Our Long National Nightmare Isn't Over, It's Just Beginning - by David Michael Green

[kpete]

Published on Sunday, September 5, 2010 by CommonDreams.org
Our Long National Nightmare Isn't Over, It's Just Beginning

by David Michael Green

............

Having succeeded dramatically, they are back at it again. It is now transparent, for anyone who cares to look, that the ugly tea party movement in America is an invention of the Koch brothers, Rupert Murdoch, Dick Armey and their sick ilk, once again mobilizing a boatload of fools who are angry, but too stupid to know quite why. This explains their endless rhetoric about the evils of the federal government, and their simultaneous desire to keep their Social Security and Medicare benies. It also explains their unmatched idiocy in serving as tools for their own destruction. If they succeed, they fail. If they get their champions elected, they lose their government-provided (Shhhh!) goodies. Brilliant.

.............

History will record - if there are historians left to record it - that this was a moment of monsters, cowards and indolents: those being the right, the supposed left, and the public, respectively.

..............

Given the magnitude of the crises we face and the ability of those who would govern us - and those who would be governed by them - to do anything whatsoever in pursuit of their own, narrow, short-term interest, it could well be far worse than catastrophic.
It could be entirely lethal.

more:
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2010/09/05-0

[Faygo Kid]

1. "angry, but too stupid to know quite why." Exactly. Remember "What's the Matter With Kansas?"

Voting against their own interests, the Tea Baggers are tools of the Kochs and Murdochs and others like them.

[BrklynLiberal]

19. Exactly!!!!!!!!!

[CoffeeCat]

22. That's exactly RIGHT...

The tea baggers are pawns of the corporatists. They've found the most
ignorant group of wannabees EVER. Then, they fill them with right-wing
radio talking points from Beck and Limbaugh--who make these wannabees feel as if they are
smarter and more in-the-know that everyone else.

Then, they get these people to vote against their own interests. Meanwhile, our
democracy is tanking down the toilet.

They've actually convinced these lemmings to go out into the world and argue
for the banks having LESS regulation and for the top one percent to get their
tax breaks. Do the tea partiers really believe that these corporatist greedmongers
actually give a shit about them? Seriously?

Never have so many been talked into being mouthpieces for such a narrow agenda that
benefits so few (at the top).

The neocons, the Koch brothers, Wall Street and the war profiteers must just sit in a room
and laugh their asses off at how dumb the people in our country are.

[mwb970]

34. The greedy have enlisted the stupid and the ignorant as their pawns.

It is heartbreaking to listen to angry teabaggers arguing for corporate deregulation, giveaways to billionaires, and putting back into office EXACTLY the people that have laid us so low ("Miss me yet?"). The fact that they are working tirelessly against their own interests (and ours, and America's), based entirely on false information and lies, makes it absolutely maddening to listen to them prattle on about "Imam Hussein Obama" and the like. Fools!

These people have no idea that they have joined forces with Satan to complete the destruction of America. They think they are "Restoring Honor"! What simpletons.

This is pathetic.

[Name removed]

35. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[SpiralHawk]

36. Wow - a Kool Aid guzzler

Glug glug, snaz - you have swallowed the whole poopload of propaganda...

"I've got mine, screw you Americans." - Republicon Homelanders

[BlancheSplanchnik]

37. yes, pathetic and heartbreaking.

And frustrating to the point of wanting to tear my hair out.

[sendero]

I blame Obama..

... who could have chosen a simple course to help average people instead of banksters, but who didn't.

After what has gone on the last 2 years why would anyone vote for him? The other guys are worse? Really? Because I CAN'T TELL ANY FUCKING DIFFERENCE.

[elocs]

40. Obama's giving billion$ and billion$ to the few, the wealthy, the guilty

will come back to bite him big time come reelection when he wants the votes and support of the masses, the poor and middle class, those struggling to get by on little, less, or no jobs who have lost their homes and watched their way of life disappear forever. Please, explain it away to them how it was all done to help them--then watch as they punish you (Obama) and all Democrats at the ballot box.

This is not going to be pretty.

[sendero]

38. Bounced the..

..button and created a dup.

[Ignis]

68. +1, great reference to a GREAT book.

