David Sirota dismatles Melissa Harris-Perry column: "arrogant elitism"

[Enrique]

http://www.salon.com/news/politics/barack_obama/index.html?story=/news/david_sirota/2011/09/26/white_liberals_obama

(...)


By seeing this record and then explaining away declining liberal support for President Obama as a product of bigotry, Harris-Perry exhibits the ultimate form of both denialism and elitism. It assumes voters (and readers of the Nation) are all lockstep partisans who don't -- and shouldn't -- care about actual issues, public policies and governmental actions, and that they should instead just line up with their party's leaders without question. It further assumes -- without any factual evidence -- that if and when voters don't follow this partisan script, it means that some deeper psychological factor like racism (rather than, say, rational, considered analysis of public policy) is the primary motivating factor in their behavior.

Betraying the arrogant elitism at the heart of such an argument, Harris-Perry declares that the "legislative record for first two years outpaces Clinton's first two years" -- a line that suggests that Obama is automatically more deserving of liberal support than Clinton. Yet, in making this part of the basis of her "electoral racism" allegations, she implies that liberal voters are so ignorant that they automatically believe sheer numbers of bills passed trumps what's actually in the bills. She hopes -- or, perhaps, believes -- that nobody remembers that many of those bills (the Patriot Act extension, the extension of the Bush tax cuts, the bank bailouts, the no-public-option health insurance giveaway legislation, to name a few) were initiatives that many liberals opposed.

(...)

[Proud Public Servant]

1. Yep, Sirota's take-down is masterful n/t

[Solomon]

12. if you mean masterful bullshit then you're right.

[Demonaut]

36. +1 plus unrec

I really like Melissa's insight, Sirota and his ilk will be the downfall of progressives

unrec edit

[sabrina 1]

99. Sirota IS a progressive, one of the few real ones. I know the DLC

hates him, but that's because he has been as good at exposing their agenda as he is at exposing Republicans. He is one of the best representatives of Progressives on TV. Whenever I see the DLCers on tv, or those paid by them to excuse the rightward shift of the Democratic Party, I cringe frankly.

We need more Sirotas, he's articulate, has a fantastic grasp of the facts, and presents himself beautifully when he represents progressives on TV. HE hasn't changed on the issues from when the left thought he was the best. Lol, it's been an education watching how some on the left are as willing to turn a blind eye to the wrong direction of their own party, as we used to slam the right for.

[Cherchez la Femme]

101. +7

[nashville_brook]

108. +1

[2banon]

148. Actually, critisims against Sirota is an interesting commentary on they that crtisize him

It shows me that person isn't actually "on the Left" at all.

[Dokkie]

162. Criticizing a progessive

in DU land means you are not crazy far left. We dont want Fox news and the rethugs to be mad at us now, do we?

[Demonaut]

183. welcome to DU! where different opinions are tolerated (mostly)

check the authors profile before making stupid comments
on edit, use spell check if spelling is an issue

[bjobotts]

166. One can both support Obama and criticize him simultaneously.Sirota lacks this ability

[bjobotts]

169. Being critically contoversial keeps him on TV.Being supportive doesn't.The war of $Billions

[sabrina 1]

209. Well, that makes no sense. He supported Obama

for president and was on TV, on Fox actually, defending him many times. At that time I was always glad to see him doing so, as he is very good at handling rightwingers, better than most. So to say he is taking a position to get on tv is not only ludicrous, it contradicts the facts.

But I'm getting used to seeing these made up stories in order to avoid the facts, which are, millions of Democrats have been totally disappointed in this president because of his unwillingness to take a stand on the issues that are important to Democrats, and his constant use of the false equivalent when he does get around to pointing the wrong-doings of the Republicans, by always including 'members of my own party' to show how bi-partisan he is. That got so bad that Nancy Pelosi and other Democrats took two trips to the WH to ask that he stop attacking Democrats before the election as it was likely to lose them votes. They were right, they did lose votes.

Facts are facts, people ARE and justifiably so, very disappointed in a president they worked hard to elect. They support HIM, and if he would now assess the harm that has been done and start acting like a Democrat, he could win the election in a landslide. But as long as he continues to slam democrats, to cater to Republicans, his chances will remain very slim. Anyone who wants him to have a second term, needs to stop making excuses, denying facts and start telling him that unless people see him fighting for DEMOCRATIC interests, for the people who elected him, he could very well lose this election.

[mcgarry50]

218. sabrina

you hit it right on the button. i could not have said it any better.

[FedUp_Queer]

237. I never thought I could give a standing ovation to a posting on a website.

until this. Head of nail, meet hammer.

[Jackpine Radical]

252. I'm on board with that.

[blackspade]

251. +1000

[myrna minx]

263. Thank you.

:applause:

[certainot]

272. sirota suffers the same problem most left commentators do: he analyzes in a talk radio vacuum-

and he's even in the business.

but it's like randi rhodes, who knows RW radio has been kicking our ass and thom hartmann who routinely blames RW radio's little sister- fox tv.

how can anyone accurately evaluate obama's and the dem's successes and failures and their need for compromise while the left has NO organized challenge for the right's most important weapon- 1000 coordinated radio stations that can generate the the kind of buzz madison avenue would kill for and can in a day, or if need be weeks, message over ANYTHING the left or obama can do.

the collective left continues the biggest blunder in political history, considering the time lost on global warming.

huge amounts of volunteer time and money are being wasted by the left because there is NO organized opposition to the right's best weapon as it continues to kick internet ass.

imagine if those 1000 radio stations were used to amplify the wall street protests for example, or the anti iraq war protests, instead of put them down and distort the message and support the contrary position and push the teabaggers, as coordinated by the corporate think tanks,

[kenfrequed]

274. Say what?

"the collective left continues the biggest blunder in political history, considering the time lost on global warming."

So... I guess then the DLC compromise work where we follow the lieberman plan and spend the next 50 years waiting until a hard reduction in CO2 rates takes effect? We are the ones wasting time?

While Blue dogs echoed republican talking points from 2008-2010 and gave cover and aid to their absurd numbers of fillibusters? But it is our fault?

[certainot]

282. yes. there is NO organized response to the right's best political weapon.

for 20 years the think tanks have been pushing global warming denial through 1000 coordinated radio stations. some of those stations get community credibility and standing by broadcasting athletics for our universities. here again, there is NO organized effort by students and faculty to get those universities to find alternatives. many universities endorse limbaugh and his racism and global warming denial by this common relationship. limbaugh almost singlehandedly (likely with instructions from koch funded think tanks) turned the east anglia emails into a national story. he spent an entire week on it and the MSM resisted at first but jumped onto the bandwagon in time to undermine obama on his trip to copenhagen the week after. it was just another of many efforts that the right depends on unchallenged RW radio for, that they were successful with mainly because the collective left has no clue while radio kicks their internet ass.

another eg. a recent poll showed the republican's main concern re elections is voter fraud, while for dems its voter suppression. they couldn't do that with fox news, email, and some right wing blogs. the heavy lifting, like with global warming denial, is done with unchallenged ubiquitous repetition only possible with a right wing radio monopoly.

we wouldn't be in this disaster if the 'left' would pull their iPOds out of their ears and get to work challenging talk radio with picketing, local sponsor boycotts and shaming, and shaming of those universities.

[certainot]

283. PS the ignored talk radio monopoly is why we have so many blue dogs voting republican

those limbaugh megastations play a huge part in making progressive candidates unacceptable with their constant and targeted coordinated swiftboating of all things liberal, and pushing those regressive initiatives, vote fraud myths that help them pass voter suppression shit in the guise of immigration reform, etc.

progressives collectively are NOT getting their candidates backs and they're allowing those stations to dominate local politics, and push weak blue dogs around, determine where the center is.

[kenfrequed]

285. Hmm yes but...

There has been a deliberate strategy of moving the Democrats to the right that began before the ascendancy of Limbaugh. The DLC comprised of Reagan Democrats and their stated goal was to pull the democratic party away from being dependent on traditional constituencies (labor unions, minorities, and the environmentalists).

Yes, liberals could fight harder sometimes. But it seems every time we do we get kicked in the teeth by the professional pundit class and when whe rush to get our people in the chamber we are frequently shown the damned door. Instead scum like Lieberman and Evan Bayh get all the attention lauded on them then screw us over at the first opportunity. And people like Emmanuel Rahm get to pick favorites (usually ex republicans) to be the favorites for Open congressional seats.

Castigating us for getting screwed routinely in the game of politics is like blaming the victim for the crime.

[certainot]

307. i just makes no sense to ignore their best weapon and expect any progress. as far as

moving the center of politics, a lot of it is merely controlling the perception of where the center is. and there is no bigger PC cop and censor-by-threat than team limbaugh.

it has a huge say in what is and what isn't acceptable in politics and media, and only because they get a free speech free ride from the left. the fucking liebermans and bayhs are establishment shits whose power comes from support from republicans and est dems and the money. what makes them so powerful in the shit they did is that the GOP has been turned into a homogenous group of goosestepping ass kissers who cannot think for themselves - and the single most effective tool for culling thinking moderate repubs from the GOP is RW radio. there used to be some repub reps who would have crossed lines to do the right thing and make the libermans and bayhs the pissants they really are. but today there are no gop reps who can cross team lmbaugh.

the trend of the dem party is dependent on what is and isn't acceptable and there has always been big money pushing one way or the other. democracy was designed to counter that and was making slow progress until reagan. and then reagan's handlers got him to kill the fairness doctrine and that's when reagan was remade and the cover ups worked and the right got control of national messaging.

until the left challenges radio national rational discussions of major issues cannot happen. there is no democracy. and the left will continue to get it's ass kicked by a few blowhards with big microphones. pitiful and tragic.

[Demonaut]

184. +1

[Demonaut]

181. he's bright and articulate but I find that some on the left use similar talking points that the

right uses albeit with a different focus, if disenchantment sets in with the left then apathy will allow the right to get some tea party douchbag elected...I do believe that Obama needs more backbone but I think he has to operate with the concept that he has nothing to lose

[Auntie Bush]

48. +100

[Hoosier Daddy]

192. Masterful???

Do you also think he whipped her, PPS????? :grr:

[Dutchmaster]

256. Lol. Reach much?

[ellenfl]

2. kick for later. eom

[Denzil_DC]

3. Sirota's got no room to talk. Unrec n/t

[roguevalley]

4. why? rec

[XOKCowboy]

5. I'd like to know why also??

Rec for David Sirota

[FedUp_Queer]

238. Because he's not an Obama toady. Duh.

[Dokkie]

163. Care to elaborate

Not only black people can opine on black issues

[Denzil_DC]

226. Yes, sure I'll elaborate. Take a look at the arrogant asshole's Twitter feed

http://twitter.com/#!/davidsirota

David Sirota
INCREDIBLY TELLING: My @AM760 producer was just told that @MHarrisPerry has refused our interview request.
16 hours ago via web

Melissa Harris-Perry
@davidsirota @am760 it doesnt feel like an exchange we should cram into a 5 minute slot between class, lectures, kid pick up etc.
15 hours ago
in reply to ↑

David Sirota
@MHarrisPerry @am760 Terrific. I'll let my producer know - and be assured that we'll devote adequate time to it.
15 hours ago via web

See the other side of the exchange on Melissa Harris-Perry's Twitter feed here: http://twitter.com/#!/mharrisperry

Apparently he has the RIGHT to DEMAND that Melissa Harris-Perry come on his show to account for herself IMMEDIATELY. She's a busy woman, not available at his beck and call, but that's not good enough for Mr. Arrogant Elitist Sirota, who must be obeyed.

Do you condone this behavior? Can you not see how disrespectful he is? The man's a pathetic bigmouthed bully, and his conduct in this case well illustrates what I said above.

Who the fuck does he think he is? Why does Melissa Harris-Perry owe him anything?

[FedUp_Queer]

239. I read her twitter feed.

I don't see any of the stuff you're talking about. Perhaps she removed it...or perhaps it isn't there?

[Denzil_DC]

242. Are you implying I'm a liar, or she's covering something up?

Or do you find it difficult to follow Twitter timelines?

Here's some relevant excerpts:

Melissa Harris-Perry
@davidsirota @am760 David. My assistant is denying all requests this week because my calendar is already inhumanly full.
18 hours ago

Melissa Harris-Perry
@davidsirota @am760 however if you'd be willing to wait until next week I'd be willing to join you.
18 hours ago

Melissa Harris-Perry
@davidsirota @am760 it doesnt feel like an exchange we should cram into a 5 minute slot between class, lectures, kid pick up etc.
17 hours ago

I'm not going to copy and paste any more screeds from either of their Twitter feeds during this exchange, they're there for all to see--except, apparently, you. You're either sensitive to issues like this, or you aren't. You're either blind to the privilege that Sirota's stance reeks of--and his bullying tone--or you aren't.

Because Melissa Harris-Perry didn't INSTANTLY agree to Sirota's summons to appear on his show, he goes full-on arrogant bully and tries to claim it as an "AHA!" He's not interested in WHY she reacted as she did, which might be illuminating all round, he just wants to "win." Seems she touched a nerve, when she wasn't even addressing him in the first place. Should be an interesting show.

[FedUp_Queer]

276. Oh, Jeez.

Come down off of that high horse there, sport. I'm implying I don't see it, actually I'm not implying anything. I'm saying straight that I don't see it. So, I must conclude one of two things: 1) I didn't see it or 2) you made it up (which would make you a liar if true). But as for you ability to "hear" his "tone" in a twitter feed...wait...Professor Trelawney, is that you?

By the by, what you've written is still not what you were saying. I guess I just can't "hear" tone on twitter.

I like the good professor, and when I had cable I used to like to watch her on Rachel Maddow's show. I will admit...I'm really interested in hearing a twitter feed. There's gotta be a Wikipedia page telling me how to "hear" a twitter feed.

I have a feeling I'm about to get an "earful" for being snarky.

[Denzil_DC]

294. "Perhaps she removed it...or perhaps it isn't there?"

I proved you wrong on both counts. Not sure why I wasted my time!

[FedUp_Queer]

304. Saying it's there when it isn't there doesn't make it there.

For instance, if I say you have a superfluous third nipple doesn't mean you have one; or saying Barack Obama is a liberal does not make him one (he's not). However, saying Barack Obama is a corporatist, right wing warmonger does not make him one, either. What makes him a corporatist, right wing warmonger is the fact that he puts the interests of corporations over people, proposed cuts to social security (and appointed people who also favor such cuts to HIS deficit commission), has deported more people than any president, prosecuted more whistle blowers than any president, has stepped-up drone attacks more than Bush, has us engaged in combat in more places than when he took office, has TWO Guantanamos, believes the government completely immune from lawsuits from citizens whom the government wiretapped absent a warrant, continues to rendition people, continues to torture at Bagram Air Base (the second Guantanamo). But, I do like your way better. Say it and it's true. When someone says it doesn't say what you say it does, say it "really" says that because you can "hear" the words on the screen. Nice job there, sport. Is hearing words on a twitter feed like Harry Potter understanding snakes speaking...or like the Zen Riddle: "What is the sound of one hand clapping?"

[sabrina 1]

277. Why is she refusing to defend her ludicrous nonsense?

This new talking point, that anyone who disagrees with the policies of this president, is a racist. And she's simply repeating it after the other talking point failed, isn't going to work either. She is a coward. She had the time to write what she wrote, although I will admit that she certainly did no research before throwing it out there so I guess it didn't take the time she should have taken before making a fool of herself like this.

