Gibbs is Wrong: It Isn't About the Professional Left (Cenk @ Huffington Post)

[ihavenobias]

Note: Cenk will be filling for for Ed Schultz on MSNBC from Monday August 16th through Friday August 20th (6-7pm Eastern, 3-4pm Pacific). Watch live and set your DVR/TiVo

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/cenk-uygur/gibbs-is-wrong-it-isnt-ab_b_678121.html|Gibbs is Wrong: It Isn't About the Professional Left>

On Tuesday, Robert Gibbs made comments about the http://thehill.com/homenews/administration/113431-white-house-unloads-on-professional-left|"professional left"> being "crazy" for attacking Obama. Then he backpedaled away from those comments by http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/08/10/robert-gibbs-clarifies-pr_n_676934.html|saying>, "I watch too much cable, I admit." If he was watching cable last week, this is what he might have seen:

Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SwarCuKJdFA&feature=player_embedded|MSNBC: Cenk's Message To Obama>

Now, it looks like I'm attacking the president from the left since I say he should be more progressive. And I have written in the past about http://www.huffingtonpost.com/cenk-uygur/how-progressives-can-move_b_402779.html|the value of doing just that>. But the reality is that this isn't about left or right. That whole paradigm is wrong...

...This isn't about whether Obama is liberal enough. It's about whether he's actually going to challenge the system or just be a cog in it. The system is fundamentally corrupt. Our politicians and their staffs are bought by the highest bidder. They then use the government to funnel taxpayer money to the people who bought them. Conservatives are just as angry about that as liberals are.

So, that's why so many of us are mad that the president didn't fight for the public option. It wasn't that the public option is some sort of liberal magic cure-all. It's that it would have provided real competition to the private insurance companies. Instead Obama not only left the system exactly as it was, but instituted a mandate that would funnel even more people into the arms of those same companies.

The public option was a bellwether. It signaled which direction he was going in - and that turned out to be in a corporatist direction that leaves the system wholly unchanged.

We got more of the same when the drug companies got the same deal as they did under Bush - the government cannot negotiate prices with them and we cannot import drugs from other countries (i.e., another unnatural monopoly imposed by the government).

We got more of the same when the big banks got out of financial reform relatively unscathed. They're still too big to fail. They're still doing risky bets with taxpayer backed money. They're still in charge.

The large defense contractors are also just as large as they were before. Actually, they're bigger because Obama not only escalated the war in Afghanistan, but increased the already record breaking Bush budgets at the Pentagon. And the game remained the same.

Do you see a pattern here? Corporate and special interest money always wins out. That's what we're worried about! That is what we're challenging Obama on - because that is not the change we voted for.

I guess the president and his staff think they're clever because they played the same old Washington game a little better. I guess they think they couldn't have done any better. I guess they think that this is the best they could do given the state of Washington. But that's the whole point. We didn't elect them to accept the Washington status quo as reality. We elected them to challenge and ultimately change that reality. And it seems like, on that count, they didn't even try. That's what we're so disappointed by.

Note: I posted an extended excerpt with the author's permission.

[Hawkowl]

1. How do you compromise with evil?

I agree with Cenk. You can't compromise with a system bent on destroying the average American. All it amounts to is Obama interceding for a last request on our behalf before we're exterminated underneath Wall Streets juggernaut for increasing profits.

[Demeter]

14. By Becoming Evil

or by becoming breakfast.

[RBInMaine]

38. Hyperbole. Try actually governing something before you level this kind of talk.

[xchrom]

2. recommend

[Nite Owl]

3. Cenk is right

and this is exactly what people see, not just the left at all.
Their messaging is all wrong, they are trying to make what they have/haven't done to be the best thing and it is far from it.
The whole corporatism part is what people see as wrong, it has nothing to do with just the left.

[glitch]

30. Agreed - everybody who isn't corrupt sees it.

This is a big problem and it won't be solved by perception management.
The only good thing about Bush/Cheney is their crassness and lack of subtlety opened a lot of eyes that hadn't been opened before.

With apparently neverending empire and a thoroughly sacked economy, those eyes aren't closing again anytime soon.

edit: to be very clear, the only thing that will solve this crisis in confidence is a genuine and thorough clean up of the corruption.
PR won't cut it, it will only increase it.

[sallyseven]

32. I am not corrupt How dare you make accusations that

are so negative. I think that Obama will do the right thing. He is smarter than you are.

[glitch]

34. Ouch! That one hurt. nt

[Atman]

4. x1000

Cenk totally nails it.

[ProfessionalLeftist]

5. "This isn't about whether Obama is liberal enough."

..."It's about whether he's actually going to challenge the system or just be a cog in it."

This is what disappoints me so much and Cenk said it very well - also did Olbermann. For instance, the 'health care reform' - what was that? Just a barely modified version of the same system, which is still too expensive and complicated, too profit-based, unsustainable, and still unfair and unaccessible to too many people.

I mean, I admire Obama's intellect and he's very intelligent, (partly why I supported him) but he doesn't know how to fight, it seems like. Where's that FDR FIRE we need right now?

[flamingdem]

6. Cenk is lame

I like Ed, but Cenk is loopy.

[CherylK]

7. I can not wait to watch Cenk fill in for Ed next week!!!

Cenk rocks!

