Less White Flag, More Pit Bull

A regular reader of this blog, Nowhere Man, and I had a conversation about ScheduleGate way, way back, long ago when it was fresh in our memories a whole 48 hours ago. He made a cogent argument for the frustration we were feeling at the time, at the news of the White House switching the date of the anticipated job's speech. I asked Nowhere Man to email me in the form of a post and I'd include it in the blog.

I know this will stir up controversy, especially with my co-blogger Jennifer and others, who believe we should keep our sights focused on John Boehner and the obstructionist GOP instead of "blaming" President Obama, and rightly so. But in my opinion, the continuing pattern when it comes to the perception, the perception of the White House and Congressional Democrats backing down from a fight on a seemingly consistent basis can be a very damaging thing.

Whether the perception is true or not, we know that the combination of a right-wing echo chamber and a complicit mainstream media terrified at the thought of being labeled "liberal," can hurt. I've said it before: optics matter. All you have to do is think of John Kerry on a sailboard, Michael Dukakis wearing a helmet while riding in a tank, or the infamous Howard Dean yowl to know that optics matter. The general population likes the image of a strong leader. Whether they agree with him or not, they can at least say he's a person of convictions. But the constant backtrack is a turn off. Two words: Mitt Romney.

So yes, while he have to keep our eyes peeled and call out Republican hypocrisy at every turn, it would help tremendously if the President and the administration did as well.
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POSTED BY NOWHERE MAN

Let's go back in time and try to remember when the brand new President of the Unites States tried to pass the stimulus to a Democratically controlled Congress to stave off a hemorrhaging economy. Republican leadership led by John Boehner and Eric Cantor wanted tax cuts in the bill. President Obama, trying to show he can work with the Republicans, allowed them to fill it with tax cuts. The largest tax cuts in US history, $282 billion worth over two years. The result: not a single Republican voted for the stimulus.

Right then and there the new President, barely a month into his term, should've sent the Republicans a profound message: DON'T TAKE ME FOR A SUCKER. He should have told then Speaker Nancy Pelosi to write a new bill minus the tax cuts the Republicans wanted. But he decided not to fight and instead left the Recovery Act as it was. By doing so, he made his first big mistake and sent a very different message to the Republicans: I CAN BE ROLLED.

What the President has needed from the very beginning is an advisor with a pit bull attitude, the way former President Clinton had James Carville to call out what phonies and hypocrites the Republicans were, and to say President Obama was trying to be conciliatory but got stabbed in the back by the opposition instead.

In the battle over the Bush tax cuts, Obama gave speeches to his base renewing his campaign pledge to let them expire. The Republicans held unemployment insurance hostage. He caved again and explained, incredibly telling and stupid in my opinion, that the hostage was going to be injured. The hostage was ultimately us. But it reaffirmed to the GOP he can be rolled, and all you have to do is grab a hostage.

It's too bad he didn't have a pit bull standing in front of the DC, inside the beltway, media elite cameras, ripping the Republicans and saying they didn't have a soul for using the middle class and unemployed like so much used toilet paper so the rich could keep getting richer, especially at such a difficult time for so many people during the holiday season, questioning, "What kind of country are we?" or "What kind of country have we become?"

At the press conference announcing the continuation of the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy that he was so against, he was asked by a reporter if he was worried that the Republicans would now use the debt ceiling as the next hostage. Obama explained despite prior evidence to the contrary, that he thought Boehner was an HONORABLE man! I'm sure there were plenty of eye rolls by the White House Press Corp when he said that.

In the debt ceiling debates he repeatedly vowed that there would be no budget cuts without new revenues. He again gave speeches to his base telling them to contact their representatives to support his debt ceiling plan, and that there would be no cuts without new revenues. There was so much email traffic from his supporters that several Congressional websites crashed. I actually thought, "Finally! He's drawing a line in the sand!" Well we all know that turned out to be just another rerun: spending cuts with no new revenue.

There was no pit bull going around saying the Republicans love their party more than their country and proving it by willing to let the country go bankrupt. There was no thought of explaining how the elderly, the disabled, our combat soldiers engaged in two wars, were all being held hostage yet again. And President Obama, refusing to challenge the Republicans and see if they had the balls to let the country go under, as usual raised the white flag.

And now ScheduleGate. When I first heard that they scheduled the speech on the same day as the Republican debate, I said, "Wow! He's starting the campaign with a bang! What a politically brilliant and bold in your face move declaring 'I'm ready to fight and no more Mr. Nice Guy!'" I was listening to liberal radio that afternoon when the news broke on Boehner's rejection and suggestion that the speech be moved to the following night, opposite the first game of the year for the NFL.

