What Obama can learn from Bush, Part II

[XemaSab]

Here's Part I

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x8542157


During Bush's tenure in office, he kept us running ragged. The left was perennially unable to mount a strong opposition to any of his diabolical plans.

How did he do this?

By throwing more shit at us than we could handle.

One day he was cutting family planning funding, and the next day he was gutting the endangered species act, and the next day he was promoting No Child Left Behind, and the next day he was saying that Saddam had WMD's. And so on, every day for 8 years.

This kept us demoralized and disorganized. Of course, we were all outraged at all of these things, but by the time we fired ourselves up to write a strongly worded letter to the editor, or call congress, or arrange a protest, the next lump of shit was flying in our direction and we'd get all outraged about that.

Obama, on the other hand, is carefully putting forth one thing at a time, and by doing this he's allowing the Republicans to mount an opposition.

I'm sure that whatever he says a half an hour from now, the Republicans will attack mercilessly, and the pisser is that he'll give them the space to do it.

If Obama announced tonight (and this is 100% wishful thinking on my part) that we were starting a new clean energy Apollo project, and he announced tomorrow the immediate repeal of Don't Ask Don't Tell, and he announced the day after that that he was going to legalize marijuana, and he announced the day after that that he was putting forward a proposal for universal health care, what would the Republicans do? What could they do? The outrage meter would go through the roof, of course, but they were never going to vote for him anyways, and in their haste to fall over themselves in outrage, a few things might slide through with little or no organized opposition.

It's what Bush did and it was effective.

Obama needs to start doing the same thing.

[mdmc]

1. thanks for the op

peace and low stress

[butterfly77]

2. He was trying to when he first entered office then..

they started throwing all kinds of nonsense at him and the media helps by harping on it and then saying over and over again that he needs to respond.

For example, the cop acted stupidly when he arrested Gates in his own house and knew it was his house. They did act stupidly and racially because if he were white they wouldn't have arrested him and the media had to dissect that and pretend as though it wasn't the truth.

They kept harping until he had a beer with him then they criticize that when they were the ones hyping it up just because they want to see how high they could make him jump same thing with this oil spill,even though it isn't a non issue but,anderson cooper and gergen do their damdest to put the blame on the President. Anderson cooper has been doing it for a while..

[Capn Sunshine]

3. Veeeeerrry Interesting, grasshopper

I like the plan, but harsh realities in DC involve an intricate web of give and take that precludes such ideas moving at such a rapid pace without Obama assuming the role of "powerful unitary executive" that made us despise Bush and Satan/Cheney so, surely starting the armed insurrection. Thanks to the nature of Democrats in DC , they won't lockstep stuff through like the boneheads backing Bush did.

I think the right wing armed insurrection camp should be taken seriously. When Clinton bumped up against the power structure in a similar abrupt way that you suggest, the net result was the OKC bombing.

God knows what would hit the fan if Obama did what you describe.
Now, back to the flame war that will surely result from this commentary. :hi: