Will the Left derail Obama's agenda, the same way they derailed Clinton's?

I am becoming a bit concerned with certain things in the blogoshere and media and DU that seem to parallel 1993. Then Bill Clinton won the Presidency and his top campaign promise was healthcare reform. However, before he even took the oath of office extremists on the Left began pushing for immediate action on several pet issues. Republicans used these as wedge issues to paint Clinton and the Dems as radicals thus eroding support among moderate/centerist voters. As a result, Clinton was denied his honeymoon period, healthcare reform was dead on arrival and the GOP over took Congress in 1994.

And if Congress had never been taken over by the Republicans there never would have been an impeachment and thus Al Gore wouldn't have had that as a milstone around his neck in the 2000 election so Bush never would have been elected. Plus the country would have never been distracted and could have focused on terrorism possibly avoiding 9/11. With Gore as President instead of Bush and no 9/11 attack; the invasion of Iraq and most of the bad things that have happened in this country never would have occured.

Unfortunately I see the same thing happening now. President Obama inherited a mess unlike any other President in history a financial crisis, two wars, Global Climate change, a broken Heathcare and Education system all of which need to be priorities but many on the left attacking President Obama because he had not moved quickly or far enough on their particular pet issue. On whole I see their attitudes breaking down as follows:

1. Making the perfect the enemy of the good - So even if the President takes action to fix something and give the left 99% of what they wanted it is still not good enough.

2. Impatience - Somethings take time and cannot be fixed in a day, yet many are complaining because the President hasn't fixed something despite being in office for only 4 months. As stated above their are other major priorities right now that the President needs to be focused on.

3. Outright ignorance of the system - Some things President Obama can just wave a magic wand and change something. In many cases he needs Congress to approve of his actions, he's not a dictator.

4. Downright political naiveté - Some seem to ignore the fact that the GOP and right even exists. They will use whatever weapon they can against him and create wedge issues. The President needs to spend his political capital wisely lest he risks alienating centerists the way Clinton did.

Now I'm not saying that most of these issues are not the right thing to do because they are. But I'm also a realist and a pragmatist and realize that on some issues the country and the congress can only be moved so far at the moment. And sometimes as a society we need to take baby steps rather than giant leaps. If JFK had proposed civil right legislation on his first day in office, he would have never gotten it through or any of the other issues on his agenda. Instead he waited until June of '63 when the country was ready for it. Same is true of FDR and Social Security. No way he could have proposed Social Security in 1933. He had to wait several years until the country until was ready for it and he had enough political capital to push it through.

I think the same is true of the current situation. If President Obama can re-invigorate the economy, get healthcare and climate change legislation passed; he'll have the political capital to fix many of these other issues. If he tries to push them through first, he may lose that capital and never be able to get the major legislation passed like Clinton.

Now I've not mentioned any of these issues by name because I don't want this to be about any single one issue but about the political climate that I find increasingly disturbing from the left, especially when those on DU and people like Glen Greenwald and Rachel Maddow demonize the President and distort what he says. We don't accept when the right uses these tactics, so why should we accept it from the left.

Nor am I saying that we should just accept anything the President does. But we do need to end all the demagoguery and at least give him a more reasonable amount of time to get everything done.

Yeah, damn shame to "derail" those...

Yeah, the left is responsible for derailing Clinton's agenda in 1993. Clinton is just a little to the right of Eisenhower and the left derailed the DLC, the founder of the "third way"?!?! Your premise is complete and utter bullshit.

that you should seek help from a physician concerning your memory loss?

I'd say a psychiatrist is more in order.

n/t

and I love animals. But are you kidding? Wolf killing is an issue that cannot be compromised on until we get comprehensive health care reform?

Are you suggesting that wolf killing is so complicated an issue that the President would have to spend precious months addressing it? I would think that it could be addressed on a free afternoon, as far as Presidential input/activity goes (make some phone calls... and let a staffer handle most of the follow ups).