But since she repeated the talking point, she is obligated to prove it. You don't get away with making false allegations without a shred of evidence against large numbers of people without expecting to have to explain yourself.

She has zero credibility at this point, but I do understand why she would not want to debate David Sirota, he is one of the best at digging into the rightwing's similar propaganda and if I were in her very weak position I would not want to debate him either. But then I would never be foolish enough to simply repeat propaganda unless I had something to back it up.

Good for him for not allowing to throw a bomb and then run and hide from consequences. Clearly she cannot defend her ridiculous musings.

[Jazzgirl]

6. K&R

n/t

[frazzled]

7. I don't think he dismantles it at all--just circumvents it

He wrongly concludes that Ms. Harris-Perry was suggesting "that Obama is automatically more deserving of liberal support than Clinton." Dead wrong. She never ever said that or even suggested it. She was making a compelling (and fairly incontrovertible) argument that there was a different standard applied to Clinton's presidency than to Obama's. On those policy issues Sirota claims to be the basis for the withdrawal of his and other liberals' support of Mr. Obama, he does not explain at all why support wasn't withdrawn from Clinton for the many stunningly bad policies he put into place (policies, by the way, that had far more lasting deleterious effects than some temporary measures that Obama has had to concede to)--for instance, the Telecommunications Act of 1996 and the repeal of Glass-Steagall and the ending of welfare reform. Many liberals opposed those moves, but never withdrew their support or publicly bashed and admonished him (except in the pages of arcane, small-distribution outlets like The Nation.)

Sirota tries to brush off the "electoral racism" idea by opening with his personal bona fides on speaking out about issues of racism in employment and income disparity. That does not dismiss these far more subtle charges, which thus far none of the critics has addressed: how do you account for the double standard?

I await that answer to the question, instead of dismissals, red herring arguments, and attempts at self-justification. I'd like to see an honest and direct discussion about the double standard issue, based on comparisons.

[DirkGently]

13. The claim of a double standard falls apart when you're basing it on BLOGS, don't you think?

We are living in different times. There's no way to realistically compare the response to Clinton's destructive conservative failings and Obama's. It's a truly grandiose leap to conclude racial bias is at work.

At the end of the day, if you call someone's judgment into question based on speculation they might be racially biased, you're just making an ad hominem argument. Avoiding the substance of the issue by positing an unproveable attack on the speaker's character. That's all Harris-Perry is doing, and it's the only "red herring" in the picture here.

[frazzled]

18. No grandiose claim was made

Honestly: read the article again. We're not talking about the kind of blatant racism here that is easy to identify and even easier to see ourselves absent of. It's a more subtle thing.

For instance, every day I see comments that refer to Obama and his "corporate overlords." One can claim that this is a critique that is color-blind, based purely on policy and administrative choices . Fine. But I don't see this "overlord" descriptor ever being applied to other Democrats who are equally complicit in the policies: Harry Reid or even Nancy Pelosi (though she certainly shepherded through legislation during her leadership that could be critiqued on the very same grounds). And it's not a term I ever heard applied to Clinton (blogs differences or not), though he was far more enmeshed with the Citibanks and Goldman Sachses and Viacoms.

Let's bring it into the blog generation: I never, EVER saw anyone critique Elizabeth Warren, despite the fact that during her tenure overseeing the setup of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau she hired dozens of high-level Wall Street honchos:

Congress created the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau to protect consumers from abuses in the lending industry. Now the bureau is turning to former members of the industry to help it police banks, credit card companies and mortgage lenders.

“Building a team to develop smarter financial regulations means hiring top-notch leaders with a wide range of experiences,” Ms. Warren said in a statement.

The bureau’s hires announced Thursday include Rajeev Date, the former Deutsche Bank managing director. Mr. Date, who also worked at Capital One Financial as a senior vice president, will be the bureau’s associate director for research, markets and regulations.

“Raj Date and his team bring a wealth of experience in the financial services industry, government, nonprofits, community banking and academia,” Ms. Warren said.

Ms. Warren also hired Elizabeth Vale, a Morgan Stanley managing director who was vice president and portfolio manager at Philadelphia National Bank. Her industry experience will come in handy — she will serve as a liaison to community banks and credit unions.

Ms. Warren’s hires also include a former financial industry lawyer, a former senior employee at the mortgage-finance giant Freddie Mac and Corey Stone, who once was the chairman of Start Community Bank in New Haven, Conn.

The bureau has gone on a hiring spree in recent weeks. As of late January, the bureau had more than 100 employees.

Ms. Warren added five senior leaders to her team in one week in December, including Richard Cordray, the outgoing attorney general of Ohio, who will run the bureau’s enforcement division.

A consumer protection bureau might seem like an unlikely place for former bankers to land, but Ms. Warren has made an effort to reach out to Wall Street.

Now why, I ask you (without endorsing such a move), was there never any discussion of Elizabeth Warren's "corporate overlords"? Why is nobody but the president the "lackey" of these powerful people? Why is this (perhaps unconscious) usage of a term that brings to mind the history of black people as servants to the wealthy never used for other liberals? It's a question I'm asking, and something I think we need to think about before dismissing Ms. Harris-Perry's arguments out of hand.

[DirkGently]

27. Because she's not the President? Because she didn't campaign on closing the revolving door?

Because these weren't Cabinet positions? Because she didn't hire the architects of the market crash?

Harris-Perry is engaging in a basic logical fallacy, which is that if something occurs that COULD be caused by X, and it occurs, then it MUST have been caused by X.

Clinton lived in an era before the Internet blogosphere had exploded to the extent is now has. There is no way on Earth he could possibly have encountered the range of criticism AND support now extant in on the 'net.

That's just one possible variable. Harris-Perry, of course, throws out the universe of other possible causation in favor of the one she has selected. A smart friend once told me this is called "affirming the consequent."

It's Harris-Perry who is trying to dismiss argument out of hand. She disagrees with the level of criticism directed at Obama from the left, and suggests it's rooted in racial bias, which itself is an attempt to dismiss critics rather address them.

Academically speaking, there are always threads of racial bias in every part of American culture, politics, and life. No question about it.

What's wrong here is the attempt to throw a punch in a political discussion by painting an opponent as racially biased, when the much larger point is whether the opponent is CORRECT. It's easy to charge racial bias this way, and it encourages dismissal of the speaker. At the same time, it completely avoids the substance of what's being said.

DID Obama, or did he not 1) campaign on closing the "revolving door" between lobbyists and government officials, and then 2) immediately upon election begin appointing lobbyists? Etc.?

What is the point of trying to establish whether or not such a criticism is being made "more forcefully" against Obama than it would/could/should have against Clinton, due supposed racial bias, if the critique in question is valid?

And let's be clear. There IS NO basis to argue that these critiques would never be made, but for racial bias. We're not talking about the rightwingers questioning Obama's citizenship, or suggesting he got into colleges he wasn't qualified to attend.

We're talking about base-level policy matters. Social programs. Taxes. Financial regulation. Constitutional and human rights matters.

Put it this way, if "white liberals" *were* inclined to give Clinton or any other white leader a pass on the things for which Obama has been criticized, THAT was the mistake. Talking about it now is critical for liberals and for the country, whether or not Ms. Harris-Perry detects the distant strains of racial preference.

[frazzled]

29. You're going right back to the blanket defense that Sirota makes

(Oh no, it's all about the policy!)

So it really doesn't speak to the deeper questions that are at issue here. Don't give me the old Elizabeth Warren didn't campaign business: she was extremely vocal in both Congress and the media in criticizing the banks and mortgage-lenders whom she then turned around and hired: gave jobs to. Now, I understand why she hired these people: sometimes it's those who have the expertise in the crime who can help to pinpoint how to fix it. But still, wide berth was given. In fact, total berth was given to this seeming contradictory situation.

The only thing I agree with, and find telling, is your last statement: "if 'white liberals' *were* inclined to give Clinton or any other white leader a pass on the things for which Obama has been criticized, THAT was the mistake. " Yes indeedy, but that mistake was never acknowledged, and there is no going back for do-overs to avoid the issues that Harris-Perry is trying to express. Do you understand why she just might feel that a double standard has been applied? I certainly do.

[DirkGently]

34. No. For starters, not every different standard is a racial double standard.

As I noted before, you can't logically conclude that something that happened differently with Clinton than with Obama must be the product of racial bias.

And I think you missed my last point. If Obama's taking heat from liberals for things that Clinton should have, that is neither necessarily the product of racial bias, nor is it a bad thing, nor does it invalidate the criticism.

At the end of the day, we're still looking at an ad hominem attack. Harris-Perry maintains Obama's liberal critics should be regarded as less reliable because she chooses to speculate they might suffer from racial bias. So might she. Neither speculation is substantive or on point.

[AlbertCat]

140. something that happened differently with Clinton than with Obama must be the product of racial bias.

Indeed... you cannot conclude this.... though you may muse about it.

But comparing Clinton to Obama is apple and oranges because of the times.

Mainly.... the Right was just starting to go completely nuts, the media was not as saturated with conservative bias and there was not the urgency and desperation coupled with just plain weird and oppressive local laws being passed by the GOP/Teabaggers.

There's a sense today that huge things must be done....NOW...right now. Not after they've sat down and had a chat, gone back and forth and then have whatever comes out go into effect 5 years later. The Bushies hadn't made the country look like a complete fail yet for Clinton.

Obama is too weak and slow and ineffective for the urgency of the problems and the emboldenment of the GOP who simply won't play ball. This has NOTHING to do with his race and everything to do with the current zeitgeist. Something that cannot be ignored.

[DirkGently]

188. Clinton worked in a Blog-free, war-free, prosperous era. And still pissed off liberals.

Obama stepped onto a flaming missile pointed straight to Hell, with Republicans laying on the gas pedal. Maybe someone in the administration expected Clintonian successes with Clintonian tactics. Easy on the stick, don't annoy potential corporate contributors, nudge things in a better-ish direction a bit at a time. The situation probably called for a bit LESS finesse.

You don't have to go flying way off into notions of subtle lingering racial biases among progressive people to figure out why things didn't go exactly the same. Things AREN'T exactly the same.

It's the times the aren't allowing the same slack, not the liberals.

[sabrina 1]

124. It IS all about policy! What utter garbage people come up with

rather than address the real reasons for the anger of some of this president's most ardent supporters, me for instance. And it is such an awful, failed tactic. It looks like what it is, an attempt to distract.

I find it vile to use the president's race, something I know he would prefer people NOT do, to try to distract from the real issues. Whenever I see someone do that, with zero evidence that it is true, I KNOW it is that person who has an issue with race.

Frankly I don't care about trivia like what ethnicity an elected official is, and I don't know this person, who is claiming some kind of psychic powers to read the minds of people who have told her CLEARLY what the problems are. But she'd rather distract, and uses the race card to do so. Shame on her. Not worth talking to and definitely NOT helping this president by lying like this.

Re Clinton, he should thank his lucky stars that there was no Internet around when he was rescinding the Glass Steagal Act, or pushing NAFTA. And it's probably just as well. But you can rest assured that the same people criticizing Obama now, would have been all over Clinton had there been a forum on which to do it. All we saw 24/7 was Monica Lewinsky and the vicious rightwingers who were after Clinton and people liked THEM less than what Clinton did. In fact had the right winters not been so vicious, and hypocritical, his own party might have gone after him. He was lucky on so many counts.

Obama was elected at a time when much had changed regarding communications and politicians hear a lot more now from their constituents than they ever did. That BENEFITED him when he was running for office. But it also made it possible for the people to keep a much closer eye on what policies he was pushing.

We also knew a lot more about Rubin and Geithner and Bernanke, Gates, Rahm Emanuel than we did when Clinton was running. Those were Obama's choices, and they shocked a lot of people since we DID know more about them now, and were hoping for real change.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

187. I was so disgusted with Clinton that I voted for Nader in 1996

(Not in 2000, though. Bush was too scary.)

[chervilant]

266. plus a gazillion million billion + 50 million times infinity. n/t

[2banon]

161. Very well put! Nicely done.

Just to add one small point I believe is relevant:

During Clinton's administration, there was a lot of critism.. in Left publications such as the Nation, Utne Reader.. But I can't say that these publications had a significant circulation and readership. I recall reading an Utne Reader article about "The Third Way" and the formation of the DLC which shattered all of my previous concepts of Clinton and the Democratic party in general. It may have even been written by Sirota but I honestly don't remember it was sometime in the early/mid 90's. But I had no ability to share my thoughts/reactions on the subject, or frankly to read other people's thoughts on the subject, I don't think the internet had gone public yet. I don't believe PC's were even a household item at the time. Point being, if the internet technology existed early during Clinton's administration pre-Monica/impeachment years).. there would have been plenty of discussion along with questions challenging Clinton's policies such as NAFTA etc., cristisms, expressions of serious disappointments etc..

[DirkGently]

191. So a lot of what Obama hears from liberals is a continuation of a conversation BEGUN under Clinton.

Makes sense. Liberals who were already concerned about Third Way policies, etc., were primed. And any who didn't see Obama the candidate as embodying those policies felt betrayed. Add the instantaneous communication of the next generation of Internet communication and ... what else could be expected?

[2banon]

197. I'm not sure. I knew he wasn't a progressive, but I was still naive to believe that he was sincere

in his campaign rhetoric, which was largley about meaningful "change" on a host of polices that he specifically articulated and I heartily agreed with and supported(mostly). Hope for change began to be dashed the day after his election, with his appointments, but I held out faith in his sincerity and that he would dictate to his appointees his (our) agenda generally speaking.

Now, hope has been completely viserated. I no longer have any faith in the "leaders" we elect, nor the offices and institutions to which they are elected. I haven't read Suskind's book yet.. interviews suggest that Obama is out matched (by the actual PTB, my term) and therefore unable to accomplish anything that he said he intended to.

If my interpretation is close to accurate as to who is really calling the shots, then it's not about Obama at all. It's about this massive corrupt system, and it's going to take a mass revolution to begin to change things in this country. Unfortunately, I don't see that happening here in what's left of my life time. I do know that most progressives that I know personally share my sentiments, and are equally flummuxed as to what's to be done about it. When the 2000 Election was outright stolen, and decided by SCOTUS with no real public outcry, no general strikes, no mass demonstrations against the SCOTUS, etc etc.. I knew that this country was politically and socially doomed for a long, long time to come.

I don't know what it's going to take, but until the masses revolt, it won't much matter who steps up to represent Dems for president or in congress. That's the sad truth.

[hfojvt]

195. I still say the ironic fact

is that before the blogosphere hated Obama, we first hated Clinton, and we expressed that hate, by helping to defeat her in favor of - Barack Obama. I still remember a point in the primary where Hillary was blasting all those "bloggers" who were attacking her. I said sarcastically that Hillary finally found somebody whe was willing to fight - the left.

[bvar22]

270. Nicely Done!

:patriot:

Any honest discussion on this topic would have to include an acknowledgment that there are also some
who will use bogus accusations of Racism to discredit legitimate policy based criticisms.




You will know them by their WORKS,
not by their excuses.

Solidarity!
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

[Muskypundit]

156. He is the fucking PRESIDENT!!!!!

He gets all the credit, and all the blame too. Because he runs his cabinet and the country, he takes more responsibility than those who he hired.

[bvar22]

271. Harry?... Is that you ,Harry?

Leadership! "The Buck Stops HERE!" NO Excuses!


You will know them by their WORKS,
not by their excuses.

