More on MN Forward, Target & Best Buy

An alert reader sent us this link as follow-up to our own coverage of anti-gay Republican Tom Emmer and MN Forward, the infinite-money PAC set up to test corporate giving in the post-Citizens United world.

It's a terrific explanation of why corporate giving to troglodytes like Emmer is fundamentally (and dangerously) different than all the other ways corporations can insert money to clog the populist drain.

Carey Alexander at The Consumerist:

[Corporate] PACs were the vehicle corporations used to spend money on elections, which sounds an awful like what is happening now, but isn't. The difference is in the funding. Corporations weren't allowed to donate directly from their corporate treasury to PACs. Instead, the corporation's employees needed to donate money to the PAC as individuals. That meant a few thousand dollars from the CEO and the other board members, and anyone else who trusted the corporation to represent its interests. The PAC was limited by whatever money it could collect—that Target had millions in its corporate treasury meant nothing if they could only collect thousands from their employees. From those limited funds, the PAC could then donate to candidates and make independent expenditures.

The Supreme Court didn't like this system one bit and tossed it out in a case called Citizen's United. The reasoning . . . boils down to this: corporations, like people, have a right to speech, and because money is speech, limitations on corporate spending are unconstitutional. As a result, corporations are now free to promote their views by making unlimited independent contributions that flow directly from their corporate treasuries.

So now, [Target CEO Gregg] Steinhafel's ability to spend isn't limited by his ability to collect contributions from his individual employees. Instead, as the CEO of Target, he can use his corporation's treasury to spend as much corporate money as he wants to support whoever or whatever he wants. That's how Best Buy and Target were able to give $250,000 from their corporate treasuries to a group with a shadowy name that supports anti-gay bigots.

The article also contains an excellent discussion of what's wrong with corporations "expressing their views," and also why corp spending like this inevitably supports the most backward-looking fellows among us.

About boycotts — Keep in mind that if money is speech, your money is speech as well. So is your neighbor's. Buy at Target, get a talking-to is a rule you can apply anywhere you're standing. (And don't forget Best Buy.)

MoveOn is organizing a boycott — you can join it here. They also suggest selling the stock of early-testers of the Citizens United decision, such as Target and Best Buy. Target stock has fallen recently in the wake of the Emmer story. Our Betters are getting careless; shining a light is not a bad tactic at all.

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'I'm at the stage where if no one's going to give me anything on the social issues, I'll take the tax cuts.'

An interesting point in an email from a reader. Your thoughts? Read More......

More on the Robert Gibbs–Sam Youngman rant

John has responded beautifully to Press Secretary Robert Gibbs' painful — and to my ears, desperate — rant in The Hill. I'll just emphasize one point that John made: It's beyond dumb to insult your paying customers the day before you open your brand new store.

But I'd like to focus on the article itself, and its writer, Sam Youngman. If you knew nothing at all about Mr. Youngman other than his profession (DC-based political writer for insider publication), what could you deduce from these comments?

Don't focus on the Gibbs' quotations; focus on the writer. Just a few snippets from the article (my emphasis):

1. The White House is simmering with anger at criticism from liberals who say President Obama is more concerned with deal-making than ideological purity.
   
   
2. . . . the $787 billion economic stimulus package, which some liberals said should have been larger.
   
   
3. PCCC is now pressing Obama to nominate Elizabeth Warren, a hero to the left, as the first head of the new consumer protection office created by the Wall Street reform bill.
   
   
4. [Obama] also added diversity to the Supreme Court by nominating two female justices, including the court’s first Hispanic. Yet some liberal groups have criticized his nominees for not being liberal enough.
   
   
5. The press secretary dismissed the “professional left” in terms very similar to those used by their opponents on the ideological right . . . Gibbs said the professional left is not representative of the progressives who organized, campaigned, raised money and ultimately voted for Obama.

I don't know what you get from this; I get that Sam Youngman is doing Gibbs and Obama a huge favor by adopting all of Gibbs' messaging in his own "reporting," as though Gibbs comments were prima facie correct. Which would be fine if Gibbs were right; but each of the statements above contains fallacies and errors:

1. Straw man argument; no "liberal" says that.
   
2. Misrepresents the economic objection — Stiglitz and Simon Johnson are hardly liberals. And they, along with Krugman, certainly carry a tad more gravitas than the label "some liberals" would connote.
   
