That's Kevin Drum's conclusion over at Mother Jones. He is reacting to this piece by Matt Miller at The Washington Post, which begins:
Here’s the thing. I know Tea Party Republicans were behind the debt-ceiling standoff that wreaked needless damage on confidence in the United States. I wrote weeks ago of Standard & Poor’s outrageous nerve in threatening a downgrade when America’s ability to pay its debts can’t possibly be in doubt. In short, I know who the real villains are at this volatile moment.
So why am I so mad at Barack Obama?
Drum:
Honest to God, Republicans must all be sitting in their back rooms and just cackling like hell right now. Think about it. They developed a strategy to hamstring the president completely — a strategy that's bulletproof thanks to our country's Constitution — knowing that it would rally their base but also hoping that it would cause moderates and lefties alike to become disgusted with Obama's weakness even though we all know who's really responsible for what's going on. And it worked! In fact, it's worked better than they could possibly have imagined. They can probably barely keep from spitting up their beers right now.
We are such chumps.
And while we're on the subject, Tom Ashbrook interviewed Drew Westen today (Quick aside: If you've never listened to Tom Ashbrooks radiow show, he's really great. He's genial, sharp and even handed and he does lengthy interviews with fascinating people on interesting topics. Imagine a much better Charlie Rose).
Westen was on for the entire hour and the focus was, of course, on Westen's piece in the New York Times this past weekend.
Towards the end of the interview, Westen had a bit of what I would consider a "Captain Queeg" moment. If you've never ssen the Caine Mutiny, 1) do so as soon as possible; and 2) I'm referring to a moment similar to Jack Nicholson's tirade on cross-examination in the climactic scene of A Few Good Men, only much, much better; and 3) I'm referring to a phenomenon where someone breaks under questioning and reveals a core psychological weakness that pretty much destroys the prosecutions case.
Anyway, here's the scene if you want to watch it (if you haven't seen the movie SPOILER ALERT!):
If you'd like to listen to the show, you can here. Sadly, Tom Ashbrook does not provide transcripts of his show, because there are a number of items from the show that I would love to post. Here are a couple of items they post on the website, one from a caller (she was terrific and had a lot more to say than is posted) and Jonathan Chait of The New Republic (also terrific and also with a lot more to say than is posted):
Caller Kathy from Connecticut “I took Professor Westen’s piece and I cut it out of the New York Times, crumpled it up into a ball, and threw it in the wastebasket. I’m a dyed-in-the-wool liberal…[FDR] was 80 years ago. Guess what? A few things have changed. Right now, we have an uneducated electorate, more than half the Republicans think that Obama wasn’t even born in the country, they’re guided by Fox News and Rush Limbaugh, they’ve stated – through their leader, Mitch McConnell – our only goal is to take [Obama] down.”
Jonathan Chait “I think there are some critiques from the left that you can make of Obama. I don’t think Westen’s critique is persuasive, remotely persuasive. I think it flies in the face of historical reality. I think it flies in the face of pretty basic realities of political science….the most simple being that Westen is betraying a species of a kind of a cult of the president thinking, which just attributes all political outcomes to the president. And any failures of the president’s agenda to a kind of failure of political will. Now, he;s doing a variant of that, but it’s a common delusion that basically finds the structure of our political system too dissatisfying to be grappled with.”
There were a few callers who provided some very sharp critcism of Westen, as well as a couple of others from the Amen! crowd. But the most revealing moment was a colloquy between Ashbrook and Westen at the end of the interview, which I will attempt to transcribe below:
TA: We've got one minute. There's a re-election campaign coming up. Republicans are gearing up for it. Iowa straw poll this weekend, debates coming, you know, and there's a lot of thought on that side, "hey, we've got some momentum here." What is the result of your critique? For you as a Democrat, as a liberal, where does it take you?
DW: You know, for instance, I'll - just to change that frame slightly - I approach this as an American first. When I hear that he's done a remarkable job, when over 25 million people can't find a job, I scratch my head. I mean when I talk every day to people who are trying to pay their bills at the end of the month - who've lost their job...
TA: What does that mean? Do you want a reelection or not - of this President?
DW: That means that - I think it depends on whether he can turn around and act like a leader.
TA: So, maybe not? Maybe you're ready to walk away?
DW: I can't really tell all that much sometimes the difference between him and Mitt Romney on a lot of positions and I'd like to be able to see it better. I'd like him to be able to make that statement about "What do I stand for? What do they stand for? What do Democrats stand for? What do Republicans stand for? And say 'you know what' I'm going to stand or fall on those values, cause it's really about those values that differ."
This is a somewhat cleaned up version of the exchange: I smoothed out the transcript, cut out a lot of stammers and false starts, cross-talk, etc.
As far as I'm concerned, Westen just broke on the stand. He has no positive vision to offer. All he has is incohate and incoherent grievance mongering.
There's an election coming up and the Republicans are gearing up for it. Liberals need to stop being chumps and get their asses in gear.