My Nominee for Post of the Year

From Steve M. at No More Mister Nice Blog:

JANUARY 20 WAS BARACK OBAMA'S "MISSION ACCOMPLISHED" DAY

His troops were valiant and he'd had a brilliant plan for taking the capital, but now we can look back to January 20, 2009, and realize that Barack Obama was naive to think major combat operations had ended. He never saw the insurgency coming. He and his people seemed to think that there simply wouldn't be that kind of factional strife after the old regime fell; they believed that, despite years of tension between the factions, it would end in an instant and the citizens of the country would immediately see themselves as united.

As the insurgency grew and began to make the country ungovernable, the Obama team and its allies downplayed it as a ragtag collection of end-timers who'd soon be irrelevant. His troops knew how to wage a traditional campaign, but hadn't given serious thought to the problem of dealing with a chaotic aftermath. When it came to the "postwar" period, Obama never really had a plan.

His forces simply have no training in this kind of warfare. Now they have to learn on the fly, and their learning curve seems to be slow. They appear to believe that the forces they're now fighting are thinking traditionally -- they can't seem to accept the fact that the enemy genuinely wants anarchy and a failed state.

How Obama deals with this insurgency will be the main test of his presidency.

Bipartisanship is a crock. I didn't vote for Charles Grassley for Congress, but Obama seems content to let that rightwing nutjob write the healthcare legislation. Get off the mat and fight Baracky or yours will be a one-term Presidency.

Unfortunately, This is Right

In re the current debate over the stimulus plan:

Obama is, sadly, much to blame for giving the Republicans so much leverage. He defined the challenge as bipartisanship not saving the U.S. economy.

It's kind of like the war on terror. Bipartisanship is a tool, not a goal. Saving the economy is the goal. Focus, Barack, focus.

Bipartisanship: The Enduring Myth

Obama put $300 billion in tax cuts into his economic stimulus plan, cut funds for family planning and refurbishing the National Mall, all to appease Republicans, and guess what?

Not one Republican voted for his "bipartisan" stimulus plan.

In Washington, "bipartisanship" is doing what the Republicans want.

They're not going to vote for your bill, Obama. Just craft the best stimulus possible and forget them. They want the economy to fail. They've been working hard at that for the last eight years.

I don't need $500. I need you to fix the bridges I drive across every day. Get to work the smart way. You don't need those bozos.

What Digby Said

flickr/Library of Congress: Bain News Service,, publisher.
Florence F. Noyes as "Liberty" in Suffrage Parade
[between 1910 and 1915]

A popular refrain on liberal blogs, as Digby and her co-bloggers dday and tristero at Hullabaloo turn out some of the best analysis on the 'net.

Today you can learn that

a) the corporate media has it in for Iraq reporter Lara Logan, because she criticized their execrable war coverage; just like they demonized Ashley Banfield for the same.

b) shows the vote total for all the terrible bills Republicans voting unanimously pushed through for Bush -- aided & abetted by Democrats abandoning their party to join in -- and concludes: "The key to understanding how the elders define bipartisanship is recognizing that whatever your beliefs or principles, you "get things done" in Washington by doing what conservatives want you to do."

c) dday marvels at the crackpots being mentioned as serious candidates to run as veep with McCain, Bobby exorcism-conducting, criminal-castrating Jindal, and Mittwit "nuclear nonproliferation is a liberal position" Romney. "Good Lord these people are out of their skulls."