The Party of Hansel and Gretel

POSTED BY DESERT CRONE

Too many Democrats are like Hansel and Gretel following the bread crumbs strewn at their feet by the Republicans and mainstream media (MSM). What occurred the other day was a screw up over the date of President Obama’s speech. It was a blip on the radar, nothing more, nothing less. Maybe some White House staff person didn’t check the event calendar. Who knows? I’m pretty sure this type of mistake has happened many times before. However, the Republicans capitalized on this and chose to make it an “event” by publicly rebuking the President in an unprecedented show of disrespect, gamesmanship, and ugliness. They scattered their moldy bread crumbs around, and some on the Left gobbled them up. Rather than call out the Republicans in one loud, strong, unified voice, we castigated the victim, playing right into the Republicans’ hands. Oh, and where was the ubiquitous Congressional Black Caucus? One would think that people who have experienced the ugliness of racism would be denouncing Speaker Boehner. Their response was deafening silence as far as I can tell.

There was an outcry over this fiasco—an outcry denouncing President Obama, not the Republicans. Really, folks, is this the issue for which we wanted President Obama to fall on his sword? Let’s imagine the scenarios of the President fighting back: “Stop being mean to me.” Yep, that would have been effective. That would have been extra fuel for Republicans, and the incident would have lasted for weeks rather than days. Or how about “I’m going to give my speech anyway, and y’all better come hear it.” The House chamber would have echoed as the President’s words bounced off of the empty seats. But my all-time favorite from the Left was he should have given his speech from the Oval Office.

Well, after watching the speech, I would hope we all see why speaking to a joint session was so much more effective. The American people witnessed a spectacle that would have made DeMille happy. For crying out loud, Republicans did not even stand and applaud for the GI Bill for crying out loud. That moment will be burned into the minds of moderates and independents through November 2012.

Thank goodness Mr. Cool didn’t lose his cool like the Republicans and some Democrats. If he had, the attention wouldn’t have been on his speech. In fact, the atmosphere going into the speech would have been one of hijinks and goofiness. But instead the speech was preceded by seriousness and anticipation and the date kerfuffle tamped down. Too late for those on the Left because they had already followed the Republican crumbs right into the Right’s trap—again.

But it’s not only the right wing that drops crumbs for us to follow. Look what the media dropped for us over the past few days--$300 billion jobs bill. One of those chomping on those crumbs was Rep. Raul Grijalva, whining that $300 billion wasn’t enough. Nicole Sandler, subbing for radio host Randi Rhodes a couple of days before jobs speech, said she didn’t like what the President was going to say, an opinion based on media reports. She opposed any debt reduction proposal. (By the way, debt reduction means billions we pay on interest can go toward programs the Left cherish, but that’s another post.) Those two, like so many other Dems, were already criticizing the President’s job plan based on media reports before even hearing the speech.

Wasn’t the issue of black unemployment a media crumb? The Congressional Black Caucus went nuts over that issue recently but interestingly, not before it became the darling topic of MSM. Suddenly, the members of the CBC are all over the map literally denouncing Presodent Obama for low black unemployment. Yes, minority unemployment is an increasingly distressing issue and yes, when unemployment is down in general, it’s so much worse in minority communities. However, all of Obama’s policies and programs that deal with joblessness, hunger, health care also help minorities who suffer by a greater proportion.

They also blasted him for not going to Detroit, a city he has been to many, many times and whose policies have helped the city rebuild. But shouldn’t the constituents of Maxine Waters have answered her statement, “When you tell us to let go, we’ll let go” with “What have YOU done for us lately?” And now the media is accusing the President of never talking about housing. Really? Well, guess what? He does—a lot. In fact, he’s made it easier for home owners to get out from oppressive mortgages. The media just doesn’t pay attention. But I’m betting that will be the meme of the some on the Left soon. Where are the houses? Where are the houses?

While watching President Obama throw a fit and spew angry words may make us feel better, that behavior doesn’t move his agenda forward. And isn’t that what we’re really about? Helping others and our nation recover. If you want histrionics, you better look somewhere else other than this White House. However, if you want a President who moves his agenda steadily forward in spite of so many obstacles thrown in path by both the Right and Left, then Barack Obama is your man.

As long as we follow others’ bread crumbs rather that creating our own message or gobbling up the crumbs instead of staying on message, we hurt our own cause. We must stay on message! We are looking at the most dangerous, crazy field of Republican candidates ever, but rather than show our conservative friends and families the stark differences between them and President Obama, we’re busy bashing him in the most obtuse, juvenile ways with insults to his character and courage. As usual, we on the Left let one opportunity after another go by while we eat our own.

I suggest we try something different this time. Let’s get behind the President’s jobs bill and push it through Congress. Dammit, let’s get is right (uh... correct) this time.

Brain Dump

POSTED BY JHW22

OK, so I've been away for a while and that last post felt good. But I need to get a few things out that aren't really post-worthy. More reflection and curiosity than anything deep and thoughtful:

I fear I am inadvertently raising a Republican. My child hates change. He likes the Christmas tree but is mad that I moved a bookshelf to put the tree up. He hates when I change throw pillows. He hates the new toothpaste. He falls apart over transitions. He falls into ritualistic OCD. SEE! He's a Republican. What am I doing wrong? ;)

Why did Bristol Palin drive to LA for DWTS? Her mom flies all over the country on private jets and she can't bother to send her kid to LA on a plane? Is it so she could have a "truck" in LA? Or was it just for a story? And really, a truck? Who is she? Scott Brown?