:thumbsup:

[CanonRay]

2. Ouch! Truth hurts n/t

[lunatica]

3. I sadly kick this

It seems that our worst fears during the Bush Era may still come true when the Republicans gain control. I'm still in the denial stage though. I'll wait to see after the elections. But they have so much power now as the minority that it doesn't take genius to know what will happen if their numbers increase.

[BeFree]

4. They hate their daddies

It's psychotic, or something like that.

Their daddies are reagan and the bush's and their daddies deserted them.

Not only deserted them, but lied there asses off before deserting them.

The only way I can feel any sorrow for them is in the fact that they are victims, too.

[msongs]

5. sad that the democratic party INC isnt blasting this crowd for what it is ...

challenging in a unified and systematic manner, always using the words republican, tea party, racist, hate group in association with each other and taking it from there.

[BeFree]

7. It is sad...

...holding office for so long whilst hobnobbing with bankers, crooks and thieves, and taking their money, it is difficult to expect them to react more in our favor -- instead of the bankers, crooks and thieves, eh?

[Tippy]

6. K&R.......

Am sending this to everyone in my address book including the WH......

[HCE SuiGeneris]

8. Needs repeating, again...

"angry, but too stupid to know quite why"

Voting against their interests = idiots.

[Doctor_J]

9. The best that real patriots can hope for now is anarchy

a complete collapse

[readmoreoften]

14. It's this sort of nihilism and laziness that is the problem. The best you can do is organize.

Capitalism isn't going to collapse. It has to be destroyed. Anarchy and complete collapse won't happen: fascism will rise first. This is the goddamn story of the 20th century: where there is no left, fascism develops. And I don't mean "corporatism", I mean the remaining capitalist elements colluding with populist racist elements and the police or privatized paramilitary teams to keep the population bamboozled.

Collapse is not what we want. Collapse will make it harder. We need to keep our resources and civil society infrastructure so that we can have a resources for a leftist government to secure for us.

Collapse is not going to save us. It will be late to organize then. Organize now. Join a social movement or a leftist political movement and build the working class so we have a chance at fighting both capitalism and fascism.

[Doctor_J]

15. How very Pollyanna of you

At present, the left and Democrats have absolutely no access to mass media. The fascists have control of the media, the voting machines, the court system, and 99% of the country's wealth. And this isn't going to change by me joining a social movement. The working class's only "news" comes from far right propagandists who fill the airwaves from every outlet, 24 hrs a day, 7 days a week.

What a bizarre statement:

And I don't mean "corporatism", I mean the remaining capitalist elements colluding with populist racist elements and the police or privatized paramilitary teams to keep the population bamboozled.

WTF do you think we have now, with the Chamber of Commerce, teabaggers, and Fox "News" and hate radio? How will maintaining our current system enable a leftist government to succeed?

[Bluenorthwest]

47. As a former media professional, I find your views simplistic

under informed, far from fully true. You say 'absoutely no acess to mass media' yet there is lots of that acess. We should have more, but your extreme lexicon says there is none at all.
And when you say 'media' what exactly do you mean? You mean 'news media' but you say mass media. The news media is not the whole of the media. Not even a tiny sliver of it, really.
The left have 'absolutely no access to mass media'. Stewart. Colbert. Maddow. Hedges. Olbermann. Michael Moore (most successful in his feild in history) 'abosolutely no access' Laura Ling, Una Lee, Cenk, Ed, Senator Franken who got there via mass media work in TV, films, books and radio.
Now, let's cover the music scene. How about you tell me who is dominate from the right wing? Now let's do films. Name the successful right wing filmmakers. I'll offer up Avatar, such a conservative film, if conservative means conservation....
Your view of what the 'working class' listens to is not born out in ratings, sales figures, or any other method of counting. Look up the actual ratings for FoxNews. They are, by TV standards, tiny little things. Compare FoxNews ratings with network ratings. Just for fun. Compare, if you dare, the circulation of 'The Nation' magazine with the viewership of various FoxNews programs that frighten you to the bone. More people watch the big city local newscasts than watch Fox nationally. Are you afraid of 'Good Day L.A' as well? The masses of 'workers' who follow them?!
Your views of 'mass media'-by which you seem to mean 'FoxNews' is just not complex and full enough to matter at all. It is as simple as those who view it all as absolute truth.
Words mean exact things. 'absolutely no acess to mass media' is a false statement. Such lazy lexicons are of no use.
Sorry to be so harsh, but I am fed up with this notion that we should blame and fear 'the media' while at the same time not understanding it, nor even seeking to understand. Presumptions and hyperbole have gotten us here, and here is not where we are going. Those tactics will only lead to the status quo remainging in place, for you can not defeat that which you fail to comprehend.
Look at Dennis Miller and Jon Stewart. That is the reality of right and left in the non news media. They embody the facts as they are.

