# Bleak future with 112th Congress and beyond **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [November 22, 2010, 8:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bleak-future-with-112th-congress-and-beyond/561569 "2010-11-22T20:29:03Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 7\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![septimus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/septimus/32/410_2.png) [@septimus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/septimus)\ **Post date:** [November 22, 2010, 8:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bleak-future-with-112th-congress-and-beyond/561569/1 "2010-11-22T20:29:03Z")
A few months ago a political poll was taken at SDMB and I went with: - happy to vote for Obama, not _too_ disappointed so far. I’m drifting more to the _disappointed and sad_ by now, while still assigning most of the blame to hypocrisy, ignorance and their sock-puppy, unregulated campaign financing. Hare’s a funny [cartoon about Obama compromising](http://motherjones.com/media/2010/11/mark-fiore-obama-compromise-republicans). I don’t think special eyes are needed to see the brief 111st Congress as the sadly unrequited high-water mark during _America’s Decline and Fall_. I’m reminded of Hunter S. Thompson’s > [@](#): > > So now, less than five years later, you can go up on a steep hill in Las Vegas and look West, and with the right kind of eyes you can almost see the high-water mark —that place where the wave finally broke and rolled back. ---
**Author:** ![Hari\_Seldon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hari_seldon/32/5173_2.png) [@Hari\_Seldon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hari_Seldon)\ **Post date:** [November 22, 2010, 10:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bleak-future-with-112th-congress-and-beyond/561569/2 "2010-11-22T22:16:54Z")
Obama is beginning to remind me of Carter in ineffectualness. The man lacks balls. Extremely disappointed in someone I have twice voted for (I vote from IL)… ---
**Author:** ![sparky\_1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/77aa72/32.png) [@sparky\_1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sparky_1)\ **Post date:** [November 22, 2010, 10:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bleak-future-with-112th-congress-and-beyond/561569/3 "2010-11-22T22:40:09Z")
I agree. The Democrats should have just rammed stuff through. They also should have done a better job communicating what few successes they had. Also, I can not freaking believe Pelosi won the minority leadership post. Talk about a horrible Speaker. I’d love to see her thrown out on her ass. ---
**Author:** ![Digital\_Stimulus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/aeb1de/32.png) [@Digital\_Stimulus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Digital_Stimulus)\ **Post date:** [November 23, 2010, 12:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bleak-future-with-112th-congress-and-beyond/561569/4 "2010-11-23T00:36:32Z")
> [@sparky\_1](#): > > Also, I can not freaking believe Pelosi won the minority leadership post. Talk about a horrible Speaker. I’d love to see her thrown out on her ass. Why do you say this? Honestly, beyond ‘her’ being ‘responsible’ for losing so many House seats, on what do you base this idea? This has come up before, and I don’t understand what criteria is used. It seems to me that she’s berated exactly _because_ she’s been so effective, but I’d like to be convinced otherwise… ---
**Author:** ![Merijeek](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f05b48/32.png) [@Merijeek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Merijeek)\ **Post date:** [November 23, 2010, 12:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bleak-future-with-112th-congress-and-beyond/561569/5 "2010-11-23T00:41:08Z")
> [@Digital\_Stimulus](#): > > Why do you say this? Honestly, beyond ‘her’ being ‘responsible’ for losing so many House seats, on what do you base this idea? This has come up before, and I don’t understand what criteria is used. > > It seems to me that she’s berated exactly _because_ she’s been so effective, but I’d like to be convinced otherwise… I agree with you. It seems to me that Pelosi managed to accomplish quite a bit, but most of the time she was stymied by Dickless Harry and the Procedural Fillibuster. Obama, meanwhile, is just too nice/timid/chicken/whatever to actually play hardball. He just tosses a Nerf(r)™(c)(sm) football and says, “There you go, I tried.” -Joe ---
**Author:** ![Digital\_Stimulus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/aeb1de/32.png) [@Digital\_Stimulus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Digital_Stimulus)\ **Post date:** [November 23, 2010, 6:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bleak-future-with-112th-congress-and-beyond/561569/6 "2010-11-23T18:11:08Z")
> [@Merijeek](#): > > I agree with you. It seems to me that Pelosi managed to accomplish quite a bit, but most of the time she was stymied by Dickless Harry and the Procedural Fillibuster. It’s really weird to me how an empty talking point can (and does) gain legitimacy. As much as I’d like to just scoff at it as inconsequential, the “_we create our own reality_” practitioners are successful at getting others to swallow their shite way too often. But I have the same question about the other chamber – how does one judge the Senate leader? Like you, I have the sense that Reid is generally ineffective, but it’s based on nothing concrete (just the way he presents himself). In fact, I have the same sense about [Senate leaders](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Party_leaders_of_the_United_States_Senate#List_of_party_leaders) as far back as I remember (to Dole in the 104th), which makes me think that it’s simply institutional. ---
**Author:** ![septimus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/septimus/32/410_2.png) [@septimus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/septimus)\ **Post date:** [November 23, 2010, 7:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bleak-future-with-112th-congress-and-beyond/561569/7 "2010-11-23T19:00:44Z")
From [the Nobel Prize winner’s blog](http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/): [QUOTE=Paul Krugman] More and more, it’s becoming clear that progressives who had their hearts set on Obama were engaged in a huge act of self-delusion. Once you got past the soaring rhetoric you noticed, if you actually paid attention to what he said, that he largely accepted the conservative storyline, a view of the world, including a mythological history, that bears little resemblance to the facts. And confronted with a situation utterly at odds with that storyline … he stayed with the myth. [/QUOTE] The irony is that even the very right-of-center economic policies of Bernanke and the Obama administration are being undercut with defeatist rhetoric: [QUOTE=Paul Krugman] **Sabotaging QE** [Fed’s influence re QE] … comes largely from its ability to affect expectations. This is true even for Bernanke-style quantitative easing: you can’t really push down longer-term yields unless the market believes that you’re going to keep buying until the rates are where you want them. It’s even more true when it comes to credibly raising expected rates of inflation. So if a large political faction begins yelling and screaming as the Fed attempts QE, this will have the effect of undermining the policy’s effectiveness. And so it’s proving. [/QUOTE]