Did people call Laura Bush a fascist for encouraging parents to read to their children? No. So why can't Michelle Obama encourage healthy eating and *gasp* exercise without being labeled a Nazi? I have a friend in a small red-state town who seriously fell into the trap of blaming Michelle Obama for the cafeteria menu changing to things her kid hates. The whole town is in an uproar over Michelle Obama personally changing every elementary school menu in the country. Yet, I don't hear them yelling at Rachel Ray for doing the same thing. Shame on that hyperactive speed-cooker for trying to discourage crappy eating habits. Personal freedom means being able to raise an obese child if a parent chooses. Don't tread on them and don't make them use a treadmill, damn it.

Wikileaks: Someone needs to plug that leak. Transparency is one thing. Theft is another. And really, it pisses me off that it's not even an American who has single-handedly decided what to do with our documents.

I cheer each time a judge determines that the health care law isn't unconstitutional.

The DADT study is exactly what I thought it was going to be: a review of what the effects of repeal will be and how to move forward. I wish people like Rachel Maddow and Bill Press, etc, etc, would have realized that sooner rather than acting as if it were a survey about whether to repeal. They really ranted about a lot of nonsense. Much Ado About Nada.

I like Secretary Gates.

I think I'll be writing another Palin post soon. Trying to figure out how to write something thorough and organized. I tend to lose my mind when thinking about her and I want to be clear and linear and make relevant connections. Trying to manage that when discussing the walking chaos factory is hard.

While We're On The Subject

posted by Armadillo Joe

I'm working on a series of posts that expand upon my previous dissertation on the overlapping system failures we are currently experiencing as a nation, as a civilization and as a species. My next one will expound upon the concept of money and how our perversion of the basic concept has brought us to the illogical, disintegrating world we find ourselves in today.

But that's for a little later. For now, I've found two posts that sum up as succinctly as I have ever seen, exactly why left versus right in this country is not an even match.

I have this argument all the time with my squishy centrist friends. And those of you who think of yourselves as centrists, I mean you... with all due respect of course, but nevertheless squishy.

These squishy centrists (and their patron saint David F. Brooks) seem to view the American political spectrum as a fairly evenly balanced see-saw with a red team (the "R"s) and a blue team (the "D"s) each ideally working upon a level playing field with a set of agreed-upon rules (as with all sports - including the contact variety), acting in good faith as citizens to make for a better America for all Americans, merely with different views on how best to do that within the bounds of those agreed-upon rules; thus making the pursuit of some kind of balance between the two sides something of an ideal for the good of the nation, an ideal frequently thwarted by extremist ideologues on each side who are too far out on the fringe of the see-saw (and reinforced by their equally-matched and thoroughly mirror-image echo chambers) to participate in the Grand Balancing Act which the vast middle of American society craves. Thus when we on The Left take a side on an issue that seems to this squishy middle to be stereotypically "doctrinaire left" and thus paralyzing to this give-and-take, they feel justified in characterizing it as just another impediment (100% equally as bad and 100% one-to-one comparable to anything coming from The Right) to achieving that magical balance because a nation founded on compromise requires give-and-take from both sides to make progress.

I think that is as fair an assessment as I can give their viewpoint, free of snark and condescension. And Matthew Yglesias sums up why this is naive:

the 2006 and 2008 elections haven’t changed the structural imbalance between left and right in American politics.

[...] I would characterize this (imbalance) [...] like this: Fox is much more conservative than MSNBC is liberal, and it has a much larger audience. Conservative talk radio continues to dwarf anything that exists on the left. Business has a “privileged position” in America’s version of interest-group pluralism, and labor unions are weaker than ever. A large proportion of poor people are non-citizens who can’t vote, and those who can vote have not only less money but much less social and cultural capital and thus the political system is almost entirely unresponsive to their needs.

These aren’t “excuses” for bad behavior by elected officials, but they’re reasons that progressives don’t get what we want out of the political system.

And then, of course, driftglass knocks it out of the park as to the real causes:

Over in the Better Universe, people have multiple, distinctive ideologies that both compete and cooperate with each other (in business, this is called "cooptition") and from which they can form governing coalitions to solve problems.

Here, we have a Democratic Party that can be budged incrementally in the direction of rational and humane problem-solving as long the crisis is immediate and scary and then only as long as we Constantly Scream At Them and beat them on the soles of their feet. Even then, after they get our nickels and dimes and sweat and votes, we get 1/4 of a loaf, a lot of chin music, and the back of Rahm Emanuel's hand.

On the Right we have American Fascism, right out in the open, being energetically championed by people who are unhinged, despicable, impervious to reason and ridiculously well-funded.

Those are the choices: A Democratic Party which depends on us for everything they have, which is still shot through with decent, honorable, hard-working men and women, and which nonetheless still treats us like a smelly hobo to whom they occasionally feel obliged to toss a bone...and a Republican Party now wholly captive to outright psychotics and which sees us as internal enemies to be wiped out.

To me, the reasons for this are simple, and a certain Mr. Lincoln summed it up in the darkening days before the Civil War:

The question recurs, what will satisfy them? Simply this: We must not only let them alone, but we must somehow, convince them that we do let them alone. [...]

[...] what will convince them? This, and this only: cease to call slavery wrong, and join them in calling it right.

Does that attitude seem familiar to any readers? Please, do read the whole speech. Our national discourse (and one party in particular) has been so thoroughly Dixie-fied, particularly since LBJ gave black people the vote in The South, that it could have been written last week.

Back soon...