I think David’s post on Obama-the-Pragmatist misses the point on liberal complaints with Obama. Yes, there are those who put him up as a “progressive savior” and freaked out the moment he didn’t push for single-payer healthcare or adhere verbatim to campaign promises. But there are also many liberals, like myself, who saw him as a pragmatist from the beginning. Someone who would be willing to prioritize and push for changes that matched his core ideals, even if they were watered/compromised down for the sake of passage; forest for the trees if you will. It was this type of attitude (and cross-over appeal) that led me to vote for Obama over Clinton in the Democratic primary. With everything that has happened over the last two years, successes and failures, I still don’t feel the need to complain about his pragmatism or willingness to compromise. Washington, even in the most polarized climate, is all about deal-making.
My main complaint, and I think a driving force of a lot of current liberal grumbling, is around his strategy to reach a consensus/result. Simply put:
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Seriously, you were a horrendous candidate. Way to “lock it up” by thinking you had it won, totally misreading the public at large and not campaigning at all. Brilliant. Oh, and Democratic Primary voters in MA, you can GFY too. Seriously, way to choose the wrong candidate for the current political environment. I voted for Capuano, who by the way, can GFH. Capuano, you knew this was going to be a difficult election long before anyone else, reportedly telling the caucus “you’re screwed” after the primary campaign. Why weren’t you campaigning for Coakley, or at least drawing attention to national implications of the race?
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To paraphrase Atrios, “We are all war bonds now.” These people are such idiots. We finance everything through bonds. If you want to finance the war through a separate mechanism that won’t expand the debt, you have to introduce something like David Obey’s “War Tax.”
I know everyone is psyched about the Presidential race (as they should be), but at some point after Obama’s speech, all eyes are going to turn to MN.
As of this moment, with 46% reporting, it’s:
Coleman: 560,511
Franken: 560,469
Total margin: 42 votes.
We did. Fucking A. Ephing yes. Amazing. Simply amazing.
What a great fucking country this is. Truly.
Way to make me proud of my home state (and HVL)! Chris Shays was the last Republican Congressman in New England.
No longer!
As soon as CA, WA and OR close, they are calling this entire fucked for Obama. 11pm can’t get here soon enough.
Barack America!
Word was out yesterday that JP Morgan (JPM) was going to buy Bear Stearns (BSC) for $2 a share. For those who don’t follow the markets, BSC closed trading on Friday over $30 (though it was down -40% on the day). At roughly $250mm, I wondered how much risk JPM was actually taking on.
Turns out not a lot. The Fed is helping JPM make the deal by buying a lot of the high risk (read: worthless) asset-backed securities currently residing on BSC’s balance sheet. I don’t understand, why can’t the bank just go under?
Really, I feel for those who will lose their jobs, but many will lose their jobs anyway. What exactly does this solve? This whole crisis was started when banks started to load these toxic securities onto their balance sheets. Why should they Fed (with US tax payer dollars) muddy up its own balance to “save” a failed US investment bank? We are not at the end of write-downs and liquidity isn’t going to improve any time soon.
Why not let BSC go down and work to ensure other banks are better positioned? Its not like this move makes markets feel better. Just look at the futures.
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Pumpkinhead accidentally makes good? The question about Dmitri Medvedev in Russia was asked in a stupid gotcha manner (christ, he even went into detail afterwards and followed up with a stupid hypothetical), but it brought up an important point. We’ve been so focused on Iraq and “The Forgotten War” in Afghanistan that our government (President and all Presidential nominees (D and R)) has completely forgotten about the former Iron Curtain.
Both candidates on stage disappointed me with a lack of up-to-date knowledge of the situation (good try HRC, but it wasn’t that you couldn’t pronounce his name). How could neither mention HOW Putin plans to stay in power or all of the gas line shenanigans? Meddling in Iran? Nothing compared to the meddling in Ukraine, where they have actual candidates for office. Come on kids, you’re better than that!
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