How many here want and expect Obama to be a liberal George Bush?

[GarbagemanLB]

Pragmatism? What the hell is that?

We need ideologues!

Sure, Georgie politicized everything in the white house and let ideology trump pragmatism and building consensus, but the problem was his TYPE of ideology!


I want a liberal version of Bush! Anything less and I turn in my Democratic card.






















The scary thing is, I bet a decent minority of people on DU agree with the above.

[Two Americas]

1. bet not

I bet there are no more than a handful who would agree with that, if any.

[FrenchieCat]

2. I want Obama to be Obama.....and I wish he was allowed to breathe a little......

[happychatter]

3. same divisions as in the primary only now their his champions

cracks me the fuck up

what an arrogant, snotty, flamebait, POS of a post

I should never have let you abusive fuckers out of the ignore bin

[Starry Messenger]

6. How large of an ignore bin could you have after less than a month??

:shrug:

[BlooInBloo]

4. If being against setting oneself up for the following counts as being an "ideologue"...

Then ideologue I am. Your fears are quite beside the point.

[lapfog_1]

5. I wanted Change.

and not just something other than Bush.

Pretty soon, with the Rubin crowd soon to be in control of the economy, I fear I'll be asking for spare change. I'm not kidding.

I don't want ideologues. But every one of the new people coming in happens to be proteges of Robert Rubin, the former CEO of... Citigroup (where is his still on their BOD and is a "senior advisor"). Every one of them.

Let's see what others have to say about Mr. Rubin...

From wikipedia:

Critics credit Rubin with helping create the conditions for the Financial crisis of 2007–2008, as a result of the policies he pursued as Treasury Secretary. Together with then-Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan, Rubin strongly opposed the regulation of derivatives, when such regulation was proposed by then-head of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), Brooksley Born. Overexposure to credit derivatives of mortgage-backed securities—and credit default swaps (Insurance on securities)(CDS)—was a key reason for the failure of US financial institutions Bear Stearns, Lehman Brothers, Merrill Lynch, American International Group, and Washington Mutual in 2008.

Arthur Levitt Jr., a former chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission, has said in explaining Mr Rubin's strong opposition to the regulations proposed by Ms Born that Mr. Greenspan and Rubin were "joined at the hip on this." "They were certainly very fiercely opposed to this and persuaded me that this would cause chaos." <7>

According to the New York Times, "In November 1999, senior regulators—including Mr. Greenspan and Mr. Rubin—recommended that Congress permanently strip the CFTC of regulatory authority over derivatives."<7> This advice was accepted and derivatives were kept clear of regulation by the CFTC.


Color me underwhelmed. Larry Summers? Rubin's right hand.

This isn't what we need right now, and no, I won't shut up about it.

I think President Elect Obama can be a great leader, but right now he has some people whispering in his ear that are not the people he should be listening to, IMHO.

[xfundy]

7. Are you nuts?

It's time to fulfill the promise of America, not create an antiBush. He and Cheney fucked the nation over, big time, and we're all suffering.

Turn in your demo card if a major fuckup in the other direction is your desire. Pick up a freeper card on the way out.

Again, are you nuts?

[BlooInBloo]

9. It was a rhetorical push-poll style questioin. Very similar, in fact to what Sarkozy told Putin....

The OPs purpose is different, however. Basically he's just trying to scare us into accepting Job Performance criticism of an unemployed guy, and threatening to call us bush-style republicans if we don't accede to their wishes.

Of course it's stupid. But then again, it's presumably a tough row to hoe to get anything intelligent out of someone who thinks it's reasonably to give Job Performance criticism of a guy who doesn't actually have a job. Tp say nothing of their escalating it to republican and nazi comparisons just puts stupid icing on their stupid cake.

[Truth2Tell]

8. Bush's time has not been defined by ideology.

It has been defined by cronyism, incompetence, corruption, aggressiveness and a cynical thirst for power.

He has been pragmatist actually. When it suited the interests of his cronies and friends he tossed ideology aside. He grew the size of the Federal government ferchissakes. Just ask the right-wing intellectual ideologues. That's why they hate him too.

But I suppose if you can conflate Bush with the pursuit of ideology, then you can equate anyone who wants Obama to pursue ideals with Bush. Makes a nice pretty straw man to beat up.

[FlaGranny]

10. Unbeliveably dumb post.

Some of you seem to be pushing "civil war" more or less like the rabid fundies.

[ElsewheresDaughter]

11. ...

:popcorn: :popcorn: :popcorn:

[stray cat]

12. Hell no. but I agree there are certainly some who would agee w/o Bush's name in the post

[Jennicut]

13. Shrub thought he was right all the time. Obama is smart enough to know he will already make mistakes

for that humbleness and humility Barack Obama is already 1000 times better. I can't wait to call him the President of the United States and feel proud again.

[lonestarnot]

14. I have a tool sharperner out in my shed. Let me know if you'd like to borrow it.

[EstimatedProphet]

15. Fuck no

The absolute best way we could ever guarantee non-lasting change and defeatedgoals is to force our idealogy down everyone's throat. That, more than anything else, is why the Repubs got smoked.

[Odin2005]

16. How totalitarian of you.

That sounds like something I would of said when I was a young-n-stupid Marxist in high school.

[EstimatedProphet]

18. That sounds totalitarian to you? Arguing against totalitarian methods? Really?

[Odin2005]

19. Read "The Open Society and It's Enemies" by Karl Popper

Such rhetoric you are spewing is inherently totalitarian.

[EstimatedProphet]

20. OK, let me explain this, because you're clearly missing the point of my post:

I am assuming that most people here would prefer lasting change, in a more egalitarian, fair direction. A more gentle society, which treats people equally and fairly.

The best way to defeat that is to take the attitude that since we won, we get to make the rules, and if people don't like it, tough. This is really the attitude that the Repubs have had since Gingrich at least. This is why, more than anything else, the Repubs got pounded for the last couple of years. This is the attitude that leads to committtee meetings getting shut down because the Dems have the floor, and Dem meetings getting scheduled for locked closets and the like.

I am arguing against that. That is why I said that the best way to DEFEAT the change we would like to see is by adopting that attitude.

How is that totalitarian? "The absolute best way we could ever guarantee non-lasting change and defeatedgoals..." (sorry about the space, should be defeated goals) is arguing that failure will come from those actions. Failure bad. Failure not goal for striving toward.

[Odin2005]

17. Some people can't see anything outside their ideological box they have created for themselves.

I'm a ex-Marxist so I know such BS through personal experience. Such attitudes lead directly to totalitarianism and the death of the Open Society as ideologues purge and "neutralize" anyone who criticizes the "one true ideology."

[Runcible Spoon]

stupid ass post.

waste of bandwitdth and my 20 seconds of life to read it. Thanks for nothing.

[GarbagemanLB]

22. thanks for the kick.

[Runcible Spoon]

21. dupe

[11 Bravo]

23. What, a LEFTwing zealot without a single functioning brain cell? No thanks.