3. Ignores the real reason for wanting her nominated.
   
4. Change "yet" to "and" — why wouldn't liberal groups want liberal judges? But it's not a complaint without "yet".
   
5. Adopts Gibbs attack phrase as his own.

And then there's this — you can almost hear them both spit when the word "liberal" comes out their mouths. And as for "professional left" — nicely crafted to inspire contempt. Almost as bad as "professional politician" or "professional PR writer" in its ladies-of-the-night implications.

Conclusion: This is not just Gibbs' rant — it's Youngman's rant too. Fair enough, but he needs to own it as his.

And we need to see the whole piece for what it is — either a gift or a trade. If it's a trade, pay attention; perhaps down the road you can spot what Youngman got.

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Borosage on why Obama's having problems

Robert Borosage of the Campaign for America's Future:

1. The left was right. The president is in trouble because his historic reforms were too timid, not too bold. The recovery plan wasn't big enough. The banks were rescued, but not reformed and no heads rolled. These two alone have been lethal to the economy, to working people, and not surprisingly to the president's popularity and Democratic prospects.

2. The left was wrong—but not because it was too independent, but because it was too cooperative. Instead of building an independent populist movement with a moral voice driving opinion outside the Beltway, much energy and resources were devoted to the legislative sausage-making process, largely in support of the president's agenda. This White House would have been far better served with an independent movement, such as those FDR and LBJ suffered and benefited from. One result is that the ersatz Tea Party formations captured the voice of populist outrage.

3. The left isn't the problem; the corporate wing of the party is. The left hasn't gotten in the president's way, for better or worse. It's the corporate right of the party—the Blue Dogs and New Democrats—that have stood in the way. They joined with Republicans to weaken the recovery plan. Sen. Max Baucus did the dance with so-called moderate Republicans like Charles "Death Panel" Grassley that ate up the first year in useless negotiations. Blue Dogs largely sabotaged energy legislation. New Democrats weakened already inadequate financial reforms. And the deficit hawks now sabotage needed jobs programs in an economy in big trouble. The problem with the left is that it has been too weak, not too strong.

4. The left hasn't been a rebel; it's been too good a soldier. Amazing that the White House would be upset at carping from the Beltway left which has embarrassed itself by its willingness to absorb insult and salute. Women rallied to support a health care bill that weakened choice. Progressives supported the bill despite the president's unwillingness to fight for a public option, the taxes on good (read union) health care plans, and the grotesque deal with drug companies to sustain the ban on Medicare getting bulk price discounts. Environmentalists went so far as to embrace off-shore drilling in the failed effort to get the energy bill. Black leaders like Al Sharpton argued against any targeted economic programs, even as the African-American community was suffering depression levels of misery in the economic collapse. The antiwar movement gave the president a pass on Afghanistan. Gay people have been remarkably patient at delay in repealing the indefensible don't-ask-don't-tell policy. Progressives pushed financial reform hard, even after the Treasury Department helped defeat amendments to break up the big banks and more.

5. The White House has been hurt less because the left is critical, but because the White House isn't listening. The left correctly understood the White House faced a pitched battle over the direction of the country, not a post-racial, pragmatic, bipartisan era of good feelings. The president's search for bipartisan cooperation compromised his greatest asset -- the bully pulpit. From day one, he should have been teaching Americans, over and over, how failed conservative ideas and policies had driven us over the cliff, just as FDR and Ronald Reagan had done from opposite ends of the political spectrum. The failure to do that has allowed conservatives to revive without changing a whit. Now, three months from the election, the president says he's ready to draw the contrast and start pushing, far too late.

6. Reality counts. Gibbs accuses the professional left of being congenitally dissatisfied. I should hope so. But the White House problem isn't temperament, it is reality.

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Dem House member calls for Gibbs to step down

We almost forgot for a moment that Gibbs was also excoriating Democratic members of Congress. And they noticed.

Rep. Keith Ellison (D-Minn.), an active member of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, said Gibbs went too far. "This is not the first time that Mr. Gibbs has made untoward and inflammatory comments and I certainly hope that people in the White House don't share his view that the left is unimportant to the president," he said. "I understand him having some loyalty to the president who employs him, but I think he's walking over the line."

