My own private gap

[Doctor_J]

I originally posted as a follow-up to the Frank Rich column, but got a couple requests to post as its own thread.

I actually believed, while writing checks, phoning, walking the neighborhoods in 2008, that this would be a transformative presidency. I really thought we had Boner, Limpballs, and Murdoch on the ropes. I thought we were electing an outsider who was going to take the country back from the gangsters who ran it into the ground since 2000.

I wanted Obama to pardon Don Siegleman and fire all of the Rove-appointed US attorneys during his first week in office, just to show the Repukes that their crimes had not gone unnoticed, and that this president was going to avenge their most hideous offenses out of hand, without waiting for permission. I wanted investigations opened up into the lies that Bush told to start the illegal invasion of Iraq. I wanted some sign that those of us who came to loathe Rove's version of the US were going to get our country back.

I thought that the election results made it quite clear that the country didn't want the Repukes running the economy or anything else any more. We rejected their economic theories, their corporatism, their opposition to civil rights, their corruption, terrorism and fear-mongering, their incompetence. It should have been quite clear to the president's team that they had the upper hand, that the electorate wanted them to run the country without any of the Repukes' failed ideas intruding. Instead, the president immediately "reached across the aisle" and "compromised" with people who America wanted shut out of the government - period. He (and the congressional Dems) conceded to all sorts of Repuke demands HCR, only to see them not vote for it anyway. He cozied up to Wall Street, and they proceeded to shit all over him after he'd given up his dignity and his mandate to appease them. Someone wrote here the other day that "He had to give on to the repukes otherwise he wouldn't have gotten their votes". So what? Stand your ground, and then go on TV and tell the people something like this:

"you voted me in to undo the disaster that Mr. Boner and Mr. McConnell laid on the country. Well, I can't, and I am not going to listen to the same failed ideas that got us here in the first place. They insist on staying on this same road - well, it's not going to happen while I am here. Their policies, tactics, media machine, and lies were rejected soundly, and I am here to make sure that that repudiation is enforced.

Since they won't let me undo their legislative disaster, we will do what we can without them. The DoJ will, within a year, find out who leaked Valerie Plame's identity and why, and the persons responsible will be prosecuted for treason. Governor Siegelman will be freed, and the DoJ will get to the bottom of the fraudulent election and malicious prosecution that led to his incarceration. Election tampering and political prosecutions are federal offenses, and so the AG will pursue them as such. The political firings in the US Attorney's office will be investigated in open court. David Iglesias will head a new corruption task force that will unearth and publicize every detail of this outrageous corruption of the high levels of law enforcement. Starting immediately the military brass will work with me to pursue the most aggressive withdrawal schedule feasible for President Bush's war that has destroyed our nation's treasury and morality. The AG will, within the month, research the legal minutiae that we need to take care of so that gay Americans can enjoy the same privileges as everyone else. Finally, Governor Howard Dean will convene a committee, working pro bono, to figure out how to get health care for everyone in this country. We are the only industrialized nation where people go without. By the time I leave office that won't be true any more."

Instead, he let the same people rejected convincingly by the voters tell him what to do. The implication was, time after time, that Boner and McConnell and Beck were more important to him than the people who elected him. Still a Dem, still a liberal, still a believer that the Republican party is a far more dangerous enemy that Al Qaeda, but just not as enthusiastic as I was 30 months ago. I also agree with Frank that this is a bad omen not for this election, but for the future of the US. even if we hold the house and Senate, the appeasement will probably get worse, and the enthusiasm in 2012 will be even lower. If no one ever stands up to the right-wing theory of governing, it will continue to get worse.

[MannyGoldstein]

1. K&R - Very thoughtful nt

[TheKentuckian]

2. Thanks for the peek into your heart and mind.

[Whisp]

3. that private gap of yours could use a shower.

:hi:

[DemocraticPilgrim]

4. That would all work fine in a nation that no longer voted RepublicanS whatsoever...

Burt that's not where we live and President Obama governed with that in mind. Bush left a false impression of a dictatorsipt thankfully it's not. Weare the Democratic party and get things done in that fashion always have always wlll, it's what sets us apart from the GOP. The last administration ran things as though they had sole authority to dodo they did not, Pres. Obama runs things in constitutional Democratic way and is chastised for it, it's so wrong really.

[Doctor_J]

5. OK, then I hope you enjoy 16 or so more years of repuke rule

because that's what this round of appeasement got us.

Perhaps you could tell us what would have been the gains & losses had the admin taken on the fascists instead of appeasing them. Compared to where we are now, what would have been better/worse. Keep in mind that the tiny health insurance improvement will probably be repealed if the Repukes take over Congress.

[ProSense]

6. Yeah, easy

to keep repeating this:

"Compared to where we are now, what would have been better/worse. Keep in mind that the tiny health insurance improvement will probably be repealed if the Repukes take over Congress."

And this from the OP: "Instead, he let the same people rejected convincingly by the voters tell him what to do."

How many of the items on this list are the result of Boehner and McConnell telling the President what to do? How about this, this and this?

Can you give examples of Boehner and McConnell telling the President what to do?

It's easy to keep repeating claims about the President that defy reality. From day one, and in the face of one of the worst economic crisis in 75 years, Republicans have been determined to throw up obstacles.

With enough Republicans to block bills, as they did the DISCLOSE Act and attempted to do with many others, did anyone really believe that this Congress was going to run Democrats' way or the highway? What was your plan: no compromise and no legislation?

Even Bush, who some now appear to admire for allegedly getting things done, needed to compromise.

From FDR through today, every President and Congress compromised.

[Doctor_J]

7. So he chose to appease them and then take the blame for the failures

If he had adopted a platform of shutting out the failed right-wing ideas, of prosecuting the traitors, thieves, and thugs from the Rove administration, and of taking on Glenn Beck instead of firing Van Jones and Shirley Sherrod, a huge percentage of the 60 million people who voted for him 2008 would be raring to go to the polls. Would a few of these crumbs have not passed? Maybe, maybe not. Are the Large-scale Solar Energy Plants really due to his masterful handling of the cons? Would they really not be a reality if he'd stood his ground? You assume that nothing would have gotten passed if he'd stood up to them. My view is the opposite - that he was elected in 2008 to take the country back from Boner, and his hordes of supporters would have grown if he'd acted on that.