[StreetKnowledge]

26. I hate to break it to ya, but.....

.....aside from figuring out how to remove the control of the media the right has, your ideas will end up going nowhere.

America is going to have an economic collapse. It's not going to go entirely over to fascism, but for a few years, the United States of America is going to look more like South Africa circa 1985 - a small number of people who hold the reins, controlling power and trying desperately to save their own asses, and the masses, who are very pissed off and have nothing to lose and everything to gain, making the country nearly ungovernable. The problem is that these Tea Party clowns and the other members of the far right will take that collapse and blame it on minorities, and in doing so cause a massive rise in racism, homophobia and violence against minorities - and those minorities will get a little sick of being peed on by some racist, and will fight back. The collapse will see several years of America quite literally tearing itself to pieces. The images will be large sections of several US cities on fire. People killed by cops or vigilantes or people protecting their homes. Some poor sod being in the wrong place at the wrong time and ending up like Reginald Denny. (The white truck driver nearly beaten to death during the 1992 LA Riots, with all of it caught on a news helicopter.) And after a few years of it, people get sick of violence, sick of the crime, the hatred, the bigotry. If we're lucky, that will result in a government being elected to Washington that tears the richest people a new one. If we're not lucky, we have to make them understand that we matter, and that will just mean more riots, more violence, more bodies and more widows and orphans and more pain to deal with later.

The sad fact is that while all of that DOES NOT have to happen, the solutions to stopping it are politically impossible - and that fact is going to one day cost many, many people their lives, livelihoods and sanity. It's tragic. But short of a miracle, its headed towards being unavoidable.

[Bluenorthwest]

49. Hey, Toronto! I lived in Los Angeles, in 92, right in the midst

of what you call the 'L.A. Riots' which we call the unrest after the unjust verdict in the Rodney King beating trial. I do not agree with your assesment. Care to talk about the specifics of that event, rather than use it as a flag waved from thousands of miles away?
First off, I assume you saw that event on TV, from far, far away. Am I correct? Were you in the States at that time? I watched the city burn, I even got a shooting victim to medical care. We helped with the clean up efforts as well.
So what do you know about that event, and how do you know it?

[Doctor_J]

53. All he said was that there will be riots, with innocents becoming casualties

WTF does that have to do with not being on the ground during the Rodney King riots?

[FlyByNight]

10. A bleak and scary picture

The Rs are like predators: show them weakness and they attack.

The Obama/DLC administration simply doesn't grasp this concept or they just don't care just as long as corporate money is flowing in (I tend to think the latter). How do you "negotiate" with another side if they're completely sociopathic and unreasonable? To be fair, having Lincoln, B. Nelson, Lieberman, Conrad, Baucus and Landrieu on "our" side didn't help either.

Now it may be too late. A truly historical opportunity to affect substantive change may be trashed IF the Rs take control of either house. Sure, some good improvements have been made but the fundamental power structures remain intact (probably not by accident). Appointing Summers, Geithner, Emanuel, Salazar, etc., was the shot across the liberal bow. What annoyed me most about the HCR debate was the Obama surrogates blathering on about how much the president favored a public option (I know single payer was out of the question) when, from the beginning, he "negotiated" that away. Cave first, then negotiate. Uh huh.

Make no mistake, I'll be voting D when the midterms roll around but I'm nervous.