Ellison said that Gibbs's resignation would be an appropriate response. "I think that'd be fair, yeah. That'd be fair, because this isn't the first time. And, again, people of all political shades worked very hard to help the president become the president. Why would he want to go out and deliberately insult the president's base? And why would he confuse legitimate critique with some sort of lack of loyalty. Isn't this what the far right does? Punishes people who are not ideologically aligned with President Bush?"

It's wrong to suggest that progressives want to eliminate the Pentagon, said Ellison, adding that he doesn't know a single Democrat who has espoused that view. "I know of none. So I think that was an inflammatory remark that is emblematic of his careless use of language and is an example of why he may not be the best person for the job," he said. "Gibbs crossed the line. His dismissal would be fair."

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Self-Fulfilling Idiocy

I realize I have to admit I flipped on daytime cable in order to bring you this nugget, but if I tell you I was looking for news on the Stevens crash, I suspect you'll forgive me.

Anyway, MSNBC is switching between coverage of the plane crash in Alaska and the jobs bill that just passed the House:

House Democrats on Tuesday pushed through a $26 billion jobs bill to protect 300,000 teachers and other nonfederal government workers from election-year layoffs.

The bill would be paid for mainly by closing a tax loophole used by multinational corporations and reducing food stamp benefits for the poor. It passed mainly along party lines by a vote of 247-161.

(Note the use of the phrase 'election-year layoffs.' Was 'layoffs' insufficient? Did we really have to inject the assumption of political posturing into the lede?)

But back to my initial frustration. Several times now, MSNBC anchors and reporters have asked whether Rep. Charlie Rangel's comments on the floor will take away from coverage of the jobs bill. I don't know, MSNBC reporters and anchors, will it? How about this: Not if you don't let it.

To be clear, the exact issue they're raising is whether or not Rangel's comments will be a distraction while they are actively making it a distraction.

This is why I should not be allowed to watch this crap. It just makes me angry. Read More......

John Boehner & David Gregory on Meet the Press

So over the weekend, David Gregory seemed to put the wood to Senate minority leader John Boehner ("John of Orange" in Keith Olbermann's formulation) over the Bush tax cuts on Meet the Press. Here's the vid:



As interesting as that exchange is, I don't want to focus on Boehner, but on David Gregory instead. Newsman Gregory is the famous "MC Rove guy" (see below), and in my book he's a made man until he proves otherwise. So why's he laying into Boehner so ostentatiously? His aggression in this interview really jumps out, at least to me. Is Gregory off the reservation, or is he doing someone's bidding?

I'll let you provide your own answers. Me, I've got suspicions. I don't think he's off the reservation, since his whole career is Village–signed and sealed. That leaves two possibilities; either:

1. The fix is in to kill the rich boy tax cut extensions (see Geithner's support for expiring them), and Gregory's getting on the right side of the admin by publicly tanking Boehner, or
   
   
2. The fix is in to extend the rich boy tax cuts, and the Big Boys are letting him (and Geithner) burnish his populist cred, knowing that nothing can stop them.

My bet is on No. 2 to win, but No. 1 has that election-year edge.

As an added treat, here's David "1 Live Crew" Gregory dropping the hammer (heh) with Karl "MC Rove" at the 2007 Radio and Television Correspondents' dinner. He's the Fresh Prince on Rove's immediate right (screen left).



Like I say, a made man until he proves otherwise.

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House passed bill to save jobs: 247 - 161

245 Democrats, joined by two GOPers [Cao (LA-02) and Castle (DE-AL)], just voted to pass the $26 billion bill to save jobs:

House Democratic leaders, intent on showing disenchanted voters their commitment to economic recovery, insisted on the one-day session to pass legislation they said would save the jobs of more than 300,000 teachers and other public service workers. Republicans shot back that Democrats would spend more money the government doesn't have while bowing to the wishes of teachers' unions.

The roll call vote is here. 158 GOPers and three Democrats [Bright (AL-02), Cooper (TN-05) and Taylor (MS-04)] voted no.

Twenty-five members (18 Rs and 7 Ds) didn't vote.