:bounce: :loveya:

[yurbud]

10. that's a very penetrating analysis of what he just said. Can you add more details?

[Enthusiast]

17. Cenk isn't loopy.

He just perfectly expressed what most of us feel.

[flamingdem]

21. The very progressive left is what percent again? nt

[ihavenobias]

22. The Progressive Majority

Read it and weep:

http://www.ourfuture.org/report/progressive-majority

[flamingdem]

23. Interesting. I hope they know how to vote for their interests nt

[BDavinciNY]

18. I have to agree with you on there flamingdem

Cenk is a bit loopy because Obama is facing the realities in Congress and the political realm where Cenk is still stuck in his idealism. Don't get me wrong I like Cenk for that but he got his head in the clouds so much that he doesn't realize that his feet is not on the ground. You may remember when he last week when he wondered if Hillary was better choice as President forgetting the fact that if Hillary was president, republicans would be wetting their pants because they have another Clinton to bash. Forget about healthcare reform passing at all because it would be another episode of "Hillarycare". You have to look at the conditions on the ground not in the air

[flamingdem]

20. You got it! That's exactly when I said to myself that Cenk is not good as an anchor

what a loopy thing to say, Hillary a better choice? Not such great analytical thinking on his part, and it's his big chance to impress on MSNBC.

[ihavenobias]

24. Not that it invalidates your opinion but most don't seem to agree based on the ratings and...

on the fact that he's hosting The Ed Show August 16th - August 20th. And he's been given two regular MSNBC segments each week (every Tuesday on Ratigan's show at 4:45pm ET and every Friday on MSNBC Live at 3pm ET).

You can feel free to dislike him, but impressing you and impressing MSNBC (and most MSNBC viewers) seems to be two different things.

[northernlights]

36. what a loopy thing to say

you thing it's better to get a horrible bill passed because it claims to change health care, that doesn't reform health CARE at all but is a gift to the health INSURANCE industry?

I will now be forced to purchase a shitty product that I can't afford and that gives me *nothing* in return -- or pay a fine. whoop de do. Excuse me while I :puke:

Apparently you think that's a good thing. Personally, I think it's a crime that I will be forced to pay my hard earned money to an industry that has already left me to die in the past and will do so again should I happen to become sick again. Sorry, but I beg to disagree. I don't know why our administration has chosen to punish me further, but they have. And I don't appreciate it. In fact, I'd be loopy if I was grateful for all that pseudochange.

Personally, I'd rather fight for a decent bill that actually improves a situation -- even if it means losing that battle -- than a shit bill that takes a shitty situation and makes it shittier.

Or were you offering to pay my fine when I refuse to buy private health insurance?

And before you go claiming that *I'm* the problem with the health care system because I *always go to the emergency room to get free care* I have never once had free health care, I have always paid my own way.

In my opinion -- YOU'RE THE PROBLEM -- because you'll accept -- even applaud -- surface "change" that takes us down the wrong path faster, encodes it, enforces it, and wastes the opportunity that was handed to the democratic party to make fundamental course corrections.

But I do have some very good news for you. I WILL NOT VOTE FOR ANY DEMOCRAT THAT VOTED FOR YOUR "ON-THE-GROUND" PSEUDOCHANGE.

[pleah]

8. K&R

[yurbud]

9. I'd like to see the responses of the DLC apologists to this one.

[NorthCarolina]

13. They will simply stealth unrec and hope that it sinks. eom

[ihavenobias]

25. Yep. n/t

[spiritual_gunfighter]

28. I wouldn't

I am tired of their bullshit, they would just make something up to counter it.

[theFrankFactor]

11. KIIIIIIICK!!!!!

[Tutankhamun]

12. K&R Obama mobilized and invigorated a generation.

Now that generation is stagnant, demoralized and despondent. Thanks for the pep talk Gibbs.

:sarcasm:

[Turborama]

15. K&R A cogent argument that is difficult to argue against n/t

[yurbud]

16. I would say impossible to argue against.

[20score]

19. Absolutely!

[raouldukelives]

26. k&r

[Laelth]

27. Spot on. k&r for Cenk. n/t

-Laelth

[spiritual_gunfighter]

29. K&R

Cenk nails it again.

[sallyseven]

31. I think Cenk is just too precious for words.

He thinks he is more intelligent than hs is. Obama is president of all the citizens of the US not just the liberals. Leave him alone he will get the whole thing settled pretty soon.

[WillyT]

33. Kick !!!

:kick:

[KoKo]

35. K&R!

[RBInMaine]

37. Cenk has said repeatedly that Obama and Dems need to do "something progressive." This is where he

and others like Big Ed, Huffington, and that bony assed Hamsher who got in bed with Norquist go entirely WRONG ! Governing is different than purist bitching from the backseat. To get things done in real governing, you must compromise. We wouldn't have a nation today without it. NOTHING would get done at ANY level of government without it. On balance, per Maddow, this administration and Dems have brought us TONS of legislation that while imperfect certainly moves in the right direction, and a more PROGRESSIVE direction than we would have with the other party. The rhetoric that comes out of Big Ed, Cenk, and some others needs to be better calibrated. Cenk, Huffy, Eddie, and Hampster need to try governing something before all the bitching.