Never Satisfied Posted by: McQ
on Monday, December 08, 2008
You'd think after 8 years of whining, some on the left would be tired of it. But they're not:
Liberals are growing increasingly nervous – and some just flat-out angry – that President-elect Barack Obama seems to be stiffing them on Cabinet jobs and policy choices.
Obama has reversed pledges to immediately repeal tax cuts for the wealthy and take on Big Oil. He’s hedged his call for a quick drawdown in Iraq. And he’s stocking his White House with anything but stalwarts of the left.
Now some are shedding a reluctance to puncture the liberal euphoria at being rid of President George W. Bush to say, in effect, that the new boss looks like the old boss.
“He has confirmed what our suspicions were by surrounding himself with a centrist to right cabinet. But we do hope that before it's all over we can get at least one authentic progressive appointment,” said Tim Carpenter, national director of the Progressive Democrats of America.
OpenLeft blogger Chris Bowers went so far as to issue this plaintive plea: “Isn't there ever a point when we can get an actual Democratic administration?
Speaking of "centrist" or "right", it certainly makes you understand how mushy those definitions are and how far to the left the critics seem to be. Obviously "progressives" are more of the Dennis Kucinich school than the old DLC/Clinton one. That said, from where I sit, other than Gen. Jones and Robert Gates, 'right' really doesn't seem to be a part of the equation.
Steve Hildebrand, of the Obama Campaign, tells the far left, essentially, that they were successfully used and they need to just shut up and get over it:
This is not a time for the left wing of our Party to draw conclusions about the Cabinet and White House appointments that President-Elect Obama is making. Some believe the appointments generally aren't progressive enough. Having worked with former Senator Obama for the last two years, I can tell you, that isn't the way he thinks and it's not likely the way he will lead. The problems I mentioned above and the many I didn't, suggest that our president surround himself with the most qualified people to address these challenges. After all, he was elected to be the president of all the people - not just those on the left.
People on the left are not looking at Obama's appointments with a jaundiced eye because they think he needs to apply some liberal orthodoxy litmus test. They have legitimate concerns that people like Geitner, Summers and other Rubin acolytes created this mess, and it's reasonable to ask why they're being appointed to get us out of it. While some of us want to give Obama a chance to fulfill the promises he campaigned on and work with the staff of his choice in order to do so, we'd have to be a bunch of intellectually dishonest kool-aid swilling freaks to pretend his economics team didn't have some troublesome baggage.
"Some" troublesome baggage. Say, Mr. Rubin, about Citibank ...
Hamsher goes on:
And after the past eight years, it's a bit much to stomach someone saying "just shut up and trust me, because I know better."
There is a lot of speculation right now about what will happen with the 13 million member email list the Obama campaign built, and there is some talk of Hildebrand running an organization that manages it.
I wonder how long those membership numbers will hold up when any criticism of Obama is greeted with patronizing lectures and sneering condescension for its liberals?
Yeah, yeah, yeah ... bu where is the far left going to go? Would they vote for Sarah Palin or Bobby Jindal in '12? Heh ... they'll still be trying to pin Palin's daughter with Trig and whining about Iraq.
Nope - they're not happy and the reason they're not happy is what they projected on to the Obama "change" mantra isn't turning out to be what they "hoped" for, is it? Can Obama screw over the extreme left?
Of course, it should be pointed out there there is no real center-to right push in Obama’s court. It’s just taht they’re still not far enough left for the nut roots.
Its’ as I’ve been saying, gang.. there is no compromise with the left... as Both Bushes have dound out the hard way.
Good point, Bit, and it’s one of the key lessons I hope Republicans take from the last few cycles. Cozying up to left-leaning media doesn’t work for a long-term governing strategy. It doesn’t matter how many Medicare Rx and No Child Left Behind leftist monstrosities that Bush trotted out and even successfully passed - he was still evil incarnate to the left.
After virtually destroying their own brand chasing this mythical accommodation with the left, the GOP needs to distinguish themselves from Obama and the Democrats. If they don’t, their minority status is likely to last a long time.
While your concern for lefties is touching, only the far right and far left nuts seriously believed that Obama would act like a commie once elected.
