Paul Revere by Cyrus Dallin, North End, Boston

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Friday, January 1, 2010

ANDREW SULLIVAN,

writing in the LondonTimesonLine, has an interesting perspective on Mr. Obama's first year (almost) in office, what he has done, and what he is trying to do:


Inch by inch, Barack Obama is moving mountains

"Despite deep resistance, the president is gradually shaping America

 Between Barack Obama and Tiger Woods, it wasn’t such a good December for idolised, lean, brown golfers. Tiger, however, can hide. Barack, alas, cannot. The venom against Obama has been right up there with that directed against, well, Bush, Clinton, Nixon, Johnson ... America is, after all, a tough political arena.

 The right treated the Senate passage of health insurance reform — a bill that essentially subsidises private health insurance for the working poor — as if it were the new dawn of bolshevism. Actually, that would be too mild. “Two-thirds of the country don’t want this. And one-third of these jihadists, these healthcare jihadists, do,” opined the Republican commentator Mary Matalin.

 The left, however, was no kinder. Many leading liberal lights called for the bill to be killed because it gave too much to insurance and drug companies and failed to provide a publicly funded alternative to private insurance. The columnist Arianna Huffington lamented: “If the miserable Senate healthcare bill becomes the law of the land, it’s only going to encourage the preservation of a hideously broken system.”

 My favourite splutter came from the Washington Post columnist Robert Samuelson, who declared the entire bill an encomium to Obama’s self-centredness. “It is about him: about the legacy he covets as the president who achieved ‘universal’ health insurance,” Samuelson inveighed. Then — hilariously — he added: “To be sure, the [proposals] would provide insurance to 30m or more Americans by 2019.” What did the Romans ever do for us?


The bill is not perfect and will need work in the next few years — on cutting some entitlements and controlling costs in other ways. But the law remains largely what Obama promised in the campaign.
As with most attempts to judge Obama, a little perspective helps. So let’s review, shall we? This is the biggest single piece of social legislation in 40 years. The Congressional Budget Office predicts it will indeed insure 30m people."


Link to the rest of Andrew Sullivan's article.


As we all know, the Right came out, just after Mr. Obama was sworn into office, and, with eye-popping rage, bellowed to their fellow Americans their wish that Mr. Obama would fail as president.


This, of course, is how frustrated juveniles behave when something doesn't go their way. 


Just witness the Spittle Fleckers who regularly visit this blog, demanding I write about what they want, and not what I choose to write about on my own blog.  That is, for the most part, what the opposition to Mr. Obama engages in--not reasoned, fact-based criticism--but howling lunatic charges of Marxism, Fascism, Socialism, doomsdayism and every other fanatical, baseless idiocy human beings can think up.  It is their foot-stomping insistence that we liberals should hate the president as crazily as they do, and that ideologically bankrupt behavior is why fewer and fewer Americans identify with the GOPoNO, the Grand Old Party of NO!

Reporting on the new ABC/Washington Post poll has mostly focused on support for a public health care option. But the poll also shows that, while Republicans have succeeded in stonewalling Democratic initiatives in Congress, they have not managed to rebuild their party.

Only 20 percent of respondents identified themselves as Republicans -- the lowest number since 1983.

"These numbers, coming roughly one year before the 2010 midterm elections, show that any celebration on the GOP's behalf is premature as the party has yet to convince most voters that it can be a viable alternative to Democratic control in Washington today," wrote Chris Cillizza.


Link

29 comments:

Anonymous said...

"Inch by inch, Barack Obama is moving mountains."

Yes he can!

Go Barack!

TOM said...

It's hard to tell how far you have climbed out of a hole, if you still cannot see the light. It's hard to climb when the rats pop out of the dirt and bite you while your climbing. The rats will have to be shot before they do enough damage to stop the climber.

TAO said...

I think Andrew should have titled his piece, "Inch by Inch, Barack Obama is moving obese stupid fat asses."

All this talk about the Founding Fathers who are DEAD now but during their time were the most liberal radicals the world has ever seen....

All this talk about the loss of freedom from a whole bunch of folks that do nothing but mouth talking points and plagarize the postings of others...

Or the vets who believe because they volunteered to 'protect my freedoms' can now lay claim to my freedoms and the opinions I have....

Or the abortion foes who feel superior for their respect of life but they find it humourous when someone posts the following on their blog: "TAO, Saty, and Shaw and even that hate filled mongoloid Truth101 are some of the most loathsome, vulgar Pieces of Shit on these boards. If any of them really gave a shit about America, they would have been aborted when they were first born."

How else, except inch by inch can you move the contradiction that has become America?

hordthk said...

Please dont expect me to believe those cliches scenarios.
You know, Obama is highly concerned about the non-terrorist threat to his plans to Obamastan America. He has already started doing this with our impressionable young school children, much like he endured as a young Muslim child in Indonesia.