Solidarity!
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

[emcguffie]

14. Many progressives never really supported Clinton.

I myself supported him too much, in retrospect. I avoided considering the outcome of NAFTA and the deregulation of the media and the banking industry too seriously because I didn't want to look too hard at what I knew deep down was just awful.

Clinton did a great deal of damage.

[DirkGently]

16. Exactly. Clinton's third-way failings were not forgiven; they were recognized too late.

It's horribly dishonest to try to argue that Clinton got some kind of pass, and therefore the outrage at Obama's version of the same mistakes must be some unfair bias. A lot of progressives are still smarting from Clinton, whose mistakes we'd thought all liberals would have LEARNED from. Seeing Obama trot out the same nonsense, particularly his neck-snapping flip on free trade, is of course more galling, because WE'RE ALL SUPPOSED TO KNOW BETTER NOW.

This entire meme is one of the ugliest attempts to slander liberal critique of Obama yet.

[Dragonfli]

58. I fell for it hook line and sinker under Clinton, that is why it won't work on me again with Obama

[Enthusiast]

219. You nailed it.

TPTB are trying a replay with Obama. We've seen this act before.

We might be some dumb but we aren't plumb dumb.

[Raksha]

254. Very good point - same here.

[Supersedeas]

280. Another way that one might distinguish progressive's attitudes toward Clinton and Obama

Another non-racist explanation.

[2banon]

167. exactly , me too

I was just so relieved that a Democrat was finally in the White House, that I nearly ignored most of what was going on during his administration until the it was in my face, like NAFTA, Deregs on Media Ownership, then the bombing of Iraq, that's when I started to pay a little more attention. By then it was too late.

[Enthusiast]

216. "Clinton did a great deal of damage."

He sure did. I wasted so much energy defending him while he did the damage. Now the PTB think they can accomplish the same thing with Obama, essentially a black Clinton. It ain't workin' with me this time around.

Obama is pushing new free trade deals! Unbelievable.

[Enrique]

15. "never withdrew their support or publicly bashed or admonished Clinton"

that's simply false, and I'm not just talking about "arcane, small-distribution outlets like The Nation." And the Nation "arcane?" :wtf:

[DirkGently]

19. Apparently it's a "double standard" that all those 1990's liberal blogs went easy on Clinton.

:silly:

[frazzled]

21. There were no blogs, but no liberal pundits went on TV to ...

argue against their own president's policies in the national media. Maybe they disagreed, but they did not PUBLICLY attack him, go after him. I watched a hell of a lot of Crossfire and Tweety and such back in those days, and I never saw supposed Democrats (I'm not talking Ralph Nader) make such a vast and public display of attacking.

The main Clinton bashers were the Christopher Hitchenses. And we all remember where that journey took him ultimately.

[Enrique]

24. I always thought Tweety was very anti-Clinton

so anti-Clinton I figured it must be personal, and in fact I heard that he was mad Clinton didn't hire him. I don't know if that's true, but I do know that up until very recently I perceived hostility from Tweety towards both Clintons.

[frazzled]

30. He was not a liberal

[Enrique]

33. you're the one that brought up Tweety

so why did you bring him up?

[Enthusiast]

221. Tweety was viciously anti-Clinton.

His entire program was like something out of Fox News. There might be five extreme anti-Clinton zealots shouting down a single Clinton defender on Hardball in the 1990s. As a Clinton defender/supporter I was sickened by it.

But Tweety was anti-Clinton for all the wrong reasons. Tweety came of as a smug asshole. I think the entire thing was nothing but a smoke screen.

[DirkGently]

28. Many people also learned too late the disaster of Clinton's Third Way nonsense.

The pump was primed this time around.

You simply can't boil the whole world down and claim one particular cause for subtle perceived differences in complex situations. On what basis could anyone expect Clinton and Obama to be treated the same in the first place? They are different people, in different eras, elected under different circumstances.

Sure, racial bias is everywhere. Obama has certainly been hit with outright racism, from the beginning of his candidacy.

But the significant issues regarding Obama on the left are not in any demonstrable way related to race bias.

I edited a post above to talk about the "affirming the consequent" fallacy. That's what we're talking about it here.

Just because rain makes it wet doesn't mean it's raining every time you see water.

[eridani]

87. What liberal pundits? Never once did I hear about Naomi Klein,

Dennis Kucinich, Bernie Sanders or Noam Chomsky going on TV to criticize Clinton or for any other reason. Saw a lot in low circulation print publications, though.

[2banon]

168. exactly, made the same point in a couple of posts.. thanks it bares repeating.. n/t

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

141. I first found out about Salon in 1997

I recall they were very pro Bill Clinton especially during the impeachment.

[Myrina]

234. You totally missed the sarcasm,

Of course there were no blogs in the 90's. D'oh??

[jeff47]

32. You only consider the Clinton-passed laws long-lasting because more time has passed.

The extension of the patriot act and the normalization of the police state will be far more damaging in the long run than the bills you cited.

As for the "double standard", no one can provide a good blanket answer. In my particular case, I wasn't terribly politically aware during the Clinton administration. I got less angry at the president because I frankly didn't know the details of what was going on.

Closest I have to a broader answer is Clinton ran as a centrist and governed as a centrist following a centrist predecessor. Obama ran as a liberal and governs as a centrist after following an off-the-deep-end-of-the-right-wing predecessor.

So the demand for change was much smaller when Clinton came to power vs. when Obama came to power. And Clinton's campaign wasn't based on hope and populism.

[Muskypundit]

158. Bingo.

[Dokkie]

172. We stated

With Obama is more about the let down. He promised big but delivered crumbs.

[fishwax]

37. I'm inclined to agree

I think the Harris-Parry article was much more nuanced than most of the responses to it. She didn't offer electoral racism as "the automatic, case-closed explanation for every political problem faced by African-American public figures," but rather outlined the possible reasons it might be a factor here and offered a metric (the change in Obama's 2012 numbers from 2008 relative to the change in Clinton's 1996 numbers relative to 1992) that could conceivably test the theory. Now one could certainly dispute the reliability of the metric for a variety of reasons (the different media environments in '96 vs. 2012 being the most obvious). One could also dispute HP's suggestion that progressives were willing to stand by Clinton--I remember a great deal of anger about his first-term compromises; still, that anger did not translate into lower numbers at the polls, because most angry progressives still voted for Clinton over Dole/Kemp. (I suspect, incidentally, that most angry progressives will also vote for Obama over whatever nightmare the GOP throws up this time around.)

While arguments can certainly be leveled against HP's article, though, I don't think that flat denial is much of an argument. In the discussions of her article that I've seen have both misjudged its tone and overstated its alleged "accusations" of racism. I agree that it would be interesting to see an actual discussion of the double standard issue (which Sirota acknowledges is a real thing). Instead, many people have reacted to it on the assumption/believe that HP was labeling progressive criticism/anger at Obama as motivated by racism. Sirota too seems to overreact, labeling her article a screed even though it was written in a rather measured tone and speaking of the possibility of electoral racism in the conditional ("The 2012 election may be a test"; "it may be possible to read that ..." as racism). She does not, as many people seem to think, say that progressive criticism of Obama is based on racism or that progressive critics are racist. The closest that she comes to any such claim is when she says of Obama's falling approval rating among white Americans (note: not progressives, or white progressives, or anything to do with progressives): "I believe much of that decline can be attributed to their disappointment that choosing a black man for president did not prove to be salvific for the nation."

Personally, I definitely believe that the double standard is real, that being on the left does not make one immune from racism, and that there are some people who, consciously or not, are likely to be less forgiving of Obama's compromises than Clinton's. I also believe that this is definitely not the only reason (some) progressives are angry, and is definitely not the motivating factor in all progressives who are critical. I believe that it is wrong to label all progressive criticism or all critical progressives as racist, and that it is also wrong to simply deny that any hostility towards Obama that isn't from the tea party could possibly have its roots in racism. Those things seem fairly obvious to me; one would think that would still leave plenty of room for both the discussion among those who are interested in such things.

[Liberal_Stalwart71]

59. Thank you! An even-handed and reasonable post! +1! n/t

[chervilant]

268. Nevertheless,

Blind allegiance predicated by party affiliation epitomizes the kind of 'patriotism' Samuel Johnson called 'the last refuge of a scoundrel.' We can ill afford such arrogance within our own ranks, even as we struggle to expose such false patriotism among the rank and file Republicans (Eric Cantor comes readily to mind).

Obama's lackluster performance as POTUS is not surprising to me. I doubt there's a 'leader' on this planet who could stop the speeding bullet of corporate megalomania. Still, I am among those who have noticed that some of Obama's decisions warrant the increasingly vociferous adjurations from progressive democrats that he NOT be a sock puppet for the uber wealthy.

Dismissing the concerns of *all* of Obama's critics as 'electoral racism' is both demeaning and disingenuous, and it will not help us regain our footing in these perilous times.

[eridani]

47. Harris-Perry acts as if the internet was irrelevant

I was just as critical of Clinton, but I wasn't online until 1998, and with a text-only interface at that. Remember Lynx?

[ProSense]

49. Perry's

"I was just as critical of Clinton, but I wasn't online until 1998, and with a text-only interface at that. Remember Lynx?"

...point isn't that people weren't critical of Clinton at the time, it's that some of Obama's current critics are all too willing to excuse away Clinton's actions, including his policy failures, while harshly criticizing Obama, who has in many cases reversed or moved away from some of those policies.

[eridani]

66. How the hell would you know what they thought about Clinton if they weren't online at the time? n/t

[ProSense]

72. What?

"How the hell would you know what they thought about Clinton if they weren't online at the time?"

What the hell are you talking about? The point is about current comments, not stuff people said in the past. Current, as in now.

Here's what I said: Perry's point isn't that people weren't critical of Clinton at the time, it's that some of Obama's current critics are all too willing to excuse away Clinton's actions, including his policy failures, while harshly criticizing Obama, who has in many cases reversed or moved away from some of those policies.

I said nothing about their past comments. Past as in the 1990s.

If you want an example, here's one, this 2011 article by Robert Kuttner: Black and Bleak

What a terrible irony this Labor Day that under America's first African-American president, black unemployment has risen to its highest level since the early Reagan years, and decades of black progress on homeownership have been wiped out.

<...>

A rising tide does not necessarily lift all boats, but African-Americans made great economic progress in the late 1990s, when overall unemployment was low. In those years, the black-white wage gap and unemployment gap narrowed. Full employment and tight labor markets are always good medicine.

Bill Clinton was facetiously said to be the first black president, not just because of his comfort level with the black community and his appointment of African Americans to senior positions, but because of this very real material progress -- now largely reversed.

<...>

The problem is less Obama's failure to target black unemployment per se than his weakness on the jobs issue generally. Race comes into the equation because of an almost pathological aversion to conflict on Obama's part, which has been widely attributed to his wish to bridge racial and ideological gaps.

<...>

The President's race has nothing to do with African American unemployment. Kuttner credits Clinton for "very real material progress" for African Americans, and blames Obama for a situation that is a direct result of Clinton's deregulation policies.

On edit, Sirota does something similar in his piece.

[eridani]

76. Of course the president's race has nothing to do with black unemployment

His embrace of the Repuke mantra of lower taxes and less regulation unfortunately does.

Kuttner is of an economic class that can afford to believe that a bubble equates to "material progress." Those of us who had no public voice through the blogosphere in the 90s know that perfectly well, and said so at the time and right now also.

Some of our DU personality uber alles types react the same way to me pointing out that food bank usage and homelessness skyrocketed in the 90s as others do when I say similar things about Obama.

[ProSense]

77. Hmmm?

His embrace of the Repuke mantra of lower taxes and less regulation unfortunately does.

Yeah, just like Republicans

"Kuttner is of an economic class that can afford to believe that a bubble equates to 'material progress.'"

Well, that one way to dismiss the fact that he did exactly what Perry described, employed a double standard.

[eridani]

80. The new banking regulations do not re-instate Glass-Steagall

And Obama has publicly said that regulations are a burden on job creation.

No double standard at all--there has been no equivalent to the tech bubble or the housing bubble on Obama's watch. Had there been, Kuttner would very likely have called that "material progress" as well.

[ProSense]

82. Hmmmm?

"The new banking regulations do not re-instate Glass-Steagall"

What are you arguing? You previously accused the President of embracing the de-regulation. Still, the Volcker rule is very similar to Glass-Steagall.

UBS Scandal Is a Reminder About Why Dodd-Frank Came to Be

Although the UBS trading scandal happened at the London office of a Swiss financial company, big American banks will feel regulatory heat.

When UBS revealed on Thursday that a rogue trader had lost a quantity of money so large that it potentially wiped out profits for the entire quarter, the case cast a glaring spotlight on banks’ risk-taking activities and evoked painful memories of the financial crisis. Such blowups had helped bring the system to the brink, forcing governments to bail out banks and prompting a global economic slowdown.

<...>

In the coming weeks, policy makers are expected to propose new regulations intended to limit federally insured banks from making bets with their own money, according to a government official with knowledge of the process. The rules — part of the Dodd-Frank Act, the regulatory overhaul enacted in the wake of the crisis — take aim at a practice called proprietary trading, in which companies speculate for their own gains rather than for their customers’.

While the industry has been lobbying aggressively to temper those regulations, the rogue trading case could give proponents of the so-called Volcker Rule, which would prohibit proprietary trading, more ammunition. UBS, which stands to lose $2.3 billion on the unauthorized trades, said in its initial four-sentence announcement on the incident that “no client positions were affected.” The implication was that the trader was using company money to place his bets.

<...>

[eridani]

85. Dodd-Frank is totally inadequate legislation, period.

Enough with the Repuke messaging from Obama! BTW, Clinton was just as bad with his "ere of big government is over."

[ProSense]

95. Bullshit! n/t

[nashville_brook]

102. devastating critique.

:rofl:

[BzaDem]

114. Sometimes, a point is so ludicrous that no response is required.

For example, if someone claims that the claim that "Dodd Frank is not totally inadequate" is somehow Repuke messaging, that comment is so far detached from reality that no amount of fact-based counterarguments would do any good. They aren't looking to understand -- they are looking to spread an argument (that happens to be false). If someone listed the hundreds of ways regulation became much more strict, they would just repeat their unsubstantiated claim about its inadequacy. If someone pointed out that there were all of three Republicans in the entire Congress that voted for it, they would just claim it was all some sort of collective conspiracy to make it look progressive.

The truth is that there are certain people that have never been satisfied with any President and are likely not going to be satisfied with any President. That has always been the case and is nothing new.

[eridani]

117. Any legislation that allows a repeat of the 2008 meltdown is inadequate

If you think it can prevent that, please be more specific.

[BzaDem]

127. As Paul Krugman has repeatedly pointed out, financial crises can occur no matter how small the banks

are. In fact (as Krugman points out), the banking problems in the Depression were due to thousands of banks -- not 5 or 6. It can also occur whether the banks in question are non-depository institutions (as Lehman and AIG were), or depository institutions.

The truth is that in a bubble, if everyone bets the wrong way, it doesn't matter if "everyone" consists of 5 banks or 5000 banks. A bailout will be required to prevent a depression. There is no way to prevent all financial crises in the future. The best we can do is increase regulation to minimize risk taking and make financial crises less frequent, and tax banks for the implicit guarantee that the government will always provide to its bondholders.

No one is saying Dodd Frank is optimal. But it dramatically increases regulation, and allows for post-crisis assessments on the entire banking sector to pay for future bailouts. It will not prevent all financial crises, since that is impossible, but it will make them less frequent, less problematic, and less expensive for the taxpayer.