This legislation passed the Senate last week. Via Twitter, Speaker Pelosi reports, "President will sign tonight!" Read More......

Stevens confirmed dead in plane crash

ABC has the story. So does ADN. The family spokesman has confirmed that Stevens did not survive. Read More......

The Google-Verizon pact to destroy Net Neutrality: It's pretty bad

So much for the denials from Google.

1. Under their proposal, there would be no Net Neutrality on wireless networks -- meaning anything goes, from blocking websites and applications to pay-for-priority treatment.

2. Their proposed standard for "non-discrimination" on wired networks is so weak that actions like Comcast's widely denounced blocking of BitTorrent would be allowed.

3. The deal would let ISPs like Verizon -- instead of Internet users like you -- decide which applications deserve the best quality of service. That's not the way the Internet has ever worked,and it threatens to close the door on tomorrow's innovative applications. (If Real Player had been favored a few years ago, would we ever have gotten YouTube?)

4. The deal would allow ISPs to effectively split the Internet into "two pipes" - one of which would be reserved for "managed services," a pay-for-pay platform for content and applications. This is the proverbial toll road on the information superhighway, a fast lane reserved for the select few, while the rest of us are stuck on the cyber-equivalent of a winding dirt road.

5. The pact proposes to turn the Federal Communications Commission a toothless watchdog, left fruitlessly chasing consumer complaints but unable to make rules of its own. Instead, it would leave it up to unaccountable (and almost surely industry-controlled) third parties to deicide what the rules should be.

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The Netroots is out of touch, and apparently so are the majority of the American people

I enjoy articles like this. On their face, they make a lot of sense. But then, when you dig deeper, the entire thing falls apart.

To wit: New poll shows liberals really DO like President Obama. So his critics in the Netroots, and among progressive organizations in town, clearly don't know what they're talking about, and are clearly out of touch with real America, just like Robert Gibbs said!

Okay. Then if the President is so popular, and we're so out of touch, why is his approval rating stuck around 44%? (Check out how the pretty lines come together in one big bipartisan hug.)

Evidently, the Netroots is so out to lunch that our view of the President is consistent with the majority of the American people. Pretty fringe.

The White House can delude itself all it wants by pointing to these numbers, and you know they are. But if the folks at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue actually talked to people around the country, I think they'd find a lot more angst about this administration than the one set of rosy poll numbers are showing. And Gibbs' outburst today shows that they already know they have a problem.

In the end, there's a reason the President is at 44% in the polls, and we're about to lose the House. And it's not because everyone thinks the President is doing such a fine job. Read More......

Two ways to look at the current jobs situation

Both of these are thanks to Ian Welsh. The first is a chart from Calculated Risk. Ian asks, "Does this look like a recession to you?" Notice the dotted line near the end that takes out census hiring.


And here's an animation of the jobs picture, month-by-month and county-by-county.



The creator of the map, Latoya Egwuekwe, is interviewed on CNN here. It's interesting to see the stain spread — I'm not sure I knew that up-the-Mississippi would be a path.

Your county may be different, but mine went dark awfully fast. Time for governments to sell off that pesky infrastructure and plow under some old roads.

And a tip for you — in these weird times, what's bad for the country is good for the individual. If you really think things are headed further down, pay off debt, reduce expenses, and stock up on cash and cash equivalents, to the extent you can.

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Former aide claims Stevens among the dead in plane crash

UPDATE: According to Breaking News on Twitter, "Source who said Sen. Stevens had died tells msnbc.com the information he received was not confirmed". More from ADN.

A local CBS affiliate:

Dave Dittman, a former aide and longtime family friend of former Sen. Ted Stevens says Stevens was killed in a plane crash near Dillingham Monday night. Nine people were on board, including former NASA Chief Sean O'Keefe. Five people were killed in the crash, but other identities were not known, nor are the conditions of the survivors.

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WH spokesman: I was just out of control and winging it when I criticized the Democratic party base

Huh?

The White House spokesman would now have us believe that he wasn't in full control of his faculties when he did an interview with the Hill in which he blasted the Democratic base, and suggested we all needed to take a drug test. Really? He couldn't control himself? Then what is he doing remaining in the job as White House press secretary?

