I post on both DU and WashPost.com about President Obama and other issues.

[DCBob]

I spar with the asshole Republicans on WashPost quite a bit. What I find disturbing is that I often hear the same arguments from the asshole Republicans as I do here from disgruntled liberals. Why is that??

[shraby]

1. We've been infiltrated by righties.

[DCBob]

2. That was my first thought but I don't think they all are.

Many have been here for years yet they seem to hate President Obama.

[elleng]

6. Similarly, I've read some comments at WP.com.

Not sure, but maybe those here are, for some reason, under the impression that he would/could be 'perfect,' and are seriously disappointed that he's merely 'human,' and indeed, a 'politician.' SO, when I see the stuff here AND there, I tend to ignore.

[DCBob]

12. Which actually is understandable to a point . I have been a bit disappointed as well but...

not to the point of trashing our President. I still feel like it was a miracle to just to get him into office.

[pnwmom]

17. They've been here for years because they think they're the real progressives,

and they're trying to recruit liberal Democrats to their various causes.

[Raine1967]

25. Many here want him to be more left.

Anything to the right of their ideology is failure. Frankly -- it concerns me.

Some people that consider themselves to be Democrats are so far to the left that they are starting to look as intolerant as the radical right that people like myself complain about.

[Laura PourMeADrink]

3. Yes, Repukes are AHs. Dems here have just not gone through

the transition from what they dreamed things would be like when a Dem became president, and the reality of
the real world

[DCBob]

7. I think you are basically correct. I hope they get over it by election time.

We will need all hands on deck to win again in 2010 and 2012.

[katandmoon]

4. Such as?

[DCBob]

9. The stimulus plan has failed.

When in fact it is way, way too early to make any fair judgment.

[Cha]

5. The rwingers are deadenders..the

only way they can get anywhere is by sanctioning the lies they tell.

The posters around here who hate Obama don't let facts stand in their way, either.

[valerief]

8. They're obviously not liberals but moles. nt

[BlooInBloo]

10. Because stupidity knows no party affiliation.

[noamnety]

11. You would need to be more specific to get a useful answer.

There are certainly disgruntled lefties here that do not support neoliberal policies and are outspoken about that (me being one of them).

[DCBob]

13. Well, one current example is the criticism of the stimulus plan.

The asshole Republicans say it has failed miserably and many here on DU say the same. My argument and President Obama said the same thing today, it is way too early to make any firm evaluation. It will take many more months to see measurable impact. But the many DUers and Repubs think it is a already a disaster.

[Cha]

14. Some need it to be a "disaster" and

others don't have the patience of a gnat.

[noamnety]

15. People also made predictions about Bush's stimulus plans

without giving them time to take effect - because we were able to look at the actions taken and predict results.

I think the criticisms of Obama's plan (excluding a couple random comments, at least, there are always exceptions) are based on looking at actions taken and predicting results. I don't think it's based - as you framed it - on the fact that two months have passed and the economy isn't cured yet.

Krugman has a good layout of predictions prior to it even being implemented here: http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/01/06/stimulus-arithmetic-wonkish-but-important/

From reading that, you can see he lays out compelling arguments for why he believes the plan being discussed at that point is not going to solve the problem - and it's obvious, since it wasn't implemented yet, that his analysis went deeper than "it's been two months and it hasn't worked yet, it's a failure."

Give us the same credit, we can also see deeper than your analysis of why we think it's a failure.

As for what republicans are saying, I can't answer to that. :)

[DCBob]

16. Are you willing to give President Obama a few more months before calling it a "failure"

??

[noamnety]

18. nope

I don't have any faith that we can turn the economy around by continuing to bleed tax dollars in Iraq and Afghanistan, no matter what else he does or how many nonprofits he gifts money too. Our military spending is unsustainable, and the bailout money was designed to prop up a system which only needed propping because it too was based on an unsustainable model.

My reasons are unrelated to timetables.

[DCBob]

19. You give no reasons for your negativity other than you think it won't work.

What makes you so sure?

[noamnety]

21. I just gave you two major reasons.

Military spending: unsustainable
Bailouts based on propping up unsustainable business models.

You may disagree, you might believe both those things are sustainable and make good economic sense, but I don't see the point in denying I just listed those as reasons.

[depakid]

22. Neither of those sounds very Republican...

Just sayin'

[noamnety]

26. If your thinking is very black&white I guess it sounds republican.

That's the type of thinking that's been pushed hard over the last decade. The republicans pushed the "you're either with us or against us" message as hard as they could, to imply that anyone who opposed the war was "with" the terrorists. I saw someone on DU earlier today still pushing that message.

The democrats, on their part, had motivation to push black and white thinking because they saw a third party as a threat. So they began ridiculing and ostracizing anyone one the left who wasn't totally on board with the democratic policies.

In education, that kind of thinking has also been pushed - you're either The Good Guy, or The Bad Guy. The book Lies My Teacher Told Me talks about that at length. It's a way of squelching critical thinking, to lump people into either this group or that group. The author refers to it as the Disneyfication of history, where everyone is either a hero or a villain. That way you don't have to deal with pesky complex thoughts.

Anyone opposing WH policies when a democrat is in office is therefore "a republican." When you only acknowledge the existence of two types of people, these and those, there aren't a lot of other options.

Sometimes I wish I lived in a country that has a real multiparty system. I think just the existence of it itself probably makes people smarter, in that they have to recognize more than two points of view simultaneously.

[depakid]

27. I can't think of the last time I heard a Republican complain about defense spending

in the context of these sorts of discussions.

Specific oxen to be gored- yes. As to sustainability over time- no.

Same is true more or less with subsidizing industries. Tends to be about resentments and oxen to be gored, as opposed to concepts like privatizing profits and socializing risks (and costs).

[DCBob]

23. Anyone can say "unsustainable" but that does not mean it is.

Anyway, I am done with this thread and off to bed. Ciao.

[NYC_SKP]

28. Add to your argument, and the President's, that things were worse than he thought...

With the economy.

[depakid]

20. Such as?

:shrug:

I comment on a few American newspaper sites, too- but rarely hear the same arguments. Maybe some examples would help?

[Jennicut]

24. I think right wingers and left wingers may have an issue with something Obama has done but for

different reasons.
What I don't like is when we here fall for the framing of an issue by the Rethugs.

[PATRICK]

29. The perspective is dominated

by the paid propaganda, the gameboard makers and arbiters never really confronted or opposed by the Dems in power or during their campaigns. The terms of thought are initiated and dictated by the Right- still, and is subtle or not so subtle gaping hole in the 2006 campaign and still ongoing. You will always know here what Newt and Rush and WAPO and the Times(Washington or NYT), hate radio spewers, media entertainers
on a very nauseating footing with sane civil discussions.

The socialists recently realized they had been had and almost articulated it("almost" being the heroic exception in America) in accepting capitalism as the system one must dogmatically use despite its inherent failures and imminent perils to human survival. Too late to fix capitalism, the media, "good" corporate entities. Even disgruntlement is just a typical emotion in the great rut we are in. Is it the yearning for apathy and delegated responsibility, the type of bickering troops in the foxholes engage in on both sides as the go about feeding the great machine that could not exist without them?

There is one single responsibility for human beings at this time. It is to build, reform, act and unite. The rest is infamous inanity, the subtle self comforts of the society of victims and killers.

It was the same before during and after the election. The people have to take back the country, not keep slumming in betrayed institutions waiting for better results from the unaccountable entrenched.