Obama: The Republican’s Reliable Interlocutor

[Hawkowl]

by Glen Ford

Barack Obama reacted reflexively to Monday's orchestration of angry calls to the White House by lefties outraged at his latest grand accommodation with the GOP, spending much of his Tuesday press conference attempting a limp smack-down of Left Democrats. Oozing condescension and a certain cattiness, Obama dismissed Democratic critics for playing "games" while he did what was necessary to wring an unemployment benefits extension from the Republicans. As Obama tells it, he stood like a pragmatic rock - if one can imagine such a thing - between the Republican "hostage-takers" and the "purist" and "sanctimonious" Democrats - a party of one.....

With the Democrat Party, particularly the First Black President, so thoroughly and deservedly identified with Wall Street, the Republicans were empowered to pull off what would have previously been thought impossible: the GOP's brown-shirted wing, the white supremacist-based Tea Party, which purports to abhor government and, therefore, regulation, claimed with some success to be the anti-bailout, anti-Wall Street party. Meanwhile, Obama guided the Democrats to pass a fraudulent financial regulation bill that left the derivatives casino-economy intact, if not more strongly entrenched....

The overarching truth of the last two years Is that Obama has been at constant war with the New Deal and the left hemisphere of his party, acting as Wall Street's Trojan Horse in the White House. Tuesday's press conference starred an unrepentant, unreconstructed, center-right, corporate operative who sees his primary duty as destroying what remains of the Democrat's progressive legacy. And the first term of the disaster is less than half over."

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2010/12/08-6

[Skittles]

1. he pretty much laid it all on the table

WE.DO.NOT.MATTER.

[FrenchieCat]

2. when Barack Obama presented himself to the American people for the job.

Some did their homework, and some didn't.

Those that didn't do their homework should stop blaming him for the fact
that they were inept, and start blaming themselves instead.
At least that would make them fair instead of disingenious and
just plain ol' phony.

-----------------------------------------------

I am a Democrat....

.... after all; my views on most topics correspond more closely to the editorial pages of the New York Times than those of the Wall Street Journal. I am angry about policies that consistently favor the wealthy and powerful over average Americans, and insist that government has an important role in opening up opportunity to all. I believe in evolution, scientific inquiry, and global warming; I believe in free speech, whether politically correct or politically incorrect, and I am suspicious of using government to impose anybody’s religious beliefs–including my own–on nonbelievers. Furthermore, I am a prisoner of my own biography: I can’t help but view the American experience through the lens of a black man of mixed heritage, forever mindful of how generations of people who looked like me were subjugated and stigmatized, and the subtle and not so subtle ways that race and class continue to shape our lives.

But that is not all that I am. I also think my party can be smug, detached, and dogmatic at times. I believe in the free market, competition, and entrepreneurship, and think no small number of government programs don’t work as advertised. I wish the country had fewer lawyers and more engineers. I think America has more often been a force for good than for ill in the world; I carry few illusions about our enemies, and revere the courage and competence of our military. I reject a politics that is based solely on racial identity, gender identity, sexual orientation, or victimhood generally. I think much of what ails the inner city involves a breakdown in culture that will not be cured by money alone, and that our values and spiritual life matter at least as much as our GDP.

Undoubtedly, some of these views will get me in trouble. I am new enough on the national political scene that I serve as a blank screen on which people of vastly different political stripes project their own views.

As such, I am bound to disappoint some, if not all, of them.

The Audacity of Hope
http://books.google.com/books?id=k1mVYHvsDpQC&pg=PA15&lpg=PA15&dq=I+am+a+Democrat........+after+all%3B+my+views+on+most+topics+correspond+more+closely+to+the+editorial+pages+of+the+New+York+Times+than+those+of+the+Wall+Street+Journal.+I+am+angry+about+policies+that+consistently+favor+the+wealthy+and+powerful+over+average+Amer&source=bl&ots=kk-tn5bBWz&sig=t6wDWqu3W1Tpfhdo55ckwL1xJSs&hl=en&ei=_poATfWrLZGusAOAhN2vCw&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=2&ved=0CBYQ6AEwAQ#v=onepage&q&f=false

[Hawkowl]

3. I never liked him

I did my homework. As a native Chicagoan, I've followed his career since the early 90's. He started out center-right, and has moved right into Wall Street's right hip pocket.

It's just that he is finally revealing himself to the rest of the democratic party. And it appears they are finally waking up. If we wish to hold on to the presidency in 2012, we need a new candidate.

[Name removed]

4. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Hawkowl]

5. I am not

I'd cut off my d* with a plastic spork before I voted rethuglican. And I did vote for Obama. I held my nose and even persuaded at LEAST a dozen moderate republicans to vote for him.

[FrenchieCat]

6. Sounds like you compromised.......

and had some pull getting some Republicans to go along with you.

Guess that's what one does when the alternative offered is not acceptable.

[Name removed]

7. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[pnorman]

9. I'll go with this!

"You can have a new candidate.....
but you know damn well that you are only
advocating for a Republican win...
even a two year old could figure that out."

Sneer and hurl epithets all you wish, but Obama is doing his level best, while working within a two-party system, to achieve a Democratic victory in 2012. Is that even possible, or more to the point, aren't those compromises tantamount to selling our souls?

I've been on the Left Side of the Dial for all my adult life, and disdain for working within a two party system is a near-universal theme there. But with a single exception, I've voted consistently Democratic. But I've frequently asked myself this: "Can I in good conscience belong to this`Democratic Underground, given its stated mission?". So far, I've told myself: "YES!". But many of the fire-breathers here seem to (quietly) feel that "a Republican Presidency for the next 8 or 12 years would only PURIFY the Democratic Party, and get it back on course!". So I encourage them to ask themselves the same question.

[yurbud]

10. how do you clean up the shit when you mostly agree with those who pinched the loaf on our carpet?

[corkhead]

8. Glen Ford almost lost me at "orchestration" and then did lose me at "Democrat Party"

[chill_wind]

11. But Glen Ford never really loved him!

http://www.blackagendareport.com/?q=blog/101

:cry: