The REAL Pre 9-11 Mentality

Imagine for a second that we were in bizarro world and John McCain had won the presidency. And in this bizarro world it was say Senator Dick Durbin instead of Richard Shelby who had placed holds on President McCain's nominees many of them for positions high up in the military. What do you think the GOP response would be to an exchange like this one on CNN?

BASH: I spoke with Geoff Morrell over at the Pentagon and just asked him what the impact is of not having these three people in place — one of whom, as you know, is the number two at the Air Force. He said, “Without these people, we’re not firing on all cylinders.” And he also said, “It does adversely affect the organization.”

Are you worried about that? This is a time of war –

SHELBY: The Pentagon is a big place. I don’t think one or two will affect anything except on the margins.

BASH: Do you think that the nominees you have holds on are qualified?

SHELBY: Oh, I don’t have any idea. I looked at them closely and we’ll see. Sometimes that’s not the issue.

Senator Shelby admits that he is holding up nominees for Pentagon posts whose qualifications he can't even say are lacking. He further states that missing one or two people won't affect anything when we are in the midst of two wars and trying to keep our homeland safe from terrorist attacks.

Democrats, please find a fucking spine and bury this asshole. If the situation was reversed he would have not only been shamed into releasing these holds, he would have had to go to the floor of the Senate and apologize by now.

THAT'S Why I Said President Obama Had To Speak On It

On the left a lot of people were excited last week after Senator Shelby put a "blanket hold" on over 70 nominees of the Obama administration over an earmark he wanted. For some reason, even after all we have seen over the last year where Republicans are caught red handed lying, cheating and in some cases committing crimes and having suffered no political blowback, people really believed that NOW the Republicans would get their come uppance. I on the other hand knew that unless this issue was pressed hard and explained to the American people by no less than President Obama, it would all gets swept under the rug.

Well after countless blog posts, Robert Gibbs calling Shelby out, and a post by Dan Pfeiffer on the White House blog but no mention of it by President Obama, guess what the Sunday shows did on the issue?

Why they ignored it of course.

Out of 5 Sunday "news" shows, only one even made mention of it. And guess what happened when they did? Dana Bash on CNN went with the false equivalence excuse. You know, cuz Democrats "did the exact same thing".

Except they didn't, and she either does or should know that.

At some point folks on the left are going to realize that winning arguments at this point is bullshit. Democrats are the party in power. Nobody gives a fuck about winning arguments. What they want to see is results, not excuses. Just over a week or so ago President Obama put on a masterful performance at the GOP retreat in pushing back on all their talking points. And it was TELEVISED. You know what he got for his wonderful job? His approval rating after spiking a few points is now back around 49 %

Yeah, that'll show em.

Its the same reason why this health care reform "summit" is going to turn out to be some bullshit that blows up in our face too. Republicans aren't going to all of a sudden add anything new to the conversation. But they haven't for months and has anybody paid a price for it? But you know what they WILL do while Obama is having summits and shit? They will get back to their all important work of demonizing health care reform. And you know what? People are going to buy that shit again. But let me give you an alternate scenario.

Lets say the Republicans DO come up with something to be included in the bill. Well guess what that means. It means the bill has to be changed and if its changed it has to be passed again by BOTH Houses of Congress. Do you really think the Republicans are going to vote for this bill even if something they want is included?

Uhmmm shit they have asked for for years is ALREADY in the bill.

So they can play the game, and then once again filibuster the bill and we are right back where we started but now its going to be closer to mid term elections and no Conserva Dem is going to want to touch it.

And on that note, even IF President Obama is able to show up the Republicans at his "summit", is that really going to vote the Liebermans, Landrieus, and Nelsons to now vote for it?

Playa please.

Im still a Democrat, and I still support this administration, but I will be soooooooo happy when they realize they are doing it wrong.

Seriously.

Wow, That Was Fast

A Good Start...

Dan Pfeiffer has taken to the White House blog to call out Richard Shelby:

Yesterday, just hours after the Senate voted 96-0 to confirm Martha Johnson as the Administrator of the GSA after a pointless 9-month delay, we learned that Sen. Richard Shelby from Alabama has placed a blanket hold on all nominees, including national security nominees, to use as leverage for some projects in his state. He's holding up 70 nominees, among them top intelligence officials at the State Department and the Department of Homeland Security. According to the National Journal, he’s holding them up until two defense contracts that would benefit interests in his state can be fast-tracked.

