While you make pretty speeches I’m being cut to shreds
Pretty good SOTU last night. But, see, here’s my problem with Obamee — he only seems to bring his “A” game when his back is to the wall. The dude lacks follow through.
So while it’s nice that viewers last night gave the speech a thumbs up, it won’t matter in six months if unemployment is still at 10% and the U6 is still around 17%.
I’d say one thing the dude has to do is get more involved in the legislative process and not just outsource most of the hard work to Congress. As Karen Tumulty notes, people reeeeeeaaaaaaally hate the way Congress put together health care reform, especially the “free-Medicaid-for-Nebraska” bribe the Dems had to use to get Ben Nelson on board. Obama would have been better served throughout this entire process if he’d stepped in at some point during that deal and said, “Aw hell no. I’m gonna veto that shit.”
(But of course the problem was his team was busy making similar sorts of deals with the pharmaceutical industry.)
At any rate, the speech laid out some good ideas, but unless there’s a real concerted effort to get shit passed — and to get it passed in a way that doesn’t involve bribing countless stakeholders — then it won’t matter a damn.
(One sign that made me optimistic is that Obama seemingly threatened to veto any financial regulations bill that didn’t go far enough in making sure the banksters don’t crash our damn economy again. Dude needs to show some real leadership here and waving the veto pen around is the best way to do it.)
Those stakeholders need to be beaten with sticks.
~
Sticks, sure. Or their own stakes.
Dude. Dude? Dude!
Dude? Seriously. Du-hu-hu-huuuude.
Dude needs to show some real leadership here and waving the veto pen around is the best way to do it.
Uh, really?
Draw yourself a matrix. Top row – Obama signs; bottom row – Obama vetos. Left column – weak reform; right column – strong reform.
The only decent outcome from the banksta reform act of 2010 is the top right box, Obama signs for strong reform. Every other box is a banksta win. Vetoing reform, weak or strong, is going to look politically dorkish, and signing weak reform is doing everyone a disservice. It’s strong reform or bust. Literally.
Real leadership would include firing Geithner, hiring Spitzer, and telling the Senate he’s going to name names. Dude needs to take a mulligan and get to work, time is no longer on his side.
I suspect that Obama has been taking a back seat at least partly because, as a constitutional lawyer, he reckons that that’s what the President’s supposed to do. He’s doing his bit to end the slide into elective dictatorship and restore Congressional government.
Problem is, it’s too late. The slide’s happened, the President IS in charge, Congress is no longer capable of governing. The choice is now Presidential government or stagnation. Stagnation will always be bad; Presidential government can be good if the guy at the top is neither stupid nor evil. Here’s hoping he realises that sometime soon.
Sure, he said he’d veto financial reform that doesn’t meet his standards. But did he say what his standards were? Why, no. No, he didn’t. Business as usual.
Obama did get involved. He made a backdoor deal with pharma before the House drafted anything. We’re going to keep getting more of the same shit.
Overall the SOTU address was much, much better than I had feared. Particularly for his suggesting that HCR is close to being done, and it’s ridiculous to let the Republicans run a 60 vote standard in the Senate, and Democrats still have huge majorities (including, he didn’t mention, 1 more Senator on the (D) side than there was one year ago) and not time to “run for the hills”.
But the follow through question — he follows up a blistering challenge directly to the faces of the Supreme Court justices for having overturned a century’s worth of precedent on campaign finance regulation and said a ‘flood’ of special interest money coming in with, literally, a blank pause and a wave of the hand that Democrats and Republicans should do something or other about that. And that was that.
TC – he proposed the Volcker Rule last week as well as the cap on too-big-too-fail financial institutions … both ‘standards’ he has established as possessing, I would think. Also, wasn’t there a reference to consumer protection that the House has passed, that he chided the Senate for holding up?
DA – fair enough. I was just talking about the speech itself, but you’re right as to the bigger context.
Brad:
My sentiments exactly. I know Obama talks pretty; it’s time for some results.
.
I, for one, am sick and tired of “consumer choice” being trotted out like it’s the be-all end-all of democratic freedom. HEALTH CARE ISN’T A SHOPPING MALL. I don’t give a fuck WHO my doctor is if she can get this rusty nail out of my fucking foot. The frivolous shit people whine about while they’re getting shot in the face repeatedly will never cease to amaze me.
I suppose Obama’s training as a constitutional lawyer also informs his belief that he’s allowed to indefinitely imprison people without trial.
HEALTH CARE ISN’T A SHOPPING MALL.
I’ve had it up to my eyeballs with this as well. Not just for the reason that choice is so far down the list of priorities wrt healthcare when you’re sick, but how the fuck are us non-qualified schlubs supposed to make genuinely informed choices in this space. There’s a reason docs spend years getting qualified, because there’s shitloads to learn, and we go to docs when we’re ill because they’ve hopefully learned their stuff when I know I haven’t. Burger or Pizza is a choice, do I need an operation is question needing a qualified professional to help answer.
Dude needs to show some real leadership here and waving the veto pen around is the best way to do it.
See the problem is ya gotta pass something to be able to veto it.
I got nothing funny to add to that.
This just feels like spinning plates.
Imprison? Obama has added names to a list of U.S. citizens to assassinate, not just fucking imprison.
http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2010/01/27/yemen/index.html
chocolate pie and Ted the S.–
Agree on stilts. Plus, note for your amusement that, in these matters of “consumer choice,” what is at stake? EVERYFUCKINGTHING. So, fine, you don’t value your own life that much? How about your child’s?
These “free”-market religionists are as deluded, blind, and existentially tone deaf as the Pope of Rome. Buying health care–which should be as anachronistic a term as “slave auction”–is not like just any other form of consumer activity.
Chocolatepie, you can pull the nail out of your foot yourself. No need to involve the government. Then pour raw spirits in the hole and set it on fire. That’s what Chuck Norris would do. Except the nail would be in his fist.
Imprison? Obama has added names to a list of U.S. citizens to assassinate, not just fucking imprison.
OBAMA DEATH LIST!!!one11!!
Yeah pedestrian, real funny. This is documented, not some wingnut forward about comptrollers. I used to think you had a fucking brain.
Talk is cheap. Even pretty talk. I’m not going to hold my breath any more.
Wow Brad. Way to reach into my skull and distill my thoughts on the issue into a single coherent post.
Now if you could just do something similar with all those other voices in my head I might be able to get something done in a day.
Many studies have shown that Presidential vetoes can substantively change legislation. I think Sinclair (UCLA), Jarvis, I am sure there are others. It doesn’t always work, obviously, so it should be used judiciously.
What I always loved about Obama’s defenders is that they say he can’t do anything about the Senate – you need 60! – but he did not lift a finger to get that magic number. Not Coakley, not the run-off in Georgia, not in Maine (where he won a landslide) and ended the campaign in 2008 with over 18 million dollars.
He gives one helluva speech though.
I wouldn’t trust the governments numbers on unemployment. In fact Pravda is getting more factual than anything coming out of Versailles on the Potomac.
Pray god that unemployment is still at 10% (or 17% U6). It sure as shit isn’t going to be any better, and it could very well be a whole hell of a lot worse….
xvr…………….el dicur