Thanks to Obama, Homeland Security is now a complete joke.

The person who created this site
this makes you and our government TERRORISTS of the worst kind. you are terrorists against your own people. you should be ashamed of yourself. THIS should be considered an act of treason. YOU ARE HELPING THE TERRORISTS WITH THEIR CAUSE!

Anonymous said...

hordthk,

You are one sick jerk.

(O)CT(O)PUS said...

hordthk said...
"you are terrorists against your own people. you should be ashamed of yourself. THIS should be considered an act of treason."

Anonymous said...
"hordthk, You are one sick jerk."

More than one sick jerk, hordthk offends me in the extreme. My ancestors died in the Holocaust because there were assholes like hordthk who regarded an entire people as inferior and worthy of elimination. In my lifetime, children have been firebombed in the churches because of assholes like hordthk who regarded them as inferior and worthy of elimnation. People have been lynched, tortured, raped, and murdered by people such as horthk who regard other human beings as inferior and worthy of elimination.

When I read shit like this, I think of the mentality of people like horthk who set themselves up as judge, jury, and executioner over others.

Hordthk, if anyone is a terrorist here, it is you. Now fuck off and go away!

Oso said...

(O)ct(o)pus,

You are absolutely correct to be angry at that assholes comments.

Perhaps ancestral suffering enables some of us to see the obscenity of that "kill 'em all" mentality or makes it more real, perhaps some people intuitively comprehend and empathize and are appalled by such cavalier and obscene and stupid thinking.

Either way I got your back on it.

hordthk said...

Humm, what (O)CT(O)PUS said...could be viewed as a good post, EXCEPT!

Let’s put this in perspective. Obama wants American voters to feel comfortable with his approach to Israel, and so he explains that he has Jewish friends. In fact, without getting explicit about exactly who those friends are, he charges that he took political risks in having these friends and associates, and therefore we should take him seriously when he says he’s a friend to Jews and to Israel. In fact, based on those associations, he finds suspicion of his motives on Israel “curious”.
Obama says that his political and personal associations must be taken into account when determining how Obama would put policy in place. After all, Obama says that we can trust his approach to Israel because some of his best friends are Jewish. Given that, what about some of his other friends and associates?

* Jeremiah Wright — His pastor for 20 years and a man to whom Obama gave over $26,000 in 2006 alone, Wright has feted and honored Louis Farrakhan, a virulent anti-Semite.
* William Ayers — The former Weather Underground domestic terrorist employed Barack Obama at the Chicago Annenberg Challenge. Obama served with him on the board of the Woods Foundation, during which time both of them gave $75,000 to Rashid Khalidi, a Yasser Arafat toady. Ayers and wife Bernadine Dohrn refuse to express remorse for their terrorist and criminal activity to this day, and Dohrn spoke explicitly of “overthrowing capitalism” as late as November 2007.
* Robert Malley — One of Obama’s foreign policy advisers, Malley resigned from the campaign after reports that he met with Hamas surfaced in the last few days. Malley has a history of opposing Israel; in the Clinton efforts to achieve a peace settlement, he was the only American adviser to blame Israel when Arafat refused to accept 95% of what he’d demanded in the final settlement.

Since Obama says that his association with a couple of unnamed Jewish organizers should make us comfortable with his approach to Israel and foreign policy, we can also take into account these associates with whom Obama has had much longer relationships. What do these associations tell us? It reveals Obama as someone comfortable in the culture of anti-American rhetoric, where people blame the US and Israel first on all occasions, and among people who at least give a pass to violence for the sake of political change. And all of those conclusions are at least as legitimate as Obama’s insistence that his Jewish friends make him a friend to Israel.
So he’s been a friend of the Jews? Spare me. Having Jewish friends who hate Israel does not make him pro-Israel.
If he was a friend to the Jews, why were his friends for years, anti-Semites?
We aren’t stupid.Israel made a huge mistake when it didn’t throw every Muslim out of Jerusalem in 1967. But it’s never too late.
Just shows Israel should not trust Obama
Good post (O)CT(O)PUS ...But forgive me if I'm just keeping you honest. But Obama not a friend to the Jews.

dmarks said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
dmarks said...

Hord; I viewed Pres. Obama's past association with these two harbingers of hate with dismay. However, will note that I said past association. Obama has repudiated and disassociated himself from both individuals.

As for whether or not Pres. Obama is "friend of the Jews", the dictators in Iran hate him for insisting that Israelis have a right to live. Other antisemitic leaders, including Bin Laden and Hamas, also despise Obama for resisting their call for a new Holocaust. You will know a man by his enemies: and the actual antisemites have lined up against Barack Obama.

