Obama Praising Reagan--An Echo, Not A Choice???

by: Paul Rosenberg

Thu Jan 17, 2008 at 12:22


When Obama praised Reagan, he was echoing the elite, Versailles conventional wisdom, as he all too often does, rather than challenging it, and presenting the American people with a true, substantive choice for a real change of direction.  How much change of direction is possible while still clinging to the myths of the past?

NObama! Reagan Did NOT Change The Trajectory Of America

Obama:
 

"I think Ronald Reagan changed the trajectory of America in a way that Richard Nixon did not and in a way that Bill Clinton did not. He put us on a fundamentally different path because the country was ready for it. I think they felt like with all the excesses of the 1960s and 1970s and government had grown and grown but there wasn't much sense of accountability in terms of how it was operating. I think people, he just tapped into what people were already feeling, which was we want clarity we want optimism, we want a return to that sense of dynamism and entrepreneurship that had been missing."

Reality:

Reagan was a figurehead, a rallying point for the conservative movement that has taken over many of the elite institutions of America, but it has not changed the heart of America.  In particular, the notion that "government had grown and grown but there wasn't much sense of accountability" is directly refuted by the most-respected, and most-cited public opinion survey in America, the General Social Survey , which is cited by social scientists more often than any other data source, except for the US Census.

Here's how attitudes toward spending on the environment were not changed by Ronald Reagan:

Charts for seven more spending categories on the flip...
Paul Rosenberg :: Obama Praising Reagan--An Echo, Not A Choice???
Big Cities:

Crime:

Drug Addiction:

Education:

Blacks:

Welfare: [Perennially unpopular because people vastly over-estimate how much is spent on it, but still see how much opposition dropped while Reagan was in office.]

Health:

Combined Total:

Combined Total On Larger Time Scale:

The lowpoint comes in 1978, two years before Reagan was elected.  But even then, people were still overwhelmingly in favor of more spending.  The highpoint comes in 1990, two years before Clinton was elected.  But even when it fell back, people remained significantly more supportive than they had been before Reagan took office.

Barack Obama is simply echoing the conventional wisdom of the elites who have tried to change America's direction, who have tried to deny the will of the people, and misrepresented America to itself.  This reflects the larger fear that I have about Obama, that what he offers us is, quite simply, "An Echo, Not A Choice."

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Obama Praising Reagan--An Echo, Not A Choice??? | 87 comments
Then the dizziness started ... (4.00 / 4)
"I think Ronald Reagan changed the trajectory of America in a way that Richard Nixon did not and in a way that Bill Clinton did not. He put us on a fundamentally different path because the country was ready for it."

Where the heck was Senator Obama when Uncle Ronnie was El Jefe? The "trajectory" I saw changed apparently wasn't the same trajectory Obama witnessed:

- Fire the PATCO controllers, kill the unions: after the PATCO firings, management across America saw that you can just fire their asses, and get new asses that don't talk back.

- Cut the knees out of the public education institution. 20 years down the pike, I have colleagues, friends, managers that do not know history, can't speak or write properly, and are incapable of performing arithmetic without a calculator. When hiring managers complain they can't find programmers, but 3000 people show up for 300 job openings at WalMart, you have to know that this did not occur over night.

- Make the word "liberal" a dirty, filthy, disgusting epithet. Every time he said it in a speech, those acting skills really came in handy.

Congratulations, Obama. I now know that I simply cannot support you, and I also now know precisely why.

Obama wasn't talking about policy trajectory at all (0.00 / 0)
He was watering down Reagan's role. And given that, you know, Obama is a progressive Democrat I think the point we should take away is that rather than kill unions, public education and make liberal a dirty word Obama would to the OPPOSITE. Or at least that is what he's saying. He's turning Reagan into a bipartisan figure to let us know that while he's running as a bipartisan figure he's going to govern like the liberal version of Reagan.

Dog whistles don't work if you're not listening!

Imagine making conservative a dirty word!

[ Parent ]
Wrong Dog (4.00 / 1)
Dog whistles don't work if you're not listening!

Or if you're calling the wrong dog.

As Obama seems to do fairly often.

McClurkin, anyone?

"You know what they say -- those of us who fail history... doomed to repeat it in summer school." -- Buffy The Vampire Slayer, Season 6, Episode 3

[ Parent ]
Fine. (0.00 / 0)
I think it's unlikely Obama would try to signal homophobes in a primary...whatever. But now you're taking inconsistent positions. When Obama says something that you don't like the literal reading of you go after him. But when he gives a straight forward explanation of something you perceive to be signaling reactionaries you condemn him. I'm not accusing you of conspiring against my candidate (who, incidentally is John Edwards) but there are a bunch of smart people here who recognize that we a candidate says literally is not always what he or she means. We might not like the fact that candidates are going to appeal to the perceived middle of the political spectrum but we have to recognize that it happens.

I think it would behoove you to stop writing rebuttals to little things Obama says in interviews as if he was taking a serious, substantive position on something that needed to be pushed back against.

And when I look at his past I think I see pretty good evidence that I'm the dog.

[ Parent ]
Nope. (4.00 / 1)
He validated the conservative narrative in that quote.

And here's a question. Has Obama ever criticized Reagan?

[ Parent ]
Please don't confuse the Obama people w/facts. (4.00 / 1)
He's black, he's cool, he's cute, he's smart, he's articulate, and they love him.  Every dumb or empty thing he says or does is a deliberate strategy being employed to "loll" the enemy into thinking....  I'm telling you, Obama supporters are romantics.  They don't need no steekin facts.  They looked into his eyes and saw his soul. 


They're asking for another four years -- in a just world, they'd get 10 to 20. ~~ Dennis Kucinich  
[ Parent ]
Reality: (0.00 / 0)
Obama did not praise Reagan.  He was talking about how the times was ready for change, it was ready for the optimism that was his message.  Not that his policies were right.  Have you watched the entire interview, not just the Taylor Marsh promoted clip?
Obama ALWAYS Has An Explanation (4.00 / 5)
for why he didn't say what it seems he said.

That is not the sign of a "great communicator."

That is a sign of someone who is very practiced in sending multiple messages.

No wonder he admires Reagan.

Every time I'm on the brink of trying to reconile myself to him, to give him every benefit of the doubt, and try to see things from his perspective (which, I admit, I still can't figure out, he's so damn blurry), he pulls something like this, then turns around and says, "Kings X!"

Reagan gave us phony leadership.  What's Obama promising?  Mixed messages and a pale imitation thereof???

Sorry, dude, there is no denying that Obama said that people "felt like with all the excesses of the 1960s and 1970s and government had grown and grown but there wasn't much sense of accountability."  And, as the charts I've presented clearly show, this is simply a lie.

Reagan won because Carter looked ineffective in dealing with hostage crisis--a crisis brought on when he followed Henry Kissinger's advice and let the Shah into the country.  Carter was being restrained, because he was actually trying to get the hostages out, and not endanger their lives. Reagan, in contrast, was talking tough, while secretely and illegally negotiating behind Carter's back.  In short, Reagan won because he was a liar, a cheat, and a traitor.  Period.

"You know what they say -- those of us who fail history... doomed to repeat it in summer school." -- Buffy The Vampire Slayer, Season 6, Episode 3

[ Parent ]
what's your point? (0.00 / 0)
Obama's objective is to get into office and build a coalition for progressive change.

Your objective is, apparently, to correct the record.

The Jim Webb Democrats are an essential part of any coalition that can take power. If Webb addresses basic inequities and class issues, I don't give a damn whether he thinks that Ronald Reagan was inspiring. Reagan meant different thing to different people.


[ Parent ]
Someone Who Parrots Rightwing Lies Simply Isn't All There (4.00 / 4)
Holding onto the notion that you have to parrot rightwing lies in order to win is indication enough that you're not really offering folks a real choice.  It's just another flavor of triangulation--triangulating between truth and lies.

There is another way, and George Lakoff has been writing about it for over a decade now.  Ironically, Lakoff has cited Obama as being excellent at framing, so he really has no need to adopt to these lies.  You simply start from a different premise.  That's it.  That's all.  You don't agree with the other side, you don't even have to disagree.  You simply establish a different premise and go from there.,

Why Obama doesn't just do that and stick with it is an utter mystery to me.  If he wasn't constantly pissing off progressives like this, he would have already trounced Clinton.

"You know what they say -- those of us who fail history... doomed to repeat it in summer school." -- Buffy The Vampire Slayer, Season 6, Episode 3

[ Parent ]
you do not get lakoff (0.00 / 0)
there is a reason why Lakoff cites Obama as having a good understanding of framing and it is not that Lakoff lacks your charts.
[ Parent ]
Lakoff Made That Statement Very Early On (4.00 / 1)
And when he made it, I agreed with him completely.  I still do in terms of raw capacity.

It's Obama's choices about how to reframe things that make me deeply suspicious of him.

As for getting Lakoff, I reviewed Moral Politics for the Christian Science Monitor back in 1996, and Lakoff was tickled pink with my review.

"You know what they say -- those of us who fail history... doomed to repeat it in summer school." -- Buffy The Vampire Slayer, Season 6, Episode 3

[ Parent ]
He IS reframing (4.00 / 1)
He's turning Reagan into a bipartisan figure and defining him as about optimism and accountability. We aren't going to change the fact that Reagan has become this absurd American icon. What we can do is take Reagan out of the conservative mold. What Obama is saying is that this nation NEVER WAS Conservative. He is saying instead that Reagan's message was about good governance and optimism. Obama is turning a popular Conservative into a moderate by removing his policies from the picture. If people stop associating conservative policies with Reagan then conservative policies will seem LESS appealing.

This is exactly the sort of thing a new progressive movement needs to do. We can't fight the 80's over again. What we can do is spin the 80's to give progressivism a better shot in the 00's.