[eridani]

139. A bailout was not required in 2008, and will not be required in the future

Government seizure of the banks, followed by selling off assets that still have worth, worked fine in Sweden. And the New Deal regulatory schemes certainly did prevent all financial crises until they were repealed. (And no, a recession is not a financial crisis per se.)

http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2011/apr/28/wall-street-leviathan/?pagination=false

Dodd-Frank’s answer to such systemic risk is the newly created oversight council led by the Fed, which is charged with anticipating such problems and reducing risks taken by the financial firms ahead of time. Will this prove to be more than a fantasy? When we consider how poorly the Fed and Treasury negotiated the AIG bailout, failing to stand up to Goldman Sachs and the other powers on Wall Street, there is little reason to have confidence that the new oversight institution will force the hands of the big banks and investment companies in the future, especially when times are good.

[BzaDem]

164. The bondholders were bailed out in Sweeden.

Furthermore, the government did not have the legal authority in 2008 to order AIG to take a haircut. They now do have the authority. So to compare behavior pre and post Dodd Frank is misleading.

[eridani]

176. ALL liabilities were guaranteed in Sweden

Their overall approach was one that we could have used, but didn't. And Dodd-Frank gives us no extra options here.

http://www.creditwritedowns.com/2009/03/stuffing-bondholders.html

My problem here is that the holders of bank liabilities - depositors and creditors - have other options. They can always withdraw their support from an institution that they feel will fail - creating a self-fulfilling prophecy. This means that taking too much of a haircut on bondholders, especially senior bondholders, will undermine confidence in the system. In the Swedish example from the 1990s, this was recognized and a blanket guarantee was given to all depositors and creditors of institutions deemed to be solvent. In September 1992, the Swedes issued a press release declaring that liabilities would be guaranteed.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/23/business/worldbusiness/23krona.html

By the end of the crisis, the Swedish government had seized a vast portion of the banking sector, and the agency had mostly fulfilled its hard-nosed mandate to drain share capital before injecting cash. When markets stabilized, the Swedish state then reaped the benefits by taking the banks public again.

[BzaDem]

214. That is a bailout.

And that is precisely the bailout that is envisioned under Dodd Frank. Dodd Frank does not go beyond depositors and creditors -- it does not bail out shareholders or executives.

[eridani]

286. Dodd Frank does not permit taking of shares

Sweden liquidated a lot of capital in the banks it owned outright.

[girl gone mad]

186. You're making a straw man argument.

AIG is subject to bankruptcy laws, just like every other major corporation. The government was under no legal obligation to bail them out. Through the standard BK process, they could have been forced into receivership, bonuses could have been clawed back and bondholders could (and should) have been wiped out.

[BzaDem]

213. Oh, I'm not denying that we could have decided not to bail them out.

But that would have caused a depression (according to the vast majority of progressive economists, and notwithstanding the views of the very few Hooverite "liquidate everything" economists), and that would not have been a good thing.

If you start from the point of view that depressions are undesirable, and that wiping out the bondholders entirely was not an option (given the previous statement), the question is whether the government had legal authority to reimburse them partially but not fully. And the answer was no, until the resolution authority in Dodd Frank was created.

[girl gone mad]

215. Saving the AIG bondholders was not in our nation's best economic interests.

I don't know of any "progressive economists" who thought that the AIG bailout was a good idea.

Why turn a modest private debt crisis into a full-blown sovereign crisis? That's how you create depressions (and wars), not how you prevent them.

[BzaDem]

220. So to be clear, avoiding a depression is not in our nation's best economic interest? n/t

[eridani]

287. Seizing the banks and then selling off the functional parts would have done the same thing n/t

[Enthusiast]

222. ...

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

145. Yep

Salon for example. See my earlier post on the topic.

[hulka38]

179. The reason I and many other liberals were

so strongly behind Obama instead of Hillary in the primaries was her and Bill's support for the IWR and the damage Bill did to the party and nation with NAFTA and deregulation and other DLC policies. I was convinced that Obama was going to be a difference maker, a change agent, and certainly not DLC. I was wrong and that has nothing to do with race.

[Major Hogwash]

62. No she doesn't, she has a Facebook account and talks to some of the people there.

Just like a regular person!!!

How often does that happen?
Seriously.
What would you do if you asked her a serious question at Facebook, and she responded with an answer to you?
Wouldn't it make her seem more human?
Wouldn't she seem to be more friendly?
Well, she is.

On top of that, she is a professor and one of the sharpest people we have seen on teevee in quite awhile.
They didn't give her a program at MSNBC because she's dumb, ya know.
Oh sure, she has to compete with Faux Snooze, but in realityland, she's a head and shoulders above the people on their channel.

[eridani]

67. And of course she and all the others she talks to had Facebook accounts in 1996

That's how she knows they weren't criticizing Clinton back then.

[Major Hogwash]

71. I have no idea what that is supposed to mean or what type of response you expect.

This wasn't about the criticism of Clinton on the internet.
Sirota was born in 1975, he is a kid living in Colorado.

Melissa Harris-Perry taught college at Princeton until recently, and now she teaches at Tulane.

Do you think Sirota knows what it is like to be black?
He's all of 36 years of age and lives in Colorado.
Sirota was not even old enough to vote for Clinton in 1992.
And Colorado is not in the South.

There was very little criticism of President Clinton during his first term in the media from liberals. Robert D Novak hated him, as did George Will, but not very many liberals criticized Clinton during his first term, and certainly not in 1996 when he was running for re-election.

[eridani]

73. The MSM-designated "liberals" are far to the right of grassroots liberals

You know, the ones who now have far more of a voice in the blogosphere than they ever did in the MSM, where "liberal" means Morton Kondrake or Joe Lieberman or other MSM-designated Third Way fakers.

Whether Sirota knows anything about being black is irrelevant. The question is whether or not liberals are more critical of Obama than they were of Clinton. If you mean grassroots bloggers, the answer is hell no! They just didn't have the public voice in the 90s that they do now. The blogosphere didn't exist back then.

[Major Hogwash]

74. Sirota has an agenda, check out the articles he has written bashing Obama for the last 2 months

Sirota even wrote one article in August saying that Obama has "an anti-jobs agenda."

That's tea party koolaid, served up for the people who don't have the time to see through his crapola.
Either that, or just don't care to hash out the facts for themselves.

Obama has created more jobs in the last 30 months than George Bush did in the entire 8 years he was in office, yet Sirota writes a completely facetious article about Obama like that.

[eridani]

78. He sure does-a progressive populist economic agenda

If Obama thinks the deficit is more important than jobs, that is an anti-jobs agends. If he thinks that degregulation and lower taxes create jobs, while the government can't possibly do that, that is an anti-jobs agends.

Since Bush presided over a decade of ZERO net jobs creation, creating more jobs than Bush isn't exactly a major challenge. The problem is that job creation under Obama is hasn't come remotely close to digging us out of that situation--in fact we are on track to have aero net job gains for 20 FUCKING YEARS! This is unprecedented in American history. And Obama thinks that dealing with the deficit by massively slashing the social programs that help to maintain aggregate demand is the way to go. That is an anti-jobs agenda.

[Major Hogwash]

199. PURE 100% BOVINE SCATOLOGY!!!

Sirota wouldn't know how to jump start a car, let alone the economy of the entire country.

[Major Hogwash]

200. Sirota is 36 years old, WHITE, and has a problem telling the truth about anything!

Let's see if he can sell books after next year's election!!!!

[eridani]

289. As long as there are neoliberal sociopathic fuckwads waging war on 98%

--of the population, he'll sell plenty of books.

[eridani]

288. So he relies on data provided by well informed advocates of Keynesian economics

This is not exactly new news.

[uberblonde]

131. More to the point...

She acts as if the low unemployment numbers had nothing to do with Clinton's reelection. The economy was booming at the time -- that's a pretty big thing to leave out in her comparison.

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

138. Well said.

[fasttense]

230. I didn't fight Clinton's obvious rightward tilt back then. But I had a job then.

Self serving perhaps but that is the truth. That is the major difference in our current situation. As long as RepubliCONS and semi-RepubliCONS, like Clinton and Obama, manage to keep the economy afloat, most people don't care about all the pro-corporate policies.

But now that all those rightward tilting policies, legislation and corruption has destroyed the US economy, people are sitting up and listening. Yes, Obama is being attacked for the same kind of crap Clinton did. But we had an economy when Clinton was doing it. Now we have a 2nd RepubliCON Great Depression and those same policies are merely digging this nation into a bigger hole.

It's like the difference between Calvin Coolidge and Herbert Hoover. They were both RepubliCON presidents, they both supported and implemented laissez-faire economic ideology. Yet Hoover is known as the guy who did NOTHING when the 1st RepubliCON Great Depression hit. Homeless shelters were named after Hoover, yet it was Coolidge who caused it through the same type of economic policies used today to destroy the American economy.

Yes, Clinton was much like Coolidge and neither men were criticized for their "free" market, laissez-faire economic policies. But Obama and Hoover have both been criticized for the same policies as their predecessors. It's just that different times call for different actions.

[NewJeffCT]

255. There really were no media outlets for liberals in the mid 90s

There were no Olbermann, Maddow, Schultz, O'Donnell back in the mid 90s to give things a liberal point of view. Blogs like Daily Kos and liberal websites like DU mostly came into existence around 2000/2001 with the selection of George W. Bush. Jon Stewart on The Daily Show started in 1999 and didn't really take off until a few years later.

The 90s were dominated by stories of Clinton's infidelity, Whitewater, Vince Foster (Congressional Republicans investigated his death on 5 or 6 separate occasions), and Monica Lewinsky, the Clinton impeachment. Heck, Republicans even found the time to investigate Socks the cat. How often did the media give an honest appraisal of any of those stories?

I think liberals did withdraw their support of Clinton - the Contract on America tide in 1994 is evidence of liberals sitting out '94 like they did in '10. However, the ridiculous impeachment of Clinton rallied liberals, and other Democrats, back to Clinton's cause in his second term.

[DirkGently]

8. I liked Walsh's response as well. Harris-Perry's speculations are unhelpful.

At the end of the day, she's making an unsupported ad hominem attack on liberals with whom she disagrees, as a way of undermining and devaluing their opinion without any fair basis. In fact, she followed up her piece with a defense to Joan Walsh, saying that to ask her to show a basis for her claims was racist in itself. It's a convoluted, destructive logic that helps no one.

Sure, one can speculate racial bias plays into criticism of Obama from the left. One could just as easily speculate racial bias plays into support of Obama. One can always speculate about the motives of others.

How does it help the conversation? Racial biases and attitudes play into every part of American life. No one's immune. But to use it as Harris-Perry does -- to try to invalidate or undermine a point of view that clearly can be supported without any racial bias, is just a dodge and a logical fallacy. It's a way to attack the speaker unfairly without addressing the substance.

It's one thing to talk about arguments from the left or otherwise made from a covertly *racist* point of view. If the underlying theme of the critique is racist in nature, it's not only fair to point that out, but important.

That's not the case here. Harris-Perry is simply suggesting that those who disagree with her level of support for President Obama, and are white, may be racially biased, even though they don't argue or comment in racially biased ways. Harris-Perry of course, may be likewise be racially biased in her level of support for President of Obama.

Where does that get us? We can always choose to dismiss a different opinion as being influenced by the bad character of whomever we disagree with. We can always point at others and holler "bias," the way the rightwingers do. The neat fallacy there is that when you claim bias, you don't mention whether the speaker is actually correct or not. Suddenly it doesn't matter. Or so the accuser pretends.

We're supposed to be smarter than that. We're supposed to be the people who hear each other out and don't go straight to fallacious ad hominem argument to avoid discussing the substance of a thing.

[meow mix]

51. ^ k&r

[chill_wind]

52. Beautifully said.

[senseandsensibility]

75. Well said.

I agree and admire your writing style.

[Enthusiast]

223. I agree with Dirk.

Dang, what a post.

[nashville_brook]

229. precisely.

[Myrina]

235. +100

Harris-Perry should be (and probably is) a paid cheerleader of the "POTUS propaganda staff", just like some of the righties paid commentators under Dimson.

I do not find her helpful, or especially bright.

[frylock]

257. well stated

[chervilant]

273. I strongly agree with your post...

Justifiable criticisms come from a variety of sources. James Galbraith recently asserted:

Recovery begins with realism and there is nothing to be gained by kidding ourselves. On the topics that I know most about, the administration is beyond being a disappointment. It's beyond inept, unprepared, weak, and ineffective. Four and again two years ago, the people demanded change. As a candidate, the President promised change. In foreign policy and the core economic policies, he delivered continuity instead. That was true on Afghanistan and it was and is true in economic policy, especially in respect to the banks. What we got was George W. Bush's policies without Bush's toughness, without his in-your-face refusal to compromise prematurely. Without what he himself calls his understanding that you do not negotiate with yourself.

Is Galbraith evincing 'electoral racism' in this criticism?

Furthermore, our fellow DUer, madfloridian has been steadily, and carefully, documenting this administration's relentless subversion of our party's fundamental ideology--inevitably enduring much hateful and sarcastic vitriol from our fellow DUers--particularly from the increasingly pitiable Obama sycophants. Arne Duncan--one of Obama's worst appointments, and the focus of many of mad's best OPS--is a white guy. Is madfloridian evincing 'electoral racism' in her criticisms?

A great many of us are looking at our current crop of politicians--Mr. Obama included--and shaking our heads in dismay. Are we evincing 'electoral racism' in voicing our concerns?

Indeed, across this amazing planet, the vast hoi polloi is witness to the sordid underbelly of our species' monstrous greed, made manifest in the radical income inequity perpetrated by the uber wealthy. We KNOW that our politicians--almost to a ONE--are merely sock puppets for the uber wealthy. We RECOGNIZE that those representatives who truly represent us (Bernie Sanders, Sheila Jackson Lee, Dennis Kucinich, Al Franken, Alan Grayson, to name a few of the VERY few...) fight a sisyphean battle just to be granted a few minutes of media coverage--often to be pundited into the oblivion of ridicule.

I believe we are at a critical juncture in our species' evolution. Will we continue to pay lip service to 'equality' even as we fully support the 'hierarchy' of greed? Or, will we say ENOUGH to the Corporate Megalomaniacs who've usurped our media, our politics, and our global economy?

In summary, dismissing the concerns of *all* of Obama's critics as 'electoral racism' is both demeaning and disingenuous, and it will not help us regain our footing in these perilous times.

[madamesilverspurs]

9. Sirota's lost a lot of his own 'fans'.

Thrown them away, actually. People who've known him for years are bewildered by some of his positions. Not at all sure which direction he's pointing these days.

-

[Name removed]

25. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[otohara]

46. Lost Fan Here

He use to tell his listeners 2 to 3 times per show, if you didn't like his constant bashing of President Obama, change the station. He'd yell it, and us liberals don't like yelling.

You tell your listeners to fuck off so frequently, don't be surprised if they eventually leave. I eventually took his advice and turned him off. He was upsetting my favorite time of the day...AM with my coffee and DU

I sent an e-mail to the program director and told her my theory, and guess what? He doesn't say it anymore - I tuned in recently just find out if was still doing that and I haven't heard him say it once. So I've gone from loyal fan to I don't care if I hear his show or not fan. I'm not against criticizing the president, but he's a broken record.