Let's be clear: Sen. Shelby is preventing qualified nominees who will help protect the American people from being confirmed. He’s not alone, though. This is just the latest example of this kind opposition for opposition’s sake that the President talked about earlier this week.. This strategy of obstruction is preventing qualified people from doing their jobs on behalf of the American people and it’s preventing real work from getting done in Washington. Every minute spent needlessly blocking noncontroversial nominees, many of whom go on to be confirmed by 70 or more votes or by voice vote (nine of the President’s nominees so far), is a minute not spent on the issues that matter to American families.

Now that is definitely a good start, but it reaches only those who go onto the blog and the few MSM places where they repost it and excerpt it. Robert Gibbs also called out Shelby earlier in the day, but still to drive this home we need more. What needs to happen now is that President Obama himself needs to step up to the plate and explain what Senator Shelby did and why. Its a situation that is easily explained and will be easily digested by the American people. And THEN when people can actually see for themselves WHY Washington isn't working they will at least know where to cast blame.

Now don't get me wrong, people still want results and this won't completely let Democrats off the hook. But at the very least they won't buy as much of the bullshit getting shoveled at them by the Republicans.

Just How Far Will He Go In Calling Out The GOP?

We have a test right now of President Obama that I hope he passes with flying colors. See Senator Richard Shelby has decided to put a hold all of the administrations nominees hostage until he gets funding for one of his earmarks back home in Alabama. Yes, ALL of them.

The truth is, this couldn't be teed up any better for Obama to knock it ocmpletely out of the park, but I worry that he won't step up to the plate and give himself the victory that might actually change the dynamic of what has been happening in the Senate.

Here is what I think has been one of the central problems with the White House in terms of communications since Obama has been in office, the fact that they seem to believe that the average American understands what goes on in the Congress, more specifically the Senate, and therefore they don't need things spelled out for them. Well that's about the dumbest mindset they could have possibly adopted. Most people are too busy going along trying to make it every day to even pay attention to the details of what happens in Congress. What they see are either the results or the lack thereof and maybe just a little bit of spin by either side on why something did or didn't happen.

So here is an opportunity to both educate the American people AND put Senator Shelby ON BLAST. As it happens they don't really have to mention him by name, all they have to do is refer to his home state and that will be quite good enough. If President Obama goes on TV and tells the American people that there is a Senator who railed against earmarks last year who has now put a hold on imminently qualifed people who we need to be allowed to take their jobs for our government to work, all so he can get funding for earmarks for his state of Alabama, I predict that there will be a serious shift in public opinion both about President Obama and the two political parties.


Look this isn't the first instance of Republicans being hypocrites and it won't be the last, but its at least one of the most egregious and one of the easiest to explain where average people can understand it without having to think to hard about it. And as they hear it and process it the outrage will come.

But will President Obama actually use this as a "teachable" moment? One can only hope....

Shelby Didn't Have A Slip Of The Tongue

I know a lot of people in the liberal/progressive blogosphere are going crazy about Senator Richard Shelby seeming endorsement of the lunatic wingnut fringe idea that President Obama is not a natural born citizen and therefore is not our legitimate President, but I for one am glad he said it. In point of fact I would love for someone to poll all of the Republicans in Congress and get their views on the subject on the record. Senator Shelby didn't say that by accident, he did it on purpose to rile up his wingnut base. Hell he might even actually believe it. But a statement like his helps to pull back the drapes on the mentality of a lot of these wingnut Republicans and how out of touch they are with the mainsteam of America. This same "he is not a citizen" meme was played out over and over during the Presidential campaign to the point where then Senator Obama had to go as far as to post a copy of his birth certificate online. In the end the story was an EPIC FAIL and he still won by a landslide. But just like Republicans are still flogging tax cuts as the panacea for all that ills the country, they still see the birth certificate issue as a winning strategy "if only people will just listen". They still don't get that the people HAVE listened and rejected it. Hell you would think at the least they could read an approval poll. But since they can't I say let them expose themselves even further and in the process marginalized themselves in an even greater fashion ala Michele Bachmann. At some point the American people will just totally disregard any position Republicans like them take on any issue after they have shown themselves to be totally bat shit crazy.

Keep. It. Coming.

(h/t Benen)