mdgr:  Aren’t you getting a little careless about your writing?  “of gravitas and influence? Not unlike the Tea Party, except for the money.

Gravitas .. like the Tea Party?  Influence like the Tea Party?  Excuse me?
And “thought leaders”—connotation to thought police? 
  Also, your beloved Vichy appears again ... and again.
which gets a little tiresome, especially for less sophisticated people than yourself—or most people younger than 60.
  Don’t get careless!

President Obama, likes to over emphasize the dramatic.

That’s why he’s always making those speeches of his. He likes to make the big push, but underestimates the dificulties of follow through.

He makes a royal mess of things, then leaves others to clean up. Health care reform, the gulf disaster, mortgage relief. That’s his style.

Not to pick up his toys after he’s played with them.

Now the American people are left to straighten things out.

So, it’s just one day after the election and the White House Director of
Management and Budget representing the President, has an OpEd.

Peter Orszag, in the NY Tmies November 3 2010 tells us:

“There are four ways to contain health care costs:
by reducing payments to providers and suppliers; by rationing services; by
having consumers pay a greater share; and by giving providers incentives to be
more efficient.”

This is a flat out lie.

The non-reform of health care was/is essentially a windfall for insurers, with
hundreds of thousands of new “customers” (if a ‘mandated customer’ is a
“customer”), with premiums subsidized or paid for directly by taxpayers, and
with 20% of the premium available to insurers to use for what ever they want.

That’s right: Insurers only need to spend 80% of the premium paid by you and
by me directly or through our taxes on health care for you and for me. The rest
they can spend any way they want, including bonuses, sitting on Boards to raise
rates and decide who gets covered and who doesn’t, contributions to
‘sympathetic’ candidates – those who will let them keep even more of your and
my money.

A savings of 15% or more can be achieved through a government-administered
plan like Medicare - for everyone. (And by the way, a CBS/New York Times poll
June 2009 showed that 72% of Americans favored this approach.)

The quickest and easiest and sane way to save is move to a single payer system.
Advocates for such a system were blocked from speaking by Senator Max
Baucus last year; but the facts are the facts.

When the President of the United States allows his White House Director of
Management and Budget to lie about such a fundamental reality, it reflects very
poorly on the President and his leadership.

President Obama does not need people working for him who lie to the
American people. Whether it’s “Heck of a Job Brownie”, “Heck of a Job Timmy”
or Orszag, people are tired of being lied to.

If President Obama does not have the courage to stop his own staff from lying
to the American people, he is no leader.

This is not the way to begin the next two years. Just standing up, flat-footed
and lying to people.

E.J. after reading your naive article, you may consider sitting out the ‘next battle’ as you call it.

Dionne syas, “Obama was not wrong to fight for health care, to stimulate the economy… But by failing to defend these achievements, the president… opened the way for partisan critics who shifted the conversation to airy language about “big government” and “bailouts.” One result: Only a third of Tuesday’s electorate… thought the stimulus had made the economy better.”

So, in other words, it wasn’t the stimulus per se that failed to improve the economy, it was Obama’s insufficient cheerleading? Is it possible, just possible, that only a third of the electorate was impressed because the stimulus itself was a failure, not just the rhetorical support for it?

And is it possible, just possible that the reason he didn’t defend Obamacare more forcefully was because it is indefensible? Over half the population dislikes it. And not because Fox News told them to.

And, pray tell, E.J., what word should Obama have used to describe what he did for AIG, Goldman, GM and Fanny and Freddie, etc? I think “bailout” is pretty damned accurate and not “airy” at all. Even if he had managed to persuade the entire country of the efficacy of his policy, would they not still be “bailouts”? If it quacks like a duck…

As Obama is a Republican and therefore a stooge for those of fabulous wealth, expect no different behavior from him.

@Reek-o:  What have I added to the discussion? Easy. I haven’t dragged into the gutter, as you have.

Any more questions?

RubberPimple:

Well, at least YOU have originality! “RubberPimple” indeed!

Beyond that, what have you added to the discussion?

Rico, you are so NOT suave. You talking points clearly originate from Faux news’
distortion of a benign statement by the POTUS. You have therefore unambiguously
revealed yourself to be without integrity or originality.

madisolation:

Do you even know what the acronym “NAFTA” stands for?

(Note to mdgr- This is the kind of post I was refering to. I can’t resist.)