[ Parent ]
bingo (0.00 / 0)
and that is Paul's underlying objection. Paul has a narrative in which virtuous progressives were spurned by the moron public which must eventually come back and repent.
[ Parent ]
Not True At All (4.00 / 1)
The charts quite clearly prove that Reagan's attack on big government never had popular support.

The public was not moronic.  That's my whole point.

"You know what they say -- those of us who fail history... doomed to repeat it in summer school." -- Buffy The Vampire Slayer, Season 6, Episode 3

[ Parent ]
but reagan beat carter all the same (0.00 / 0)

[ Parent ]
Yeah but the public (0.00 / 0)
totally went in a different direction in 1984...

oh wait! lol.

[ Parent ]
Because of the HOSTAGE CRISIS! (0.00 / 0)

"Do'h!"

"You know what they say -- those of us who fail history... doomed to repeat it in summer school." -- Buffy The Vampire Slayer, Season 6, Episode 3
[ Parent ]
In 1984? (0.00 / 0)


John McCain--He's not who you think he is.
[ Parent ]
Mondale Ran On Raising Folks Taxes (0.00 / 0)
And in doing so, he was following the advice of DLC types, before the DLC had even been formally established.

So, no surprise, really.

"You know what they say -- those of us who fail history... doomed to repeat it in summer school." -- Buffy The Vampire Slayer, Season 6, Episode 3

[ Parent ]
1984 (0.00 / 0)
I was 4 at the time. What the heck was that election like? How did Mondale lose so badly? Ferraro didn't really help matters I gather. Although I do remember reading that the only time the Reaganites saw Mondale internally poll ahead of them was after he picked her (he went up by 1 point). But still, why such a hindenberg of a catastrophe?
[ Parent ]
It's Complicated, But Here's A Few Salient Points (0.00 / 0)
Basically, the Dems lost their nerve and their sense of direction over a period of 8 years.  Carter--who seemed like a Godsend at first--was a political disaster.  He didn't work well with the rest of party, he took advice from Henry Kissinger (memo to Obama: the party of really bad ideas!) and let the Shah into America, which precipitated the hostage crisis, which Reagan/Bush made sure didn't end until after Carter was defeated.

On the economic front, the moderately center-left post-WWII consensus basically fell apart, because (a) the limits imposed on it from the conservative side limited its options, (b) vastly exacerbated by our containment strategy of bribing east Asia with easy access to our consumer markets, (Chalmers Johnson writes about this in Blowback) and topped off by the skyrocketing costs of oil from the twin oil crises of the 1970s.

None of this had anything to do with "the excesses of the 1960s."  But it did leave the Democrats without a strong, unified sense of purpose and direction.

There was a significant wave of deindustrialization in the double-dip recession, and the Democrats won 27 House seats, but none (net) in the Senate in 1982.  This was enough to significantly blunt Reagan's drive (the Nuclear Freeze Movement also cleaned his clock with state and local initiatives across the land), but it did not amount to a coherent policy response, and so when the economy recovered (leaving millions permanently at much lower wage levels, but hey, that's life!) they really didn't know what to do.  The deficits were so huge that Mondale, a lifelong liberal, was simply too afraid to run on a standard economic populist platform.  Instead, he took the advice of what would become the DLC in a couple of years, and ran like Carter on fiscal discipline, proclaiming loudly that he would raise taxes.

Finally, the Ferraro choice was obviously poorly vetted and was symptomatic of the shallow tactical thinking that prevailed in his campaign.  Gimmickery was supposed to fill the void left by a fundamental lack of cohesion.  It didn't work.

"You know what they say -- those of us who fail history... doomed to repeat it in summer school." -- Buffy The Vampire Slayer, Season 6, Episode 3

[ Parent ]
the chart data is much more ambiguous than that (0.00 / 0)
Not all issues have equal salience, as I'm sure you'll agree.  The welfare and spending to help black charts, in particular, show a certain degree of dissatisfaction that changed drastically after Reagan's election.  That pretty clearly shows that certain people felt that Reagan's election, probably regardless of anything did, "set things right" (for them). 

[ Parent ]
You Are Badly Misreading The Charts! (0.00 / 0)
Support for spending to improve the conditions of blacks was relatively evenly split befor Reagan came into office.  Then in 1982, the number saying we were spending "too little" shot up sharply.

Similarly, as I noted, "welfare" has long been demonized, and people tend to vastly over-estimate how much is spent on it.  Nonetheless, those thinking we were spending "too much" fell sharply and those thinking we were spending "too little" rose.  These are all in line with the general trend shown in the aggregate measure, which grew steadily more progressive from 1978 on.

Both Reagan and Clinton came into office after an extreme in the cycles of support had been reached.  To the extent that their elections were connected to such concerns--and, due to the volatility in Carter's levels of support related to the hostage crisis, as well as his own fiscal conservatism, I would argue that the Clinton connection is much clearer--their elections were the results of larger changes in social attitudes, far more than they were causes of attitudes that followed.

"You know what they say -- those of us who fail history... doomed to repeat it in summer school." -- Buffy The Vampire Slayer, Season 6, Episode 3

[ Parent ]
ridiculous... (4.00 / 1)
So let's reframe reality and turn Reagan into some sort of a hero?  Bill Clinton praised Reagan too.  You want Bill Clinton again?  Vote for Hillary, and you can have the real Bill.  Oh no, I forget.  Bill meant it, and Obama is lying so he can fool the enemy and loll them into a false sense of security.  Wow, what a great man. 

Whatever the hell you people are drinking, I'm glad it's not in my water.


They're asking for another four years -- in a just world, they'd get 10 to 20. ~~ Dennis Kucinich  

[ Parent ]
Framing ISN'T Spin, Framing ISN'T Lies (0.00 / 0)
I had this argument at great length with Booman, and simply quite posting at Booman Tribune because he was utterly dogmatic and closed to reason.  He insisted over and over again that framing was lying, and ignored everything that contradicted his belief.

Now you're making the same argument, but you're making it in favor of lying and spin.

The fact is, Obama is trying to have it both ways.  On the one hand, progressives have to get over it, and stop fighting the culture wars of the last 20, 30, 40 years.  On the other hand, we have to keep praising the conservative icons of the culture war, because, well, we don't want the conservatives to be mad at us.

Shorter Obama: We can win the culture wars by surrendering.

Sorry. This does not compute.

If the culture wars are yesterday's news, then there's simply no need to have to lavish praise on Reagan or redefine him in any way.  He is irrelevent. Period.

And while this certainly isn't true in the GOP primary (better imaginary coat-tails than very real but deeply negative ones), I've yet to see any evidence that actual general election voters have any need whatsoever to see Democrats get all kissy face with Reagan's ghost.

Either the past does matter, and we should clear-eyed and honest about it, or it doesn't, and we should just move forward.

The only other option is the traditional conservative one: wallow in an imaginary past.

"You know what they say -- those of us who fail history... doomed to repeat it in summer school." -- Buffy The Vampire Slayer, Season 6, Episode 3

[ Parent ]
Errm (4.00 / 1)
I don't think I was talking about the culture wars. Here is my read;

The Conservative Arguement:

1. Reagan was a good president.
2. Reagan was a conservative.
3. Reagan was a good president because he was a conservative.
C: Therefore if the American people want a good president they should elect a conservative.

The argument isn't made explicitly but this is basically the justification for Republican's cloaking themselves in Reagan. Now if you want to undermine this argument you can challenge the premise that Reagan was a good president. That's cool. That's what Edwards is doing and I admit I enjoy it more. But we haven't been particularly successful with that. Maybe that can change, I don't know. Now, there are too ways to interpret what Obama was saying. Obviously he disputes that conclusion and it is plausible to think that all he is arguing is that the early 80's were the right time for conservatism and now is the right time for whatever Obama is offering. I think, that his rhetoric is also suggesting that Reagan's conservatism wasn't the reason for his popularity.
Obama:

I think people, he just tapped into what people were already feeling, which was we want clarity we want optimism, we want a return to that sense of dynamism and entrepreneurship that had been missing.

Nothing he is saying here is particularly conservative. He is talking about why Reagan was successful (and given that the biggest Democratic loss in history came against him, I think it's fair to say he was successful by his own standards). I read that as giving a different account of Reagan's success than conservatives give.

Framing is obviously not lying but it isn't dissimilar to spinning. You don't think we should try to counter Republican spin of past administrations?

Anyway, I want to go watch the interview in full before I comment anymore. Oh, one more thing. These charts really don't give the whole story:
http://ann.sagepub.c...

[ Parent ]
Simple Explanations (0.00 / 0)
Now if you want to undermine this argument you can challenge the premise that Reagan was a good president. That's cool. That's what Edwards is doing and I admit I enjoy it more. But we haven't been particularly successful with that.

Because we haven't done it. If some prominent liberal or Democrat dares criticize St. Ronnie, there's always a chorus of Versailles Dms to shout them down.

Now, there are too ways to interpret what Obama was saying. Obviously he disputes that conclusion and it is plausible to think that all he is arguing is that the early 80's were the right time for conservatism and now is the right time for whatever Obama is offering.

If that's what he meant, then why didn't he say it?  It would still be wrong, but it would at least be clearer.

The problem is that he's simply not very effective at doing whatever he thinks he's doing, which sort of vitiates the whole "justification by political effectiveness" argument.

I think people, he just tapped into what people were already feeling, which was we want clarity we want optimism, we want a return to that sense of dynamism and entrepreneurship that had been missing.

Nothing he is saying here is particularly conservative. He is talking about why Reagan was successful (and given that the biggest Democratic loss in history came against him, I think it's fair to say he was successful by his own standards).