Oh, and the part about how his criticism of the base is not "a view held by many" is also interesting. So the White House's top spokesman usually pops off to the press about his own personal opinions that have nothing to do with what the President or the White House in general thinks, even though he claims he's speaking for them? And, just coincidentally, those lone personal opinions of his match up perfectly with certain unnamed White House sources who continually blast the Democratic base in the press.

Seriously? That's his excuse? I was just using the office of chief spokesman for the President to sound off about my own personal views, views I know I shouldn't have shared, views I don't think anyone else has, and I attacked the very people who helped me get my job, because sometimes I just can't control myself when speaking on behalf of the President.

I feel better.

One more thing. Note Gibbs' excuse for the anger that forced him to lash out at the Democratic party base. He was upset at conservative Republicans criticizing the teachers aid package as a "bailout." Republicans criticized a bill in Congress, so Gibbs attacked the Democratic base.

I watch too much cable, I admit. Day after day it gets frustrating. Yesterday I watched as someone called legislation to prevent teacher layoffs a bailout -- but I know that's not a view held by many, nor were the views I was frustrated about.

Again, huh?

Maybe the White House should take Nate Silver's advice:

I don't know whether Gibbs was going "off-message" out of frustration, or whether the White House has become so jaded that they actually think this was a good strategy. Either way, it speaks to the need for some fresh blood and some fresh ideas in the White House. The famously unflappable Obama is losing his cool.

Sam Stein has more. Read More......

BREAKING: Former Senator Stevens may have been aboard crashed plane in Alaska

UPDATE 11am: NTSB says five died, four survived, plane crash. Stevens is 86.

UPDATE: 10:53am ADN:

A U.S. government official told The Associated Press that Alaska authorities have been told that Stevens, a former longtime Republican senator, is among several passengers on the plane. The official, who spoke on grounds of anonymity, says Stevens' condition is unknown.

UPDATE 10:44am Eastern: Susan at DailyKos quotes Reuters as saying Stevens was on the plane. Chuck Todd says Sean O'Keefe was too - he was the former administrator of NASA, and he also served as acting Secretary of the Navy under Bush.

Anchorage Daily News:

Severe weather has hampered the rescue operation for eight people believed to be on board a GCI-owned aircraft that crashed near Dillingham on Monday night with possible fatalities, according to state and federal officials.

The Alaska Air National Guard was called to the area about 20 miles north of Dillingham at about 7 p.m. after a passing aircraft saw the wreckage, spokesman Maj. Guy Hayes said. Eight people were reported to be on board the aircraft, though their status wasn't immediately known, he said. There were possible fatalities, he said.

Friends of former U.S. Sen. Ted Stevens said he was traveling Monday to the GCI-owned Agulowak Lodge near Lake Aleknagik, and they were concerned for him.

A woman who answered the phone at the Anchorage home of retired Air Force Gen. Joe Ralston, a good friend of Stevens, said Ralston was with Stevens' wife, Catherine, comforting her and trying to find out what was going on.

No one answered the phone at the homes of Stevens' daughter, Susan Covich, in Kenai, or his son, Ben, in Anchorage.

Read More......

Gibbs: People who are upset with Obama don't live in real America, didn't help get Obama elected

From the Hill:

Gibbs said the professional left is not representative of the progressives who organized, campaigned, raised money and ultimately voted for Obama.

Progressives, Gibbs said, are the liberals outside of Washington “in America,” and they are grateful for what Obama has accomplished in a shattered economy with uniform Republican opposition and a short amount of time.

Let's put aside for a moment Gibb's adoption of a really nasty, and un-American, Sarah Palin talking point in order to smear the Democratic base (has it really come that?). (And heck, even Palin apologized for using that smear.) Let's look instead at the substance of the smear. Gibbs is now claiming, on behalf of the White House, that anyone who is upset with the way President Obama is handling his job clearly did not organize, campaign, or raise money for candidate Obama back in 2008.

Really? That's the latest White House response to Obama voters who are sincerely concerned about the direction this White House is taking on so many issues. To smear everyone and suggest that they didn't lift a finger to get the President elected? Seriously?