If Obama wants to keep ANY respect from his supporters, he needs to say firmly and clearly to Boehner and McConnell:

Guys, the ball is in YOUR court.  All $$$ bills originate in the House.  Bring us what you want and we’ll either:
1) Accept it.
2) Reject it.
3) Tell you what changes you need to make for our support.

It’s just that simple.

Obama’s going to be too busy with his trip to Asia: he has to finalize that NAFTA deal he’s cutting with South Korea. I hope everyone keeps this in mind. When they see fawning press photos of him in Asia, they should think: NAFTA.
Oh, and E.J.? You write:
“In fact, Democrats held moderate voters while losing independents” should have been written:
“In fact, Democrats held moderate voters while losing independents…and their base.” There. fixed it for you.

The Republican said, “it’s the president who sets the agenda for our government.”

The Democratic President said, “Make our enemies sit in the back of the bus.”

Ahhh, civilized discourse.

“What a difference a week makes.”

John Boehner:
“While our new majority will serve as your voice in the people’s House, we must remember it’s the president who sets the agenda for our government.”

He learns his place fast.

Obama is trying to govern like Bill Clinton, so he will probably swing further to the right.  I’m expecting a steady flow of corporate-friendly policies and occasional liberal rhetoric.

A Meme for its Time:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/karen-dolan/buck-up-progressives-we-w_b_778274.html

Dionne’s analysis is predicated on some very naive assumptions, but in having been an apologist for the Dems, these assumptions are almost inevitable.

That’s a typically “liberal” view, by which I mean to point to the very worst associations with that term as used by people like Chris Hedges.

As the link above shows, however, the bottom line is that much of the dead weight—for which Rahm Emanuel sold his soul—is essentially gone and the progressive caucus is virtually undiminished.

Now, I have a little proposal. It’s strategic, however, and as finely honed as a surgical scalpel.

As a hypothetical, what would it net the progressive cause if many of that same caucus publicly resigned their Democratic-Vichy-linked affiliation, especially now that President Obama has vowed to make nice with the Republican Party even more than her already has?

They have just been re-elected, so their election isn’t immediately at stake. If they resigned from the Democratic Party in the next few months and endorsed the creation of an emergent third party made up of lefties and indies, wouldn’t that suddenly give the new party a HUGE amount of gravitas and influence?

Not unlike the Tea Party, except for the money.

To coin a phrase, these defectors could assume the mantle of “thought leaders” over their Congressional delegation, unhampered by the Obama and the Dems.

They could also help articulate and channel the rage of the left, as well as the indies who simply didn’t vote or who voted Dem but felt slightly nauseous doing so.

It would be good for their egos, good for that third party (no longer marginal with many of the Progressive Caucus behind it) and good for the country.

It would be very, very bad for the remaining Democrats, but they’re known to be impotent anyway. I see a real possibility of the influence of the third party’s influence ascending in direct proportion to Vichy’s precipitous decline.

At this point, big money would begin to follow. The reason why is because of the threat of the Tea Party in 2012. That may please business in the short term—they’re generally greedy, true—but not every captain of industry is stupid.

Remember, it is to no one’s advantage (with the exception of Murdoch and the Koch Brothers) to give Palin or Secretary of Defense Limbaud the nuclear codes, and people like Bill Gates, Buffett and Soros know that all too well.

Strategically speaking, I believe that this can provide an “engine” through which we may be able to do what is necessary between now and 2012.

As long as phony “progressives” like this pinhead Dionne keep believing that the dimmos need to be more centerist (just read the comments by that fucking idiot Begala on huffpo) they will continue to fail. They just don’t get it. They lost big for not pushing big liberal ideas. They were elected in 2006 and 2008 by left wing LIBERALS (not sell out progressives) They were elected to change the course of the nation by going away from the failed pro-corporate supply-side bullshit that we have labored through for nearly 30 lost years. But no, as the repugs moved further to the right, the dimmos chose to move to the right themselves, becoming pro-tem repugs.

The secret to selling your product is to distinguish your product from the other guys. Dimmos have for the last two years (and to be honest the last 20 years)tried an incredibly failed policy of attracting repug moderates and moving to the right on almost all occasions, and now it has cost them.
Why vote for a repug wanna-be, when you can vote for the real thing.

The dimmos can only succeed now by an almost radical move to the left. That is, if the nation doesn’t collapse in on itself in the next 3 or 4 years.

Now comes Obama saying, “No one party can dictate where we go from here.” What a difference a week makes. That’s a far cry from, “Make them sit in the back of the bus.”

We’ll see.