The conservative movement was highly successful, because it pulled off a wholesale repositioning, by running massively bigger budgets than Democrats ever dreamed of, and putting Mondale in the traditional conservative spot of wailing about fiscal irresponsibility--except this time it was actually real!

This was much like Nixon did when he went to China.  If your core political message is demonizing the other side for "X" and then you turn around and do "X" and get away with it, then you've pretty well pulled off a major coup, which needs to be understood in rather far-reaching terms.  But by your logic, we simply chalk it up to Nixon's clarity and optimism, right?

Ummm, no.  I would prefer an analysis in terms of a hegemonic "war of position" or "culture war."

But if I said any more on the topic, I'd have to change the subject line.

Framing is obviously not lying but it isn't dissimilar to spinning.

Framing is when you say the glass is half full.  Spinning is when you say the glass is half empty, and then when you're asked, "Why didn't you say it was half full?" you say, "But that's what I DID say!  They're both the same, you know."

Oh, one more thing. These charts really don't give the whole story:

You link to an article about the growth of conservative self-identification.  But the linked text itself said:

Data from four national survey organizations indicate a growing trend toward more conservative ideological identification in the public over the last decade. At the same time, however, the public is becoming increasingly liberal on many issues, particularly racial tolerance and women's rights.

And, indeed, I have written numerous times, in both diaries and comments, about how ideological identification has little to do with policy atittudes compared to the conventional wisdom.

But, more to the point, I never claimed that these charts gave "the whole story" whatever that might be.  (So many questions were never even asked, so there's much we'll never, ever know.)

I simply claimed that Obama was wrong on the facts he stated.  People did not think that spending had become uncontrolled and irresponsible.  They not only continued to want more of it overall, but they steadily incresed their support for more of it as the Reagan presidency continued.  (The one exception, not shown here, was military spending.  There was a paroxysm of support for military spending in 1980-81, which quckly faded once the hostage crises passed into history.  But once the elite got ahold of that temporary support, the budgets just kept a goin' up, regardless of public opinion.)

"You know what they say -- those of us who fail history... doomed to repeat it in summer school." -- Buffy The Vampire Slayer, Season 6, Episode 3

[ Parent ]
A little too simple (0.00 / 0)
If some prominent liberal or Democrat dares criticize St. Ronnie, there's always a chorus of Versailles Dms to shout them down.

That is plausible but I haven't seen much evidence for it. Do you have a link by chance? Even so, I don't think it is unreasonable for a politician to believe that challenging Reagan's legacy isn't going to be very successful. You disagree and thats ok. By all means, argue with him about his approach but don't attack him for it.

 

Now, there are too ways to interpret what Obama was saying. Obviously he disputes that conclusion and it is plausible to think that all he is arguing is that the early 80's were the right time for conservatism and now is the right time for whatever Obama is offering.

If that's what he meant, then why didn't he say it?  It would still be wrong, but it would at least be clearer.

Well he says that sort of thing pretty clearly later in the video with the "Republicans used to be the party with new ideas thing". But now I'm confused because I thought that was how you interpreted the comments. I interpret them as saying that AND subverting Reagan's conservative tradition. I assumed we all agreed with that Obama was at the least saying the former. If Obama wasn't suggesting he'd be a progressive Reagan what was he saying?

The conservative movement was highly successful, because it pulled off a wholesale repositioning, by running massively bigger budgets than Democrats ever dreamed of, and putting Mondale in the traditional conservative spot of wailing about fiscal irresponsibility--except this time it was actually real!

That isn't a plausible explanation of the 1984 election outcome. Thats not to say it is false. But that isn't WHY Mondale lost and lost overwhelmingly.

 

But by your logic, we simply chalk it up to Nixon's clarity and optimism, right?

Lets be clear. I don't really care why people voted for Reagan just so long as history doesn't come to the conclusion that it had something to do with his policies.

_

The charts:

There is the specific claim about support for government spending. Those charts address that claim. But the larger claim is that Reagan changed the trajectory of America. That is what evidence of increasing identification with conservative ideology addresses. True, issue positions are often independent from ideological identification but ideology closely correlates with partisan identification. There is a reason why Chris routinely blogs ideological identification polling. But anyways, this was tangential. My point is just that if we were conservative Republicans we'd think Reagan did a good job.

[ Parent ]
party of ideas (4.00 / 2)
I think I might even find the party of ideas comment even more offensive than the Reagan praising.

The GOP's only idea since 1980 has been to cut taxes and destroy government. Or as Sideshow Bob put it,

"Deep down you yearn for a cold-hearted republican to cut taxes, brutalize criminals, and rule you like a king."

That has not changed. I guess those are ideas, but hey we've had all sorts of awful ideas since, oh about 4 million BC, but people shouldn't necessarily get an award for that.

If Obama had simply said, "the GOP was the party of ideas in the last decade. They were lousy ideas, but they were ideas nonetheless." He would have gone up a lot in my book. But he can't just throw us one bone. Nope, he'd rather suck up to the conservative editorial board.

He also "confesses" to being a Democrat much too much.

[ Parent ]
Yeah (4.00 / 1)
I mean, you can certainly read it that way. But he is careful to say that they were the party of new ideas in that their ideas challenged the status quo. It just turns out that the status quo was way better than the new ideas. He doesn't say that to the conservative ed board's face. I suppose I would have been really excited if he had talked about how terrible conservatism is while in enemy territory. But I don't really fault him for not going there either.

Actually, the line I'm most concerned about is the 70's love-in thing.

[ Parent ]
But Conservatives Outnumbered Liberals In 1964! (0.00 / 0)
And the relative number of librals vs. conservatives has only fluctuated relatively modestly since then, though the number of liberals has declined by maybe a couple of percent--an amazing degree of resilience, considering how rare it is for liberalism to be defended in public.

I'll have a lot more to say about this in diary this weekend.

"You know what they say -- those of us who fail history... doomed to repeat it in summer school." -- Buffy The Vampire Slayer, Season 6, Episode 3

[ Parent ]
Not directed to you personally... (4.00 / 2)
But this style of refrain from Obama supporters is so ubiquitous I want to comment on it.  "No, no, no!  You don't get it!  His actual intention is the exact opposite of what you're thinking!"  I find this kind of blind loyalty really disconcerting.

During the McClurkin fiasco, there were so many people full of "No, no, no!  You don't get it!  His actual intention is to advance gay rights by bringing opponents into the fold and then changing their hearts with his charisma power!"  It's really a ludicrous way of looking at things--if you're someone who actually cares about gay rights, and if you're someone who's been around the block a few times already and come to understand how politics works.

I hope just as much as anyone else that Obama really is a stealth progressive who's one step ahead of the game.  But I don't believe it, because there's no evidence to support the idea.  And there's plenty of general evidence from history that Obama's style of leadership by compromise simply doesn't work, no matter how much we'd all like it to.

At the least, I hope people realize that if Obama is elected, he will have no mandate for any kind of change whatsoever--because he has run too much as a candidate who reflects back to each voter whatever it is that they want to hear.  He hasn't cultivated a mandate, and he won't be able to marshall the electorate behind him on anything substantive that actually needs to be done.

I want to be clear.  If Obama's the nominee, I'll support him enthusiastically.  And from a standpoint of "winning" in the fall, I think he's probably the strongest of the three.  I just want we who consider ourselves progressives to keep our wits about us--just in case the "real" Obama turns out to be different than what some are expecting.

[ Parent ]
Sure (0.00 / 0)
I definitely understand the sentiment. As it turns out, I'm not actually an Obama supporter and I don't think I'm doing quite what you think I'm doing. I think it is pretty clear from the video that Obama is talking about Reagan in a way that emphasizes the things about Reagan that aren't ideological or partisan.

I will agree that it was probably a mistake to show up for the interview in the first place, but I think the quote in question is a pretty acceptable reading of history for a Democrat to take.

As an aside, I DO think there is evidence that Obama is more liberal than he sounds. Remember this: http://www.politico....

[ Parent ]
I agree with Paul in part... (4.00 / 1)
but I interpret Obama's meaning and intent differently.  He sees "parroting rightwing lies," while I'm inclined to see an effort, albeit imperfect, to create new frames, coalitions and policies. To refresh our sense of what we're talking about, here's Matt's transcript of Obama's video clip:

I don't want to present myself as some sort of singular figure.  I think part of what's different are the times.  I do think that for example the 1980 was different.  I think Ronald Reagan changed the trajectory of America in a way that Richard Nixon did not and in a way that Bill Clinton did not.  He put us on a fundamentally different path because the country was ready for it.  I think they felt like with all the excesses of the 1960s and 1970s and government had grown and grown but there wasn't much sense of accountability in terms of how it was operating.  I think people, he just tapped into what people were already feeling, which was we want clarity we want optimism, we want a return to that sense of dynamism and entrepreneurship that had been missing.

Even if only a figurehead, I think a valid argument can be made that, as figurehead, Reagan helped change the trajectory of America in ways that neither Nixon or Clinton did.  I can't cite statistics, but I can reiterate my anecdotal reference from an earlier comment, that my father, a well-educated lifelong straight-ticket-voting Democratic activist and public servant, voted for Reagan, largely because he was confused and discouraged by the past decade, when the world he thought he knew seemed to be falling apart, and during which he'd been alienated in varying degrees from his two sons, who strongly identified with what he saw as the "excesses of the 60s and 70s,".  Amidst all that, listening to Reagan apparently made him feel better, safer and more secure, so he voted for him at least once.  He later "recovered" from this lapse in partisan loyalty, but I'd argue that it occurred "because he was ready for it"...or maybe a better way to say this is that he wasn't ready for a truly progressive solution (such as that offered by the 1980 Citizens Party, of which I was a member) and/or that he didn't perceive anything better as being offered to him by the Dems.