I suppose you could consider taking all of this up with Rahm Emanuel, Obama's chief of staff, who happens to be a Jewish man who "is deeply and emotionally committed to Israel and its safety". This same man who served as a civilian volunteer in the Israeli Defense Forces.

I disagree with Obama on many (most?) of his major policy decisions and proposals. But there is no way I am calling him an anti-Semite.

------------

"We aren’t stupid.Israel made a huge mistake when it didn’t throw every Muslim out of Jerusalem in 1967"

Hmmm. Exterminating people for having the wrong religion. There's someone here who is some sort of genocidal nut, and it is not Pres. Obama.

So, where does it stop? Do you think it might be a good idea to fire up the ovens and take care of the "problem" of the one billion Muslims in the world? Just to be safe?

dmarks said...

Octo: If I can address you directly, you were dead on when you accused Hord of a connection to "In my lifetime, children have been firebombed in the churches because of assholes like hordthk who regarded them as inferior and worthy of elimnation". I wasn't sure where you were coming from at that time, but in the later comment. Hord proved you right with his call for Israel to have in 1967 wiped out the 70,000 or so Muslims in Jerusalem.

This action demanded by Hord is exactly the sort of thing you are describing.

(O)CT(O)PUS said...

hordthk: "But forgive me if I'm just keeping you honest."

You have kept nobody honest because you came here as an abusive troll ... accusing the Lady of the Manor and her readers of "treason" with all consequences implied by that word. You have no respect whatsoever for other people and are intolerant of their views. You do not know how to participate in a civil and respectful discussion as a civil respectful human being.

Then you have the unmitigated gall to change the subject and deflect criticism from your own despicable behavior. You have accomplished nothing here after having presented yourself as an unwelcome troll. Furthermore, you are off topic. This post is NOT ABOUT YOU! Now get lost!

Dmarks: "Hord proved you right with his call for Israel to have in 1967 wiped out the 70,000 or so Muslims in Jerusalem ... This action demanded by Hord is exactly the sort of thing you are describing."

My thanks to Oso and Dmarks for having my back.

Shaw Kenawe said...

"Obama wants American voters to feel comfortable with his approach to Israel, and so he explains that he has Jewish friends..."

To the ignoramus who wrote this:

An overwhelming majority of Jewish voters voted for Mr. Obama. Fact.

DALLAS (JTA)—"This year, once again, the Jewish community overwhelmingly supported the Democratic nominee for president. With the election of Barack Obama, Jewish voters selected a candidate who, despite an unprecedented smear campaign, represents the values of our community.

This year, we also heard the all-too-familiar claims that the Republican nominee would receive a record amount of the Jewish vote. Again, however, this prediction came up woefully short.

In every election cycle for the past 36 years, Republicans offered “sky is falling” predictions that Jewish voters would give significant support to the Republican nominee. A typical claim was when President George W. Bush’s campaign chairman, Marc Racicot, predicted in 2004 that Bush would garner between 30 and 35 percent of the Jewish vote. Despite the Republicans’ history of failed forecasts of the Jewish vote prior to 2004, their delusional claims persisted.

In 2004, the media largely bought into the argument that Bush would receive a significant portion of the Jewish vote. A New Republic piece by Lawrence Kaplan titled “Kerry’s Jewish Problem” typefied the media’s fascination with the prospect that Sen. John Kerry would receive an unusually small portion of the Jewish vote. The media frenzy led many to give credence to Republican claims about the Jewish vote four years ago.

Despite the Republican theory about Jewish voters, results from Election Day 2004 showed the usual overwhelming Jewish support for Kerry. In fact, since 1972, when exit polls were first instituted, the Republican nominee has averaged only 27 percent of the Jewish vote. In recent elections, the Republican nominee has received even less, with Jewish support at 22 percent for Bush in 2004 and 19 percent in 2000, and 16 percent for Bob Dole in 1996. In 2006, the Jewish support of Democratic congressional candidates reached 87 percent.

Nonetheless, the media remained enticed by persistent Republican claims about the Jewish vote during this election cycle. The endless attempt by the media to report the “man bites dog story” led to news articles such as “Obama’s Jewish Problem” (Politico, March 13, 2007) and “Obama’s Struggle to Secure the Jewish Vote” (NBC, May 23, 2008). Again, this year’s supporters of the Republican nominee and members of the media prematurely reported that John McCain would receive a dramatically increased percentage of Jewish support with Obama as the Democratic nominee."

Your accusations are loathsome and based on your own biases, hatreds, and misinformation and they have nothing to do with facts and reality.

American Jews OVERWHELMINGLY support Mr. Obama.

You don't know what the hell you're talking about, which is usual for trolls.

I don't appreciate your polluting this blog with your vicious lies and hate speech.

Go away! And stay there.

