Obama — Too Big to Fail?

http://www.thenation.com/blog/157538/obama%E2%80%94too-big-fail

Obama — Too Big to Fail?
Richard Kim

Obama's choice of Bill Daley for White House Chief of Staff has progressive writers (Ari Berman, Ezra Klein, Digby) and organizers (Adam Green of PCCC) rightly irked and puzzled. Daley publicly pushed the line that Obama and the Democrats overreached with healthcare reform; opposed the creation of the Consumer Financial Protection Agency; shilled for JP Morgan Chase and the Chamber of Commerce (who wet themselves over his appointment). As Digby points out, Daley kvetched about the electoral plight of centrist Democrats in a December 2009 Washington Post op-ed, urging the party to adopt a "big tent" philosophy and a "diversity of views even on tough issues such as abortion, gun rights and the role of government in the economy”—which more or less rolls out the welcome mat for Sarah Palin (D-Alaska). (Digby also notes that in Jeffrey Toobin’s account of the 2000 Florida fiasco, it was Daley as an advisor to Gore who urged him to throw in the towel prematurely.)

So why are two of Obama’s biggest critics from the Democratic Party’s left wing leaning forward on MSNBC to give Daley a big sloppy kiss? Howard Dean on Olbermann said that Daley would be a “huge plus” to Obama’s team and characterized him as someone who “knows Washington, but…is not of Washington." Is this the same Dean who publicly dissed Robert Gibbs and David Axelrod—“Don't let the door hit you in the you-know-what on the way out!”—while complaining that they had treated the left with “contempt”? By all accounts, Daley is much more of a left antagonist than Gibbs and Axelrod and is much better positioned to exercise malign influence inside the administration—so what gives Howard? And what’s up with Robert Reich, whose views on NAFTA and the Third Way are complicated, but considerably to the left of Daley? Echoing Dean, Reich took to the pundit stand to compliment Daley as a “very dedicated public servant” and a “good and important addition to the White House.”

Whatever their personal motives, Dean and Reich’s rush to praise Daley has had the effect of muddling the storyline on Daley’s appointment, diluting what should have been cast as near unanimous condemnation of Obama’s pick from his base. To me this illustrates a larger problem for progressives still electorally wedded to the Democratic Party: Obama is too big to fail. I’m not unsympathetic to the dilemma. It’s almost impossible to imagine a scenario in which progressives abandon Obama en masse without courting disaster. But that shouldn’t mean bending over backwards to defend poor choices, nor should it mean trying to outflank and deflate his critics from the left.

As Reich himself pointed out, the bailout of the too-big-to-fail banks contained few conditions, creating a “moral hazard” for Wall Street. The same applies to how progressive Democratic power brokers react to Obama’s governing strategy; their support should be conditional and measured, not a blank check for his centrism. It will take spine and nerve to play that game, but honesty and guts are what we need now—not any more progressive surrender monkeys.

The Democrats are the party of labor. LABOR. From that standpoint, all else proceeds - from civil rights to abortion to health care in general. You take care of the workers and safeguard their freedoms and general welfare, the rest will sort itself out.

Now, if only our party would remember this once in a while...

So, can we surmise that we don't really have that party functioning as it should, but rather, as a interim stool-softener that placates us with rhetoric we want to hear while it enables another agenda? After that, we get another round/wave of screaming Fascist monkeys who ride a wave of corporate media makeovers.

Keep in mind that it looks like all these politicians have a lucrative future they have built from their sting in what we misconstrue to be "public service" and that their favorable actions to corporate rule can ensure them of some huge speaking fees, board positions, etc., etc. Even if we lose, they win big.

Perhaps it is time to discard the notion that these pseudo-representatives are all so concerned about reelection in their political careers and embrace the idea that politics today is a golden stepladder for many of them, though not all. We, in that case are being sold-out to the highest bidder.

If the difference between the Dems and the Repubs is a slow-motion train wreck and a crash in real time, we're still ultimately dealing with the same amount of wreckage.

Daley is yet more evidence that nothing is really going to change, ever.

You hear that from the Tea party. You hear that from the Progressives. They are approaching it from a different angle but agree that enough is enough. The pandering to Wall Street is killing our economy and many know that. The opposition is split into 2 camps. One blames the government, the other blames big business. The government is now the big banks. That should be clear. The public is way , way ahead on all this. Time to act. Time to break it up. For the bankers we are going under. Hello, that is crazy. Obama is clearly going along with it. he will make nice speeches but that is it.

Reich has been a huge critic of Obama.

Dean has always been an honest straight shooter.

Have what ever opinion you would like about Dailey

However, I do no like hearing Dean's integrity smeared this way. Honestly it really pisses me off.

(yes I know you are not the author of the nation piece.)