I think Paul's point about Obama appearing to accept right-wing frames may be valid to some degree, but I don't see it the same way.  I see Obama's reference to a lack of "accountability in terms of how [government] was operating" as an effort to create a new frame, one that can be used against the current Republican administration even more effectively than as a historical analogy that can be viewed (as it is by Paul and others) as critical of administrations of the 1970s and Dems in general.

Obama's tech and open-government proposals (and his support by Larry Lessig) tell me that he sees government accountability to citizens as an essential part of recovering the health of our political and economic systems.  In this context, the word "accountability" can provide a foundational element for a NEW political framing, one that can be turned strongly against today's Republicans, with their Haliburtons, Blackwaters, secret energy meeting with "I'm not part of either branch of the government" Cheney, and the sad experience of Katrina.

Yes, the issue of accountability certainly also applies to private corporations, but Obama mentions this as well, in my view, at least as often as he refers to government accountability.  And he seems to clearly understand that, if government is truly accountable to the people, then it will enforce requirements that corporations are as well.

Obama's last statement was "he just tapped into what people were already feeling, which was we want clarity we want optimism, we want a return to that sense of dynamism and entrepreneurship that had been missing."

I think he's definitely right about the "wanting clarity and optimism" part.  I also think that, with the hostage crisis, stagflation and some elements of Carter's energy messaging and overall persona, combined with a bunch of other stuff, there was a widespread desire for something that could be described as "dynamism" and "entrepreneurship," in the sense of taking decisive action and getting clear and positive results.  I think Nightline's "Day X of the hostage crisis" nightly broadcasts, among other things, reinforced that feeling among many Americans.

The problem, of course, was that the many "dynamic entrepreneurs" in green energy and other fields were pushed aside during the Reagan years, with Reagan helping to convince Americans that policies favoring oil and car companies were something they were not. With "accountable" government (and media), this illusion would have been a lot harder to sell.

If government can be made more transparent and accountable in a process that leverages the Internet and new technologies, then we can achieve the realignment of political coalitions and the rebalancing of our political and economic systems in ways that are very significant and, I'd argue, also very necessary.  This, in turn, can encourage, assist and help guide the development of solutions to our energy and environmental problems by new generations of "green entrepreneurs" and informed and inspired citizens.  In my view, the same applies to healthcare, a sector that is similarly held captive by corporate interests and requires reform so fundamental it barely enters the public debate.

I think Obama shares this appreciation of the value and priority of transparent and accountable government.

As I've tried to explain in prior comments, I don't see inherent contradictions between the values of personal freedom and initiative and social responsibility, nor between personal effort and achievement and universal human respect and dignity. 

To me, any view of these as irreconcilable polarities represents an acceptance of an "old" framing that tends to be politically counterproductive and, in fundamental ways, serves the right-wing, which thrives on blind emotional embrace of black & white polarities.  I think Obama is trying to point to a new framing that acknowledges, reconciles and combines the value of these apparent polarities. 

To some--especially those inclined to see things in black and white terms--this may sound like bunch of hooey.  But to others--including me and, I suspect, a relatively large portion of young Americans--its very real, both in our personal life and in our political views.

[ Parent ]
The Problem Is (4.00 / 2)
I can accept your ratioinale for the most part, but Obama's execution was egreggiously far off the mark.

Part of the reason for this is that he is, in fact, much closer to Reagan's b-movie hamfistedness than he is to Martin Luther King's complexity, depth and nuance, or even Jesse Jackson's.  (Been hearing a lot of King on the radio this week.)

For example, Obama could have said:

"For a lot of peole, Reagan symbolized a reassertion of accountability in government, along with clarity and optimism, after the turbulence of the 1980s, with two major oil shocks and severe recessions on top of the social turbulence of the times."  But Reagan only partially delivered on this promise, and the nation is still divided between those who have forgotten what was left out, and those who have not.
 

He could then have talked about the need for corporate accountability as well as government accountability, mentioned the S&L crises, and related it to the sub-prime mortgage crisis of today.  He could then say that all sorts of people--liberal, conservative, black, white, brown--had been hurt by the mortgage crisis, and that's why the concern for corporate accountability is one that transcends ideology.

This sort of approach would have several significant benefits over the one that Obama took.  It would not unjustly praise Reagan and falsify history, it would create a factual connection between the past and the present--one with pragmatic implications in terms of the importance of learning our lessons and not forgetting our history--and it would have bridged the gap between liberals and conservative at the grassroots level, rather than at the level of elites and ideology.

This is the kind of more subtle approach, grounded in history and people's everyday lives, that was second nature to Martin Luther King, and has largely been continued by Jesse Jackson.  The notion that a black leader cannot dissent from hallowed rightwing orthodoxy is simply false, and Obama need not imitate figures such as King and Jackson to find his own authentic way to do so. He need only recognize that it is both possible, and necessary.  True progress may well need mythic inspiration as much as any mighty human endeavor, but it also requires a firm grounding in truth, and this is what Obama seems to insufficiently appreciate.

"You know what they say -- those of us who fail history... doomed to repeat it in summer school." -- Buffy The Vampire Slayer, Season 6, Episode 3

[ Parent ]
Seeee (0.00 / 0)
That is the best thing you've said about this yet. I think we can all agree Obama did not execute this well.
[ Parent ]
I agree... (0.00 / 0)
that your wording is better than what we heard from Obama in that clip, though we didn't hear the rest of the interview, or even what the question prompting his comment was.

Two other points I'd suggest as relevant, though not decisive:

1.  Obama is running for president and has a chance of winning.  That's not an excuse to sell out progressive principles, but its a very different situation (and time) than when King and Jackson were center stage. And he is fundamentally different in temperment and style.

2. King, Jackson nor any other leader has been perfect in what they've said and done, no matter how much we may want to idealize them.  I'm no expert on either one, but I happened to hear a story on C-SPAN the other day about King's "I have a dream" speech (I can't vouch for its veracity, but it was from someone who respects and admires him).  King apparently started that speech angry and pessimistic and was apparently "losing the crowd," when a woman on the dais shouted to him several times, "tell him about the dream, Martin."  He then shifted gears and delivered that historic speech that captured the country's attention and helped move things forward on the Civil Rights front. 

That story isn't directly relevant to the Obama deficiency you cite, but it does suggest to me that its relatively easy to adopt filters that idealize leaders from the past, while the failings of current leaders are painfully in focus every day, and are too often viewed with eyes focused perhaps too much on the past.  We need to learn enough from history to avoid repeating its unfortunate events, but I also think we need to focus enough on what's unique about the present moment in time to recognize progressive pathways that were not available in the past.  That's where my (and Obama's) focus on transparent and accountable government comes into play.

Perhaps Obama needs someone like you reminding him of things he may be too inclined to exclude from his statements.  Of course, you may not believe that he believes in them enough, which perhaps is the central point of your argument.  My point is that, given our options and the situation we face, I trust him enough and appreciate his overall strategy enough that I'm willing-- and even sometimes enthusiastic--about this particular roll of the dice.

[ Parent ]
That Story About King Is Just Plain Wrong (0.00 / 0)
The woman in question was Mahalia Jackson.  And she did say, "Tell them about the dream, Martin."  But it was not because he started out angry and was losing the crowd.  That's just more ridiculous rightwing propaganda.

One version has it that he was about to sit down, and this seems possible, but not likely, as the concluding passage, after the "I have a dream" section would have naturally followed from what came immediately before it. In short, he seems to have inserted a passage that powerfully reinforced what came before and afterwards, but did not alter the underlying logic.

And as for the slander against King, the point is, if you read what came just before it, he clearly was not "angry and pessimistic," but rather hopeful and determined.  He is, in fact, warning people against giving in to such feelings (wow!  a conservative lying through their teeth about a liberal icon!  who'da thunk it?):

But there is something that I must say to my people who stand on the warm threshold which leads into the palace of justice. In the process of gaining our rightful place we must not be guilty of wrongful deeds. Let us not seek to satisfy our thirst for freedom by drinking from the cup of bitterness and hatred. We must forever conduct our struggle on the high plane of dignity and discipline. We must not allow our creative protest to degenerate into physical violence. Again and again we must rise to the majestic heights of meeting physical force with soul force.

The marvelous new militancy which has engulfed the Negro community must not lead us to a distrust of all white people, for many of our white brothers, as evidenced by their presence here today, have come to realize that their destiny is tied up with our destiny. And they have come to realize that their freedom is inextricably bound to our freedom. We cannot walk alone.

And as we walk, we must make the pledge that we shall always march ahead. We cannot turn back. There are those who are asking the devotees of civil rights, "When will you be satisfied?" We can never be satisfied as long as the Negro is the victim of the unspeakable horrors of police brutality. We can never be satisfied as long as our bodies, heavy with the fatigue of travel, cannot gain lodging in the motels of the highways and the hotels of the cities. We cannot be satisfied as long as the Negro's basic mobility is from a smaller ghetto to a larger one. We can never be satisfied as long as our children are stripped of their selfhood and robbed of their dignity by signs stating "for whites only." We cannot be satisfied as long as a Negro in Mississippi cannot vote and a Negro in New York believes he has nothing for which to vote. No, no we are not satisfied and we will not be satisfied until justice rolls down like waters and righteousness like a mighty stream.

I am not unmindful that some of you have come here out of great trials and tribulations. Some of you have come fresh from narrow jail cells. Some of you have come from areas where your quest for freedom left you battered by storms of persecution and staggered by the winds of police brutality. You have been the veterans of creative suffering. Continue to work with the faith that unearned suffering is redemptive.

Go back to Mississippi, go back to Alabama, go back to South Carolina, go back to Georgia, go back to Louisiana, go back to the slums and ghettos of our northern cities, knowing that somehow this situation can and will be changed.