Why so many people keep trying to argue that everything else has to wait while Health Care (for instance) is dealt with I can't fathom... Obama himself, in contrast with McCain, argued that the President should be able to "multi-task"... Surely you'll give him credit for being able to manage what he said he can manage... which thereby implies that he should be able to handle wolf killing without interfering with Health Care Reform, if he chooses to prioritize wolf killing. Or whatever other issue one might make the argument about.

Why do you give Obama so little credit?...

putting on my flame retardant suit now...Flame away :P

:popcorn:

of level of difficulties.

There are some that believe that the media only exists when they say it does....but in reality, the Media is the enemy that can and does affect public opinion every single day. Sure, if it wasn't for them, the progressive agenda could move at light speed, perhaps.....but it is there, and it ain't going anywhere anytime soon. If the media can help take a nation go to war, everything else is child's play for them.....even with the Internets, which are still not a strong enough voice to totally counter the bullshit most everyday non internet using folks here from their boob tube!

I heart Al Gore tee shirt on Saturday to Yoga and I was prepared if anyone had any snide comments on the street.

I was going to say in response, "Yeah, if you listen to the corporatemedia and hate radio, but I think for myself."

No one said anything expcept my friend who said, "I love Al Gore, too" :)

I always take the brainwashing of the "media" into consideration when I read something or talking to someone who is obviously a victim.

which pretty much negates the OP's ridiculous theory that the "left" derailed his agenda.

or at least won't, as long as they getting co-opted by corporatists...

"There's no such thing as the left anymore in America."

What bullshit.

n/t

n/t

care plan.

derailed Clinton. names and dates would be appreciated.

just claims that the poster can't back up with facts. it's an emotional argument for fools who believe the so-called far left has any real power in this country. i am still waiting for proof of the poster's claims.

Whatever happens with Obama's agenda, it will be impossible to pin it on anything that could sensibly be called the Left.

Where does anyone get off blaming the LEFT for Clinton's failures and the betrayals of Clinton by his "allies" in the DLC. If THEY had joined progressives in backing the healthcare plan, it would have PASSED both houses of Congress.

That is, the 500 "progressive" voters who decided to vote for Nader because Gore was a "corporatist" just like Bush.

Individual voters on the left have just as much and no more power than anyone else.

n/t

If a few percent of the 95,000 Nader voters in Florida had voted for Gore.

if some of those registered democrats who voted for bush had only voted for gore...

Their progressive ideals would have been better served if Gore had been elected than if Bush had been. We would have been 8 years ahead on addressing climate change, and we wouldn't have gone to war against Iraq.

but clearly many registered democrats aren't really democrats since they voted for bush and his agenda.

stopped the recounts and installed bush, inc.

voters were actually progressive? That 1% would have been almost TWICE as many as needed to swing the election.

there are several culprits responsible for why he didn't take office. katherine harris, jeb bush and others are culpable, but SCOTUS committed treason by stopping the recounts. if the recounts hasn't been halted, gore would have won. nader voters did nothing illegal unlike the real culprits.

Why is ok for Dems to vote against their best interests, but when others do it they're to blame for all the world's ills? You realize that you are in essence saying that the Dems that voted for Bush had no ideals, or were too weak to follow them? And these are the ones you're defending?

We would have been 8 years ahead on addressing climate change, and we wouldn't have gone to war against Iraq.

If even 500 of the thousands of Democrats that voted for Bush had voted for Gore, an actual member of their party, all that wouldn't have happened either. You single out the weakest of those involved and complain about people who voted democratically for the person they felt best, exercising our most basic of rights. In the meantime, you essentially give a total pass to the SCOTUS (who undermined that right), voting irregularities, and Bush's own responsibility for what happened after 2000. Why?

Let me ask you, if Nader is to blame for all of the bad things before 2000, how far back can we take this logic? Should we go back and look at the factors that made Nader seem so appealing to enough people that they had the power to ruin everything? And what led to that ? Using your logic, I could take it right on through the ages, constantly blaming one thing for all the things that follow, until we get back to the first human. And then we blame can him/her for everything from the dawn of humans onward. Because if you're going to be consistent with your logic that Nader is to blame for everything bad since 2000, you have to look at what came before that, and before that, and before that....

but then again playing the "if...then..." game can go on forever...

