Obama's "bad negotiating" is actually shrewd negotiating

[sasha031]

In December, President Obama signed legislation to extend hundreds of billions of dollars in Bush tax cuts, benefiting the wealthiest Americans. Last week, Obama agreed to billions of dollars in cuts that will impose the greatest burden on the poorest Americans. And now, virtually everyone in Washington believes, the President is about to embark on a path that will ultimately lead to some type of reductions in Social Security, Medicare and/or Medicaid benefits under the banner of "reform." Tax cuts for the rich -- budget cuts for the poor -- "reform" of the Democratic Party's signature safety net programs -- a continuation of Bush/Cheney Terrorism policies and a new Middle East war launched without Congressional approval. That's quite a legacy combination for a Democratic President

All of that has led to a spate of negotiation advice from the liberal punditocracy advising the President how he can better defend progressive policy aims -- as though the Obama White House deeply wishes for different results but just can't figure out how to achieve them. Jon Chait, Josh Marshall, and Matt Yglesias all insist that the President is "losing" on these battles because of bad negotiating strategy, and will continue to lose unless it improves. Ezra Klein says "it makes absolutely no sense" that Democrats didn't just raise the debt ceiling in December, when they had the majority and could have done it with no budget cuts. Once it became clear that the White House was not following their recommended action of demanding a "clean" vote on raising the debt ceiling -- thus ensuring there will be another, probably larger round of budget cuts -- Yglesias lamented that the White House had "flunked bargaining 101." Their assumption is that Obama loathes these outcomes but is the victim of his own weak negotiating strategy.
http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2011/04/13/obama

[xchrom]

1. these results are what lots of 'moderate dems' want -- obama just being

the most obvious -- and admittedly the most important.

[sasha031]

3. are 70% of Americans who want taxes raised of the top %

now considered part of the extreme left then?

[xchrom]

4. i don't disagree with the point you're trying to make -- but look at the obama supporters here

they don't differ much from obama on these issues. -- look at the senate -- like baucus or difi.

blue dogs in the house.

that's what i'm talking about.

[sasha031]

5. some in the Senate and blue dogs are looking out for their own self interest

there are apologists, that I don't know if it Stockholm symptom or what...

if you took a survey of Americans and excluded the word liberal form the question. Well over 60% believe in liberal values.

the right has been successful in dehumanizing the left for 40yrs.

[EC]

7. 70% ?

last I saw it was 81%

[rurallib]

2. The next paragraph is most telling - Obama getting what he wants

"I don't understand that assumption at all. Does anyone believe that Obama and his army of veteran Washington advisers are incapable of discovering these tactics on their own or devising better strategies for trying to avoid these outcomes if that's what they really wanted to do? What evidence is there that Obama has some inner, intense desire for more progressive outcomes? These are the results they're getting because these are the results they want -- for reasons that make perfectly rational political sense."

Why I couldn't support obama until he was the last one standing - too damned conservative.

[snot]

6. K&R'd

Wish more DU'er's read Greenwald.

As I've said since Bush, Sr., don't read their lips; read their actions.

[GeorgeGist]

8. There's nothing shrewd about being a putz.