What a Liberal/Progressive Smackdown Looks Like

After Mike Murphy got his ass kicked (David Brooks was smart enough to STFU once they got rolling) by Rachel Maddow and E.J. Dionne this morning and Meet The Press, I will bet you David Gregory doesn't get many more "conservatives" to show up if they have to be on with those two.

*Video fixt



If only we could have them on every Sunday....

GOP=FAIL

Well waddya know...

The new poll by the non-partisan firm Research 2000 for Daily Kos strongly suggests that the two main right-wing talking points about Sonia Sotomayor are a bust.

First, on the claim, echoed by many mainstream conservatives and GOPers, that Obama’s call for “empathy” in a judge is a cause for concern:

Do you think empathy is an important characteristic for a Supreme Court Justice to possess or not?

Yes 52%

No 29%

Not sure 19%
…and then, on the claim by Rush Limbaugh, Newt Gingrich (who subsequently retracted it) and others on the right that Sotomayor is a “racist”:

Based on what you know or have heard about Sonia Sotomayor do you think she is a racist?

Yes 8%

No 61%

Kinda makes E.J. Dionne look silly doesn't it?

I'm Calling Bullshit

E.J. Dionne had an uber concern trolling column today in the Washington Post over President Obama elevating Rush Limbaugh and Newt Gingrich. Now I was going to post on it, but instead I decided to just leave a comment on the WaPo website telling Dionne to grow a pair and quit being scared of a fight. There is no way in hell an objective person would say that Rush or Newt are "winning" this fight. It really comes down to Dionne being worried about them dominating news cycles. But you see THAT'S THE POINT! We want those douchebags on Tee Vee all day everyday, not for the idiotic pundits who will try to score balls and strikes, but for the electorate, particularly independents, so they can decide for themselves if they want to align with a party that has those to assholes as "leading voices".


Now like I said, I wasn't going to post on it but then a funny thing happened on the way to the barn. I noticed that several different progressives bloggers that I generally agree with on most things put up posts lauding Dionne's column

Steve Benen

Matty Y

Eric Alterman


Now I don't know if this was some kind of journolist collabo or something (just kidding) but I really fail to understand how they believe what's going on right now will hurt Democrats and or President Obama. But that's how it happens sometimes that liberals and progressives are strong on policy but not as much so on politics. Not to say thats definitely the case here but I don't think any of them E.J. Dionne included could put forth a credible argument how this hurts Democrats politically.

And of course, it it was working Newt Gingrich wouldn't have taken back his words yesterday about calling Judge Sotomayor a racist.

Liberal And Progressive Concerns.

Many of the talking head crowd are convinced and are trying to convince everyone else that those Dirty Fucking Hippies running both houses of Congress are just out to promote "welfare spending" and the own "pet projects" in the new economic stimulus and reinvestment bill. The Villagers are now clamoring for President Obama to admonish his Democratic colleagues and take the "librul" packages out of te bill. And in the meantime they try to portray the liberal and progressive rank and file as being upset over losing out on our "socialist agenda". But today in his column in his Washington Post article E. J. Dionne pushes back on all of this nonsense and pulls the veil back on what is really going on here, namely the Republicans are simply using this meme of "bipartisanship" to try to remove elements of the stimulus bill that President Obama actually campaigned on. But the end of piece to me really is the most important part because he goes through and illuminates the true concerns of the base of the Democratic party that actually voted for change on Nov 4th of last year.

The real test is whether Obama will fight for a stimulus bill that achieves some of his larger objectives. The aspects of the House bill that Republicans and conservative commentators have so eviscerated are the very ones that take substantial steps toward the president's own priorities.

Obama placed a heavy bet during his campaign on a promise to reform the heath-care system. To the great consternation of conservatives, the House stimulus bill takes big steps toward broadening the number of Americans government would help to obtain health insurance. Will those provisions be protected in the final bill?

The president has spoken passionately about the inadequacy of our schools and the increasing difficulty that young Americans are having paying for higher education. The House stimulus bill includes a lot of education money. Will students be thrown overboard in pursuit of a nebulous cross-party comity?

Those are exactly the questions you will see being asked all around the liberal/progressive blogosphere. We don't have a problem with President Obama extending his hand in the spirit of bipartisanship but at what cost? If the end result of this round of bipartisanship is a watered down bill that doesn't stimulate the economy and doesn't help people who are losing their jobs and their houses everyday then what will he really have to show for it? Any effort to stimulate the economy will have to also backstop the people are getting hit the hardest right now. Otherwise no matter how many tax cuts you include or spending for infrastructure you will continue to have the foreclosure crisis which is the nexus of the problems in the economy and you will still have a downturn in consumer spending which is one of the major factor driving the job losses.

If this bill doesn't work it won't matter how many Republicans voted for it. The failure will be laid at the feet of the Speaker Pelosi, Majority Leader Reid and probably most of all at the feet of President Obama. What we need right now as President Obama has said many times is a focus on doing what works. And if the Republicans are going to refuse to vote for a bill that works its time to drop the bipartisanship act and tell them to fuck off. I would rather have a partisan bill that gets the economy going and helps regular people than a bipartisan bill that is an EPIC FAIL and helps to sweep the Rethugs back into office.