Let us not wallow in the valley of despair. I say to you today my friends - so even though we face the difficulties of today and tomorrow, I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream....

Of course, this doesn't negate your larger point.  But your larger point misses mine: I'm not demanding perfection of Obama.  I just want him to live up to his own hype.

As for the first point, I've been misunderstood on this point before, and I specifically phrased what I said to make clear that I wasn't expecting Obama to copy them, or to fulfill the same sort of role.  It was all about having rhetorical options and models to choose and draw from, which he seems to consistently ignore.

I know that white Versailles is ignorant of these resources and options, and I fully expect them to be clueless, so Obama can play them by pretending there's nothing else he can do.  But Obama himself should know better.  It's like being raised on jazz, and pretending that all you know how to do is marches in 4/4 time, with no blue notes allowed. 

"You know what they say -- those of us who fail history... doomed to repeat it in summer school." -- Buffy The Vampire Slayer, Season 6, Episode 3

[ Parent ]
Apologies to Rev. King (0.00 / 0)
if I passed on something based on untruth.  I guess I should watch the whole speech myself, and also take my own advice about the dangers of accepting multiple-hand stories.

I don't reject your point about potential benefits of using other "rhetorical options and models," and, as I said (only slightly tongue in cheek), Obama should be getting advice from you and perhaps following it more than he is today, and more specifically (and not at all tongue in cheek), that your version of his statement struck me as a notable improvement.

I'm a little puzzled by what you mean by living up to "his own hype."  Do you mean the hype surrounding him, or the hype he's presented himself?  If the former, one solution might be to lessen the hype.  If the latter, could you be more specific about what you're referring to?

[ Parent ]
You Should Read King's Speech As Well As Listen To It (0.00 / 0)
Perhaps because I've heard it so many times, I can get chills just reading it.  But there's something about being able to scan up and down it that gives me an enhanced appreciation of its architecture, and it's just, well, I think I've just about talked myself into writing something in the way of a critical analysis of it.  But not right now.  On my to-do list.  The one that has "burn to-do list" written on it.

As for what I meant by his own hype, I guess it's a mix of the two.  But mostly it's his own hype of being able to communicate so effectively to all people and change the political conversation.

(I should note that I felt the same way about Reagan--he was nowhere near as good a communicator as he was made out to be.  He was basically a ham, had little if any nuance, and used to stumble fairly often.  It's just that people listened to him with a very forgiving predisposition, because the media was always lauding him, and never saying anything bad, plus, he had a decent radio announcer voice, just as a simple matter of timbre. Of course, compared to the Gropenator, he was fricken Laurence Olivier.)

"You know what they say -- those of us who fail history... doomed to repeat it in summer school." -- Buffy The Vampire Slayer, Season 6, Episode 3

[ Parent ]
What I resent (4.00 / 1)
What I resent is that Obama is recasting history.  There were other individuals he could point to legitimately, but instead this is what we get.

Martin Luther King becomes Stokely Carmichael.

Ronald Reagan becomes a more upbeat Dwight Eisenhower.

If he wants to say it, go ahead.  Lots of people followed Stokely Carmichael.  But Stokely was not the man who got America to accept change; Dr. King was.  King was strong but he was still a person white leaders could and did work with.

Similarly, Eisenhower was a calmimg presence who changed the trajectory of the Republican Party for 30 years (until Reagan).  In one sense, he was a very real conservative.  He accepted the New Deal but was reluctant to make further changes.  The Republican Party could be seen as something other than bitter end dregs from the Herbert Hoover years.  It could be brought into the living room.  Again, why Reagan?  (Eisenhower, on the other hand, presided over three recessions that were pretty mild for white collar types but surprisingly severe for blue collar workers and their families.  People forget that.)

I am a lot more comfortable with black leaders like Martin Luther King and Jesse Jackson.  They are leaders with vision and integrity.  You know where the stand. (And yes, I generally agree with the direction).

[ Parent ]
not optimism (4.00 / 3)
Read Stoller's comments on this here:  http://openleft.com/...

He said it better than I can.  The summary of it is that yes, he does appear to be admiring him and worse, he buys into the mythology that Reagan won with optimism.  Further, Obama appears to be repeating the conservative mantra of rejecting the "excesses of the 60's and 70's".

Obama really scares me.

[ Parent ]
Right on (0.00 / 0)
A voice of reason, finally.

Cheers, Paul.

Don't know why I keep defending Obama (4.00 / 2)
I guess it is because I think this Reagan stink is being blown out of proportion.

It is not the job of Obama or any other presidential candidate to challenge and dismantle widely held conventional wisdom regarding a former president. It is simply not within their power to change a national narrative.

Go re-read the quote. Take it line by line. Most Americans would agree with everything Obama said. Right or wrong, he  described the Reagan legacy in a way that most Americans would nod their heads to. Now go write your own paragraph on Reagan. Write your own version of what Obama was saying. Now imagine a mainstream politician saying that into a camera.
Will Never Happen.
Is it so hard to comprehend that politicians must say what is palatable to the electorate at large, and that this often strays very far from reality and accurate history?

So, the real question is not about what Obama said, because if any politician is going to open their mouths about Reagan it is going to sound a lot like that. The real question is - why does he even invoke Reagan?

I think the answer is clear. Obama wants people on his side. Obama wants conservatives to come to him, centrist independents to come to him, and people who have never voted before to come to him. He wants to woo these people and I can't blame him. If he has to spew some bullshit about Reagan in order to get some more conservatives to support universal healthcare and cutting carbon emissions, I see this as a fair trade.

Policy matters way more than rhetoric. Any 'compassionate conservative' can tell you that. Obama is making a play to bring people to his side so he can enact policy. To do so he uses rhetoric we find deplorable. No biggie, in my most humble opinion.

"Don't hate the media, become the media" -Jello Biafra

You're Missing My Point (0.00 / 0)
I'm not saying that Obama should have said what I wrote.  I'm only saying that he shouldn't have said what he said--and what I wrote is jsut one irrefutable reason why.  There's a big difference.

I mentioned this in another comment.  George Lakoff has been writing about this for over a decade now.  You don't have to accept rightwing lies, and you don't have to directly deny them (literal denial is in fact often self-defeating, hence the title "Don't Think of an Elephant", because you reinforce what you try to deny).  You can, instead, establish an entirely new premise of your own.

And this is what Obama repeatedly fails to do.  Then he or his supporters have to come along and "explain" what he was really saying.  But if he was actually that progressive in the first place, this simply wouldn't be happening.  His whole speech, interview, debate or whatever would all be of one piece, flowing from his fundamental progressive premises, and there would simply be no occassion for such problematic statements being made.

"You know what they say -- those of us who fail history... doomed to repeat it in summer school." -- Buffy The Vampire Slayer, Season 6, Episode 3

[ Parent ]
No doubt that he is struggling to 'find his voice' (0.00 / 0)
It probably stems from a lot of different issues that are unique to his candidacy. Such as his race, his perceived inexperience, and - more than anything - his attempt to be everything to everyone.

It is that last problem that makes he both an amazingly likable candidate and a very murky candidate. And it is probably the reason he is trying to tie himself to some sort of greater historical narrative, as he seems to be doing with Reagan (and as he has been doing for a while). This strategy seems to be working - in a big way. Problem is, it won't carry him all the way to the White House. He really does have to sharpen up his entire candidacy moving forward. I agree with the concerns of many here that he will be eaten alive if he doesn't.

I wholeheartedly agree that no one should have to explain what he is saying to different factions of the left. I feel like an Apostle trying to tweak his message to fit this forum. Again, this comes down to his failure to define himself sufficiently. But keep in mind that every time he does define some aspect of his candidacy or his policy, he risks losing a segment of his support. Conservative-leaners will be the first to go, and I believe that he desperately wants to hold on to them.

I'd say that Obama's biggest problem is that his ambition about what he wants to be is a little unrealistic. It leads him astray, alienates parts of the base, and the payoff is far from certain. However, I still firmly disagree with the constant criticism levied here and elsewhere that he is not progressive.

"Don't hate the media, become the media" -Jello Biafra

[ Parent ]
He IS A Progressive--An Early 20th Century Progressive (4.00 / 1)
I wrote a whole diary about it.  The problem is, that style of progressivism is what's so deeply wrong with the Democratic Party today.  There's nothing new about it at all, except for Obama's persona.

Yes, he has more little progressive baubles than most other folks do.  But shiny baubles are shiny baubles, they are not an architecture for fundamental change.

Which is why he also has so many clinkers as well.

"You know what they say -- those of us who fail history... doomed to repeat it in summer school." -- Buffy The Vampire Slayer, Season 6, Episode 3

[ Parent ]
substance vs. pitch (4.00 / 1)
On substance, there is little to choose among the 3. They are all centrist mainstream democrats. In particular, all of them have equivocated on Iraq and none of them has come out against America as superpower world boss. They each have some form of "evolves to single payer" health plan. Edwards is slightly to the left, in theory, on nuclear power, but I don't see any of them as a fanatical proponent of nukes. They are all saying moderately decent things about global warming .... and so on. Their differences are in pitch and organization. And clearly, despite spending 20M, Edwards pitch has not caught fire. So there is Hillary with her baggage of DLC retreads and Obama with his jackson/washington/daschle organization. I'm not inspired by either. My only point is that obsessive parsing of their pitches doesn't tell you much of value either. Maybe Obama's pitch is, as you say, weak. Maybe not. But it does not reveal him as a secret winger.
[ Parent ]
not really (4.00 / 1)
"They each have some form of "evolves to single payer" health plan."

Nope. Obama does not. His campaign has specifically said this is not the goal of their plan. But for those that do have an evolving to single payer plan. I dare say that would be a pretty big change.

[ Parent ]
I Never Said Obama Was A Secret Winger (0.00 / 0)
And I pretty much agree with your characterization of the candidates.

