The Daily Dish: Mr President, Ignore Frank Rich Please

[dennis4868]

Here is Andrew Sullivans take on Frank Rich's latest editorial regarding Obama:

Frank Rich: No one expects Obama to imitate Christie’s in-your-face, bull-in-the-china-shop shtick. But they have waited in vain for him to stand firm on what matters to him and to the country rather than forever attempting to turn non-argumentative reasonableness into its own virtuous reward.

Andrew Sullivan's response: This strikes me as grotesquely unfair. I sure know what matters to the president, and a brief survey of his first two years would reveal it rather baldly. "Non-argumentative reasonableness" so far has prevented a second great depression, rescued Detroit, bailed out the banks, pitlessly isolated Tehran's regime, exposed Netanyahu, decimated al Qaeda's mid-level leadership in Pakistan and Afghanistan, withdrawn troops from Iraq on schedule, gotten two Justices on the Supreme Court, cut a point or two off the unemployment rate with the stimulus, seen real wages for those employed grow, presided over a stock market boom and record corporate profits, and maneuvered a GOP still intoxicated with failed ideology to become more and more wedded to white, old evangelicals led by Sarah Palin. And did I mention universal health insurance - the holy grail for Democrats for decades?

I have to say that I agree with Mr. Sullivan. Considering DU has turned into an anti-Obama website most of you probably do not agree with Mr. Sullivan's response to Frank Rich. I think Obama has done the best anyone could have done in the past 2 years under the circumstances. If Obama would have stand firm NOTHING would have gotten done....not even the little that the progressives would say is an accomplishment the past 2 years. The repubs are the party of NO for political gain and they are around to simply destroy Obama and the dems. If the repubs read some of the posts on DU these days they are probably laughing and saying MISSION ACCOMPLISHED!

[Phx_Dem]

1. Sullivan is right, again. n/t

[dennis4868]

2. It was only a few years ago....

that I could not stand Andrew Sullivant but he has changed in many ways and makes so much sense these days....he has a GREAT blog....the best in the business!

[Phx_Dem]

5. Same here. Now, he's the last moderate and sane semi-conservative.

I really enjoy his blog as well.

[young but wise]

3. Thanks for this.

[patrice]

4. The DU is being played. Divide-&-Conquer is the objective by SOME in both anti- & pro- Obama camps

This dynamic puts the DU in danger of going the way of NPR, becoming for-all-intents-and-purposes the wholly "owned" subsidiary of a single faction, with just enough token activity from "others" to keep them coming here, for __________________________ (?).

[Mimosa]

9. I'm definitely not 'anti-Obama'

I believe (for reasons unknown to me) that Obama's policies regarding health care reform and continuing the wars in the Middle East are huge mistakes.

[patrice]

13. That's about like my position, except that I'm not sure I agree with "mistakes"

I think there are extraordinary things affecting the normal limitations upon a presidency:

1. Congress, which is normally a strong limiter on the presidency, is even more so now as it is being affected by fractures in political bases on the Left and on the Right, fractures unusually exacerbated at this particularly risky point in time by corrupt MSM;
2. Because of the Bush Crash, domestic issues are literally being held hostage by international factors seen in instruments such as Basel: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/12/04/what-jamie-dimon-wont-tel_n_792138.html - Since the heart of the debate in that milieu is EQUITY, anything the President says or does can be taken out, more or less immediately, on the people/equity of the USA. And perhaps we should appreciate that that could include if he even just says something such as "I/we can't _____________, because international financiers will further harm and perhaps even destroy what's left of the American economy."

So, though I admit there could be some mistakes in what he's doing, I don't think mistake accounts for the whole thing. I also admit that he IS more Right of Center than I would like. However, the most powerful determiners, limiting any options he might have normally considered from a Rightish Center position under more optimal conditions, are the two elements I sketched above, which are severely limiting his options beyond almost all expectations.

If I were in a power position in such a chaotic hostage environment, I think the only thing I could come up with that might be effective is to facilitate construction of two polar positions out of certain selected elements in the situation and then elicit action from the People to construct a third position out of factors in BOTH of the two original opposed positions, AND BACK their own position coherently in sufficient numbers as to succeed at least in some small measure against 2. above at minimum and, thus, acquire some influence over 1. This is called a dialectic and it lives or dies on the coherence/cohesion of its third term.

This IS about us, so, as people are so fond of saying, "We ARE ,in-DEED, the ones we have been waiting for."

[Pisces]

24. Spot on.

[allmylove]

6. Frank Rich > Andrew Sullivan

[NYCGirl]

7. True. Frank Rich was a much better drama critic than

Andrew Sullivan ever was.

[Mimosa]

8. "presided over a stock market boom and record corporate profits"

This is good, how? For whom and why?

[dave29]

10. people's retirement

for one. Not all of us get built in raises every year.

