you ask?
Well, let's go to the stimulus.
This was the largest progressive bill since the New Deal and online folks were trashing it to high heaven. Because they didn't get what they thought should happen; they acted like the pundits everyone likes to criticize. It's like some decided to post today that the White House didn't do enough so they can CYA if this didn't work. And what we have are a lot of online progressives echoing the Republicans stimulus won't work message. It's from different places; but the message was the same.
This happens over and over again. And it's why progressives have failed.
You see it in the stimulus: rather than sell it, sell the benefits, say we can do MORE. Folks said from jump we can never do this again and closed that door before the administration did; why? Because they wanted to pressure the White House and Congress into going 1.5 trillion large. Instead of taking 850 billion and saying this is great and we'll come back and do more; folks moan this is the end, it's not enough, we can't do this again, it won't work.
That's made every stimulus bill harder.
The same thing happened on health care: attacking the administration on process by the left fed the process attacks from the right. For a long time, the right just sat back and let liberals cannibalize each other.
I'm watching it happen again with this BP thing.
The administration responded swiftly. It did everything it could and has admitted to mistakes that it's corrected. But we have the left saying this is Katrina and Obama is incompetent; again echoing the right.
It's not true. Everyone who is anyone knows it's not true. It's basically become about waiting out a gusher that no one can stop and won't stop until August or at the worst the New Year. But because progressives have joined the right wing frame; this has become an open sore to the president and his team.
I don't know how that helps LA, the Gulf, or the environmental cause.
This has been too long and too rambling and I'm sorry I'm not putting this together better. But I think this trend of politically attacking EVERY damn thing and making everything a narrative and everything fit a cookie cutter 30 second spot which is what that Carville quote and the way it was used symbolizes; it's what's screwed up America and it's part of the failure of progressives who are not pushing the administration properly IMO.
We have real issues. We have real problems. We have real differences on policy. Between ourselves at DailyKos and the administration; that is healthy. What is not healthy politically is the way the Left has decided to attack the administration. Attacks don't work. You cut the White House; it's Republicans that get the benefit of first blood.
When FDR said make me do it; he meant go educate the public and pave a path through public opinion. The way financial reform went down; that's the way we should have pushed for a stimulus and pushed for health care reform. I think the screws up there were part of what changed the dynamic and give me hope of using the BP spill for real energy legislation.
Progressives shouldn't be saying "Oh noes, the President's guy is having dinner with BP!" What we should be saying is we need a massive investment in energy and a green jobs bill NOW. We can't stop this gusher; America join Barack Obama who campaigned on green jobs and push Congress to pass energy legislation by the year's end.
That would serve two goals: a stimulus and comprehensive change towards a greener environment. Getting there requires real grassroots efforts to reshape the political environment; not playing gotcha games.
That progressives don't AUTOMATICALLY do this and have become mini blogging MSM analysts is disturbing on a lot of levels.