I was looking at the ratings for Denver radio earlier, cuz I used to work in it, and his station has lost some audience. I wish I could see his specific numbers, but I can't, out of the radio biz. When you're 46th in the market, you need to hang on to as many listeners as possible.

[me b zola]

115. Ironic. Perhaps you should write this response to MHP

but rather than "listeners", insert the word "voters". It would look like this:

You tell your voters to fuck off so frequently, don't be surprised if they eventually leave.

Surely I needn't copy and paste the entire time line of the administration's denigrating attacks on the base who worked to elect the president.

Funny how MHP never considers these attacks, let alone basic Democratic principles, as the reason for our disaffection.

[otohara]

206. Insert "Obama" Into Every Situation

and headline.

Every God damn thing that people are whining about can now be traced back to Barack Obama
.
I'm pissed my favorite soap opera was canceled - I bet he had something to do with that too!
The man should just shoot himself and put us out of our misery.

I worked hard for Al Gore, Bill Clinton, John Kerry and a lot for President Obama because the convention was in Denver.
Back in the 90's I remember the right-wing-hate-machine traced all the worlds problems back to Bill Clinton. Wife cheaters, were Bill Clinton supporters.
I don't remember the left trashing Clinton and Gore like we trash Obama. Both men are revered by the left. Bill Clinton is partially responsible for the financial meltdown. Oh and how bout that Telecommunications Act of 96, wow, that was some bone he threw to the right to shut them up. Fucked up radio forever!! NAFTA?

Clinton was no liberal and liberals didn't care so damn much.

We love our vegan Bill Clinton, but Obama, he get's no respect - he's called vile names daily. The anger and hate towards this man is scary.


What's MHP?

[chill_wind]

54. I'd agree about Sirota.

He's followed the central issues you mention for a long time and was never afraid to write about Republicans, Hank Paulson, the Bluedogs and what he began calling the Wall Street Dems, long before Obama took office. Those are his topics and he's never been one to shift and mute his focus or sugarcoat his POV on them. He didn't do it in the Bush era, either.

[2banon]

173. Is that so? He hasn't lost me, or any other Progressive Working Class that I know personally

Oh what is your source of his "lost a lot of his own 'fan's" ?? speculation? is the stat posted somewhere?

[Creideiki]

178. He's pointing toward looking at progressive vs. conservative more these days

and less toward "Democrat" vs. "Republican". Since so many conservatives have become "Democrats", the term is almost meaningless. The Republicans purged the moderates and liberals from their party over the last 2-1/2 decades. Those Republicans went to the Democratic Party, which post-DLC has taken on much more of a conservative stance and platform (compare the 2008 platform with the 2004 platform).

So I'm sorry that you think that Sirota is alienating conservative Democrats. He regularly derides the red-blue summer camp color war that politics have become. Instead, he is just as hard on "Democrats" like our Governor Howdy Doody, and our Senators Jellyfish and Thurston Bennet the Third as he is on the Republicans. At least we expect no better from the GOBP. The constant betrayals and capitulations of the "Third-Way" "Democrats" is really demoralizing.

[lumberjack_jeff]

10. Exactly right. n/t

[MuseRider]

11. Another kick for later.

I like MHP but from the snips here I think he is correct. I will read the rest later. Thanks.

[Major Hogwash]

17. Salon dot com has jumped the shark. Sirota is dead wrong. He's totally off the mark.

The bank bailouts, TARP, was in 2008, when Bush was the President.
Sirota can't even get his facts straight.

Not only did President Obama accomplish more in his 1st 2 years as President than the last Democrat in the White House, but the situation with the economy was 10X worse, with 2 full-blown wars.

Sirota should just take an enema and get it out of his system now.
Melissa Harris-Perry should ignore Sirota's criticism because he doesn't understand how so many - 87 - tea party coalition members within the GOP were put into office in 2010.
Maybe someone should sit Sirota down and explain to him how that came to be, how all that happened.

Did George Bush face such opposition from such a well-funded $40 million dollar "grass roots" campaign during the mid-terms of his first term in office in 2002?
I don't think so!

What do you think is going on here, Sirota?
Good old-fashioned family reunion picnics?
They were claiming for the 1st 2 years that President Obama was in the White House that he was a Muslim!
What do you think that was about, David?
Oh, I see, that's not racism.
Uh-huh.

They were claiming that President Obama wasn't born in the United States for the 1st 2 years.
Donald Trump's entire presidential campaign was based on it.
What do you think that was about, David?
Oh, that wasn't racism either because it happened to all WHITE presidents, huh?
Well, it must have, in order to be so quickly and adamantly dismissed as not being racist.

So, the liberals didn't get everything they wanted in the 1st 2 years.
Wow, that's true.
Yet, didn't you see the Democrat Blue Dawgs hold up the process for the health care debate for an entire year by demanding that no federal money would be spent for abortions, even though it was already against the law?
I did!!!

Try and rewrite history, David.
Go ahead and try, and we'll be sitting right here at DU, ready to correct your ignorant, arrogant ass every single time you try!!!

DU has better, more informed writers posting here than you guys at Salon dot com.
And they're all vounteers at DU!!

Man, that's gonna leave a mark.

[jeff47]

39. One shouldn't be incorrect when you claim their facts are wrong.

TARP and the bank bailouts started under W, and continued under Obama. Many liberals proposed other ways Obama could use the TARP funds, such as helping underwater homeowners, but the money was sent to the banks instead.

"Not only did President Obama accomplish more in his 1st 2 years"

Accomplishments are not measured by raw number of bills passed.

"the situation with the economy was 10X worse, with 2 full-blown wars."

Which is a large source of the anger - it's so bad and conservatism was so ruined. It was the perfect time to undo a lot of the damage conservatism has done since Reagan. Yet the Obama administration governs to the right of the Clinton administration.

"Sirota should just take an enema and get it out of his system now."

Now there's a constructive argument!

"he doesn't understand how so many - 87 - tea party coalition members within the GOP were put into office in 2010."

Liberals blame that on Obama's timidity in the face of the massive crisis he inherited.

"Maybe someone should sit Sirota down and explain to him how that came to be, how all that happened."

The Obama administration only pushed for tepid half-measures to fix the economic crisis, and then spent the next two years claiming the obviously insufficient response was perfect despite how bad the economy continued to be. The poor response from the Obama administration resulted in another 'throw the bums out' election.

"Did George Bush face such opposition from such a well-funded $40 million dollar "grass roots" campaign during the mid-terms of his first term in office in 2002?"

The authoritarianism of the Republican party is not a positive attribute to be emulated.

"They were claiming for the 1st 2 years that President Obama was in the White House that he was a Muslim
<...>
They were claiming that President Obama wasn't born in the United States for the 1st 2 years"

That would be the Republicans, not liberals. Thus outside the article being discussed at the moment.
However, the Republicans literally investigated the contents of Hillary Clinton's underwear drawer. To claim Clinton didn't face Republican insanity is clearly false.

"Yet, didn't you see the Democrat Blue Dawgs hold up the process for the health care debate for an entire year by demanding that no federal money would be spent for abortions, even though it was already against the law?"

On this point, the liberal complaint is that Obama compromised with the blue dogs instead of confronting them. However the much, much larger liberal complaint is that campaign Obama promised a public option, while President Obama worked against one.

[Major Hogwash]

55. You contradicted yourself when you said we should've forced one thing, when saying authoritarinism

is not something that should be emulated just because the Republicans did it.

"The Obama administration only pushed for tepid half-measures to fix the economic crisis, and then spent the next two years claiming the obviously insufficient response was perfect despite how bad the economy continued to be."

Tepid? Half-measures? Really?
I don't think that is a reality-based response to what I wrote.

"Accomplishments are not measured by raw number of bills passed."
Blah, blah, bullshit!!

"Yet the Obama administration governs to the right of the Clinton administration."
Unsubstantiated horse hockey!!!

"Liberals blame that on Obama's timidity in the face of the massive crisis he inherited."
Yeah, right, whatever.

Seriously, if you are a liberal, and this is the best you can do, you're going to have to try harder at the DU3 forum when it comes out.
Because this response, or whatever you want to call it, doesn't cut the mustard.

85% of all Democrats polled think President Obama is doing a good job.
Those numbers were shown again today on Al Sharpton's program.
That's just the way it is.

[jeff47]

116. There is a difference between leadership and followers

The followers should not march in lock-step with the leader. That is mindless authoritarianism.

But the leader should fight for what he believes is the best course of action. Whether or not his followers follow is up to them.

"Tepid? Half-measures? Really?
I don't think that is a reality-based response to what I wrote."

The "stimulus" bill was about 1/2 the size it needed to be, and 1/2 of that was ineffective tax cuts. So the bill was roughly 1/4 what was needed. Calling it a half-measure is overstating how good it is. It was a quarter measure.

The appropriate response once the bill was passed would be to say "that's a great start, but we'll have to do more". Instead, the Obama administration spent the last two years claiming the 1/4-size stimulus was perfect. They really ramped up the marketing for "recovery summer" in 2010....and since there was no recovery, it fell flat and they lost big in the election in the fall.

Perhaps you could list what bold actions the Obama administration took to fix the economic crisis?

"Blah, blah, bullshit!!"

Boy that refutes my argument completely! Here's a thought: if that's going to be your response, you really shouldn't bother. All that response got you was a large loss of credibility.

"Unsubstantiated horse hockey!!!"

Please cite where the Obama administration has been to the left of the Clinton administration. I'll give some examples of where they've governed from the right of Clinton:
-More free trade deals.
-The ACA is mostly copied from the Republican response to Clinton's health reform efforts.
-Obsession over debt reduction
-Pushing tax cuts to fix problems caused by tax cuts.

"Seriously, if you are a liberal, and this is the best you can do, you're going to have to try harder at the DU3 forum when it comes out.
Because this response, or whatever you want to call it, doesn't cut the mustard."

You should probably look at the other two responses next to yours before you think you've got the pulse of DU.

"85% of all Democrats polled think President Obama is doing a good job."

Yes, the Obama administration cleverly traded a 10% favorability loss among liberals to get a 20% favorability loss among independents. I'm sure more hippy punching will work real soon now, just like the stimulus bill.

[Major Hogwash]

198. There sure as the hell is, and Sirota is not a leader of anything!!

I'm sure that you think "hippy punching" makes you look real cool and slick to all the kiddies here at DU, but it don't impress people old enough to have been one, sonny.

[jeff47]

241. I notice you failed to answer the questions I asked. You planning to back up your arguments, or

are you just here to fling poop?

[frylock]

259. down goes frasier!

nice work!

[Mimosa]

61. ^ ITA, Jeff47 ^

Sound analysis.

I scarcely know who Sirota is. But I know you're right. ;)

Harris-Perry's commentary seemed oblivious to the a couple of the major differences between the 1st terms of Clinton's presidency and Obama's presidency to date: the economy now is a disaster. And hardly anybody but people who used computers in their business activities were online to a significant degree before 1994.

[Cherchez la Femme]

104. Thank you

that rebuttal would have taken me a full day to develop & type out :D

[TheKentuckian]

60. You are conflating foolish TeaPubliKlan nonsense with liberal concerns

No one left of Gingrich speculated Obama wasn't born here.

Donald Trump isn't a liberal. His campaign was as a right winger.

You either didn't read the article and started a counter-attack or failed to comprehend what was written on such a fundamental level that it may as well have been written in sanskrit.

So as you ready to "correct", you might want to get a clue what and who is being discussed so your own efforts don't leave a mark.

[Major Hogwash]

63. No, I'm not. I'm saying there is no difference between Sirota and the tea party

When it comes to spreading fertilizer on the internet.

And that my fine feathered friend from Kentucky is your lesson for the day.

[eridani]

84. Of course. How silly of us

The Tea Party wants social programs and regulations eliminated, and taxes slashed. They think the deficit is the most important public program. Sirota wants taxes on the rich raised, more funding for social programs, and thinks that government creation of jobs is more important than cutting the deficit.

Those things are all exactly the same, which I now realize.

[Major Hogwash]

207. What is the end result? Who will Sirota endorse, if not President Obama?

And the result is what I am talking about, not these teeny tiny nuances you can't seem to see past.

[eridani]

290. Of course he'll endorse Obama

Which is no reason not to rip the shit out of his neoliberal economic policies.

[Major Hogwash]

296. Now you can read minds???

Seriously, you're just spinning and spewing here.

[TheKentuckian]

88. You flat out pawned right wing "issues" with the President onto liberals and made them the same.

Sirota did not make or defend or even tolerate the teabagger claims so if you are going to attack him then you need to do it with his claims not their's. I consider your attack to be dishonest and willfully so.

What do Sirota's points have to do with Obama being accuse of being from Kenya and all that nonsense?

This tact is hard to discern from the teabagger style nonsense attacks being based on misinformation and misdirection.

If you were serious you'd be refuting the man's actual words rather than trying to hang teabagger lies on him and calling them the same.

[Major Hogwash]

201. You simply don't get it. Probably because you're from KENTUCKY!!!

Man, I've heard of people being stubborn, but there are no more stubborn people than the ones from KENTUCKY!!

[inna]

182. despicable post, absolutely despicable.

see post #84 and please try to educate yourself

[Major Hogwash]

202. You're a laugh riot.

Educate YOURSELF!!!

[Dragonfli]

210. Well, education isn't a bad thing, give it a try!! /nt

[girl gone mad]

120. Right off the bat you do the thing you accuse Sirota of doing.

Your facts are not correct.

Obama whipped for TARP in 2008, calling congress to twist elbows and even telling several CBC members that he would lose the election unless TARP passed. He was likely the single Democrat most responsible for ensuring its passage.

Not only that, but he broke his promises to hold the banks more accountable before doling out moneys once he assumed power.

As we now know, these bailouts have failed on multiple levels. Obama owns this failure every bit as much as Bush does.

[hulka38]

180. It's a common tactic from our more conservative brothers

at DU. When you're not confident with your defense, attack boldly and confidently and accuse the other of doing what you're about to do. It's a bit like watching a GOP debate.

[Major Hogwash]

204. I'm not that conservative. I stood up for the gays when they repealed DADT.

And yet people here won't give President Obama credit for that!!
Not only did I meet with one of the officers affected by DADT, he was the one that was on Rachel's program a lot, I made several posts here informing people at DU about it.

So, you can pin that "conservative" label on someone else.

[hulka38]

248. I'm happy you did that.

But the fact remains that your defense of Obama on, imo, larger issues is confused.

[chill_wind]

196. +1 And I suspect some of the venom against Sirota that's there but goes unvoiced

by some is that he talked about some of that process at the time. And so did Pete DeFazio, and what were some rather specific seeming conflicts of interest in one of the key O-team that were sent.

[Name removed]

203. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[hlthe2b]

20. I've had my differences with Sirota, but he does make some cogent points...

I'd love to think that MHP, Walsh and Sirota's contributions could be read together, with an open mind and all could find resonance. While I respect MHP and she has valid issues to discuss regarding race in America, there are very substantive issues that both Walsh and Sirota have put forth that she had totally failed to address. Perhaps she will do so in a later piece.

They would all make for a very interesting and useful panel discussion, that is for sure.

[Enrique]

22. but if they do appear on a panel together

it doesn't mean they're friends. ;-)

[hlthe2b]

23. I think Joan will rise above that comment from MHP...

If it had been directed towards me, probably not so much. Very very unfortunate.

