On Obama Administration purity trolling.

[Can o Beans]

I will be brief:

All throughout the campaign, Barack has told us that he will surround himself with bright minds of all stripes, including strategically selected conservatives who are the best person for the job.

All throughout the campaign, Barack has resonated a message of "no red states, no blue states, only the United States".

He needs his direct connections within his new organization to reflect his organizational mission (and no one will or can argue that he failed to display astonishing organizational skills throughout).

The selection of Emanuel, and those forthcoming, will and should be viewed through his original lens. When he selects an aide, cabinet member, or assigns someone to a post, he is not trying to assemble a herd of Obama-clones into a governance mechanism. He is trying to build a diverse team of all stars where each member leverages their own personal competencies, and simultaneously completes an overall mural that reflects the goal.

Any calls for the President-Elect to simply fill his surroundings with Obama-clones dangerously approach the view of the previous misadministration, whose stocking of the shelves with perennial yes men caused its self-immolation.

And thus, any comments here deriding the new PE for are misguided, if not purity trolling efforts, and only serve to damage the mission before it begins.

.02 dispatched accordingly,

Can O Beans

[IndianaJones]

1. a centrist President elect selects a centrist COS. shocking. nt.

[bowens43]

2. I trust Obama to know what the right thing is and to do it..........nt

[XOKCowboy]

3. I voted for Barack Obama to be President because I believe he'll do the right thing..

Not what I think is right but what he believes will be best for the country. I'm not about to start second guessing the person that put together the greatest campaign in our history.

I think you're right on.

[cliffordu]

4. Yep. K&R!!!

[Kip Humphrey]

5. Obama's paradigm shift in governing faces a huge obstacle: us.

That is, agenda-driven liberals & progressives.

[CitizenPatriot]

6. k & r

we can either be part of the solution or part of the problem. bitching and back seat driving are not part of the solution.

He is taking a collection of the smartest people in the room, and putting a panel together to debate the issues. get all the different ideas on the table and sift through them methodically.

I didn't support him so he would fulfill my personal agenda. I supported him because I know he's smart and careful and will do THE BEST job getting us out of the line of fire overseas, building jobs here, etc. The good of the whole over the good of the one.

My god, if we were in charge, this country would be going the way of GM -- design by committee, anyone? We hired a leader, and that's what he's going to do.

[XOKCowboy]

7. Design by committee - Well said

I think we hired a damn good leader also. Let him lead.

[newtothegame]

8. These posts are always so amusing...

apparently 'DU membership purity' is more important than this being an actual discussion board. Let's not spend our time discussing the issues; let's just find trolls, that's a lot more fun! :sarcasm:

[fla nocount]

23. Sometime around 2004-05 the reform got deformed around here.

Really nice board and format, free in a real sense and you get a wide voice. Cheap entertainment for party firsters that get their opinions from the rags and the tube. This wasn't Skinner's or the Admin.s intent. The board was formed in a spirit of progressive outrage on the day of Gee Dubious's inauguration.

Many have left because measured, researched and well written arguments went unrecognized, no one likes to cast pearls before swine. Me, I'm fascinated with car-wrecks, projectile vomiting, erectile dysfunction and spew in general. I sometimes feel like many on this board are, like Rahm, over-compensating for a bad case of "short-man's disease."

One of our generals has opened a new field of battle. You'll find many of the recently departed there. Check it out.http://www.progressivesplayground.com/

[newtothegame]

24. Well said and agreed...cheers :) n/t

[Tarheel_Dem]

9. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. I don't know why anyone's surprised.

A collection of yes men at this point in time would be political suicide. "Heckuva Job Brownie" anyone? And we also have to be careful not to let the influence of progressive talk radio push Obama to any extreme positions, as we've seen from our counterparts on the right, that can have disastrous consequences.

[bertman]

10. Well put, Can O Beans. Of course, we will continue to remind our new Prez that we want

the agenda to be Progressive, not centrist. It's not only our duty, but our Dog-given right.

[Can o Beans]

12. Certainly, critique the overall effect of his choices

But leave the building blocks to Barack. We elected him to make the soup. We will have to eat the soup. Please allow the chef, therefore, to first shop for the groceries before reviewing the restaurant. And stop worrying from whose garden he harvests the thyme.

[bertman]

14. Great analogy. Another way to look at it is like a military action. You train and deploy your

units while you try to keep the enemy guessing where they are going. Maybe you make it look like you're staging to invade East Bumfog, when you're actually regrouping to hit South Bulemia in the dark of night. Either way you don't telegraph your moves. And because you're the commander-in-chief you call the shots. Your loyal subordinates do the jobs you have assigned to them. They may not understand why you're doing what you're doing or why you chose the units you chose, but they do their part because they know you have the strategic plan that they will not see until the battles are won and victory is achieved.

