The problem here is pretending that Obama will be leaning over everyone's shoulder at all times insisting that the agenda be pursued. Eric Holder will surely have plenty of free time to himself, and by not hold Lieberman accountable and sending out "no war crime trial" messages, Obama isn't striking some people as the kind of guy to take his people to task.

I think some of this is carryover frustration from the campaign and even the acceptance speech, in which it seems like we're being asked by Barry O. to turn the other cheek to people who have been actively and zestfully violating our collective rectums for the past 8 years (and more).

I'm not calling for the guillotine but for fucks sake can we get at least a few people in the cabinet who give a flying fuck about the working man? EG people who haven't worked for the Clintons.

P.S. if you do get a new platform, can it include an option to edit my poorly proofread posts?

kthxbye

First - excellent post, Bob.

Second - Travis, how do you define progressive? Because - I think you'll find precious few progressives if one or two policy decisions can put them out of the running. Politics don't make for purists.

QT

>>The problem here is pretending that Obama will be leaning over everyone's shoulder at all times insisting that the agenda be pursued.

Whah?? If he's accomplished nothing else, he's more than proved that he can run a disciplined administration that sticks to an agenda. Travis, this is just ridiculous.

>>I'm not calling for the guillotine but for fucks sake can we get at least a few people in the cabinet who give a flying fuck about the working man?

You mean like an actual working man? I don't understand? A liberal version of Joe the Plumber in the cabinet? As near as I can tell, several of the most visible Obama policy goals are a middle class tax cut, affordable universal health care and aggressive job creation. How is that *not* helping the working man?

Test.

I don't know...the average working man did pretty good under Clinton. Why is that a problem?

Test again.

Hi Bob! Test, and test again to you!

BTW, regarding my query in the other thread, does Obama own this?

QT

Well said, Bob.

While you can agree or not agree with Obama's appointees (we all have opinions.....), and I don't know all the pluses and minuses of each one, a refreshing aspect of it is I have not yet detected a whiff of the stench of incompetent cronyism which Bush wore like some kind of Neocon cologne.

Before I start AGAIN, FUCK TYPEKEY/PAD/CRAP!

Now, just my two cents ...
I think the issue with these 'liberal' bloggers is that they want their pound of flesh. They want payback for the 8 years of persecution under the far-right. They want retribution, and they don't see this in the appointments that Obama is making. I guess, in their opinion, he's not making a hard enough left, so to speak.

But I thought the whole point of new leadership, change, a new perspective, is to learn from our mistakes so that we don't repeat them again? By going after the far-right in this way, we would be just as inflexible as the far-right has been. That's not change, that IS just more of the same.

Dammit, the man hasn't even taken office yet! Can we please just give him at least 6 months to fuck up before we start in with the bullshit!

Again, just my two cents.

Excellent post, Bob. With a country as varied as ours, we need many different viewpoints in our government. Having a government which is weighted completely towards one idea gives us exactly what we have had for the past 8 years.

Obama ran a great campaign. He chose people who could make his vision happen. I'm willing to trust that he is continuing to make smart decisions in choosing people to work with, even if all those decisions don't make sense to me. At least I'm going to trust for now. In 9 months, I may feel a little differently, but for now I think we should at least let the man sit behind the desk before we start trying to pull the chair out from under him.

>>But I thought the whole point of new leadership, change, a new perspective, is to learn from our mistakes so that we don't repeat them again? By going after the far-right in this way, we would be just as inflexible as the far-right has been. That's not change, that IS just more of the same.

*sigh* The difference here, of course, is that the far right is composed of horrible people (in some cases, actual war criminals!) with a terrible agenda. But no, let's let them off the hook in the name of some of that delicious DLC style bipartisanship!

>>You mean like an actual working man? I don't understand? A liberal version of Joe the Plumber in the cabinet?

No, but howabout someone who hasn't lent a hand to foreign death squads, or someone who when pressed croaked out "Look lobbyists are people too!". An actual progressive populist. Barnes is a good start, but on the other hand we have the Chamber of Commerce slapping their slimy paws in approval of the other members of the economic team.

It's kind of insulting that many Very Serious Bloggers are expecting all progressives to accept every single Obama decision as a Great Idea. There is such thing as (with the possible exception of HRC as SoS) polite disagreement.

Polite disagreement is fine - no one begrudges anyone polite disagreement. But that's hardly what we're seeing. Instead we're seeing hand-wringing, fretting and believing the worst possible outcomes out of what can reasonably be seen in more than one way.

And, in defense of Lee, who seems to be irking people, Lee is actively championing another way of looking at things - in light of the Obama victory. He's asking - exhorting the Obama coalition to recognize another arrow in the organizing quiver - the "Obama way" is another tool available, and shouldn't be shat upon just because it's different. (Yes, I said that. Sorry.)

That has nothing to do with accepting every single Obama decision as "a Great Idea" and everything to do with possibly looking at it from another perspective. It would be nice to see some people start critquing Obama's efforts from the pov of his approach as WELL as other ways of looking at it - because that would demonstrate that people are at least considering the possibility that another way is being considered. In this, progressives are acting very much like DLC'ers, with their knock on the 50-state strategy - some of them still pouting and saying that the 50-state strategy is a waste of money and resources, despite its proven successes. It is possible to critique the 50-state strategy, but starting from the same place as we did before Obama just about ran the table using it is... silly. Similarly, progressives would benefit from opening their mind to the possibility that there are new ways of approaching the political field, and new ways of pushing a progressive agenda.

Specifically - Obama has ALWAYS said that he's looking to build a working majority - which means that he has to stay to the right of the lefties and to the left of the righties - he has to articulate a place where they can meet together to forward his agenda. He isn't trying to create a progressive government - he's trying to advance a progressive agenda. Getting on board with that idea might open new ways of thinking, and new strategies for engaging the Obama administration - and that would be INFINITELY more useful than attempting to create a progressive administration that gets rejected simply because it leaves too many people OUT.

QT

I do understand where Travis is coming from. I'm unhappy that even after what to me has felt like a monumental win and shift in politics, we're falling back to our default position of disagree with everyone. However, I completely understand the frustration of seeing an administration violate the constitution after swearing to protect it and then not only NOT be held accountable for that, but to simply disregard subpoenas to appear before congress. They just ignore the law and no one does anything about it.

Now, we're looking at this admin giving hundreds of billions of our money to banks who are continuing to blow that money and they can't even tell us what they've spent it on. Isn't that fraud or theft or something someone should go to jail for? Here's an econ stimulus package, create 100 new prisons for all the people in the Bush admin and all the Wall St. fuckers and employ thousands of people maintaining those prisons.

I know all this is off-subject slightly, but my point is that the frustration is the same. It gets so old seeing nothing done to people who believe they are above the law and by our inaction they are. I might very well be too optimistic or too naive right now because I want to believe that the appointments I disagree with or stances on this or that issue are not as important as the over all plan. I don't believe Obama is weak or will be tread upon by HRC or any other adviser.

I may be dead wrong in the end, but I'm so tired of being constantly pissed off that I'm trying to let the frustration of watching criminals get away with murder go so I can hopefully enjoy watching some things I am excited about actually happen.