So I'm a bit puzzled at why you're misreading me so.  I'm not Matt.  I didn't call Obama a conservative.  He has done some conservative things, and I can criticize them individually without saying this makes him a conservative.

But more importantly for long-term impact, he adopts rightwing narratives--both grand narratives and buzzwords.  And this is what deeply troubles me, not least because it has deep impacts on limiting the expression of progressive ideas to the extent that progressives themselves are influenced by him.

"You know what they say -- those of us who fail history... doomed to repeat it in summer school." -- Buffy The Vampire Slayer, Season 6, Episode 3

[ Parent ]
Have A Problem With The Assumptions You Made (0.00 / 0)
There is no basis in current history of the interaction between the parties that would substantiate the premise that praising Reagan would result in support of universal healthcare and cutting carbon emission, etc. by conservatives. In fact, if you look past history, there is more data that supports that the more you attempt to placate conservatives, the more they will obstruct your agenda.

I also have a problem with the ongoing assumption that Obama is this great progressive candidate when in the Democratic primary, his policy proposals are less progressive than the other candidates. In January, 07, he personally introduced legislation in support of liquified coal (Gore completely against) and only removed his support in June 07, when it became obvious that this would cost him votes in the primaries. Sorry, if I am not convinced that Obama will be a great champion for progressive values.

Your premise also ignores the fact that if Obama wins in 08, he will have to continue to placate conservatives to win reelection.

[ Parent ]
... (0.00 / 0)
here is no basis in current history of the interaction between the parties that would substantiate the premise that praising Reagan would result in support of universal healthcare and cutting carbon emission, etc.

Here is what I am trying yo say:
Most Americans, especially conservatives, like Reagan.
Most Americans also like universal healthcare and the environment.
However, the same people who like Reagan tend to vote against politicians that support universal healthcare and the environment.
So, by brown-nosing those voters, as Obama appears to be doing in many ways, he is offering them the chance to support a candidate that supports popular policy proposals (healthcare, environment) while at the same time feeling like they are not falling into some liberal trap. THAT is what his message of bipartisanship is all about. It is not about meeting in the middle. It is not about praising Reagan's policies. It is about making liberalism palatable to those conservative-leaning voters. Say one mean thing about Reagan - JUST ONE - and you turn off ten-million of those voters who love Reagan but like a lot of liberal policies.

As for liquefied coal - that was a terrible move on Obama's part and probably the least defensible thing he has done. I have no desire to defend it, and if I end up voting for him it will be despite his support of coal.


"Don't hate the media, become the media" -Jello Biafra

[ Parent ]
Follow up... (0.00 / 0)
Say one mean thing about Reagan - JUST ONE - and you turn off ten-million of those voters who love Reagan but like a lot of liberal policies.

The reverse is true. Say one nice thing about Reagan, you have the potential to turn on a lot of those same conservative-leaning voters. No need to praise the policies - hell, most people only have a vague idea of what his policies really were anymore because most voters don't know or care and probably never really knew - just praise the man because he is an icon to millions. A shitty icon? Certainly. But is it any worse than praising corn in Iowa? It's just another way to relate to the voters.

"Don't hate the media, become the media" -Jello Biafra

[ Parent ]
A Lot Of People Are Still Around Who Are Definitely (4.00 / 3)
aware of what Reagan's REAL policies because they were negatively affected by them. IMO praising Reagan is much worse than praising corn in Iowa because Reagan is the standard bearer of all the extremely harmful policies that are a part of the conservative movement.

No one ever suggested that Obama say mean things about Reagan. Agree that would be stupid. What I and others like me are objecting to is that Obama CHOSE to inject a one sided, distorted view of Reagan in this and other media appearances. Just props up the idea that Reagan and his agenda were good for America.

Obama has campaigned strongly on being a different kind of politician. Paraphrasing one of Obama's sound bites. "I won't tell you what you want to hear. I will tell you what you need to know." To me, this strategy by Obama, just proves that he is no different than Hillary. He is willing to triangulate and say just about anything to win. If he thinks talking Republican nonsense will win, he is more than willing to talk Republican nonsense.

[ Parent ]
This Is SO True! (4.00 / 1)
Obama has campaigned strongly on being a different kind of politician. Paraphrasing one of Obama's sound bites. "I won't tell you what you want to hear. I will tell you what you need to know."

This has been the DLC line for bashing liberals since before there was even a DLC.

You bash the liberal base in the name of "realism," "honesty," "independence" and "new ideas."

Then you turn around and praise conservatives in the name of "realism," "honesty," (it's symbolically true, don'cha know!) "independence" and "new ideas."

Obama's added a new twist to make it all his own--you then deny that that is what you've done.

"You know what they say -- those of us who fail history... doomed to repeat it in summer school." -- Buffy The Vampire Slayer, Season 6, Episode 3

[ Parent ]
Look, We Understand His Brown-Nosing (4.00 / 1)
We've had it explained a hundred million times already. We can recite it in our sleep.  But what we can't do is simply believe that it will work.

No other form of brown-nosing conservatives has worked.  Why should this be any different?

Capice?

"You know what they say -- those of us who fail history... doomed to repeat it in summer school." -- Buffy The Vampire Slayer, Season 6, Episode 3

[ Parent ]
Paul (0.00 / 0)
First off, he's not wooing "conservatives", he's wooing voters.  This is a distinction you consistently make when you're prosletysing your candidate, but willfully refuse to accept when critiquing Obama.

Secondly, I can understand the difficulty you're having freeing yourself from your historical malaise - we've all been there with you.  But listen closely and you can hear the wind is changing.  Wars do end.  And good generals know when it's time to encourage the white flag.

[ Parent ]
I Don't Have A Candidate (0.00 / 0)
And I don't see this as viewing voters, obviously.  That's the whole point.  Obama is tuned in to elite/movement conservative narratives, not the actual voters.

You have a choice.  You can respond to this argument and engage in a possibly fruitful debate that both of us might learn something from.  Or you can raise yet another "you just don't understand" objection that we've all heard 100 times before and get an equally familiar response from me.

I'm not trying to be rude here.  I'm not saying it's your fault. (And God knows, others here have done it far more than you!) It's just something we all fall into, and it's not very constructive.  In fact, it's the very essence of what I'm struggling against--rote repitition in place of critical thought.

We may have to use rote repitition in reaching low information voters, and when we do, we should strive to be excellent at it.  But when we talk amonst ourselves, it's absolutely deadly.

"You know what they say -- those of us who fail history... doomed to repeat it in summer school." -- Buffy The Vampire Slayer, Season 6, Episode 3

[ Parent ]
GSS Critics (4.00 / 2)
Paul, how do you respond to critics of depending so heavily on the GSS because:

1- They say that the GSS is too "simplistic" because it doesn't make people weigh the costs.  When presented simply as "spending more on X" they are supportive, but when told the costs (higher taxes, less on Y, etc.) support drops.

2- They criticize the way the question is phrased.  "I'd like you to tell me whether you think we're spending too much money on it, too little money, or about the right amount."  This means some people are in agreement that we as a society should spend more money on X, but not necessarily the government should be the one doing it.  They claim that if you polled people and asked "Should people be more charitable" you'd get similarly high rates of agreement.

3- They say that the survey doesn't take into account people's disillusioned view of government.  If they believed that the government could actually spend more on X effectively, they'd support it, but the survey ignores people's distrust of politicians.  It's like asking "Do you support eating gallons of ice cream without gaining any weight?"  Sure, but that's not possible.

These are a handful of the anti-GSS strawmen I've seen the most.  If you can think of any others I'd like to hear them.

Exactly (4.00 / 1)
Its one thing to ask, "Should there be more spending on Issue X?" its another to ask "Are you willing to pay more to increase spending on issue X?"

For all the outrage at Senator Obama's comment, you think Senator Clinton's repeated assertion that Senator Obama's social security proposal that lifts the cap on the payroll tax on those making over $98,000 is a "trillion dollar tax increase on America's hardworking families" would draw a little more ire.

http://www.politico....

"Never separate the life you live from the words you speak" -Paul Wellstone

[ Parent ]
Obama Is Supposed To Be The Progressive Alternative, Remember??? (0.00 / 0)
Clinton's online support is quite low, in part because people know to expect this sort of crap from her.  Obama was supposed to be better, and he gets judged accordingly.

There's nothing unfair about that.  He's the one who's invited it.

"You know what they say -- those of us who fail history... doomed to repeat it in summer school." -- Buffy The Vampire Slayer, Season 6, Episode 3

[ Parent ]
These Are All Pretty Lame, So I'm Happy To Respond (0.00 / 0)
First off, before I answer your questions, I want to point out that none of them undermine my argument, even if they were valid, since I'm comparing the same questions over time.

Now, to the specific objections:

(1)

They say that the GSS is too "simplistic" because it doesn't make people weigh the costs.  When presented simply as "spending more on X" they are supportive, but when told the costs (higher taxes, less on Y, etc.) support drops.

Actually, it does make people weight the costs,  Here's the full wording of the questions:

68. We are faced with many problems in this country, none of which can be solved easily or inexpensively. I'm going to name some of these problems, and for each one I'd like you to tell me whether you think we're spending too much money on it, too little money, or about the right amount. c. Improving and protecting the nation's health.

The part before "c." is the same for all questions, and as you can see, it primes people with language specifically saying that the problems aren't easily solved or inexpensive to deal with.  If anything, it is bending over backwards to limit spending support to those who actually are supportive.  And I'm fine with that.  It makes stupid objections like this one easy to refute.

(2) 

2- They criticize the way the question is phrased.  "I'd like you to tell me whether you think we're spending too much money on it, too little money, or about the right amount."  This means some people are in agreement that we as a society should spend more money on X, but not necessarily the government should be the one doing it.  They claim that if you polled people and asked "Should people be more charitable" you'd get similarly high rates of agreement.

