Reply #18: I was hoping for that approach a couple of years ago.

[pa28]

We could have forced haircuts at Goldman/AIG rather than taking their risk onto the public balance sheet, stripped Lieberman of committee assignments and made Mitch McConnell a poster boy for obstructionism in public. All the points you mentioned.

Democratic ideals had suffered severe defeats for years. We needed to embrace Machiavelli instead of Neville Chamberlain for a little while just for the sake of restoring some balance in the system.

At this point it seems to late IMO. To suddenly act like a hard man after nearly three years of post-partisan softness would make him seem unbalanced. Right now i'd just be happy if he could take one popular, principled position and fight for it with no compromise. Maybe we could build from there.