Yeah that whole "Spread the Wealth around thing" and all the talk about "Wind fall Profits taxes" and all the talk about a New, New Deal...all that’s just Rightwing Propaganda...man you need to at least TRY.
Leftwing Anger, or any anger, for that matter, is not, if it’s chronic, is not a directed at any one thing, it has become a chronic condition...it’s not that Bush makes me angry, it’s that I am an angry person, and I need a focus for my anger. Any focus...the vitriol-spewing Kos Kidz are not going to quit spewing vitriol because Obama won...as the phrase goes, "My anger keeps me warm at night." They enjoy the anger, the warmth, the comraderie of being angry young men/womyn against the world. When that anger goes away what will they have? It’s why anger, hate, and the like make such a poor basis for any positive develpment...you can’t BUILD on hate and anger...
Bottom-line: they’re not angry at Obama’s "betrayal" they’re just angry people, and this is there excuse, not their reason.
While your concern for lefties is touching, only the far right and far left nuts seriously believed that Obama would act like a commie once elected
.
The appointments he has presdeinted us with that for do nothing to ally those fears, TomD. I look at the list of people he’s appointed and no matter how I look at it, it still comes down way, way to the left. So, there’s really two things going on, here. First, Obama is clearly trying to thorw the right off the scent by SAYING he’s appointing center to right people. And the left? Well, there’s no satisfying them, anyway.
" ...part of what I’m hoping to introduce as the next president is a new ethic of responsibility where we say that if you’re laying off workers, the least you can do when you’re making $25 million a year is give up some of your compensation and some of your bonuses ... That kind of notion of shared benefits and burdens is something that I think has been lost for too long, and it’s something that I’d like to see restored."
Restored how? By government edict? What are we heading for here, government control over executive compensation? Maybe government control over ALL compensation. Yeah .. that’s the ticket, isn’t it? We’ll let the private sector continue to own and operate the businesses, but we’ll put the government in control of setting all salaries.
By the way ... do you know what you call an economic system where the means of production are privately owned but controlled by government. No, it’s not socialism. Under socialism the government owns the businesses. And it’s not capitalism. Under capitalism ownership and control is private. So ... what’s the word? A very few of you know ... and the rest of you are about to find out. It’s the "F" word. Fascism. So .. what does that make Obama?
Bootz naled it. That’s exactly what we’re dealing with... and it doesn’t take a great deal of reserach to note that is exactly Hitler’s idealism at work, here. Hitler never was a lover of capitalism, in spite fo what you may have heard. National Socialism, is still Socialism, ya see.
Now, given his rise to power and some of the symbolism employed, some nervousness appears to be called for.
The Left won’t have to feign disappointment for too long. No longer than Obama will have to feign being a centrist. (I knew that was officially a sleeve job today when I heard Eugene Robinson promoting it.) Though I do believe that Obama will try to pretend that a socialist health care system is centrist and "mainstream."
It’s certainly mainstream in the European social democracies, which the Obama-Pelosi-Reid mouthpieces will tell us every hour on the half hour.
Fortunately, Bush has left Iraq at a stage where the wrong move by Obama could result in him getting tagged with losing it, so I don’t expect he’ll mess with that.
His real foray into foreign policy will be to chop American sovereignty down to size, long the Lefty dream. Real treaties require 67 votes in the Senate, so he’ll have some difficulty with that approach, but there are a number of ways around it.
He’s also going to make the abortion industry into the fourth branch of government. The culture of death is, of course, deeply satisfying to Leftists.
So, cheer up, Lefties, there’s much evil to be done.
He’s also going to make the abortion industry into the fourth branch of government. The culture of death is, of course, deeply satisfying to Leftists.
Yes, let’s speak of the internal thoughts of people, ignoring of course that most Americans, left or right, favor people not getting abortions, the difference being whether to make it illegal or not.
So obviously not wanting people to get abortions is not the relevant factor, but opposing it’s prohibition is evidence that people are actively satisfied when other people make the choice to have an abortion.
Being that you appear to support outlawing abortion, I would certainly respect your ability to explain your own thoughts, but I find it endlessly entertaining that you think you have the slightest clue of the internal thoughts of people you despise.
It’s logic like this (or lack thereof) that makes pretty much every prediction you make more likely to be wrong than right.