...nor the corporate media that drove them to it, nor the careful triangulation that neutered Gore's campaign itself. No, we can blame 2000 on a few hundred Nader voters. :eyes:

It's probably NOT the point you really want to make. I mean, two oil men in the White House should have beem really obvious to insure another oil war where many innocent people would die. But keep thinking ya'll did the right thing anyway. :crazy:

...aside...

What does it say that none of you can brook any disagreement with some of the missteps his administration has taken on environmental policy, secrecy, bank bailouts, etc.?

I don't have any problem with people critiquing Obama's actions.

Or rather, without the phrase being used in order to dismiss such criticism?

lobbying for their point of view -- I just wish more people here understood that, in the end, "compromise" is not a bad word.

to name but two, is simply a refusal to "compromise?"

(in areas where America's been compromised enough to last several lifetimes!)

and committed treason in the process. funny how people excuse the treasonous five and continue to blame people who didn't commit any crime. as far as i know voting, even for nader, isn't a crime.

when we know the recount SCOTUS stopped would have proven gore the winner of florida.

Funny how the DLC'ers always want to forget about that. Or about the electro fraud machines. They'd rather perpetuate the myth that Nader's 3% makes all the difference.

rather than a contribution toward his "failures"...

On the other hand... maybe that's an argument that the "left" shouldn't be ignored/sold out?? If Clinton hadn't been willing to "compromise" so heavily with the "right", maybe the "left" wouldn't've abandoned Gore the way they did?

Full Disclosure: I voted for Nader (in CA), largely because I had no faith in Gore because, among other things, Clinton seemed to fold on Gay Service in the Military, and settled for DADT. If he'd (or rather he and Hillary had) managed to overhaul healthcare, I might've considered letting it slide... but they failed that too... so blaming that on the "left" is ridiculous.

Tell you what... keep "ignoring"/"marginalizing" "left" interests... and you might be arguing for a repeat of, rather than a change from, 2000.

Do as your conscience/ political calculus tells you to do...

The Bush-Clinton-Perot election was VERY close. The GOP base was rabid, because they felt they'd been robbed.

The GOP now is demoralized and defeated and damn near marginalized. Many people who called themselves Republicans four years ago are now calling themselves "Independents." And they are liking, more or less, what Obama is doing. They don't like it all, but they're not "hating" it. So there's that counterweight to the uncompromising agents on the far left who don't understand realpolitik and who delight in scolding and demanding and of course, constant negativity.

I do agree with your four thesis points, certainly. It can make discussion here a bit tiresome when you encounter people with an uncompromising, "I want it now" attitude. There's just no talking to them--they're happiest when they are angry, it would seem.

The situation now is very different than in 1993.

You'll never convince the right that Clinton was "corporatist" -- only those to the left of Hugo Chavez believe that.

Ending AFDC? Repealing Glass-Steagall? Too damned bad we failed at derailing that stuff.

When are we going to have the end of corporate welfare as we know it? With Obama's recent bailouts of bank owners, no time soon I guess.

Robin Blackburn wrote an article once upon a time which said that Clinton was planning on ending Social Security as we know it, just like he ended welfare as we know it, until the Monica Lewinsky matter interrupted. Bush tried to do it as well, but that is a third rail issues for Republicans, only a Democratic president is capable of that, like former DLC leader Clinton.

You want people to be patient about gay rights? Every day people are denied the rights others have. You want people to be patient about universal health care (single payer), every day people are going broke because the greed based capitalist insurance companies want bigger profits. Being a pragmatist may be a politicians move, but it is morally wrong. And we the people are pissed at how this country has been run the last 30 years and want to see a change now. Patience has ran it's course. It isn't 4 months we are talking about, it is a lifetime. Now there is a hope, but because of the right wing forces and some DLC'ers (corporatist democrats) we have to have a strong voice to counter that or our hope gets the wrong message and takes a middle of the road approach that is neither here or there. Middle of the road goes nowhere and gets you run over.