In response, the White House should have explained the timeline. They should have said Boehner had no problem with it until Rush Limbaugh had a problem with it. They should have explained that Boehner's excuses were faulty at best because they were using a parliamentary tactic to prevent the President from making any recess appointments, therefore they were technically in session. They should have release a statement like this:

"While Congress was enjoying its five week layoff, there were and still are millions of Americans who have been on permanent unpaid vacations struggling to get by. They've been waiting for this current session of Congress to start who, under the leadership of John Boehner, have yet to introduce a single jobs bill in the nine months since he's been Speaker. They continue to demonstrate their benign neglect of the unemployed by the unprecedented rejection of the President's request for a joint session of Congress to deliver his speech for a jobs plan. 

The President has decided instead to give the speech to those its aimed at - the unemployed. Therefore, President Obama will be addressing an auditorium full of unemployed Americans at the University of Maryland as scheduled, on September 7th. We are making our case directly to the American people while the Republican controlled House passes all the anti-Planned Parenthood bills it wants."

But who am I kidding? That would be a pit bull talking!

What happened to my sabbatical?

POSTED BY JHW22

Whenever I max out and want to get away from all of the political madness, I feel compelled to fight for MY core values. And, believe it or not, my core values are the same as the President's and NO they are not the same because I am some blind, loyal, lemming robot. Why I am loyal to the President is because he DOES share my core values. Why would I not agree with the very things I think and say? There is this odd assumption out there that people like me don't form our opinions until Obama says what those opinions should be. No. I form my opinions continually. I am a rather stubborn and dramatic person. But when I evaluate what I think about an issue, it's evolving based on new input, new facts, forcing myself to see other perspectives. And you know, I am pretty fond of that value. I enjoy knowing that I developed my own thinking. Obama may influence portions as do many Senators and friends and family and, yes, even journalists. And guess what? That's what the President does. He is consistently absorbing and seeing.

But that process is seen as something weak by the very people who I feel are the real culprits of blind, loyal, lemming-like robotery. Yes, I made up a word.

I have written several times about the course Democrats take along the message train. Democrats are called asses for a reason -- they are stubborn. The problem is that Democrats dig their heels in before they even leave base camp. We pride ourselves on being the smart party. The reasonable party. The compassionate party. Well, for the last two years, I feel fewer Democrats have actually acted out those values.

Let's look at what our party has become and where we are on this tax cut debate.

Democrats have been calling their own President spineless, weak, ball-less, Bush-like, a sell-out, a Republican, a traitor. The DEMOCRATS have called him that! THE DEMOCRATS!!

They have pretended that they are doing their civic duty of questioning the President. They have said they are only doing what he asked of them, to keep him honest. To watch him. They say they are fighting for the middle-class and poor while he is fighting for banks and big business. They say he hasn't acted fast enough, strong enough, exactly as they want enough, on EVERY GODDAMN ISSUE. EVERY ONE.

They tell him to "fight" but can't define what they mean. They want him to be a different person, as if he campaigned as someone else. They then mis-remember who he was during the campaign and have actually turned on him because he didn't turn out to be the actual Messiah. I wonder if he isn't more of a Job. Taking punches, facing unrealistic demands with only the reward of further challenges.

So when the President was bluntly asked what his core values are because Democrats want to know, he unleashed hell. And I was thrilled. This man has taken hit after hit from his own party despite his major successes and consistent progress. He has been verbally pummeled by voters who have placed themselves on a pedestal above God because they think they are the sole reason he is President in the first place.

Now, what's most telling in all of the coverage for the last, not even, 24-hours, has been the wounded left. Poor babies. Just like when they flipped out over the "professional left" comment, which I also cheered, Democrats are ignoring the articulate, rational, detailed and compassionate reasons Obama laid out for his tax compromise. They have IGNORED the benefits to the very people we say we protect as one of our core values because he yelled at them. They even ignore the fact that he was pretty cutting toward the Republicans as well. The President said that protecting the wealthiest people's tax cuts is the Republican party's "holy grail". Dang, that was pretty harsh (and true). But Democrats are so busy pouting that they are missing the opportunity to highlight the fact that he just said the opposition puts the wealthy above all else.

In the meantime, the Senators from Vermont and several key Democrats in the House and Senate are saying they can get something better. Well, they voted last Saturday and didn't get anything better. In fact, in addition to the extension of the Bush tax cuts for the "rich", Obama got more benefits for the middle-class and the poor than the House and Senate did last week.