Folks who make this argument have such poor reading comprehension that they sort of serve as their own best evidence.  But there are questions where this interpretation is simply incoherent, such as spending on Social Security, and the support for Social Security spending is overwhelming:

57.1 TOO LITTLE
36.7 ABOUT RIGHT
6.1  TOO MUCH

(They didn't start asking about Social Security until 1984, which is why I didn't chart it.)

So, this is a very clear benchmark which tells us that similar levels of support for things like spending on the nation's health or the environment are largely measuring the same thing.

And that's just relying on what's right there in the same GSS question module.  There are decades of other question data using all sorts of different language, that fundamentally confirms the GSS findings.  It's just that GSS has the longest, most complete, and most comparable data.

(3)

3- They say that the survey doesn't take into account people's disillusioned view of government.  If they believed that the government could actually spend more on X effectively, they'd support it, but the survey ignores people's distrust of politicians.  It's like asking "Do you support eating gallons of ice cream without gaining any weight?"  Sure, but that's not possible.

This is totally illogical.  If it were true, then people simply wouldn't say we were spending too little, they would say we're spending too much.  In fact, lots of people who think government isn't effective probably respond just that way.

But what's really interesting is that the opposite seems to be more true.  People who say they have little confidence in the executive branch tend, on average, to be more likely to say we're spending too little on items like those listed above, which would lead us to believe that they're actually more confident in government than they let on.  (Either that, or they think we need to spend more, precisely because government is so ineffective that it takes more spending to get the job done.)

For example, of those who say they have "hardly any" confidence in the executive branch, 80.4% say we are spending "too little" on the aggregate total of 8 programs listed above, compared to 79.2% among those who say they has "a great deal" of confidence.  (Support is highest--83.6%--among those who have "only some" confidence.)

But this slight difference is actually masking a much larger one.  A more refined measure shows that 37.4% of those who have "hardly any" confidence think we're spending too little on 5-8 programs, while only 27.5% of those who has "a great deal" of confidence feel the same way.

Naturally, I don't think that any of the above explanations will convince anyone who brings them up, since the folks who reject the GSS are mostly closed-minded ideologues.  Plus, their objections are easily stated, while the refuations call for a modicum of critical thinking. So don't hold your breath.  But people listening in can definitely be pursuaded, and ought to be encouraged to think more systematically and critically in general.

"You know what they say -- those of us who fail history... doomed to repeat it in summer school." -- Buffy The Vampire Slayer, Season 6, Episode 3

[ Parent ]
Excellent Point (0.00 / 0)
>First off, before I answer your questions, I want to point out that none of them undermine my argument, even if they were valid, since I'm comparing the same questions over time.<

Excellent point, even if the measurement is bias in favor of higher rates of "too little," that would be a systematic bias that would, we can guess, be constant over time.

Thanks for your insight into the rest.

[ Parent ]
Blame Saul Alinsky (4.00 / 1)
Instead of setting the record straight, that the Roman Catholic Church has a millenia long history of patriarchy and oppression, and that the American dream is a fraud, built on the backs of slaves and blood, Alinsky, that class traitor, tried to build working class organizations that had the ability to change local conditions - going so far as to ally with the church and wave the flag.

And Tom Paine, that lying sack of shit, his "Common Sense" is filled with all sorts of mythology about the supposed rights of British subjects when we know it was a system of mass oppression founded on a tart in a lake waving a sword!

Martin Luther King accepted the pro-slavery and immoral history of the Baptists - that chump.

In fact, the entire history of progressive change in this country involves people who fail to measure up to the correct standards of progressive purity.

Do You Have ANY Idea How Silly You Sound??? (0.00 / 0)
Obviously not.

Thanks for the laughs.

"You know what they say -- those of us who fail history... doomed to repeat it in summer school." -- Buffy The Vampire Slayer, Season 6, Episode 3

[ Parent ]
You are a joke.. (4.00 / 4)
Dr. King challenged us to live up to the principles of the constitution and bill of rights. You can't change the past, but one can impact the future. I think what you're attempting to do is impose a regressive mindset to influence the future negatively. Your kind always do, you hate and desperately need others to lose hope.

I'm voting for John Edwards because I support the future that Dr. King was in aid of.

[ Parent ]
Reagan was corrupt, and destroyed this country, Obama is insane (4.00 / 1)
Reagan brought about corporate control of media, he destroyed our FCC protections that protected us in the past from media being able to propagandize in favor of their favored candidates. Reagan gutted protections for patients for workers. He injected racism and classism into every aspect of life. He created massive amounts of homelessness, hunger and privation. He rationalized hatred and stereotyping. For Obama to get even slightly nostalgic about the man, it shows one thing, that the only thing Obama is activist for, is himself. He is as corrupt as George W. Bush.

Obama has been involved in scandals, like that land deal in Illinois, his idea of change is allowing the corporate interests to dictate and even write our laws. Those who vote for him are no different than those who voted for Bush because he said he was a "compassinate conservative". That said, Clinton is as bad.

I am voting for John Edwards, and any one who claims to be progressive in any way, shape or form who doesn't vote for Edwards is a hypocrite and a liar. Edwards walks the walk and would be the best candidate to take on the corporate interests and return our country to sanity.

right (4.00 / 1)
Anyone who does not support a guy who voted for AUMF and Patriot Act, who was pawned by Cheney in debate, and who spent the last two years working in a hedge fund, is a winger.

I get it.

[ Parent ]
Yes and no (0.00 / 0)
You are correct EXCEPT about the Cheney debate.  What do you do when your opponent lies repeatedly?  Cheney lied so much the audience would never accept.  Cheney was trying to bait Edwards, who wouldn't fall for it.  And Edwards called him out numerous times, such as on Mandela (off top of my head).

I maintain that Edwards is a great and honorable candidate.  He is just not morally superior to the others, and is not running a superior campaign - though the media is not helping, of course.

But I agree with your deft deflation of this common "my candidate is the one"  fantasy.

[ Parent ]
he was not able to deal with cheney effectively (0.00 / 0)
in my opinion. The problem with Edwards in that debate is, unfortunately, still the rule for Democrats - they let the thugs define the terrain. Edwards had the opportunity of ignoring Cheney's bs and attacking him on e.g. his 8 deferments, the description of him in Schwrzkopfs memoirs, ... his profiteering. Instead he let Cheney walk him into a swamp.

[ Parent ]
What Reagan did (4.00 / 1)
We went through this last night in Matt's thread.  Paul's data fleshes it out.

Reagan did have a knack for appearing to embody the Zeitgeist.  Between 1976 and 1980, while he was running for President, there was resentment about social spending, crime, loss of prestige in the world, etc.  Reagan appeared to embody those sentiments.  He ran against what he described as Carter's incompetence and against liberalism, and for "making America great again" and restoring traditional values.  He won in 1980 and overwhelmingly in 1984.  Liberalism was demonized.  Those young people who came of age politically while he was Pres became GOPers in higher numbers than those older than them.  In those respects he did change things, and was the end point of realignment.

However, just like with Bush, people did not like the reality nearly as much as the rhetoric.  Actual support for slashing social spending and James Watt's slash-and-burn envoronmental policies dropped.  But the demonization of liberals continued, GHW Bush won his term, and Clinton would not have won in 1992 without the help of Ross Perot.  This is because Reagan was a good communicator, and people liked what he said even though they did not like conservatism in practice.

Clinton was also a very good communicator and people liked his policies better than Reagan's.  But he was faced with a conservative movement that was better organized and still on the ascendant.  He was not able to rally people to his (limited) vision in the same way Reagan did, he did not build up the party, and his personal failings seriously undermined him in his last 2 years.  The Dems were helped because Gingrich, DeLay et all so seriously overreached and were repulsive to many people.  But liberalism didn't make a comeback as a result of Clinton, or not enough of a comeback, and the Dems' continued failure to articulate a compelling vision allowed Bush to get close enough to steal the election.

Now we are faced with a different situation.  Obama realizes that, as in 1980, there is widespread dissatisfaction with both the prevailing government and the prevailing philosophy, and people are primed to accept a new vision, if it is compelling enough.  But while younger people admire strength, they are much less enamored of conflict and what they perceive as bickering than middle-aged people are.  They are receptive to appeals to commonality and a common purpose, to bridging divides and identity politics. 

Obama believes that if he can forge a big enough coalition, then as President he can marginalize the obstructive GOP somewhat like Reagan marginalized the Democrats, making them seem out of time.  He believes that a leader who has people behind him can accomplish more significant reforms, tackling the hard problems that lie ahead.  He is really looking for a way out of the situation that E.J. Dionne set out so well in "Why Americans Hate Politics", that is, politics as Kabuki and food fights and not as buiilding coalitions and trying to solve problems.  His appeal is not only to Dems, but to Indies and liberal GOPers who agree that things are badly off track, but who are put off by demonization of business, for example, in part because they themselves work for corporations or are entrepreneurs. This is the management cladss that was so turned off by Bush in 2005-2006.  I know people like this, and they are for him because they think he has a better approach to problem solving.  I know young people who like him because he is talking unity, and they are tired of what has felt to them for their entire political lives like parents fighting with each other. 

Things are changing.  Instead of refighting old batles, let's try to understand where we are and what is the best way to build a winning coalition.  there just aren't enough progressives to take power by ourselves.

John McCain--He's not who you think he is.

Obama is a political opportunist (4.00 / 1)
Unity in aid of what.. lemmings unite and leap to their deaths.. is that what some young people are doing when they buy into the Obama "label"? It's rather like the looney lefties who unite around Ron Paul because they think he is the answer to getting us out of Iraq. Clearly it's a matter of the light being on, but no one's home.