[DirkGently]

31. Harris-Perry definitely lowered her discourse going after Joan that way.

To equate Joan Walsh's note that they were "professional friends" with the racist go-to comment about "having _____(minority group) friends" was just a low blow. Walsh wasn't anywhere near that territory. I'm really surprised at Harris-Perry here. I thought better of her.

[dsc]

41. He never claimed they were

that was Walsh.

[Major Hogwash]

57. Joan Walsh has a Facebook account, and 3 months ago she was making derogatory comments about Obama

on Facebook.
I have no respect for Walsh at all.
Zip, zero, none.
She thinks she is funny, witty, and clever.
She's not.
I think she is what is wrong with the discourse in this country, trying to portray herself as a liberal when her very existence depends on her constant appearances on MSNBC, trying to sound like a liberal.

Then she goes to Facebook and makes smartass remarks about the President of the United States.
I wouldn't have her in my house, let alone listen to her ramble for 5 minutes on teevee to give her opinion on anything connected to politics.
She's an idiot, and her entire career is based on Salon dot com.
She has no integrity, has no clue as to the systemic racism built into the political system in this country, and she doesn't care . . . as long as she gets her paycheck.

In that aspect, she is just like Sean Hannity.
She's in it for the money.

[chill_wind]

26. "Transparently partisan political weapon."

And not a very politically smart one, IMO.

Doing that may or may not help Obama in the short term. But it almost certainly harms the larger civil rights movement by flippantly sacrificing that critical movement on the altar of short-term political expediency. Indeed, the outrage here is not that there is predictable and well-justified liberal dissatisfaction with the current White House. It is that in the heat of a campaign season, some public figures now seem so governed by personal political loyalty that they are willing to exploit the cause of racial equality by turning it into just another transparently partisan political weapon.

[DirkGently]

38. Ironically, Harris-Perry's pro-Obama bias (racial or not) seems the motivator here.

I've watched her for years on KO and Rachel, and usually enjoy her commentary. Her original piece feels like a pro-Obama stretch, and her follow-up defending the piece even more so. Her attack on Joan Walsh was way off-base.

Questioning the motives of other liberals is a desperate tactic. Moreover, it's not going to convince anyone. So why?

Why not just address the merits of the criticism? If it's really just bias, it should be easy enough to puncture. Of course, that's clearly not the case, so we get this odd, "Well, it's *partly* bias ..." (and so partly illegitimate).

No good will come of this.

[chill_wind]

45. A protective supporter, I think it's fair to say,

who sees Obama as stunningly similar to MLK.

http://www.thenation.com/blog/how-barack-obama-martin-luther-king-jr

Your thoughtful reasoned comments throughout this thread have been just excellent here. Thank you for them.

[eridani]

89. Obama as MLK?

Totally batshit crazy. How can a life devoted to mobilizing pressure from outside the system be compared in any way to a life lived inside the system? Not that there's anything wrong with the latter--they are just two very different approaches to social change.

[Cherchez la Femme]

112. Social change isn't any part of Obama's agenda

if anything, he's been strengthening the Old Boys Club for them.
He's expecting to, and I'm sure he will be, highly rewarded.

180 degrees from Dr. MLK in too, too many ways

[eridani]

119. Lots of things he said in 2008 suggested otherwise. n/t

[DirkGently]

94. Back at you. The MLK column was just ... strange.

[Cherchez la Femme]

110. Plus, it's one helluva way to get those unhappy with Obama back into the fold.

Eh?

:eyes:

[ProSense]

35. " we see that Obama -- as opposed to Clinton"

From the OP article.

Taken together, we see that Obama -- as opposed to Clinton, who at least paid (often empty) rhetorical homage to liberalism -- has proudly and publicly stomped on the very progressive promises that got him elected.

Yeah, he uses an excuse of Clinton to dismantle an argument about a double standard!

Ridiculous!

[jeff47]

40. You're not making much sense here.

Sirota: At least Clinton pretended to like liberalism. Obama publicly attacks liberals

You: Clinton didn't help liberals either!

That wasn't the point being made in that sentence.

Perhaps you could rephrase so you are more clear?

[ProSense]

42. Please

"You're not making much sense here."

...explain how empty rhetoric differs from claiming the President lied?

Taken together, we see that Obama -- as opposed to Clinton, who at least paid (often empty) rhetorical homage to liberalism -- has proudly and publicly stomped on the very progressive promises that got him elected.

So Clinton's empty rhetoric was special and deserving of some praise, but Obama, who has achieved much of what he promised, is different and deserves to be roundly criticized, even rejected, because he didn't pay "rhetorical" (often empty) "homage to liberalism"?

David Sirota's argument is filled with false claims and convoluted bullshit logic.

[jeff47]

43. Thanks for clarifying

Do you not see how explicit attacks on liberals might be more upsetting to them than empty praise?

[rury]

44. Just unrecced this crap!!!

[Cherchez la Femme]

113. And what, pray tell, makes this "crap"?

[meow mix]

50. K&R

[CANDO]

53. Holy shit to some up thread remarks.

I'm a bona-fide liberal/progressive/unionist/socialist, but I'll be damned if anybody characterizes me as a racist for not falling into the company line in support of Obama. I couldn't stand some of the policies of Bill Clinton and openly expressed them at the time. I can't stand some of the policies President Obama has put forth. The reason I sent so much of my money and support for Obama was because I didn't want another Clinton presidency with a repeat of the capitulation. So we ended up with pretty much what I expected from a Hillary Clinton presidency but I'm not allowed to express it because it proves me a bigot? You all who say so can go get ******. I'm not a member of your movement if I can't think for myself and express my thoughts openly without the thought police hurling accusations of bigotry.

[Demonaut]

56. eol

[Mimosa]

64. +1 Cando

I agree with you. The only reason I didn't support Hillary was I feared a third Clinton presidency including the ties to international corporate entities along with the chumminess with China.

I believe Barack Obama would manifest as somewhat of an FDR or at least a Harry Truman type Democrat. I was mistaken.

[Cherchez la Femme]

100. The opposite may be true

What do you call people who vote based solely on the candidates skin color?


And yet they're calling US racists. :eyes:


But they'll still be playing that race card nevertheless, I'll bet pretty constantly/continually.
Like I need to become more disgruntled regarding President Obama...

[Lydia Leftcoast]

189. +1

:thumbsup:

[donheld]

65. Per Melissa -- Also Melissa's column for those who care to read it.

I logged onto Twitter on Sunday night and discovered that my recent article for The Nation was causing a bit of a stir. Some members of the white liberal political community are appalled and angry that I suggested racial bias maybe responsible for the President’s declining support among white Americans. I found some responses to my piece to be fair and important, others to be silly and nonresponsive, and still others to be offensive personal attacks. But those categories are par for the course.

I make it a practice not to defend my public writings. Because I often write about provocative topics like race, gender, sexual orientation and reproductive rights, if I defended every piece I wrote against critics I would find little time to sleep. But the responses to this recent article have been revealing in ways that I find typical of our contemporary epistemology of race. Often, those of us who attempt to talk about historical and continuing racial bias in America encounter a few common discursive strategies that are meant to discredit our perspectives. Some of them are in play here.

http://www.thenation.com/blog/163629/epistemology-race-talk

[Supersedeas]

135. wow, the good Professor might have been better off to leave well-enough alone

I find it hard to believe that evidence and justification would be so easily dismissed by someone in academia.

In response to many of my professors demands for more detailed justification for my beliefs, I wish that I had the option of saying that evidence is silly. No wonder she is so popular.

[Lucian]

68. Sirota is an idiot.

-1

[TeamsterDem]

69. I agree w/ Sirota on this one. I usually don't but this time I do. Yet i still like

Melissa Harris-Perry far more than David Sirota. I think she happens to be wrong about this one, but I still think she's awesome and 99% of what she writes/says on TV is right on the mark.

[JVS]

70. In your face Melissa Harris-Perry!

[nashville_brook]

79. MHP's column is equivalent to a DU call-out thread -- it's a blanket accusation

there's no point in arguing her column b/c it lacks any solid reference. however, i'm sure that the blogosphere will oblige by filling in these blanks, surely by fingering those like Sirota who point out her logical fallacies.

if MHP could point to a specific instance of The New Progressive Racism, then we could deal with that. We could beat down those spreading the toxic ideology. but she doesn't do that. instead she issues a blanket accusation of something so morally reprehensible to progressives that it's sure to stop us in our tracks. nevermind that progressive white folk fought by your side for civil rights all these years. nevermind that we elected the first black president. nevermind that we fought the stupidity of the birthers. nevermind that we've acted time and again on principle because THAT'S WHAT YOU DO AS A PROGRESSIVE.

none of this matters anymore. now we have new insidious forms of racism -- "electoral racism" -- that applies only to progressives and only to this president.

this is insanity and it does no one any good. the GOP couldn't come up with a better, quicker, more effective and long lasting way to fracture the base. congratulations MHP.

[DirkGently]

93. "All you unreasonable people who disagree with me better stop!"

Response #1
But I disagree with you, and I'm not unreasonable!

OP Reply
Well then I'm not talking to you, am I? Guess you identify with the Unreasonable People, huh?

/thread.

:D

[BzaDem]

123. While I disagree with the thesis of MHP, the idea that the base is fractured or is even close to

being remotely fractured is absurd. The base is solidly behind Obama, and Obama is consistently doing better with Democrats in Gallup polling than any President since JFK.

There is a very small fraction that opposes Obama, just like they opposed most if not all modern Presidents, but this has always been the case. In all parties in all political systems, there will always be a small fraction whose expectations (whatever their merit) mean that they will never be satisfied. If anything is remarkable, it is precisely how SMALL this group is among progressives with respect to Obama.

[nashville_brook]

126. you miss my point -- and, then proceed to make it unwittingly.

bravo.

[BzaDem]

129. I was only responding there to the ridiculous accusation that this can or will "fracture the base."

[nashville_brook]

228. this is about as fracturing as it gets

[BzaDem]

233. But that is by definition wrong, since Obama's approval within the party is HIGHER than any past

President of the last 50 years.

So to whatever extent the party could ever plausibly be considered "fractured," Obama has reduced their size to the smallest in decades.

In reality, the same people who oppose every past Democratic President in recent memory are opposing Obama. This is nothing new (other than how few members of the Democratic party oppose Obama relative to past Presidents).

[Little Star]

81. K&R

[NorthCarolina]

83. Spot on. K&R

[a kennedy]

86. Please just remember HE'S WHITE!!!!!

that's all I'm saying.....

[MrScorpio]

90. You can always depend on Sirota to bash Obama

The man is like clockwork.

[DirkGently]

92. Ad hominem defending ad hominem? Why even bother to discuss anything?

[MrScorpio]

96. Sure. Now if you can point out where the ad hominem is we can get started. nt.

[DirkGently]

160. You dismissed Sirota as an Obama basher w/o comment on the substance of his remarks.

I would think that's pretty clear. Harris-Perry is an unabashed Obama admirer. Neither observation invalidates the speaker's arguments.

[eridani]

97. Of course. Advocates of populist economic policy always bash neoliberal policy

You expected something different?

[bluestate10]

105. Why do you call a viewpoint populist when 79% of americans don't

agree with it? Your post is just another example of progressives bullshit assuming and calling their positions holy beyond reproach.

[eridani]

106. Except that 79% of Americans do agree with it

Or rather, 72%. That's the percentage who want to raise taxes on incomes over $250,000 and no cuts to Medicare or Social Security. A similar percent thinks job creation is more important than the deficit.

Edit--and even more hate the trade agreements that Obama is backing.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

91. Both Clinton and Obama ran on/run on being 3rd Way Centrists and not (Eeek!) liberals.

And, both deserve equally the scorn of the left.

[eridani]

98. But Clinton gets off more easily because there was no blogosphere in the 90s

The only people who knew of my opposition to Clinton policies in 1996 were people I personally talked with. The whole world can google my opposition to Obama policies.

[Luminous Animal]

107. I organized and participated in months and years long campaigns against some of

Clinton's policies.

We were there but the economic boom made everyone's eyes gleam and no one wanted to listen to labor and poor people.

[eridani]

109. You were ahead of me on that. I didn't start paying attention to electoral politics

--again until the election of 2000. I opposed Clinton's neoliberalism, but took no public action against it.

[DirkGently]

175. The economy & the Internet loom as rather more obvious reasons Clinton & Obama's experiences differ.

Harris-Perry's conclusion that racial bias is the only conceivable precedent as to why Democratic presidents would be received differently by liberals is a bizarre fallacy at best. Clinton and Obama scarcely presided over the same country.

Instead of thrashing about, lunging at everyone with anything but unqualified praise, trying to explain what's wrong with all the liberals in the world, perhaps Obama's more fervent supporters might consider that it's not everyone ELSE who detoured into unreality here.

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

149. Salon was around in 1997

And they were very pro-Clinton.

[eridani]

152. The vast majority of people who are online now were not online in 1997

I got online with a text only browser in 1998, and had no broadband until 2005. I'm far from unusual.

[Admiral Loinpresser]

103. I don't defend Clinton as a paragon of liberal virtue.

But to his credit, his first year in office he raised taxes on the rich and gave relief to the working poor with the Earned Income Tax Credit. Obama's tax policy has been regressive, i.e. continuing Bush tax cuts. That is a differentiation to Clinton's credit.

[eridani]

111. Obama was partway there with Making Work Pay

Of course it got eliminated in the December 2010 compromise.

[jeff47]

118. No, they didn't.

Clinton ran as a centrist, like most southern Democratic governors are.

Obama ran on "hope" and "change". Then lost hope and gave up on change.

[BzaDem]

121. While I am not ready to say the double standard is racial, Melissa's point about the double standard

is absolutely true.

From a policy perspective, Clinton, Carter, and JFK (and LBJ if you include foreign policy) were much worse than Obama. The people that oppose Obama oppose every President of the last 50 years and will likely oppose every President of the next 50 years.

But you rarely hear them put their criticisms of Obama in this context. It is understandable -- most people would consider their views less reasonable if their criticisms were put into this context. (After all, for someone who opposes everyone, the problem is likely to be their expectations, rather than, well, everyone.) But that doesn't make it any less a double standard, when they act like Obama is personally the problem (as opposed to their expectations, or at least the policies of every President of the last 50 years).

The truth is that for people like Sirota, what they really oppose is the Democratic party (past and present). But saying that would marginalize their viewpoint, since most people know that the Democratic party isn't going anywhere during their lifetimes. So instead, they pretend the problem is specifically with Obama. When we get our next Democratic President, and they are just as unhappy with them as they were with Obama (if not moreso), they will act in a similar fashion.

[eridani]

144. From a foreign policy perspective, all post WW II presidents suck

They all are foursquare behind US domination of the rest of the world by military force. They don't all suck at domestic policy, particularly not LBJ.

As pro-imperial as Dems have mostly been, their domestic policies were squarely in favor of the 98% up to and including LBJ. That has been my reason for supporting them all that time, as changing imperialism is roughly equivalent to trying to turn a battleship around with an outboard motor.

[BzaDem]

165. JFK lowered the top marginal tax rate on the rich by over 20%.

In fact, tax cuts were one of his biggest domestic policy programs that passed.

[eridani]

170. WW II had been paid off by then, so 91% was getting to be beside the point

And I'd give a very good blow job to any candidate of either sex who promised a return to the JFK tax rates.

[BzaDem]

217. The point is that JFK embraced entirely the idea that tax cuts (particularly tax cuts at the top)

are good economic stimulus. The richest 10% got a little less than half the benefit of his large tax cuts (which were the primary facet of his economic policy). And this was when JFK had larger Congressional majorities than Obama did. It was precisely what JFK wanted.