But Democrats are ignoring all of the details. In fact, Democrats are doing what we often accuse the Republicans of: voting against our best interests. Obama made a two-fold promise: not raise taxes on the middle class and to allow some tax cuts for the wealthy go away. He went beyond on the first promise by actually LOWERING taxes for the middle class. And he has delayed his second promise.

Now, some say that by delaying the second promise he is giving the Republicans a chance to make the big tax cuts permanent. Why? Because they will have the House starting in January? Well, OK, but on the issue of making expensive tax cuts permanent they won't have the Senate or the teabaggers and OBAMA HAS VETO POWER. Sadly, our party is too busy running in circles yelling and crying that they can't see that.

They can't see that this compromise has shitty parts but it also has wonderful parts we didn't imagine being there. But instead of taking the time to understand that, people are angry and distracted.

Now the media is saying that "Democrats" are mad. I correct them: SOME Democrats are mad. The rest of us, those who are as valuable to the base as the Jane Hamshers and Adam Greens and Paul Krugmans and Bill Mahers and Keoth Olbermanns see clearly the situation at hand. WE see the compromise as a necessity that actually helps those we care about most.

What disgusts me THE MOST, the thing that makes me really hate the shit coming out of the left is the MANY comments I have read in blogs, articles, seen on cable TV, etc is the WILLINGNESS of DEMOCRATS to say, "let it all go and let America see what the Republicans really are". Our party has the gall to question the President's core values yet they are willing to throw every unemployed American and every middle and lower-class family who NEEDS the Bush and Obama tax cuts off a cliff to make a point! Yet, when he calls them out on that, they can't see how absolutely hypocritical and vengeful they are being at the expense of the core values they falsely claim as theirs and theirs alone.

How dare any Democrat question the President's or my core values while they are spitting on their own.

I have to say, though, the funny thing is that the Democrats with their chests puffed out may be loud, but I don't think they are the many. I am seeing more Democrats like me fighting the good fight and not the knee-jerk fight. I see more Independents saying that Obama is doing the right thing and love that he is telling the angry left to chill out. Some think he is losing "his base". Well I am his base and he hasn't lost me. And I think that he is actually building his base with people who think the angry left need to be put in their place.

I'd like to add that not only are we getting MORE from this compromise than the Democrats in Congress were able to get us, but we KNOW that Susan Collins is willing to vote to repeal DADT but only AFTER the tax cut situation is resolved. We have Republicans holding up REAGAN'S START Treaty because of this. The American tax payers are not the only "hostages" here. And all the "purists" need to remember that we have DADT in the first place because Bill Clinton had to negotiate. I'd say that negotiation tool was far worse than ANYTHING we have here. It's taking today's negotiation to get rid of that monster.

And in closing, to all the people who think they can negotiate better than Obama I say I think you would walk onto a Lexus car lot and sputter off in a Gremlin and you'd think you got a great deal because you only paid $2. Obama is getting us a brand new sedan. We have to take out a loan but at least we can get to work and we will be able to pay off the loan early once the paychecks start rolling in.

EDIT: A new Gallup poll shows that most Americans support the compromise. I hate polls because what will happen is that the people FOR the compromise will laud this and the people opposed to the compromise will ignore it. Then another poll will come out saying the public doesn't support the compromise and the players will flip. Angry Democrats celebrated polls that showed support for the public option but will ignore this completely. THAT is why I hate polls. But I wanted to point this out to raise a "watch the fun that ensues" flag.

Answer to an excellent question

POSTED BY JHW22

In the comments of the previous post, one of our loyal readers, Vic, asked a question of Broadway Carl and me. How do we feel about the federal pay freeze? Rather than answering in a comment, I figured I'd make it a post. I'm feeling rather long-winded today and it's a point that deserves more discussion than I could provide in a comment. And I am over-due for a post anyway.

I am very supportive of Pres O, but I admit that there are moments when the doubting arguments start to make a dent - like today. What do you and Jennifer make of his salary freeze announcement? The perception that he always caves before he needs to is starting to get to me.

Vic used a key word, "perception". It is exactly THAT -- a perception. One of my consistent beefs is with the distortion of, selection of and analysis of the administration by our media. THEY decide what we know. THEY decide what details we receive. THEY decide what tone to set. THEY decide OUR moods. But honestly, none of us know how Obama got to the salary freeze decision. Because it was a surprise to us does not mean that it wasn't without a fight.