Sorry, I don't cook and I don't play chess, so I had to use the only example I could come up with.

I think it's painfully obvious that a lot of us are worried that Obama will morph into a Pelosi or Reid and leave our hopes and dreams flapping in the breeze. I DO NOT think that is going to happen.

This is going to be a multi-step, multi-year process just to get things back on track. Obama can't move too fast or he'll alienate the centrist Dems and Independents and cause a major uprising on the right. It's a sad fact of life that he will have to woo some of the Republicans in order to get major legislation through the Senate. He can't move too slow or he'll catch holy hell from us Left Wingers. He is in an uneviable position, but I think he will get a little breathing room from a lot of right wingers just to see if he can move the economy back on track. Of course, they aren't going to give him much of a grace period, much the same as the left wing will not. Everybody will want to see instant results and that ain't gonna happen.

Thank you for injecting a note of calm into the discussion.

[sixmile]

11. Netanyahu is wary of Emmanuel, so he's fine with me.

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1035128.html
"In the tense talks with the Palestinians at Wye Plantation in 1998, the Israeli team headed by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was especially wary of one of President Bill Clinton's aides - Rahm Emanuel. His fluent Hebrew, his instinctive grasp of the "Israeli" mind set and above all his complete loyalty to his boss made the Israelis afraid to talk near him. "

[OPERATIONMINDCRIME]

13. Too Many Zealots That Don't Know What Else To Do Other Than Bitch And Moan.

Obama will likely never do right, in their narrow minded eyes.

[Lyric]

15. I resent the hell out of the implication that people who express dissent

are automatically "purity trolls."

Gosh golly gee, with attitudes like that, you might think this was a variation of a democracy or something!

:sarcasm:

[jonnyblitz]

20. i think the bullies that try to stifle dissent are the "purists" since

they are demanding PURE support. Nobody pays attention to them anyway.

[Orsino]

29. Some folks aren't entirely comfortable with the plurality of "Yes, we can."

They point out, rightly, that at some point Obama must be extended a bit of trust. Wrongly, they assume that there will ever be a time when absolutely no one should criticize or question him.

You'd think that any longtime Democrat would be used to cat herding, and cease his own "purity trolling."

[Art_from_Ark]

32. Didn't you get the message?

We're all supposed to hold hands around the campfire and sing Kumbaya and put all our faith and trust in our most wise master, because he ran such a good campaign and all.

[trof]

16. I'm sorry. This is entirely too rational. Belongs in The Lounge.

And welcome to DU.
;-)

[DeepModem Mom]

17. Obama NEVER misled us. As many here have said -- if anyone is surprised...

they haven't been listening. My own view is that Obama is on his way to becoming one of our greatest Presidents. (And tough-guy Rahm is a perfect choice for Chief of Staff.)

[Orsino]

30. Unless you don't believe that his stated opposition to same-sex marriage...

...never coherently explained, could not possibly have been a calculated pander.

He's human, folks, and in the business of leading us. Sometimes, that's going to require misleading us.

There's no harm in keeping a running count.

[Hekate]

18. Wow -- some voices of DU-sanity all in one thread. Thanks, Can o Beans!

:hi:

Hekate

[Can o Beans]

19. Thank you kindly for the props

...coming from a verteran such as yourself, I am touched and honored.

[Dogtown]

21. If I wanted the responsibilty

I would have run for office. We elected President Obama, and should trust him to do the job.

[WilliamPitt]

22. AAAAARRRRGGGGHHH!!!!

"Error: you can only recommend threads which were started in the past 24 hours"

:toast:

[mmonk]

25. Another shut up thread,

Why are some called purists again?

[Pastiche423]

26. Obama said, and I quote

"You hold me accountable." How many times did he say that in the last twenty two months?

Do you know what that means?

I can tell you what it does not mean. It does not mean that we have to STFU if we disagree w/him.

Some of us are only doing what he asked of us.

I will not shit the fuck up. Period!

[Alexander]

28. LBJ said, and I quote

"It's better to have him inside the tent pissing out than outside the tent pissing in."

Do you want Rahm Emanuel influencing Pelosi and pushing through DLC-friendly legislation?

Or do you want him to do what Obama tells him?

"I will not shit the fuck up. Period!"

:rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl:

[Alexander]

27. I'd rather have Emanuel as COS than in the House.

I don't understand why Emanuel is such a big deal.

Progressives and liberals should love that he's no longer influencing policy in the House.

[fla nocount]

31. Switching offices on the Hill does not constitute a butt-plug...

it just means inserting a bigger plug and having a more accommodating A-hole that goes both ways.