Joe and I are upset with Obama, and we, for example, raised nearly $43,000 for the man, According to the White House, our money now doesn't count. Great, would they like to give it back? I for one, would love the $1000 back that I personally donated to the Obama campaign. Joe gave even more. I suspect a lot of our readers wouldn't mind their contributions back too, since apparently they're not appreciated.

Then there's all that work we did for the campaign, all the dirty work they asked us to do - and we did it, gladly, and quietly - none of that counted either, apparently.

This interview with White House spokesman Robert Gibbs is really quite remarkable. Not in its substance - President Obama's staff smears the Democratic base, and our issues, on a regular basis. No, what's remarkable is that a senior White House official has finally gone on the record in order to smear the Democratic base. That's unprecedented. It also puts to the rest the White House's prior defense, whenever a senior unnamed official went after the base, of claiming it was a rogue employee who didn't represent the President. Gibbs clearly does.

More from Gibbs:

The press secretary dismissed the “professional left” in terms very similar to those used by their opponents on the ideological right, saying, “They will be satisfied when we have Canadian healthcare and we’ve eliminated the Pentagon. That’s not reality.”

Of those who complain that Obama caved to centrists on issues such as healthcare reform, Gibbs said: “They wouldn’t be satisfied if Dennis Kucinich was president.”

One hopes that Gibbs doesn't truly believe this, otherwise the White House really is in trouble. The left isn't upset with the President because we're just too darned demanding. We're upset with Barack Obama because he never seems to try. He talks a good talk, but when it comes time to actually follow through on his promises, he winces.

Take health care reform. The President was AWOL for a good year while health care reform floundered in the Congress. Rather than get his hands dirty, and spend some political capital actually pushing for what he promised - a public option, which Barack Obama himself had repeatedly said was the best way to increase competition and lower prices - the President, other than a few speeches here and there, disappeared for a year. Finally, when it looked like everything was doomed, Obama got involved, at the very end, and we got a bill that did some nice things, but not nearly as much as he'd promised, and not nearly as much as would have been possible had Obama engaged a year earlier.

And that's the crux of the criticism. Obama supporters are not upset with President Obama because the supporters' own expectations are unrealistically high. We're upset with Obama because we believed his promises, and we thought he'd actually fight for them. Better to have loved and lost, as they say. But if you're not even willing to try, then what's the point?

It's not a transformative presidency when you flinch in the face of every challenge.

Gibbs talks about how difficult it is for the White House to get anything done in the face of a uniform Republican opposition. Except, of course, the GOP wasn't uniform at all in February of 2009, when the White House caved on the stimulus and showed its true colors to the Republican party. If anything, this White House helped unify the Republicans by constantly, and unnecessarily, pandering to them at every turn.

Let's talk about the stimulus. The reason we're suffering from 10% unemployment, with no improvement on the horizon, is because someone at the White House thought it was politically too difficult to ask for the "real" amount that was needed to stimulate the economy and save the country from another Great Depression. So rather than go to the country, and tell the American people what medicine was needed, the President flinched in order to avoid a fight. And then he flinched again, and gave 35% of the already-too-small stimulus away to the GOP in the form of near-useless tax cuts.

And what did the President's approach of negotiating with himself get us? 10% unemployment, approval ratings in the 40s, and the imminent loss of the House. And it's not like this wasn't predicted. Both Stiglitz and Krugman told everyone they could that the stimulus was far too small. But this White House doesn't do liberals. So Stiglitz and Krugman were shoved aside, and a true economic recovery went out the door with them. How smart a move was that?

Let me reiterate. The country was on the verge of economic collapse. We were on the verge of another Great Depression. And rather than fight for the correct amount of medicine that was needed to save our nation, this President decided to opt for less than what was needed to save our nation. And he didn't opt for less at the end of the negotiation, after pushing really hard for the full amount. He opted for less at the beginning, because he didn't want to fight for it. Which is his usual pattern. Cave first, negotiate later, then act surprised when people are upset when the final agreement is so weak, and accuse them of being politically naive and unrealistic.

Who was the only person in the White House to even vaguely understand that we needed a bigger stimulus? Christine Romer. And what's her reward for being right? She's leaving.

Tell us again why we should be proud?

Then there's this:

He’s also added diversity to the Supreme Court by nominating two female justices, including the court’s first Hispanic. Yet some liberal groups have criticized his nominees for not being liberal enough.