Shaw Kenawe said...

(O)CT(O)PUS,

I've had a terrible time these last few days since I've come back to blogging.

I've been infested by trolls who are astoundingly stupid and vicious.

I have hit the "delete permanently" button more times than I can count, and yet they return like locusts.

Send me an email if you can tell me what else I can do to get rid of them.

And thank you, 8PUS for giving the most recent one a good what for.

I'm getting awfully tired of having to deal with these hateful trolls.

Pamela Zydel said...

Hordthk: Excuse me, but YOU are the one who needs a tutorial in honesty, NOT Octo! How dare YOU! Who the heck do YOU think you are coming to this blog and accuse its owner of treason, which as Octo pointed out, accuses the rest of us as treasonists as well! You, sir, are no Patriot! I suggest you quit blogging, because you obviously aren’t very good at it, and direct yourself to dictionary.com and look up Patriotism. Then do some research on etiquette—your manners are sorely lacking.

Shaw: Leave Hordthk’s comment up so that EVERYONE can see the proof of his idiocy.

Joe "Truth 101" Kelly said...

I see nothing wrong with being a hate filled, terrorist mongoloid loathesome piece of shit. If that's what pisses off deluded right wing fools it has to be a good thing.

(O)CT(O)PUS said...

Shaw: “Send me an email if you can tell me what else I can do to get rid of them.”

I have been watching the troll traffic from the sidelines but have not yet had the time to engage them … still trying to catch up from my recent trip.

I decided to engage this troll because the “treason” comment was especially outrageous (probably the adolescent product of an as yet not fully formed, fully functional adult brain).

My advice? It depends on how much stamina you have. If you have the energy, engage them. If not, delete them without hesitation.

I don’t get trolls anymore. No one loves me. No one even hates me. In the words of Rodney Dangerfield, I get no respect.

Shaw Kenawe said...

Pam,

Thanks for coming by. I'm about ready to call it in. Really. I'm tired. I'm discouraged. I'm overwhelmed.

I can engage with people who have legitimate criticisms of this president and his administration. I have some of my own!

But for someone to call me a traitor to my country? WTF?

Why so much hate?

8PUS,

Points well taken.

Maybe the trolls' goal is to beat me down to defeat?

If that is the case, I will not allow them to do so.

Shaw Kenawe said...

TRUTH!

You are a star!

TOM said...

Use comment moderation. Don't even post their garbage.

Shaw Kenawe said...

To all my regular commenters:

I have to use comment moderation so that I can monitor the hateful diatribes that trolls have recently been posting to my comments.

I'm sorry for any inconvenience this may pose to the good people who regularly comment here.

I will return to the normal commenting as soon as I am able to do so.

Thank you for your understanding.

Shaw

dmarks said...

Use comment moderation. And let your trusted team members help with the moderation task, if they want to. That will make it go smoother.

rockync said...

I have no problem with comment moderation.
Your well-being is much more important.
The trolls are shit stains on their Daddy's undershorts.

Pamela Zydel said...

ROFL ROCKY!

Shaw: If comment moderation will make it easier on you, then you do it. I just worry because you are still reading the trolls' comments. I don't want you to let them get to you because that is their goal. They want to silence you. You can NOT let them.

THEY are the traitors! How DARE they try to silence you or any one of us! How DARE they try to tell me or anyone else where we can post or who can come on our blogs!

You are a voice for the Liberals and I am a voice for the Conservatives ...BUT...we are both AMERICANS!!! And we have a RIGHT to SPEAK!

Pasadena Closet Conservative said...

God Bless America, and Happy New Year to you and your family. I wish you good health in 2010, Shaw.

(O)CT(O)PUS said...

Okay, okay, I'll ride shotgun over the trolls if want. Just one concession: May I eat them after I delete them?

And BTW, please visit the Captain and Dino and Rocky at the Zone. Its getting awfully lonely over there.

Shaw Kenawe said...

(O)CT(O)PUS,

Please fill free to eat any troll that suits your fancy, and be sure to use plenty of your delicious ink sauce with it.

Joe "Truth 101" Kelly said...

I hardly ever get the real nutjobs at my place. Why do you guys get all the fun?

libhom said...

As usual, Sullivan offers pretty prose that is short on substance. The wealthcare bill in the Senate has had all the reforms taken out of it by the HMOs and the health insurers. It doesn't give 30 million people healthcare coverage. It fines people for being unable to pay exorbitant premiums or HMO fees. It slashes Medicare and does nothing to free people from the deadly HMOs and health insurers.

I'll vote for primary challengers and then Greens before I vote for the Democrats if they can't even put through a decent public option when they should have been pushing for Medicare for All from the beginning. Obama promised a public option, the only major reform that was left in the legislation, and now he has broken that promise.