:scared:

[Initech]

11. These people are dangerous sore losers.

The pukes don't know how to lose gracefully. They couldn't stand it when Clinton was elected twice - and set out to destroy him. They destroyed Carter. They're gonna do the same to Obama (but they got nothing on him). We cannot let that happen.

[Odin2005]

12. It's 1930 all over again. They thought it was over, then things nose-dived.

The same pattern is happening with this double-dip, so fucking predictable.

[FrenchieCat]

13. We laugh at them and ridiculed them......

but not much more.

It wasn't enough, as they have the media on their side.

Just like when Bill Clinton was being attacked,
we should have fought back and defended this admin,
but we didn't.....and for that, we may get to experience
the worse of what these people have to offer.

[depakid]

17. Who laughed at and ridiculed them?

Certainly not the administration and its surrogates...

[Panaconda]

16. K&R

n/t

[BrklynLiberal]

18. " It’s like the French Revolution, but in reverse"

http://markmaynard.com/?p=7501

<snip>
The best part of the article is the contribution by Thomas Frank, the author of What’s the Matter with Kansas?: How Conservatives Won the Heart of America. Here’s a highlight:

….Right-wing politics has become a vehicle for channelling this popular anger against intellectual snobs. The result is that many of America’s poorest citizens have a deep emotional attachment to a party that serves the interests of its richest.

Thomas Frank says that whatever disadvantaged Americans think they are voting for, they get something quite different:

“You vote to strike a blow against elitism and you receive a social order in which wealth is more concentrated than ever before in our life times, workers have been stripped of power, and CEOs are rewarded in a manner that is beyond imagining… It’s like a French Revolution in reverse in which the workers come pouring down the street screaming more power to the aristocracy.”

As Mr Frank sees it, authenticity has replaced economics as the driving force of modern politics. The authentic politicians are the ones who sound like they are speaking from the gut, not the cerebral cortex. Of course, they might be faking it, but it is no joke to say that in contemporary politics, if you can fake sincerity, you have got it made.

And here, according to the author of the article, is the big takeaway message from all of this… “If people vote against their own interests, it is not because they do not understand what is in their interest or have not yet had it properly explained to them. They do it because they resent having their interests decided for them by politicians who think they know best. There is nothing voters hate more than having things explained to them as though they were idiots. As the saying goes, in politics, when you are explaining, you are losing. And that makes anything as complex or as messy as healthcare reform a very hard sell.”

<snip>

[Catherina]

24. That sentence nails it

" It’s like a French Revolution in reverse in which the workers come pouring down the street screaming more power to the aristocracy."

[deutsey]

67. Sigh...How do we fight self-satisfied stupidity that cheers its own demise?

:evilfrown:

[go west young man]

20. This article is fantastic. It truly nails what's happening to Obama

and us. Sadly it's spot on.

[defendandprotect]

30. Granted, rw Swiftboating continues on... however, Obama has made fatal choices

for the nation from his first moments as president-elect -- and his march to the right --

eloping into the White House with Rahm Emmanuel/DLC -- Wall Street -- Goldman Sacks --

Summers -- all the crummy right wingers who created these problems!!

[lutherj]

21. When Obama was elected I honestly thought there was a chance. Now I'm beginning to think

republicanism is an illness that must run it's course. I's like when you're sick and you know you're going to throw up, but you still try to suppress it. Republicanism is the vomit we are trying to suppress. Maybe we should just let ourselves be sick and get over it, like Germany in the late 30's.


"Now the latest polls are showing Republicans with a ten percent lead in generic congressional ballots. This is the biggest they've ever had in the 68 year history of polling. Meanwhile, half of Republican voters are enthusiastic about voting this November, while only one-fourth of Democrats are. On top of everything else, Republicans are doing this well despite offering nothing in terms of a plan for solving the problems that are upsetting voters. They will cut taxes on the rich. That's it. The entirety of the rest of what they stand for is simply "NO!!!" to all things Demon Obama.

"Now, think about this for a second, and bear in mind that when it comes to the GOP we are talking about a political party that the very same polls show voters still hating. How astonishingly inept do you have to be to turn the world upside down on its axis and hand not only resurrection but in fact control of Congress to such thugs, and hugely despised ones at that? What kind of a full-blown multiple-car crash of a politician do you have to be to make the party of Bush, Cheney, Boehner and McConnell seem preferable to the public, by a wide margin?"