That statement alone proves my point. I do agree that most of these issues are long overdue but overeaching may cause a backlash that will further delay reforms which is what happened to Clinton.

Let me start by saying he was much better than Reagan or Bush, but he was a DLC type. He wasn't derailed by leftist, he just caved to the right wing noise machine. The left wasn't even a voice on the table then. I wish we had been louder to counter the ads on tv and radio against the few left things Clinton did try to do.

You're very good at it!
:fistbump:

Sheesh.

He ran as an FDR type Democrat and then veered Right after getting elected. And Obama is doing the same.

The Left is not demonizing Obama. They are criticizing him for his pro-Big-Money/Clintonesque policies.
And since you also mentioned FDR, didn't FDR tell the progressives of his era to make him do what they want? He told them to make the social-political conditions ripe for him to push through a progressive agenda. Clinton on the other hand sold out to corporate interests.

I've been unemployed since November 2008 and the prospects of employment so far are bleak. I'm a mainframe software applications engineer and the job listings I see for my type always have some language that mainframers don't know. It's like they don't want to hire Americans so that they can import cheap labor from abroad.

What I want to know is where is Obama's new economy? I haven't seen it yet and the 20,000+ GM workers being sacrificed to save GM and going on the unemployment line need it ASAP. Obama better get another stimulus package through to help the newly unemployed along with the rest of us still looking for work until he figures out his new economy.

Obama ran as a liberal pragmatist, and that's exactly what we're getting.

and now we clearly have a left-of-center President who has policies largely reflective of that.

Don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good.

No prosecutiion of w and Cheney? Left of Cheney, perhaps; left of center, not so much.

Have you ever found that odd? I have.

:puke:

left in this country by 1995.

Gee - if the LEFT had their way IranContra, Iraqgate and BCCI would have been FULLY EXPOSED instead of buried.

you think Bernie Sanders doesn't have problems with things Obama has done?

But is he undermining him? How?

No. Sanders, and "the Left" in general, have been very patient with Obama.

n/t

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

As I recall, it was:
(1) Cave in to the Harry and Louise commercials
(2) Cave in and end welfare as we know it
(3) Vigorously promote NAFTA and the exportation of jobs free trade
(4) Keep the pot boiling in Iraq
(5) Give the Pentagon everything they asked for so he wouldn't look weak on defense and
(6) Raise the top tax rate 10% and balance the budget.

The last item was something any newly minted CPA could do, so if the other 5 items are Obama's agenda, I really do hope that the Left derails it and talks some sense into him.

Another fine example of bipartisanship.

#6: it was 5 percent


But don't forget the family and medical leave act. It was not nothing. But it fell far short of what we expected from Clinton in 92.

:rofl:

CLINTON fucking derailed himself, with plenty of help from Newt et al.

God damn DU is becomibg a fucking cesspool of ignorance.

today at least. what utter fucking nonsense. this place is becoming a fng cesspool if crap like this is allowed to be posted.

I read shit here lately that just makes me slap myself silly and wonder if I've stumbled upon some alternative universe DU. :( McKinney's a loon, indefinite detention is a good thing, we need to stay in Iraq, mountaintop coal removal is our friend, and on and on... :puke:

:hi:

one of the reasons i stay is to refute all the muddled, warmed over rw crap passing as "moderate" here.
f them all :hi:

:hi: :loveya:

i'd rather be a left-wing commie pinko than a mealy-mouthed stand for nothing "moderate" :loveya:

But then, so has our party, so it makes sense in a way.

so Clinton shifted to the center right. Clinton was incredibly popular...more then Reagan at the end of his term which is what many forget. Clinton went to the left in his first two years then vered to the right in his last 6. The public was not ready for a lefty. Not all of the public...we on the left were.
Obama is slightly to the left of Clinton imo. We shall see what happens over time. We in the public have to demand what we want, and demand it vocally. I don't think the left did Clinton any harm except keep him from shifting to the right any more then he did.
We need to do the same with Obama, and I say that as a moderate liberal. Obama's aides have already let it be known that public pressure is helpful and a cover for them.