Clarence Thomas added diversity to the Supreme Court too. The substance of the nominees' beliefs really don't matter? And yes, of course Kagan and Sotomayor are better than Clarence Thomas. But we didn't vote for Barack Obama to be simply "better than the worst Republicans." That's a rather sorry goal for any president, let alone one who promised he was different. One who promised real "change."

This comment, about the Supreme Court diversity, is illustrative of a larger problem this White House has. They tend to prefer symbolism over substance. Better to appoint a woman to the court than someone who would actually advance the President's worldview (if he has one). Or here's an idea - how about appoint a Latina, or any other woman, who would be a fierce advocate for progressive ideals? No, to this White House it's better to pass a bill that's called "health care reform" than to actually fight for the details of such a bill from the git-go. And better to pass legislation that everyone thinks repeals "Don't Ask, Don't Tell," when it does no such thing, than to actually fight for an actual repeal of the discriminatory law. That might upset one of the President's employees, the Secretary of Defense, and we can't have that when the overarching goal of the administration is to ensure that there is never any drama, regardless of what they have to give up in return.

It's always better to compromise than to fight. It's always better to win on paper than to win in practice.

That's why people are ticked at the President. Not because they're naive. But rather, because they actually believed he would at least try to do what he promised.

Finally, there's this:

Larry Berman, an expert on the presidency and a political science professor at the University of California-Davis, said he has been surprised that liberals aren’t more cognizant of the pragmatism Obama has had to employ to pass landmark reforms.

“The irony, of course, is that Gibbs’s frustration reflects the fact that the conservative opposition has been so effective at undermining the president’s popular approval,” Berman said.

“And from Gibbs’s perspective, and the White House perspective, they ought to be able to catch a break from people who, in their view, should be grateful and appreciative.”

Yes, it's hard work being President.

As I mentioned before, one could argue that the reason the conservative opposition has been so effective is because the President has refused, from day one, to challenge the conservative opposition. The President always felt it was better to strive for bipartisanship than fight for what he promised, fight for what the country needed. In a very real way, this President emboldened conservatives and their opposition. They knew that if they yelled in his face, he'd feel compelled to compromise to make them feel better. Just look at the Joe "You lie!" Wilson fiasco. What was the response? The Senate committee changed the bill language to address Joe Wilson's concerns about immigration. How many votes did that get us? And why not use Wilson's outburst to paint the GOP as obstructionist, and out of touch with the country? Are we really to believe that the White House had no hand in this at all?

The saddest part of this certainly planned outburst from Gibbs is that it must reflect the President's own thinking. He actually believes that he's doing a swell job. He actually believes that his all-nighter, last-minute approach to policy-making has led to stunning successes. And he's so proud of his own success, that he feels comfortable telling other Democrats that they're not real Americans, and that their contributions to his campaign were meaningless.

Heck of away to energize the party three months before a pivotal election. Read More......

Tuesday Morning Open Thread

Good morning.

It's a busy day on Capitol Hill, which usually isn't the case in August.

The House will convene this morning to begin debate on HR 1586, the Education Jobs and Medicaid Assistance Act, which will provide much-needed funding to states to save jobs -- including the jobs of approximately 160,000 teachers. The GOPers are, of course, vehemently opposed. After all, they created the economic crisis, why should they help anyone impacted by it? The final vote should occur sometime this afternoon. It should pass.

The President is going to make remarks this morning from the Rose Garden about why the House should pass that bill.

The Anchorage Daily News is reporting that former Senator Ted Stevens may have been on a plane that crashed in Dillingham, Alaska:

Friends of former U.S. Sen. Ted Stevens said he was traveling Monday to the GCI-owned Agulowak Lodge near Lake Aleknagik, and they were concerned for him.

A woman who answered the phone at the Anchorage home of retired Air Force Gen. Joe Ralston, a good friend of Stevens, said Ralston was with Stevens' wife, Catherine, comforting her and trying to find out what was going on

So, busy day ahead... Read More......

Republicans want to shut down Congress after the elections

The Republicans are afraid that Democrats might try to pass important parts of their agenda before the new Congress comes in.

Yeah, that'll happen. Read More......