[Mimosa]

11. Some of us don't even have jobs. or pension plans. n/t

[patrice]

16. So the question is how would it be best to begin to change that:

1. Put Tax Cuts (ANY Tax Cuts) back into a corrupt economy that is inherently unjust and dependent upon all kinds of other tax cuts and subsidies that enable more gambling in an UN-REFORMED financial sector?
2. Put that Tax Cut money (ALL OF it) back into revenues/investments in SHARED RESOURCES, such as Un-Employment Insurance & Medicare?

Medicare is of particular interest to me, because the Health Affordability Act defined a national board to study Medicare Reform for fraud, waste, and abuse. If we lose this current struggle over Tax Cuts, Medicare Reform will be carried out by the crowd that will protect fat CEO salaries and HIGH administrative costs (the sources of their campaign contributions) at the expense of the quality of care. The reason that is important is, not only will it result in increased suffering and death for the marginalized amongst us, but it will also KILL any reason we might wish to work for Medicare for All, which is about our only door into an authentic Public Option. (Bernie Sanders has been talking about this last point for about a year now.)

[dave29]

25. you asked the question

I provided the answer. We all have our miseries to contend with. I do not have a pension plan, I invest what little I can myself in a ROTH IRA. I am sorry if you are unemployed. I was for 6 months just a while back.

[Liberal_Stalwart71]

12. Sully is right. I love Frank, but the nerve of bringing "Chris Christie" to his lips is well...

DISGUSTING!!! :puke:

[MNBrewer]

14. Andrew Sullivan is occasionally right (stopped clock analogy)

And when he is it's always after he's changed his opinion from what it was (wrong) to what it is (right), example Iraq War. He may or may not be correct in this instance, but if he is right, it's probably just an accident.

[CakeGrrl]

15. Despite accomplishing what was described in the OP, today you have people saying

* that the President "sucks"

* that they've written the White House asking him to declare that he won't run in 2012.

It's like this forum is becoming more and more of an insular groupthink bubble.

[patrice]

18. Too many people are making it 100% what he's supposed to do. It's as though they have

forgotten, or never knew in the first place, what "We are the ones we have been waiting for" means.

It is also VERY important that a coherent narrative is missing here. Or the only narrative anyone seems to be considering is "Obama is a traitor to the people." Disagree with him as I might, I just can't think that narrative is correct. I have hypothesized a different one above and I would appreciate your comments.

Bush's Crash is key. The size, composition, and ownership of what was lost appears to have been all but forgotten by everyone, except the President and, yet, these PRIVATE facts about LOST EQUITY very possibly could be driving everything else.

[frazzled]

17. When Frank Rich™ doesn't like someone ...

he really can't stop. Remember his absolute loathing for Al Gore? He wrote untold numbers of columns excoriating Gore in 2000 and beyond. He wasn't too kind to Hillary Clinton either. It's what comes from having a drama critic write political commentary: it's either a rave or a pan, and full of sound and fury.

[cyr330]

19. Andrew Sullivan is a big blow hard

He tries to be so moralistic about everything, up to, and including, unprotected gay sex. What did we find on Mr. Sullivan but an ad looking for someone to fuck him unprotected. Yeah, he's a fine one, as he certainly didn't have any qualms about exposing others to his HIV.

[thesquanderer]

20. That was the best he could?

re: " I think Obama has done the best anyone could have done in the past 2 years under the circumstances."

Under the circumstances? Majorities in the House and Senate not good enough?

Or to put it differently, his "circumstances" were better than Bush's, Bush never had as many Senators and Representatives of his own party as Obama has had, yet he was more successful at pushing his agenda. Though I will grant you, Bush had the "blessing" of 9/11. Still, I just don't see Obama as being as successful at corralling his own party and grabbing any support from the other, compared to Bush, much less Reagan.

I also think he's less effective than they were at generating grassroots support for people to pressure their elected representatives. Okay, part of that is the rise of Fox news and talk radio. But also, for all their flaws, Bush and Reagen seemed passionate about what they believed, and Obama's passion always takes a back seat to accommodation and, yes, "reasonableness." You can't get your base whipped up and the undecided persuaded with an attitude of "Let's get something that's good enough!" Like Jon Stewart said, people don't get passionate and march for moderation.

[patrice]

21. If "the People" can't find it in themselves, with and for others of their kind, they are lost.

Why should anyone do anything FOR a movement that isn't even really there?

It's not a movement, because it's only a bunch of issue groups willing to do each other in for position in the pack.

We are fucked, because "we" are not we and no amount of punishing Obama is going to do anything to fix that. It will, in fact, only make all of it worse.

[angee_is_mad]

22. Thank you

and I agree with your view of what DU has become.

[Skittles]

23. if you think this is the best he could have done

you are a lost cause

[golfguru]

26. Who is Andrew Sullivan?

Every one knows Frank Rich...the famous columnist from NYT.
Don't know a thing about this Sullivan dude. What is his shtick?