I'm glad someone here remembers history as it actually happened. But I also blame the GOP and the media for using wedge issues to sway the voting public in 1994.

Security Moms, Nascar Dads, etc. Abortion. Its been happening since 1994.
I like Clinton for what he was able to do. He had to work against the Rethugs in Congress. Obama has the freedom of at the least having Dems (and even then some are ConservaDems not on our side).
I was 18 in 1994 and remember being devastated that the Rethugs took control of Congress but now I think it was their major downfall. Newt and his Contract With (or On) America backfired.
We must support Obama and yet pressure him as the same time. Why is that so hard for people who are happy and not happy with Obama right now to understand?

In addition, there were still some moderate Republicans - including Jeffords and Spector, who now count in our (hopefully soon) 60. (Chaffey was if anything more liberal than they were) The overall mix of conservative/moderate/liberal is likely pretty similar.

The idea that Clinton came in with an already hostile administration is not true. His first two years were not very good because he refused to work with the Democrats in the Congress - especially on health care.

It is revisionist fuckery to say the least (and only if I'm inclined to be kind about it.)

Clinton over reached on certain issues because he was pushed by the left. The country on the whole wasn't ready and the GOP took advantage of that to take over Congress in 1994.

Clinton used his bungling of Don't ask Don't tell as an excuse to tack to the right and the left kept quiet because they mistook Clinton for an actual leftist (a mistake anyone would make listening to him campaign in 92.) He could hardly be bothered to listen to the left after his health care plan failed. If Clinton was derailed he did it his damn self. The left had not a thing to do with it.

Nice Right wing talking point you have there though. Too bad it's fiction.

:wtf:

You're blaming the left for the fact that turning over health-care to a snarled mass of insurance company interests failed?

And you think that the reason Obama isn't succeeding is because the left is preventing him from succeeding?

Really?

:eyes:

You sound like a republican. They love to blame the left too.

When Obama starts representing the left then the left will stand behind him. But if he keeps looking to us for votes and money, but then keeps pushing right-wing agendas that go against everything we believe in what does he expect? What do you expect?

From the moment he took office he has been giving everything away to banks and insurance companies, and virtually nothing to people in trouble. (Less than a fraction of One percent.)

He has been moving to the right, listening to lobbyists and corporate officers, and paying bare lip service to the rest of us (and bothering to do that only rarely).

He should be getting a lot of support from the people he helped. I guess that means the people on wall street should be giving him a lot of help, and the executives in the insurance industry. But millions of other people are still thinking things over and wondering when the government is going to:

stop predatory lenders or rescue the many people who were caught and victimized by them,

or rescue people who are suffering and dying because insurance companies care about profits instead of health,

or help people get the equal rights that are supposed to belong to all Americans, not just the Straight Americans,

or use government money to rebuild our roads and bridges and schools, instead of rebuilding bank profit margins,

or finally close down Gitmo, and then close down the CIA secret prisons that should have all been closed by executive order months ago, and give the prisoners Real Trials in front of Real Judges.

This list could go on and on. People have been praying for a democrat who would represent the American people, the poor and middle class, those of us who are not corporate executives and don't live off of large investment portfolios. Unfortunately Obama has repeatedly shown already that he isn't interested in being that President. He's too busy serving the interests of the people who DO run corporations and live off of their large investment portfolios.

If we succeed at derailing Obama, we're still unlikely to get somebody as bad as Bush for president.

Sarah. Palin.

You presume that "the left" was responsible for Clinton's troubles. You'd be hard pressed to demonstrate that.