I don't disagree that certain types of tax cuts (primarily for those not at the top) can increase demand. But I support Obama on that front. The ones criticizing Obama are the ones most loudly criticizing his stimulus for containing demand-side tax cuts (which were primarily directed at the non-rich), and the payroll tax cut (again primarily directed at the non-rich). In fact, they're sometimes the ones calling for taxing the rich at 90% (which is what JFK moved away from).

My point is simply that in a valid comparison, Obama's legislative record as passed (let alone as Obama publicly advocated for) is vastly better than every President in the last 50 years except for LBJ. One can't plausibly defend JFK's tax policies while simultaneously attacking Obama's tax policies.

[eridani]

291. I damn well can defend a top tax rate of 69% and attack a refusal

--to raise top rates currently at 35%.

The demand side tax cuts are worthless, because the stimulus effect is so piddling. It won't induce the recipients to spend more, it will induce them to save and pay down debt. Raising taxes on the well-off and spending that money to hire the unemployed is the only stimulus with any significant effect.

[BzaDem]

312. You can. Your policy position would simply be incoherent.

The issue is not the absolute rate -- the issue is what type of economic policy each President used, and what portion of the benefit went to the very top.

Nearly half of the benefits of Kennedy's policies went to the very top.

You can of course defend that. No one is saying otherwise. It would just be incoherent to attack Obama for having tax policies MORE progressive than that.

[eridani]

313. As long as Obama continues to cave on the Bush tax cuts,

--his policies are NOT more progressive.

[Enthusiast]

225. LOL!

[John Agar]

122. It's a great piece. Dr. Harris-Perry kinda lost it on this one.

Her characterization of the response to Clinton by progressives is factually wrong, and her analysis deeply insulting and insensitive.

I guess I'm not going to be watching her show, if it ever comes on.

[Liberal_Stalwart71]

125. The words "arrogant" and "elitist" are typically directed at well educated

black Americans who dare speak out against mainstream thinking, or, otherwise "don't know their place." It is no coincidence that the same charges were directed at Obama during the primary AND the general election!! Sirota is no different. He also does the same thing that many of us have seen around here: blame Obama for all things without holding the Blue Dog/Corporatist Democrats AND the Republicans responsible. To that end, he is proving MHP's point, therefore lacking in credibility and intellectual honesty!

[Enrique]

128. David Sirota on Blue Dogs

Obama campaigns for Blue Dogs, Sirota criticizes them:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x5223258


Dems Waver on EFCA, Insist That Empowering Workers Is Unnecessarily "Divisive"

by: David Sirota


http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x5223258

Tue Mar 10, 2009 at 12:47


I wish I could say this level of spinelessness is surprising, but the U.S. Senate is a club for jellyfish, so it's totally predictable:

At least six Senators who have voted to move forward with the so-called card-check proposal, including one Republican, now say they are opposed or not sure -- an indication that Senate Democratic leaders are short of the 60 votes they need for approval...

The legislation is divisive and distracting, said Arkansas Sen. Blanche Lincoln in an interview Monday. The Democratic lawmaker, who was previously seen as a supporter, said the Senate should focus on creating jobs and improving the U.S. economy. "I have 90,000 Arkansans who need a job, that's my No. 1 priority," she said. The legislation, she said, would be "divisive and we don't need that right now."


Expect this "divisive" talking point to be the meme du jour - it's perfect for lawmakers who desperately want to avoid talking about the substance of the issue, and instead need a process argument to justify their gutlessness. In this case, we're getting the Unity Pony - ie. the claim that at this Very Serious Time of Emergency, we need Bipartisan Broder-esque Unity - and we simply can't afford the "division" that would occur in D.C.'s elite circles if Congress tried to strengthen workers' basic right to form a union. Because, ya know, employers illegally firing workers in more than a quarter of all union elections isn't "divisive."

Same arguments, different issues - but now, with almost 60 Democratic votes in the Senate, and therefore no credible Republican foil to blame legislative failure on.

[Liberal_Stalwart71]

134. You bring up his article from 2009! What about all the other

complicit acts from Blue Dogs who joined with Republicans in their obstructionism? You can pull one article from 2009 to prove Sirota legitimate!

What about now?!?! Where are the Democrats? Where is the leadership? Why is Obama out there on his own, while 12 Senators especially (just happens to be Blue Dog cowards) are distancing themselves from him?

And how many times are you going to pull that "he had 60 votes" argument around here when you know damn well that not all Democrats were on the same page and were just as complicit in obstruction as the Republicans?

You know this. You are smart and well versed in politics. You know damn well that not all 60 Democrats had the progressive agenda in mind.

[CakeGrrl]

132. Yes, and the enthusiasm for his 'putting her in her place' is telling in and of itself. -nt

[chill_wind]

143. Feh. He's used those same exact words about Rahm Emanuel

and Nate Silver, to name just a few, as well as other Washington beltway establishment, in other discourses. In objections of his own, about the STFU Movement against left progressives. It's pretty much a staple of his populist vocabulary. You can agree or disagree all you want with his arguments, but your not so veiled insinuations in this case I think are rather well off the mark.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/david-sirota/talking-about-testicles-a_b_9230.html

http://www.openleft.com/diary/11545/

http://www.openleft.com/diary/12280/


ETA link edit

[eridani]

155. Not just a racist, then, but an anti-Semite as well!

:sarcasm:

[chill_wind]

190. And

(less there be others not knowing what you meant, despite the tag)

And I say this as a Jew who gets lots of hate mail. Most of that hate mail comes from the sender's hatred of my progressive ideology, and some of it is explicitly anti-semitic. I'd be absurd, though, to say that all of my hate mail is anti-semitic just because it is addressed to me, a Jewish person.

http://www.openleft.com/diary/11676/

[eridani]

153. They are directed toward anyone on the left by centrists and DLC types as well n/t

[russspeakeasy]

130. We need more Sirotas......

:evilgrin:

[2banon]

146. Hear, Here n/t

[McCamy Taylor]

133. Recall that Hillary was a racist for running against Obama. A charge of racism is a potent weapon in

the Dem primary, and since presidential politics is some serious, dirty business, I don't see why anyone expects the Obama administration not to use this card yet again. But in the primary, only. In the general, discussion of race will be taboo. Which is funny, if you think about it, since there really will be racism at work in the general, but in the Dem primary, it is hardly a factor at all.

[eridani]

154. Well, her campaign did make use of the "hardworking white people" meme

NOt trying to discount the fact that many thought that simply being in the running by itself counted as racism, however.

[Lord Helmet]

208. Hillary's people started the racist birther movement.

But there's an inconvenient truth liberals are going to have to confront: The Birthers began not on the right, but on the left.

Investigating the roots of the Obama birthplace conspiracy theory, Wingnuts author John Avlon uncovers the first Birther—and finds she’s a Hillary Clinton supporter also implicated in Dan Rather’s exit from CBS.

The Birther conspiracy theory was first concocted by renegade members of the original Obama haters, Party Unity My Ass, known more commonly by their acronym, the PUMAs. They were a splinter group of hard-core Hillary Clinton supporters who did not want to give up the ghost after the bitter 50-state Bataan Death March to the 2008 Democratic nomination.

"I determined that I was going to start digging up every bit of dirt that I could find on him and convince the Democratic Party to dump him and make Hillary the nominee."

more here -- http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2010/02/08/the-secret-history-of-the-birthers.html?cid=hp:mainpromo2

[TheKentuckian]

236. What about those folks is the left? Well, other than sporting a (D) next to their names

It may well have started in the Democratic party but on the left is false. The two are clearly only the same thing in a limited spectrum pushed by the beltway.

The left did not support Clinton or she'd be President as we speak.

[Lord Helmet]

264. "left" in this context = generic left side of the aisle as in D vs R

[TheKentuckian]

267. I don't see how that definition is useful in this purely intramural debate

[Lord Helmet]

269. I wasn't responding to the OP.

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

136. Another Salon Obama bashing article

Please is Sirota actually saying Clinton was more liberal than Obama? Too bad, I used to respect Sirota.

Besides this is bullshit about Obama losing support among his base when he has a 70% approval rating among Dems.

[2banon]

142. Interesting

I guess Sirota and Salon must be shills for the Rabid Right Wing? But Sirota and Salon used to be ok for you? But now all of a sudden, they're just not your friends anymore? What is the source for the 70% Democratic Support stat? Yesterday it was reported that Obama had 43% of Registered Democratic voter approval.. (NPR)

[Name removed]

151. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[2banon]

174. Are you familiar with News Hour on PBS as well as NPR (All Things Considered)?

both mentioned this stat yesterday.. broadcast on radio and tv.


on edit: I wonder if you're this rude and snarky in person? as far as twisted logic goes, that's my take on the crap you just spewed.

[Major Hogwash]

205. First it was Walsh this spring, then Greenwald, and now Sirota.

They'll probably hire Dick Morris later this fall to round out their "team" of crack investigative reporters!

Ha!

[pmorlan1]

258. lol

lol. Major Hogwash, You've chosen an excellent name for yourself.

[Major Hogwash]

298. When worlds collide.

That's the problem for you Southerners in Kentucky, you'll whine, bitch, and moan about President Obama, but not one peep ever comes from you guys about McConnell.

Why is that?

[2banon]

137. Rec' and kick

Not familiar with Perry-Harris, but I am quite familiar with David Sirota, I rarely (if ever) have disagreed with his analysis on any particular issue. I don't understand how anyone who self-identifies as a "Liberal" (to any significant degreee) post snarky and rude remarks and comments against him. :shrug: Sirota speaks truth to power, directly and honestly and it is sorely needed.

[itsallhappening]

147. Melissa Harris-Perry is almost always full of worthless bullshit.

She sure thinks a lot of herself, though.

I for one listened to her for the last time a while back when she was sitting in for Maddow. Melissa Harris-Perry couldn't be more annoying. She's not cut out for TV or really any kind of public speaking.

Sirota put her in her place. Excellent.

[eridani]

157. She's not a TV person, so that is irrelevant

She's written lots of good articles for The Nation. Of which her last effort was NOT one.

[itsallhappening]

281. It's not irrelevant when she's chosen as a guest host.

The woman is a horrible speaker.

[eridani]

293. But a very good writer, her current article notwithstanding n/t

[MellowDem]

150. MHP's column was horribly stupid...

and clearly shows her racial bias. She can't handle white progressives being consistent, and hates the fact that progressives with a different skin color would dare have the balls to criticize the first black president I guess. At least, that speculation seems as probable as hers.

When did MHP become such a bigot? Her use of lies and speculation to label all white progressives is about as stupid and bigoted as it gets.

Her only "proof" comes from a horrible analogy with Clinton. Anyone who is President during the worst recession since the Great Depression will get shit. Clinton was lucky to have an economy like he did, it wasn't his doing. Plus the inumerable other factors that I could mention. But I guess her horrible theory absent any evidence is enough to accuse white progressives of "electoral racism".

Well, white progressives will just raise a giant middle finger to MHP. And they'll vote for Obama. And that's the sad part, but MHP doesn't get it. Her own racial bias has blinded her to real criticisms. It's just another case of projection.

[eridani]

159. Don't think it's racial bias so much as being very heavily invested in Obama

Can anyone reading DU deny that there are plenty of white people here who have the same fixation on personality over policy?

[MellowDem]

177. I was being slightly tounge in cheek...

though I think my speculation has more basis than hers. There probably is racial bias going on in some ways, and they aren't "good" for progressives. When the CBC can't criticize the president because they're afraid blacks will turn on them, that's racial bias stifling criticism. When things stay the exact same as before, with blacks being hit the hardest and suffering the most, but with fear to criticize from the base, either because of racial bias or threats of being called racist, that's not good for anyone, especially the most vulnerable in society.

[Fuddnik]

171. Kicked and highly recc'd

Sorry kiddies. I was just as critical of Clintons triangulating, Republican policies, as I am of Obama's.

But, I never had a computer until almost 1996. You remember back then, when Windows 95 came out, and made computers a little more comprehensible for us proles? And we didn't have much more than AOL, Compuserve, and Prodigy for internet back then.

Harris-Perry is a bit younger, and totally full of shit!

I voted for what I thought was a Democrat. Not another triangulating Republican wannabe.

Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice....., well, we don't get fooled again.

[Bette Noir]

185. Obama lost my support when I figured out he wasn't a liberal.

As near as I can tell, he's a moderate Republican. I don't know why I should support him any more than I would any other Republican, which is to say, not at all.

As for race, that's not my fight. I'm the same color and background as Soledad O'Brien. White, Black, and Latino. Tri-racial, if you will.

[Hoosier Daddy]

193. We Whites Aren't Guilty! YEEEEEEEEE-HAAAAAAAAAH!

:sarcasm:

[court jester]

194. R&

"...She hopes -- or, perhaps, believes -- that nobody remembers that many of those bills (the Patriot Act extension, the extension of the Bush tax cuts, the bank bailouts, the no-public-option health insurance giveaway legislation, to name a few) were initiatives that many liberals opposed..."

ouch

[TMED]

211. Agree completely. I have to wonder about Harris-Perry's motivation for writing such a shoddy piece.

Does she think that more than 2 or 3 white liberals will be convinced by her {cough} {cough} stellar arguments? Seems very doubtful.

The real intent may be to try and shore up support within the black community, for Obama. If Obama loses 50% of his black support, he'll be toast in a general election.

He's on his way to losing that 50%, according to a recent poll that showed a dramatic drop in approval rating:

Five months ago, 83 percent of African Americans held “strongly favorable” views of Obama, but in a new Washington Post-ABC news poll that number has dropped to 58 percent. That drop is similar to slipping support for Obama among all groups.

[Enthusiast]

212. Kicked and recommended.

Melissa Harris-Perry is simply wrong.

[PragmaticLiberal]

224. I don't understand some of the reactions in this thread.

Why is it so hard for DUers to acknowledge that SOME white liberals DO judge Obama (whether conciously or subconsciously) through the prism of race?

Heck, I'm an African American male and I'll be the first to admit that SOME black folk cut Obama a little slack because of his race.


See? Its not that hard...

[TMED]

227. her title: "Black President, Double Standard: Why White Liberals Are Abandoning Obama"

As far as I can tell, it's mostly because of Melissa Harris-Perry's title: "Black President, Double Standard: Why White Liberals Are Abandoning Obama"

However, there's two other things going on, here. One is that many of her arguments, understood as applying to either white liberals, or whites, in general, don't make much sense. Sirota rightly ripped her apart on a detailed basis.

The other thing going on is that she is conflating whites, in general, with liberal/progressive whites, and conflating both of those with white Democrats!

So, her piece is screwy, not only because of particulars, that Sirota deconstructed, but also partly because it's confused. E.g., when she writes,

"In 1996 President Clinton was re-elected with a coalition more robust and a general election result more favorable than his first win. His vote share among women increased from 46 to 53 percent, among blacks from 83 to 84 percent, among independents from 38 to 42 percent, and among whites from 39 to 43 percent."

what does this have to do with "white liberals", which is in her title? The whites that voted for Clinton's re-election included liberals and non-liberals, Democrats and independents.

If a white person is likely to withdraw support from Obama because of his race, it's still the white liberal who is least likely to do so. Harris-Perry failed to demonstrate her claim about white liberals, at all. In fact, she cited evidence that white Democratic voters

"overperformed in their repudiation of naked electoral racism, electing Obama with a higher percentage of white votes than either Kerry or Gore earned."

