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Thursday, January 20, 2011

So which is it?
Posted by Jill | 5:26 AM
Has Barack Obama just had enough of his thankless job and is essentially saying "Take this job and shove it", or is he really living in so much of a bubble that he can't hear anyone but Republicans and Washington pundits?

It's one or the other.

OR, he was a Republican mole the whole time and it's all just kabuki.

Because unless we are all being misled somehow, it's very likely that in his upcoming State of the Union address, the President Of All Wall Street is going to talk about "tough choices" and "having an adult conversation" and "belt tightening" -- all in the context of cutting Social Security.
President Barack Obama's apparent willingness to consider cuts in Social Security benefits may be winning him points with Washington elites, but it's killing him with voters, who see the program as inviolate and may start to wonder what the Democratic Party stands for, if not for Social Security.

That's the conclusion of three top progressive pollsters who spoke to reporters Wednesday at a briefing sponsored by the Economic Policy Institute, the Century Foundation and Demos.

"For the public, cutting benefits is the problem, not the solution," said Guy Molyneux, a partner at Hart Research Associates.

As a result, the pollsters said that any Democrat seeking elected office in 2012 should be begging Obama not to say anything about Social Security cuts in his State of the Union address later this month.

A post-election poll by Celinda Lake's Lake Research Partners found that, by a margin of 3 percentage points, Americans now trust Republicans in Congress more than Democrats when it comes to Social Security -- surely the first time since the program became a signature issue for the Democratic Party in the 1930s.

The poll found confidence in Democrats on the issue dropping 14 points just since January 2007, accompanied by a 13-point increase for Republicans.

The public favors congressional Republicans over Obama on Social Security by an even larger 6-point margin. Obama's 26-percent rating is not only less than half Bill Clinton's (53 percent), it's even lower than that of George W. Bush (37 percent), whose proposal to privatize the program went down in flames.


Imagine that. The very people who would have signed on to George W. Bush's privatization plan to hand over Social Security to Lloyd Blankfein now poll better than Obama does on Social Security.

I'm starting to long for the good old days when Bill Clinton wanted EVERYONE to love him. This guy only wants REPUBLICANS and Wall Street investment bankers to love him.

It was one thing when he threw the progressives under the bus. But alienate everyone who is over the age of 30 (and yes, young people are also concerned about their own future benefits) and it's a sure one-way ticket back to Cubs games. As Blue Girl noted on Tuesday, the entire concept of the Social Security Trust Fund was designed to get the elephant that is the baby boom generation through the snake, and then with a better balance of workers to retirees, it can go back to the pay-as-you-go system it was before WWII veterans were told to Be Fruitful And Multiply after returning home. But since most people think of Social Security as a bank account anyway, it's far easier for people to envision a passbook with only fifty cents in it than the complexities of how a system that's worked for over a half a decade will work once everyone who's over 45 today meets all their old pets at the Rainbow Bridge.

So in his effort to be Nixon in China, and therefore perhaps part of his quest to become a throwaway line uttered by Zachary Quinto in a future Star Trek movie, Barack Obama seems not content to try to suck up to politicians who want to "repeal" him by returning to the Golden Bushian Age of Deregulation and ensuring that old people who lose their retirement savings to his good friends at investment banks and brokerage firms have NO money to live on in their old age.

So which is it?

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Thursday, July 15, 2010

I'm really starting to believe he's just in it for a cushy job after leaving office
Posted by Jill | 8:22 PM
Look, I get that Barack Obama is no liberal. I've gotten that for a long time. I've also gotten for a long time that he wants desperately for the people who will hate him no matter what he does to change their minds, and doesn't give a shit about those of us who put him in office. I get that. But there's no other explanation other than sheer opportunism for even considering this:

A leading big-business group, responding to a request from top White House aides, last month submitted to President Obama's Office of Management and Budget a 54-page hit list that takes aim at regulations protecting the environment, workers, consumers and investors.

Having asked the Business Roundtable for its advice, the White House was then faced with the question of what to do with it.

Discussions between the two parties are ongoing, the White House says. And their conclusion may depend on who wins the ongoing power struggle between the president's top political gurus and his policy apparatus.