[Name removed]

31. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[ChiciB1]

55. Your Quote Below Pretty Much Sums Up WHAT OUR VERY OWN

(supposed) leaders have LET happen! People here can twist and turn words in any way they want, but in the end, WE ARE LEFT WITH FACTS & a CERTAIN REALITY!!

YOUR QUOTE...
"What kind of a full-blown multiple-car crash of a politician do you have to be to make the party of Bush, Cheney, Boehner and McConnell seem preferable to the public, by a wide margin?"

If we keep telling ourselves "Oh, it's the mid-terms, Presidents and the ruling Party usually lose elections at this time." If we KEEP doing this AND NOTHING else, I'm afraid I don't have THAT MUCH FAITH in THIS WH or so many Democrats that so many of us worked very hard to elect!!

I too have said THIS before. IF the Repukes win, and OUR VERY OWN were STUPID enough to let this go down the drain as it has, then perhaps those in D.C. "might" learn a very sad lesson! I DON'T care if the "blue dogs" are kicked out myself, because they are pretty much walking with Repukes now! But what REALLY disgusts me is how EASY they've made it for the Repukes!! A Party that had it's TWO highest office holders practically RUIN us, is NOW a Party that people are looking to ONCE AGAIN to run this place!! Some are even wishing The Idiot was back!! That thought ALONE should smack those in power right in the gut!! So, when I get upset about what is happening, it's like putting a bumper sticker on my car that says... "dont' blame me, it's not how I thought things would be!"

Bottom line, it DOES kind of show that THEY obviously "play the game" much better than our players are able to!! When people like Boxer and Feingold find themselves in trouble, I have to say THIS worries me A LOT!!

But then, having been called retards, or just forget the base, or blaming the "professional left" for PROBLEMS they created, it's extremely difficult for me to support those who STILL want to "reach across the aisle!"

WHAT WILL IT TAKE, for them to UNDERSTAND that the aisle "over there" is LOVING EVERY MINUTE OF IT???

Here come the "Young Guns" and people are lapping it up!!

I don't think "the base" that I come from respects this type of action because many of us perceive it as a losing game!!

My father always told me... You either STAND UP for something, of you will FALL FOR anything!" I've tried to stay on board, but feel I've been kicked off the BOAT! By my very own!! NEVER would I have thought a Democratic Party could have bent so far to the RIGHT!!

What will be will be, but there is TRUTH to the fact that MANY, MANY Democrats aren't excited in ANY WAY about voting!! Facts show it in the Primaries from what I've seen posted here, and MSM and polling data keeps telling us the same all the time!! And from where I'm sitting, even though it's ONLY TWO years, I will be GREATLY surprised if this administration and Democrats in Congress will even THINK about altering the course in any way!!

JMHO!!

[BrklynLiberal]

56. I wish I could rec your post!!!!!

Says everything I would say if I were able to put it into words as you have.
:applause: :applause: :applause: :applause: :applause:

I have been screaming GEORGE LAKOFF GEORGE LAKOFF for years now!!!

No one in DC appears to care.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=389&topic_id=8924978

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=389&topic_id=9081915#9081982

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=389&topic_id=8995718#8995758

[ChiciB1]

58. Thanks For Links To Refer To... Problem Is... It's So HEARTBREAKING!

And now all this talk about SS & Medicare! Kind of leaves one gasping for breath!! I KNOW if they screw with these, I'm going to be in an awful way! And many, many other people I know!

WHAT IS WRONG??? HOW is it that TPTB have seemed to completely ignore THE American People that will suffer?? Sure they can always ship overseas, but I wonder all too often WHY they are willing to abandon their very own country!!

I can sincerely say that I AM very afraid of what the future holds. People keep telling me to look at the POSITIVE side!! I'm looking, anyone see what I'm missing??

So many in this country have lost EVERYTHING, and millions more stand to lose almost everything too! ESPECIALLY if they start cutting SS & Medicare! I CAN NOT understand what they must be thinking!! Do they even realize HOW MANY PEOPLE depend on THAT income just to get by every month???

