When did Obama threaten to pull support of progressives in the next election?
And how do you know what’s going on behind the scenes?
Furthermore, how are you so certain that arm-twisting will have its desired effect? Isn’t it possible they’re not intervening as much because they’re afraid it would backfire? (in terms of getting the legislation passed)
No idea about this one. He hasn’t exactly been supportive of progressives though, but of course that’s not terribly surprising as he isn’t progressive himself.
And how do you know what’s going on behind the scenes?
Considering the “progress” he’s made, his lukewarm support (which frankly amounts to lip service), and the tainted bankers whose advice his implementing, well, I think the burden of proof is upon you to show that he’s got some sort of secret populist agenda going behind the scenes.
Sure, one can’t possibly prove it doesn’t exist, but nor can you prove Bush didn’t have such a secret agenda; I’d have to see significant positive evidence before thinking this is any more than wishful thinking.
Furthermore, how are you so certain that arm-twisting will have its desired effect? Isn’t it possible they’re not intervening as much because they’re afraid it would backfire? (in terms of getting the legislation passed)
Arm twisting is, in part, how politics works. Lieberman, for example, should be left out in the cold.
[Edit]Rimbo, would you like some olive oil with that? ;-)
Butter. Real butter, not butter-flavored grease, olive oil, or anything otherwise, because this is a good old-fashioned dish that needs butter.
If I may indulge a little chuckle… muahahahahahahaaa.
The reasons I have for enjoying this are complex. But the short version is this: This makes both the far Right (terrified that Obama will turn the USA into a socialist nation) and the far Left (hopeful that Obama will turn the USA into a socialist nation) look like the idiots that they are.
I voted for Obama because I knew that whatever his campaign promises were, that he was the sort of intellectual who’d listen to reason. I have been extremely pleased with the results so far. :)
Ah, here here, Rimbo. Let us not question our esteemed intellectual leader!
Let us praise the man for advancing some of the same policies that we hated Bush for!
If all the democratically elected leaders of a people make the same choices, does that tell you something about the leaders or the people?
Or perhaps about some shortcomings in the system?
I vote for system too. It’s telling that the elected leaders don’t vote with the majority of the people, but rather with the majority of the richest people. It’s sadly and thoroughly compromised by money. Eishenhower’s prophecy about the military-industrial(-congressional) complex has essentially come true; he just forgot the bankers.
Well, it’s cute and all you think anyone to the right or left of you is an idiot, as you naturally have all the answers, consider that Obama’s policies to date haven’t been centrist.
He’s given away money to the wealthy faster than anyone on the right has ever dared, furthered the push for executive power that Bush started, is digging us deeper into wars we cannot afford (on several levels), and reversed himself on civil liberties and government secrecy.
I suppose he’s also done some leftish things, but those have been either a drop in the bucket (undoing Bush tax cuts on the rich), or pursued with the apparent goal of helping big business (His tepid, Clinton-esque, and compromised health care revamping), or too small (infrastructure investment). I suppose he did lift the ban on stem cell research, which is at least a good thing.
He’s done almost exactly the same things I’d have expected of McCain. I suppose you think he’s a centrist too?
Huh? How?
Neither. When two people from completely different backgrounds with completely different beliefs are put into the same position and given the same information both make the same choice, it tells me something about the choice itself. Doesn’t even have to be the right choice; millions of people from all kinds of backgrounds and cultures visit Vegas every year and make the wrong choices; this is how its grand hotels and casinos get built.
Y’all, of course, will take as a given that Obama is making the wrong choices, because these are the same choices GWB made. And that’s the joke that I find so funny. Later, I will spend some time laughing at the right-wingers wringing their hands over how the country’s becoming communist with Obama in charge.
Eh, laugh if you want. I find it more discouraging/annoying than funny.
There is no “center.” There is no “right” or “left” either. These things are complete fictions, fantasy religions that people believe in great numbers. They’re good for building community and finding ready-made pre-packaged friends among the people who happen to live near you and thus were also brainwashed into the exact same belief structure, but have no connection to reality.
That’s part of what’s so funny. It’s that you think you know more of the details of the situation that you can be right on this, or that if you had all of the details, the presumptuous belief that you would choose differently.
What I voted for was a man who would consider points of view beyond his own biases and preconceived notions when taking the office, and that is what I got. And I couldn’t be happier.
Rahm was calling up progressives telling them they wouldn’t hear from them (the White House) again if they didn’t capitulate. Sorry for the slow reply! I will fish up some links for you if you like, but this has been referenced on a few progressive blogs most notably Greenwald and Digby.
Rimbo: I’m happy you’re satisified with Obama’s continued desire to violate the law, but some of us would hold our leaders to a higher bar. I expect even in your apparently drug-addled state you can understand this.
Oh, it’s nowhere near as satisfying as watching pretty much everyone act like idiots as he turns out to be the sort of president neither side expected him to be.
Definitely a bit more cowardly and finance loving than expected, but so far nothing too shocking.
The only thing I really cared about was justice, and Obama has disappointed 100%.
Sooo…your problem is that the Democratic president is actually managing his party worth a damn for a change? You know why we don’t have immigration reform? Because Republicans couldn’t manage this sort of thing. Slapping around the progressives is a good thing, because progressives are almost universally wrong about everything by virtue of their ideological devotion to their particular orthodoxy, the same as the Neocons were.
What you’re seeing here is just what happens when ideology meets reality. If you’re unwilling or incapable of making practical compromises with the situations in which you find yourself placed, that’s a problem.
Brian, you’re a parody of a centrist.