The push to placate business leaders is being led by Obama's political team -- in this case, senior adviser Valerie Jarrett and Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel.

But just like the advice the White House politicos are giving Obama about pressing forward with deficit reduction in the midst of a jobs crisis, the idea of loosening the reins on big business -- at a time when the cost of deregulation has been so viscerally on display in the Gulf of Mexico -- strikes some observers as spectacularly tone-deaf. Not just bad policy, but bad politics.

"What we're in the middle of is a string of regulatory failures that the Obama administration seems very insensitive to," said Rena Steinzor, a law professor at the University of Maryland and president of the pro-regulation Center for Progressive Reform. She cited the financial crisis, the Massey Energy mine disaster, and of course the BP oil spill.

Steinzor told the Huffington Post she suspects Obama's political team is not motivated by the optics in this case, nor by an overwhelming devotion to the free market -- but rather by money.

"They want campaign contributions. They want to win," she said. "I think they definitely are trying to make sure that they don't fall behind in the fundraising race. I think they're quite worried about that," she said.

"If I were them, this isn't what I'd be worried about. I'd worry about people being so angry about BP that they wouldn't vote for the president."

If he continues to throw his base under the bus, there won't be enough money in the world to get him re-elected.

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Monday, June 16, 2008

Is Lanny Davis preparing to try to sabotage Obama's candidacy?
Posted by Jill | 5:02 PM
Why else would so-called "Democrat" and Clintonista Lanny Davis be joining Faux Noise?

Fox News's newest contributor, to be announced today, may surprise the liberal crowd: former Clinton White House lawyer Lanny Davis.

"Fox has always treated me with respect and given me a chance to express my point of view," Davis says of the network that the Democratic candidates refused to grant a debate out of concern that it favors Republicans. He will be a frequent guest, along with such Fox stalwarts as Karl Rove and Newt Gingrich.

A relentless surrogate for Hillary Clinton, Davis says, he felt "ganged up on" during appearances on the other cable channels. He says that Clinton was "demonized" by MSNBC's Chris Matthews and Keith Olbermann, and that CNN's primary-night panels were tilted toward the Obama side.


I guess he wants a mouthpiece by which he can tubthump for putting Hillary on the ticket, and if Obama doesn't do it, he can spend the next five months bashing Obama in the name of keeping the presidency open for Hillary in 2012.

These Clintonistas really are repulsive.

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Friday, March 16, 2007

I'm glad he lost
Posted by Jill | 9:19 PM
In case you needed further evidence that the DLC is Repub-lite, take a gander at Harold Ford, Jr.'s new job:

Former U.S. Senate candidate Harold Ford Jr. is going to work for Fox News Channel as a political commentator, the network announced this morning.

Now heading the Democratic Leadership Council and working for Merrill Lynch, the former Congressman from Memphis was bested by Republican Bob Corker in the November election.

The following is the complete text of the press statement put out today by Fox News:

Former Congressman Harold Ford, Jr. has joined FOX News as a political contributor to the network’s news programming, announced Roger Ailes, Chairman and CEO of FOX News. He will be under contract with FOX News to provide political commentary and analysis on international events and the 2008 election.

Harold Ford, Jr. served Tennessee in the United States Congress for 10 years. He earned a reputation of being one of the most dynamic leaders in the Democratic Party. Described by President Clinton as “the walking, living embodiment of where America ought to go in the 21st century,” Ford is now a Professor of Public Policy at Vanderbilt, Chairman of the Democratic Leadership Council and Vice Chairman of Merrill Lynch.

In making the announcement, Ailes said, “We are very happy that Harold Ford, Jr. will bring his independent voice and brilliant ability to analyze the issues to FOX News. His wealth of experience and insight will be key to FOX as we endeavor to stay on top of fast moving events around the world and here in our own country. The upcoming Presidential campaign will be one of the most interesting in our lifetime and Harold’s depth of knowledge and analysis about American politics will enhance the news we deliver to our viewers.”


Next up: Fox News Wednesday with Joe Lieberman.

(hat tip: Pam)

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