Single issues, and the ignorance of the realities is the problem. Too many so called "activivsts" wouldn't be able to fight their way out of a paper bag because they are clueless about what is going on in their own backyard. When this economy collapses, even your idealist student activists are going to be hit hard. Massive student loan debt, no job prospects, theirs, and mommmy and daddy's investments will be worthless. They won't be too indifferent then, but it will be too late. If anything will be even slightly amusing about what will result from a continuation of Bush's policies (and Obama and Clinton will continue them) it will be watching the panic and terror of the waves of spoiled and over privileged "activists" when they get the comeuppance for their cold hearted indifference for what they rationalized ignoring when it came to poor Americans.

Anyone, young or old who merely accepts rhetoric without researching the issues and the candidates is not looking for change. They are looking to be sold something. Obama is a corprate shill. No community activist who cares about ending or reducing poverty believes that our problems have been because the corporations haven't been allowed free reign. Of course he's not spitting out a few statements about jobs, but that was only telling a few people what they wanted to hear. He and Clinton stole their economic and health care plans from Edwards campaign, because neither CLinton or Obama even put any thought into change.. they represent the status quo.

[ Parent ]
The Apology candidate (4.00 / 2)
When a candidate has to apologize for nearly every major vote of their Senate Career, Im not buying the rhetoric they are selling.

"Never separate the life you live from the words you speak" -Paul Wellstone
[ Parent ]
I actually support Edwards (4.00 / 2)
But I came very close to troll rating this comment. Calling student activists spoiled, over privileged, cold hearted, indifferent and wishing upon them unemployment and poverty is totally unacceptable in a progressive activist community. That image of the student activist- as over privileged and out of touch is a right wing frame YOU are advancing. And if you want us out you can take your Republican congress back cause you're not winning anything without us.

And like I said, I've given Edwards money but we don't get to accuse the other candidates of being opportunists because they've been on the right side of the fence a lot longer than our guy has. Finally, if you think Obama and Clinton are closer to the Republicans than they are to Edwards then for someone who is supposed to be older and wiser you have a serious lack of perspective.

Thanks.

[ Parent ]
... (4.00 / 1)
If you haven't become a rebel by the age of twenty, you've got no heart, and if you haven't turned to the establishment by the time you're thirty, you've got no brain, and so on...

I think most people who inhabit the lefty blogosphere are united in the idea that, yes, virtually all mainstream politicians are beholden to interests aside from the people and, yes, this is the biggest problem with politics in America. We do the best with what we got, and what we got right now is Obama, Edwards and Clinton. They are ALL flawed, even Edwards. All we can do is try to determine which one we trust the most to do the least harm, and hopefully the most good.

But I think it is irrational to claim that any one candidate is THE best candidate at this point. Edwards says some good shit, but his record is dismal. Obama has a pretty good history of fighting for the little guy, but the more professional his political career has become the more suspect his record has become. And Hillary actually has some damn radical roots, but a lifetime at the top of the DC food chain makes her suspect #1 in my book.

Your cynicism is being weakened by the pretty words of John Edwards. If you really, truly believe Obama and Clinton will continue the policies of George W Bush, then it must take a massive leap of faith to determine that John Edwards is any different.



"Don't hate the media, become the media" -Jello Biafra

[ Parent ]
Obama uses Reagan symbolically and effectively (4.00 / 3)
I'm glad you're here to make these points, Mimi.

The campaign rhetoric literalism here is just overwhelming.

Obama (and other successful politicians) don't use literal truth to communicate.  They know political campaigns are not as much education as a conversation.  Not everybody wants to have their belief systems blown up or challenged head on (liberal intellectuals like,uh, me, like this. Not regular folks.)  You have to work *with* your audience.  Working against your audience (i.e. challenging their beliefs) has just never been as effective historically. 

Obama is using Reagan The Symbol in an effective way.  If the belief _____ about Reagan is widespread, use it to win.  This is about winning. 

Obama communicates in a way that literalists cannot understand -- or cannot tolerate. 

[ Parent ]
This is about winning (4.00 / 3)
For Obama, it's about Obama winning this year.  For some (most?) of us, it's about progressive values and progressive ideas winning over the long term.  Big difference.

This is a huge complicated issue, of course, which gets aired in many different forms on this blog and elsewhere.  But it's what's at the heart of the disagreement here, I think.

[ Parent ]
Absolutely! (4.00 / 1)
And we wouldn't be having this argument, if Obama respected other progressives enough to actually engage in a debate about what his strategy is, and why it can work.  The fact that he's never engaged in such a debate is the most telling point, I think. It leaves all of us in the dark, his supporters as well as his critics, so that none of us is really 100% certain what the basic argument is.

This fine for conservatives, who operate on faith, not reason, and trust in their authority figures.

But for progressives, not so much.

"You know what they say -- those of us who fail history... doomed to repeat it in summer school." -- Buffy The Vampire Slayer, Season 6, Episode 3

[ Parent ]
He explains it, in same quote! (0.00 / 0)
In the very same quote, in the very same interview he explains what he is doing. 

I just don't get what your point is.

At this point I guess we all just have to agree to disagree on this as we could all write everyone else's responses for them.  We know the words but they just don't register.

[ Parent ]
Don't Be Ridiculous! (0.00 / 0)
Obama's rationale has been repeatedly questioned, and his response is simply to repeat it.

Maybe for a conservative that's engaging in degate.

But for progressives, not so much.

"You know what they say -- those of us who fail history... doomed to repeat it in summer school." -- Buffy The Vampire Slayer, Season 6, Episode 3

[ Parent ]
you disagree with his premise (0.00 / 0)
so what do you want him to do?

His former boss at the IAD is happy with his rhetoric.

[ Parent ]
I Want A Rational Dialogue And Debate (0.00 / 0)
And all the appeals to authority in the world will not substitute for good, solid, defensible reasons.

BTW, if you think that younger activists didn't challenge Martin Luther King in this fashion, you are just plain crazy.  Despite all the hype, the left is not just like the right.  We believe in accountability, and rationally defensible arguments for the positions we hold.

And we don't believe in sacred cows.

"You know what they say -- those of us who fail history... doomed to repeat it in summer school." -- Buffy The Vampire Slayer, Season 6, Episode 3

[ Parent ]
Authority? (0.00 / 0)
I'm not sure what appeals to authority you see, here.  If there was one, I'd agree.

Watch the whole video.  I doubt it will help, since you clear don't agree with the premise, but he is pretty straight forward. 

Most of the voters who vote for conservatives don't disagree with progressives as much as they think they do.  They can be brought in as long as you listen to their concerns.

He wants to make government "cool again" and bring in the best people.

Wants a mandate for Change.  You need that mandate to deliver anything major, otherwise a president is left to tinker on the margins.

He wants the discussions about heathcare to be in full view, not behind closed doors, to bring everyone in, shown on C-SPAN  When people see the real choices they'll go along with the big changes needed.  Special interest can't operate in the open the way it can behind closed doors.

Sure, you can reject all this; that is fair.  But where is the mystery?  Why is the red-meat-rhetoric more important than all the actual change he says he will implement?

Again, I just don't get it.

[ Parent ]
How To Find The Nose On Your Face (0.00 / 0)
[1]

I'm not sure what appeals to authority you see, here.

I was responding to 2-sentence comment.  The second sentence was:

His former boss at the IAD is happy with his rhetoric.

That is an appeal to authority.

[2]

Most of the voters who vote for conservatives don't disagree with progressives as much as they think they do.

I have been making this very point for several years now.  However, it is not true that there is similar agreement with movement conservatives and the politicians they support.

My problem with Obama is what it's always been--he confuses a wooable conservative base with its intractible ideologically rigid leadership.  And here he's done it once again, building up the Reagan lie.

They can be brought in as long as you listen to their concerns.

What does falsely praising Reagan have to do with this???

He wants to make government "cool again" and bring in the best people.

Great! But I repeat: What does falsely praising Reagan have to do with this???

Wants a mandate for Change.  You need that mandate to deliver anything major, otherwise a president is left to tinker on the margins.

2000 says, not so much.

And again, how does falsely praising Reagan give you a mandate?  I thought that people voting for your campaign promises gave you a mandate--for those promises.

I also thought that articulating your vision during a presidential campaign was about as good as it gets in terms of opportunities to convince folks, and get their full support.

Silly me!

He wants the discussions about heathcare to be in full view, not behind closed doors, to bring everyone in, shown on C-SPAN  When people see the real choices they'll go along with the big changes needed.  Special interest can't operate in the open the way it can behind closed doors.

Unless, of course, everyone is so intimidated that they'll all conspire to tell transparent lies, like, oh, Ronald Reagan was a great transformational President who saved us from the ogres of the 60s.

Sure, you can reject all this; that is fair.  But where is the mystery?  Why is the red-meat-rhetoric more important than all the actual change he says he will implement?

Who's demanding red meat rhetoric?  Just because I tell folks that Ronald Reagan is a traitor who made an arms-for-hostages deal to become President doesn't mean I expect Obama to do the same.  All I expect is for him to stop lying in praise of the damn traitor.

Since when is sensible silence "red meat rhetoric"?

Sorry, but I just don't get it.

Again, I just don't get it.

Hey, is there an echo in here???

"You know what they say -- those of us who fail history... doomed to repeat it in summer school." -- Buffy The Vampire Slayer, Season 6, Episode 3

[ Parent ]
Politics is ultimately not rational (0.00 / 0)
You will never get a rational dialogue and debate. You need to get over this belief that politics can be that.  At least at this time.  It's not about "you."
[ Parent ]
Question: (4.00 / 1)
Paul, honestly, have you watched the entire interview or just a clip of it?
Obama Praising Reagan--An Echo, Not A Choice??? | 87 comments
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