Did you guys all get a FAX that said to emphasize this? Or are you all on a listserv? Because all of a sudden, folks are posting this meme again and again in different threads.
Some of us get the news from PBS. This was a train going over a cliff from day one.
Do you have a link to anything on PBS that says “The President has strategically vanished over the past few weeks”??
I vote for never. It worked really well in 2010. Constant obstructionism meant that all legislation in 2009-2010 had to be watered down so that the most conservative democrats in the senate would support it to beat a filibuster. The end result was that with a presidential mandate and a democratic supermajority in congress the best the Obama admin could do was pass legislation similar to what the GOP was proposing in the early 90s, plus the dems wouldn’t play the same kind of hardball the GOP would so even if they had power they obviously wouldn’t use it. So the dems got demoralized and sat home in 2010, giving the GOP a clean sweep during a census year. now they not only rewrote a bunch of state laws, they are also going to gerrymander seats to their benefit.
It worked pretty well for them. At least in 2010. Their party was motivated to participate, the opposition party was not. I think in 2010 about 90 million people voted, 50 million GOP and 40 million dems. However compared to the 2008 election about 25+ million Obama voters stayed home vs only about 10 million McCain voters. The 2010 election wasn’t a result of the public swinging towards the right, it was because the dems stayed home.
Ideally in the age of information eventually this tactic of obstructionism will backfire. But that assumes the electorate pays enough attention to understand what is happening.
Only because half of them have taken a pledge not to do what it takes to balance a budget.
Paraphrasing The Economist here but it would be easy if I had some sort of central newsletter. Only liberals are capable of “independent” thought after all.
At least we don’t all parrot the exact same sound bites at the same time.
Lets see, if I remember correctly he was in Australia working on a deal for base privileges for a larger presence in the region and then back in the states in NH(?) plugging another one of his jobs programs.
But by all means, enlighten us on his work regarding the budget as the clock ticked down. Never made the news.
How is it a sound bite to point out the obvious? Congress can’t agree on budget, news at 11:00. President was _______________, no news at 11:00.
I’ve heard the US political system described as being intentionally designed so that it’s hard to get things done. That was the default.
Also consider that when you have two candidates running, one plans to do A, the other B, people will either vote for plan A or plan B. Which means that after the election, the people that voted for plan B will be happen their candidate is blocking plan A. If they had wanted plan A they would have voted for it.
That’s the beauty of a two party system. It’s not as if there is a way of saying, “I’d like plan B but if that doesn’t work plan C seems tolerable.”
No, the plan was a fruitless waste of time. Also, if you are concerned over accuracy, shouldn’t you be saying “at least one Republican was willing to raise revenue by putting the burden on the middle class”? One Republican. Not Republicans.
The Democrats are unwilling to cave on the Bush era tax cuts. The Republicans are unwilling to consider a plan that raises taxes on rich people. They are both being obstinate, yet of the two lines in the sand, which is the one looking out for you?
I’m truly middle class by every standard of measurement. Toomey’s plan sounds like it will raise my tax burden. Raising my tax burden is most definitely a bad thing since the major actions of my government typically do not benefit me. Their wars of opportunity, their silly military doctrines, their faith in rich people reinvesting in the economy, their faith in the banking industry, their faith in stupid financially illiterate morons buying houses got us into this mess - screw them if I am going to help them out of it. I get nothing from these people.
Since you turned off the news just before the announcement, I just want to let you know that our “weak” President declared that he would veto further Congressional spinelessness. It’s a bold stance given the circumstances.
Further, he spoke of a plan way back when the whole mess started due to Republican politicizing of a standard procedure. That plan is steadily gaining Congressional approval. In other words, he’s leading.
HaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHa. He’s going to veto spinelessness. Seriously? Did you read that before you hit enter? And he had a plan way back. Where can I subscribe to your news letter.
The facts are that the plan gaining traction is a direct result of the president. Look up “go big” and try not to read Fox reports on it.
Obama promised to veto any attempt to back out of the 1.2 trillion cut. Attempts to back out are generally considered spineless.
Why don’t you just reiterate that the Republicans had a plan again, because it’d be terrible if you said something substantive.
America is a two-party system because first-past-the-post system we unthinkingly copied from Britain at the state/colonial and federal levels (there being no other models for representative government at the time) tends to freeze out third parties. But the Framers weren’t thinking of that. Our system wasn’t designed to be a two-party system; the Framers were working before any political parties had emerged and did not really anticipate the emergence of such things, which had barely taken shape in Britain, either. The modern idea that parties are a necessary element of republican government would have baffled them; but, I doubt it would have taken them that long to grasp it.
It doesn’t help them. At all. The best it can do is stop the bleeding if republican policy is horrible. Stopping the government from doing anything worthwhile only really helps if your goal is to make the government look useless.
Correct.
They establish and confirm their conservative and Republican ideals by refusing to do their duty when a non-white man and a Democrat is in the WH.
That reminds me of the rote criticism about Obama being weak on terrorism, until he killed bin Laden. Turned out he’d had his eyes on the prize all along, but because he didn’t announce it to the world every day, it was interpreted as weakness.
If you’d bothered looking in the last couple of weeks, you would have found Obama hosting the APEC conference in Hawaii to advance American interests in Asia, and meeting individually with other leaders for the same purpose, and travelling to Australia to create closer ties to protect American interests in Asia. Considering that Asia is a big player in the world, dealing with them, economically and defensively, is a fairly high priority. In other words, he was doing his job as a leader. Do you think he should have cancelled those appointments to knock his head against the brick wall of Congress?
Speaking of which, what could Obama do to “facilitate” Congress, other than caving in to obstructionists? Considering Grover Norquist’s pledge and Boehner’s “Comromise is a dirty word” meme, how would he get Tea Party Republicans to change their minds?
It should be required by law that all water in the Capitol and the House and Senate Office buildings should be spiked with LSD at random intervals. That’ll break the logjams. Or not, C-Span will be fun for a change.
True. You switch between Jon Stewart and Stephen Colber telling you what to say. Allow you to maintain the aura of superiority.