While she doesn't say so, this was probably as true, if not truer, of white liberals!

Nobody doubts that there are white racists, even white liberal racists, but Harris Perry fails utterly to demonstrate that they're mostly to blame for Obama's declining approval ratings. Frankly, she comes off like a over-eager suck-up, who will make up any confused crap to try and help Obama, though I've read more than one comment that says that she's normally pretty good.

[nashville_brook]

231. her first claim is a fallacy of affirming the consequent, her second claim is a fallacy of denying

the antecedent.

[mod mom]

232. I can't access the article or salon. Keep getting bandwidth exceeded. Anyone else?

[Raksha]

245. I can't access it either. I just tried for the third time. n/t

[boomerbust]

240. I stand with Sirota

Ms. Harris Perry not so much.

[ProSense]

243. I still think Sirota is

full of shit! From his piece.

Taken together, we see that Obama -- as opposed to Clinton, who at least paid (often empty) rhetorical homage to liberalism -- has proudly and publicly stomped on the very progressive promises that got him elected.

Got that: Clinton's empty rhetoric was special and deserving of some praise, but Obama, who has achieved much of what he promised, is different and deserves to be roundly criticized, even rejected, because he didn't pay "(often empty) rhetorical homage to liberalism."

He worked in the Clinton WH, and is doing the same BS that Perry points out, introducing an excuse for Clinton. Perry's point isn't that people weren't critical of Clinton at the time, it's that some of Obama's current critics are all too willing to excuse away Clinton's actions, including his policy failures, while harshly criticizing Obama, who has in many cases reversed or moved away from some of those policies.

No matter how many people try to hi-five and ignore it, the fact is that it exists. There are examples of it all over the Internet and in the MSM from people pining away for Clinton and begging Hillary to run. Many of these are critics who attacks Obama for not being progressive. They attack him from the left. They use Clinton's economy to criticize Obama.

Case in point, this 2011 article by Robert Kuttner: Black and Bleak

What a terrible irony this Labor Day that under America's first African-American president, black unemployment has risen to its highest level since the early Reagan years, and decades of black progress on homeownership have been wiped out.

<...>

A rising tide does not necessarily lift all boats, but African-Americans made great economic progress in the late 1990s, when overall unemployment was low. In those years, the black-white wage gap and unemployment gap narrowed. Full employment and tight labor markets are always good medicine.

Bill Clinton was facetiously said to be the first black president, not just because of his comfort level with the black community and his appointment of African Americans to senior positions, but because of this very real material progress -- now largely reversed.

<...>

The problem is less Obama's failure to target black unemployment per se than his weakness on the jobs issue generally. Race comes into the equation because of an almost pathological aversion to conflict on Obama's part, which has been widely attributed to his wish to bridge racial and ideological gaps.

<...>

The President's race has nothing to do with African American unemployment. Kuttner credits Clinton for "very real material progress" for African Americans, and blames Obama for a situation that is a direct result of Clinton's deregulation policies.

Now let me quote Clinton on the economy, from this piece:

<...>

Voters may not care, but it’s worth pointing out the truth from time to time anyway. As Bill Clinton explained on “Meet the Press” last weekend, “First of all, he became president just a few months after the financial crash. Now, keep in mind, even before the financial crash, in the eight years before the financial crash, we had almost no new jobs. Only 10% as many as we had when I was president. Real family income was lower than it was the day I left office. The economy was weak as could be. Then you had this financial crash. Historically these things take five years to get over…. The American people are not used to waiting five years for anything good to happen, but that’s what we’re facing. And if you want to speed it up, we got to do things in the government.”

Even this from Walsh's piece merits attention:

The difference between Clinton's booming economy and today's broken one creates political problems for Obama in another way: He was largely elected due to Americans' fears that we were headed into an abyss, and their faith that he would bring the economic change he promised. Like a pilot taking over with a plane in a nose dive, Obama kept the economy from crashing, but he hasn't lifted it into smooth skies. Maybe it makes me an unrealistic and entitled white progressive -- that's pretty much what black author Ishmael Reed called Obama's white critics -- but I think it's clear that even with a recalcitrant Congress, the president could have done more than he did to dismantle the rigged system that let Wall Street destroy the economy, as well as more to help its casualties.

<...>

Walsh's piece is an attempt to rebut Perry's commentary of a double standard. Here, she's basically saying that Obama should have accomplished more with a Congressional majority similar to Clinton's, who failed to accomplish much in his first two years.

Filibusters

111th Congess (2009-2010) - 136

103rd Congress (1993-1994) - 80

The polls

President Obama's support is now above 50 percent among all but whites, whose approval is more than 20 percent lower than the other groups.

Gallup, Sept 12 - 18: Obama's approval climbs 6 percent among Hispanics (previous week)

Male: 36% (41%)

Female: 43% (45%)

White: 31% (35%)

Nonwhite: 65% (63%)

Black: 82% (86%)

Hispanic 53% (47%)

November 2009: Obama's Approval Slide Finds Whites Down to 39%

<...>

It is important to note that this pattern is not unique to Obama. For example, Bill Clinton averaged 55% job approval during his presidency, including 52% among whites but a much higher 76% among nonwhites and 82% among blacks.

<...>

That average is more than 20 points higher than Obama's current approval among that group.

To Perry's point:

The relevant comparison here is with the last Democratic president, Bill Clinton. Today many progressives complain that Obama’s healthcare reform was inadequate because it did not include a public option; but Clinton failed to pass any kind of meaningful healthcare reform whatsoever. Others argue that Obama has been slow to push for equal rights for gay Americans; but it was Clinton who established the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy Obama helped repeal. Still others are angry about appalling unemployment rates for black Americans; but while overall unemployment was lower under Clinton, black unemployment was double that of whites during his term, as it is now. And, of course, Clinton supported and signed welfare “reform,” cutting off America’s neediest despite the nation’s economic growth.

Today, America’s continuing entanglements in Iraq and Afghanistan provoke anger, but while Clinton reduced defense spending, covert military operations were standard practice during his administration. In terms of criminal justice, Obama signed the Fair Sentencing Act, which decreased judicial disparities in punishment; by contrast, federal incarceration grew exponentially under Clinton. Many argue that Obama is an ineffective leader, but the legislative record for his first two years outpaces Clinton’s first two years. Both men came into power with a Democratically controlled Congress, but both saw a sharp decline in their ability to pass their own legislative agendas once GOP majorities took over one or both chambers.

Again, Perry's point isn't that people weren't critical of Clinton at the time, it's that some of Obama's current critics are all too willing to excuse away Clinton's actions, including his policy failures, while harshly criticizing Obama, who has in many cases reversed or moved away from some of those policies.

[uponit7771]

246. THANK YOU, Sirota goes in to "fuck facts" mode with his article...the pulls some shit out of his ass

..as a bases to negate MHPs empirical evidence in her criticism of liberals and Sirota conveniently "forgets" that Obama has record high numbers amongst the people who supposedly "opposed such legislation" as if his ass took a straw poll on such.

[uponit7771]

244. BULLSHIT ASS'D ARTICLE BY CONSUMMATE OBAMA BASHER "...many liberals opposed..." SAYS WHO?

How bout we hear from an non consummate Obama basher one that not to quick to dismiss the empirical evidence MHP sites as a bases of her criticism with anecdotal "...many of those bills were initiatives that many liberals opposed... SAYS WHO?!?!?!

OBAMA'S APPROVAL RATING AMONGST LIBERALS HAS BEEN ONE OF THE HIGHEST IN HISTORY!!!!

I call Bullshit on Sirota, MHP gave hard evidence Sirota pulled some shit out of his ass to dismiss the evidence and then did EXACTLY what blacks and MHP wrote about...MINIMIZE THE REST OF THE PROGRESSIVENESS WITH NO FACTS TO BACK HIM UP!!!!!!!!!

Come on, even if the guy isn't a racist THAT'S WHAT RACIST DO...That's what sexist do and people in general who don't perceive a group of people as not good enough for something.

They minimize the shit out of them and their accomplishments with no facts to back them up

[Enrique]

247. lol, then what's Harris-Perry talking about?

you're yelling so loud you don't understand how your post contradicts the woman you're defending.

[uponit7771]

249. Perry sites hard evidence of Obama's LIBERAL record Sirota does the thing that racist do and dismiss

...Obama's record with pull out of ass evidence of "...many liberals apposed.."

It's easy, the FACTS says Obama has accomplished a lot but because people like Sirota who believes he hasnt done shit (based off of what "many liberals" apposed) the racist slip in with their double standard of criticism....DISMISSING the facts.

[Enrique]

250. did you read Harris-Perry's article?

when you do, you're going to be really mad at her, you're going to type in all-caps about how she's full of shit for suggesting liberals are abandoning Obama.

[Ignis]

302. Hmm, no asterisks? TLDR.

[pam4water]

253. The link is not working for me.

[bertman]

260. I just made a PowerREC for this thread. When I hit the RECOMMEND button 4 RECS

were added.

I'll take four for one any day.

This commentary by Sirota says it all.

[Plucketeer]

261. Obama......

On the campaign trail..... "If I'm elected as your next president, the first thing I'll do is END this ill-conceived war (Iraq) and bring our troops home. And you can take THAT to the bank!"

Ms. Harris-Perry???

[Plucketeer]

262. Obama....

On the campaign trail..... "If I'm elected as your next president, the first thing I'll do is END this ill-conceived war (Iraq) and bring our troops home. And you can take THAT to the bank!"

Ms. Harris-Perry???

[Moostache]

265. The difference between Right and Left circular Firing Squads...

The right gets in a circle, yells at each other, then turns around and starts firing in all directions AWAY from themselves...they may sound like complete lunatics, but the most lethal fire is not directly aimed at each other constantly, and once the decision is final, their foot soldiers toe the line to a man...

The left gets in a circle, yells at each other, then starts shooting each other in a fit of pique...

Lather. Rinse. Repeat.

[Ruby the Liberal]

275. marking to read tonight. nt

[Major Hogwash]

278. Let me save you some time, Sirota is a racist piece of shit who went after a black woman

for defending President Obama.

That's it in a nutshell.

Let's see that racist scumbag sell books next year after the 2012 election.

[Ruby the Liberal]

297. Not defending him, but some people see racism under every rock

Not that it isn't ever warranted, but it is also not always the answer to what ails us.

I for one resent the implication that the color of anyone's skin is a determining (or even mitigating) factor about how I feel about their policies and politics.

[Major Hogwash]

299. Sirota should have stayed under his rock.

If you read the articles he has written about President Obama for just the last 2 months, you would think he was writing about President Bush!
That's how biased Sirota's articles are about the situation in the real world.

[Ruby the Liberal]

300. I do not disagree with you.

I remember well his schtick as John Edwards' unofficial attack dog in late 2007 and early 2008. Guy drove me nuts back then, and not much else has changed.

I will say though, I am glad someone called MH-P out on this article she wrote. As much as I like her, it angered me this weekend as well. Too bad it wasn't someone less emotionally charged (and dare I say, at many times, unhinged).

[Major Hogwash]

301. How does Sirota justify calling a black woman an arrogant elitist, and then still claim he is a lib?

The last time I looked black women in this country were far from being considered by anyone as "arrogant elitists".
In fact, that sounds like something that Bill O'Reilly would say about Melissa Harris-Perry.

Sirota is only 36 years old, and I don't think he has any clue what it is like to be black in America.
I don't think he has Clue Numero Uno.

[jeff47]

311. Uh....what exactly about being black and female makes it impossible to be arrogant or elitist?

So it's only the white folks who can be arrogant or elitist? No blacks can be, especially black women?

[inna]

305. i believe your accusation is baseless and vile

[sfpcjock]

279. He gives me headaches.

To be honest. Yeah, she might be a dilettante, but I wouldn't understand it, anyway, LOL.

[certainot]

284. just heard sirota- can anyone tell me what he was doing in politics during bush and reagan?

he sounds like a purist who, like many new voters and highly principled voters, expected a black man to be able to walk into the white billionaires house and kick ass.

[eridani]

292. During Reagan, he was working on mastering the finer points

--of not peeing in his pants. During Bush II, he was regularly ripping that asshole quite a few new ones.

[chill_wind]

306. "The kind of pundit you’d like to have on your side in a knife fight and wouldn’t want to cross

in a dark alley."

-the American Prospect


Sirota is a new-generation populist who instinctively understands that the only real questions are ‘Who’s getting screwed?’ and ‘Who’s doing the screwing?’”

-Molly Ivins

http://www.davidsirota.com/

http://www.davidsirota.com/biography/

Sirota is the kind of guy Right Wingers, centrists and neolibs love to hate.

[certainot]

309. thanks, but until the collective 'left' challenges talk radio no dem/obama critic can

say the left ever got obama's back or is getting obama's back. and if obama has been motivated partially by fear of the right (he needs to grow a spine, they say) only the left is to blame. in a democracy our reps shouldn't have to fear doing the right thing.

[chill_wind]

310. No thanks warrented. It appeared you were asking

and I was just pointing.

[Marnie]

295. Perry wants it both ways in a very unprofessorial way.

She accepts that Whites voted for and elected a 50% White candidate who was the Democratic party's nominee.

This 50% White candidate ran against John McCain a 100% White candidate.

So us Whities were not racist when we voted for the only 50% White guy so the 100% White guy wouldn't end up in the WH.

But now that some of the voters, who the 50% White guy and his staff have insulted since early 2009 have expressed disappointment, the disappointment,she claim without stating a single fact, is aimed at the 50% Black guy.

Nope Melissa we voted for Obama because we voted against McCain. That was our two choices. Obama/Beiden or McCain/Palin.

The majority of Americans who voted chose to not have an hysterical, foul mouthed, bad tempered 72 year old in the WH.

Voting for Obama had nothing to do with race for independent liberal Whities like me. It had to do with the choice of candidates. The 50% of Obama that is Black was just a bonus after the fact.

Also too, we Whities who the whole 100% of Obama continues to insult, are, as one Black lady pointed, out "Weary of defending him." And we have defended him endlessly, and even in our disappointment we continue to, protest the racist Right's attacks on the 50% of Obama that is Black.

Perry is just driving the wedge that Obama has created between him and his base deeper and much more viciously by labeling us racists.

Let me point out the obvious professor. Calling a none racists a racist just reminds him/her that he/she is supposed to be a racist. And pushes them away emotionally from their nonracists stance.
It is a kind of negative feed back reprogramming.

Do Perry and Obama really want to got there? Because "there" is the reality of their own bigotery, driving a racist and belitteling attack against the Democratic Parties own base.

Could Perry and Obama be doing anything that would make the Republicans happier?

[Marnie]

303. And excellent take down by Sirota.

Hugely disappointing from the professor.
She has tarnished her intellectual credentials and diminished the value of evaluations or judgements that she might make in the future.

Hopefully we will be hearing less of her in the future, there are many excellent intelligent voices in the Black, White, Brown, etc., communities who have the good sense to not slap the hands that reach across the social and political gulfs to meet their's.
A pity Obama and the WH along with Perry don't realize the value of that.

Calling Obama's base retards and racists speaks to a very high level of dysfunction or plain insanity somewhere in the Democratic Party's machinery.

It would be well for the party to find that problem and fix it before Jan 1, 2012. Election year is only three months away.

[Hoosier Daddy]

308. I've already unrecced this

To me, it's self-exculpation for us righteous white folk.