I understand the frustration people feel but I disagree with the premise that he caves before he tries. We have no clue what or with whom or for how long or how he discusses any issue. Just as he says he needs to get out of the fishbowl that is Washington, we need to realize that we are not looking into a fish bowl and seeing all there is to see. However, we are told to believe he just jumps without thinking or fighting. Why? Why do we continually go where we are led by the very people we criticize repeatedly for being, as Palin correctly states, "lame"? What about Obama in his speeches, in his politicking, suggests that the perception is the reality? Why don't WE do a better job demanding that the two match? Instead we allow the perception to become the accepted stance and then we fight against it. In many ways, we create our own enemies out of thin air. We waste energy and resources punching shadows instead of stopping and thinking and trying to grasp why decisions are made.

We aren't in the room, on the phone or at the other end of the Presidential Blackberry. WE don't know when he goes to the wall or when he realizes that flexibility is key to progress.

Secondly, Obama wasn't really a fighter in the campaign. I don't know how many times Dems would say, "I wish he'd....". We've done it to him since day one. Often I hear "We want the campaigner" back as if that Obama were a different person. He hasn't changed. His job has changed. I've always said that a campaign is a wedding but being President is the marriage. Weddings are about the drama and excitement, the memories and good vibes. But everyone who is married, or in a long-term relationship, hell, even a friendship, knows that the wedding ends when the bride and groom drive off with cans strung to their bumper.

When my husband and I were first married, we fought all the time and the fights may have appeared to be about stupid things but they were always about one thing at the root of it all: communication. And it's with persistence and bending and listening and changing that a marriage progresses into a relationship that makes both people feel involved and active and stable.

The problem is that we can't communicate with Obama in any direct way. A speech is one-sided. A press conference doesn't necessarily address our specific questions. We can't get in deep to understand and share with the very person we want to hold accountable for every decision made. It's truly not fair. We demand so much of a President but have no way of communicating with him. Instead, we rely on the media to do it for us and we get frustrated at him when the messenger tells us to.

Now the Republicans are threatening to block all legislation unless the Democrats add to the deficit by extending the tax cuts for the wealthy. It's hypocrisy in so many damn ways. We all know that. But what is the best way of dealing with them? Is being equally stubborn the answer?

The Democrats didn't care about the deficit much more than being able to call hypocrisy on the Republicans before. We don't care if we add to it if it creates stimulus. But by goddess we won't add to it if it benefits the wealthy!

Well, here's the deal. We need to be grown-ups. Do I want us to add to the deficit? NO. I have been one of the Democrats who wants to pay it down so we can free ourselves from debt to places like, oh, China. But do I think there is no solution other than black and white? No. I am realistic. There are options. We are as bad as the Republicans when we say "we won't compromise". Hell, that's what the Republicans said in their letter. We know that Murkowski said she would vote to repeal DADT because it's the right thing to do. But now she'd block it because she wants to play a game of extortion?

Do I like extortion? No. That's why I also don't like blanket statements like "Tell Obama not to compromise" especially when followed by some vague threat of primarying him with someone "more liberal".

WE MUST COMPROMISE. But compromise is a bad word these days. So from now on I'll just call it what it is: being a grown up. Progress is working toward a goal. It isn't being a stubborn ass (pun intended) refusing to climb a mountain. Progress is being the bigger person and seeing that giving an inch gains a mile. Who gives a fuck about the inch when we have a mile?!

Priorities and perspective. We need them. We also need to step back from our knee-jerk emotional responses and see that big picture our President is always seeing and trying to show us. It's on us to stop demanding specifics and start thinking about what is more important: the result or how we get it. I want results and we are getting them from President Obama. How we get them is water under the bridge.

Back to the initial point about the salary freezes, the best I can articulate it is this: we have been creating private sector jobs. We have been losing public sector jobs. I would rather we freeze salaries than lay people off. And yes, some workers will be frozen at a pay that is too low already. But that is better than being without a job or having to get a similar paying job with zero health benefits.

I am constantly remind myself of four things:

1) Am I being a hypocrite? If so, reconcile it with integrity and honesty.

2) Do I believe the source or the spin? If not, decide what I think.

3) Read, watch or learn two positive things for every negative thing I read.

4) Obama IS the person I voted for. He IS doing the exact job I expected him to do. The frustrations are valid but irrelevant to the bigger picture of a nation consisting of opposing views and opinions and interpretations of fact. Follow Obama's lead on this because he's a grown up and I need to try to act like a grown up myself.

Oh, and I should probably add that we all define "fighting" differently. My idea of the President fighting may not be his idea or your idea or a Republican's idea. People need to stop clinging to semantics on this issue.