And then you look around and MSM is hawking some STUPID story about Paris, Lindsey or some other multi-millionaire who can't keep their life together EVEN with all the money they will ever need!

It makes me HURT to the core of my being!! There are days I just don't want to get out of bed, LITERALLY... I just don't want to hear MORE CRAP! Again, I AM VERY AFRAID, and wonder if I'll be able to pay my bills come this time next year!! And I feel so very sorry for those who can't pay their bills right now... so I guess I'm lucky that I MIGHT have 6 months left!!

Where DO WE TURN??? Please tell me, I have so little rope left to hang on to!!

[BrklynLiberal]

63. I wish I had an answer..for both of us. My position is EXACTLY like yours

I have SS and I just started Medicare, and that is ALL I have..no insurance, no home(I rent), no job, no savings, no spouse. This is it for me as well. There is no "tomorrow it will be better" option.

If things get any worse, I do not know what I will do.

I can totally empathize about the reluctance to get out of bed each morning and the hesitation to listen to the news...

I was so excited after the 2008 elections..and allowed myself to get a bit optimistic...but now...I feel exactly as you do...so little rope left to hang on to...

:pals: :hug:

[Catherina]

23. Strong and honest article. One of the best I've read in a long time.

"And, as Warren Buffett is honest enough to point out, the war is over and his side won. As Robert Reich noted in a recent New York Times op-ed, the richest one percent of Americans have gone from taking in nine percent of the total national income right before the Reagan era began, to nearly one-fourth of it today."

...

Dan Pfeiffer, Obama's communications director, recently averred that "The public is rightly frustrated and angry with the economy". So far so good, Dan. Very perceptive for a guy in the Obama White House. You should have stopped there, though. Instead, Dan went on to say that, "There is no small tactical shift we could have made at any point that would have solved that problem". You know, I don't really know who Dan Pfeiffer is, but I would say that anyone making this claim should be removed from office, and fast. Indeed, right now I would say that anyone who has the title of Obama's communications director should probably just be taken out back and shot, on account of gross incompetence and lethal negligence. I'm sorry, but these fools are so clueless. This could have turned out so differently, and, moreover, that was obvious in January of 2009 to anyone who had paid attention to American politics for the last thirty years. This White House was not praiseworthy for seeking to be bipartisan. Rather, it was embarrassing for not even knowing who its enemies were.


The worst, though, is what is to come."

[Michigan-Arizona]

25. K&R n/t

[SpankMe]

27. We should all re-read this on November 3 this year.

And then again on 11-3-2012. We'll think of Mr. Green as a modern day political Nostradamus.

"What kind of a full-blown multiple-car crash of a politician do you have to be to make the party of Bush, Cheney, Boehner and McConnell seem preferable to the public, by a wide margin?"

That statement says it all for me. The dark ages and the end of the American experiment will have begun.

[defendandprotect]

28. Everything right wing is bought and paid for ...that -- and violence -- is only way they can rise!!

And that includes the Christian Coalition and all of their other rw religious groups/

fanatacisms --

It includes having moved coporate monopolies in to overcome anything we actually had of

a "free press."

[defendandprotect]

29. Public has trusted their government and believed in election process . . ..

these things will no longer work -- we have to get out into the streets --

and we have many options on how to unite and conduct protests -- many that

don't require permits and large crowds in DC!!

[EmeraldCityGrl]

32. What the Teabaggers fail to realize is that the oligarchs

owe allegiance to no country. They don't recognize borders or governments, just masses of people to be
robbed of their treasure and resources. Rupert Murdoch is not an American and yet he sets the agenda that
runs their movement. I wonder at times how true that allegiance is from the few we trust the most.

These people are hopelessly ignorant. Years of neglect have left our education system in crisis. It's a national
disgrace. People no longer know how to reason and think for themselves and nothing will change for the next
generation or possibly the one after that. We are simply fucked.

My people and I feel we are in survival mode. We try to seek out others with like minds and try to prepare for what's coming
in small ways. I really don't know what else we can do anymore.

[WinkyDink]

39. Guns, Guts, and God. The Big 3 for WHY there are poor and ignorant who vote "R".

Gun-control is a Communist AND Nazi plot.
Peace is for sissy-lala traitors.
A secular state (or any religion other than "Born-again" Protestantism) is the Devil's Work.

Go today to your State Fair; you'll see.

[Name removed]

33. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Solly Mack]

41. K&R

[ProSense]

42. "The current White House is such a failure that I am sometimes left scratching my head"

The current White House is such a failure that I am sometimes left scratching my head in understanding why that is the case. The puzzle becomes especially acute if one considers how transparently intelligent Barack Obama is, and how strategically clever they were in running their presidential campaign. It's true, of course, that there are different kinds of smart. Jimmy Carter understood nuclear physics, but not the presidency. George W. Bush understood the presidency, but was otherwise as intellectually vacuous as a mud pie. Still, Obama has shown serious evidence that he has keen political smarts. Until he became president, that is.

What utter BS.

[Stuart G]

43. K and R

[ProSense]

44. David Michael Green is a moron

if he believes the Obama administration is a failure compared to Carter (and Bush?).

[SidDithers]

45. More quality writing from David Michael Green...

Barack Obama has now, in just a year’s time, become the single most inept president perhaps in all of American history, and certainly in my lifetime.

Astute political analysis from a fucking idiot. And DU'ers lap this guy up. :puke:


Sid

[ProSense]

46. "Barack Obama has now...become the single most inept president perhaps in all of American history"

Amazing isn't it?

Seriously, who are you going to believe a moron or Rachel Maddow, who I'm sure Green must believe is clueless.

[Bluenorthwest]

51. And in they come, in concert, and what do they have?

Characterizations of the author. Names to call. Counterpoints? None? Taunts? Aplenty!
The President is opposed to equal rights for Rachel Maddow. What do you think she has to say about that? Odd that your only defense comes from a person Obama says should not have equal rights. So telling.

[ProSense]

52. Bill Clinton signed DOMA

The President will sign the repeal of DOMA.

David Michael Green is a moron.

[INdemo]

48. The Republicans have control now

[hulka38]

50. The cutting of SS by the Democrats will serve

to confirm the fears of the disenfranchised about the federal govt being the enemy and cause more to gravitate toward the tea party.

[WilliamPitt]

54. (facepalm)

The most inept president in history?

Really?

Jesus wept.

[depakid]

65. Politically speaking and given the circumstances (and likely result in November)

it's actually pretty hard to argue with that.

I mean, who in their right mind in this political, economic and cultural climate goes out of their way to associate themselves with such popular entities as banksters, health insurers and PhARMA while repeatedly insulting, backhanding and backstabbing their own core constituencies?

Who, rather than place blame where it belonged at every opportunity went out of their way to enable, legitimize Republicans and help rehabilitate their brand (as opposed to relegating them to the fringe that they earned through long and tireless efforts)?

How else would one describe someone who not only made a preemptive concession to Republicans by publicly adopting their offshore drilling policies and going so far as to insist that these rigs were safe, when a mere 6 month earlier a very similar catastrophe occurred in the Timor Sea off West Australia?

And knowing full well (or having every reason to know from accounts and from a GAO report that the problems and corruption at his the regulatory agencies responsible for oversight of these projects hadn't been dealt with?

I'd say that qualifies as some rather astonishing ineptitude.

[Steely_Dan]

57. This Is One Of The Scariest Threads I've Read...

...What makes it so scary is that it rings so true.

-P

[Kievan Rus]

59. They remind me of the Know-Nothing party in the decade before the Civil War

[Quantess]

60. Too late to recommend.

[Dont_Bogart_the_Pretzel]

61. K&R

[political_Dem]

62. It only shows how racism in America is a quick motivator to sway politics.

When Mr. And Mrs. Mainstream America of the WASP persuasion finds that their way of life threatened by the "others" they'll join any group and fight back guerillia style to take back America. :eyes:

This exercise only demonstrates how American citizens enjoy being led.

It's time to stress critical thinking in schools before the sheep in this country puts the rest of us in danger. :(

[pscot]

64. Why don't we all panic

and run around in litle circles going EEEK! EEEK! Great thread. Not. :puke:

[Scurrilous]

66. ...