And of your 4 assertions:

1. Making the perfect the enemy of the good - So even if the President takes action to fix something and give the left 99% of what they wanted it is still not good enough.


Please name the things that "the left" has gotten 99% of? I mean really I can think of maybe 3 minor things he's done so far. The vast majority of what he's done to date is the opposite of what the left would have wanted. The left is being VERY patient.
Which brings us to:

2. Impatience - Somethings take time and cannot be fixed in a day, yet many are complaining because the President hasn't fixed something despite being in office for only 4 months. As stated above their are other major priorities right now that the President needs to be focused on.


The vast majority of "impatience" has to do with things he IS doing. It only magnifies those things he has not yet done. If you are seeing him click through a list of objectives with which you agree, one can be patient for what has not been accomplished. When the list is a collection of items one opposes, one becomes worried that the remaining issues won't go your way either.

3. Outright ignorance of the system - Some things President Obama can just wave a magic wand and change something. In many cases he needs Congress to approve of his actions, he's not a dictator.


Again, the vast majority of complaints are about things he HAS done. You're now not only begging the question, you're creating straw men.

4. Downright political naiveté - Some seem to ignore the fact that the GOP and right even exists. They will use whatever weapon they can against him and create wedge issues. The President needs to spend his political capital wisely lest he risks alienating centerists the way Clinton did.

Begging the question twice. It presumes your assumption about Clinton, and it presumes that Obama is "spend his political capital wisely". You've demonstrated neither and ignored that the left basically has not gotten much of which they asked.

How about acknowledging that the left isn't getting much of their core agenda and explain what and how they are suppose to respond to that.

with any hope. There has to be an air of optimism about this presidency as this is simply last chance city and we're best to make the most. And understand it's a slow moving process but we can get where we wanna be.

It's as bastardized a term as "the Right"...

Sure, there are the Purists begging for attention and letting everyone know that they don't know jackshit about civics 101... there are those who don't have a clue what the roles of different branches of government are responsible for... like thinking the President does investigations and not the Justice Department... and then those who think we should be isolationist pacifists in a complicated World...

That is a fraction of what I would call "the Left". The overwhelming majority of those "Left of the dial" give Obama high poll numbers and generally have a reasonable understanding of government and how long it takes to change things legislatively.

As for the fraction I mention, they will gravitate to non-electable candidates like Kucinich or Nader in the future. And they can for all I care... with depressing numbers and more failed candidacies, they will eventually either not vote or vote Democratic again. Considering what vermin the Republicans will bestow as candidates in the next elections, there won't be much of a choice.

"there are those who don't have a clue what the roles of different branches of government are responsible for... like thinking the President does investigations and not the Justice Department..."

You do know that the Office of the President and the Justice Department are both in the same branch of government, don't you? They are both in the Executive branch. Your example does not fit the insults you hurl.

Now I learn that it was us commie hippy pinko faggot jew tree-hugging bastards that did him in with our agendas. Thanks for clearing that up.

I'm sorry, who were the ones that derailed health care in 1993? I seem to remember some southern conservative democrats derailing that not the fucking left wing of the damn party.

it should be easier for Obama to get what he wants done.

Now it is we do not have 60 Senators.

Much of what is pinned on the Presidencies of Clinton and as time moves on, Obama is down to Congress. It does not help if our own Senators do not support the programmes that got them their super majorities.

The 'left' (i.e. vast majority of Americans) who want single payer health insurance, restoration of constitutional rule of law, & economic opportunity for the working man...

Let's hope they prevail over Obama and his corporate interests.

Keeping my fingers very tightly crossed!

:lol:

Other than "Get Bill Clinton reelected" what progressive policies did he support?

A bunch of us would cover your asses for doing the right thing and you wouldn't have to worry about attacks from the Left. It's radical idea, I know, but I'm revolutionary like that.

your post doesnt even justify a thought out reply.

the subject line is false , so right from the beginning...

And it's being fomented by clueless, impatient, ignorant, naive perfectionists. No doubt, there'll be some major government award forthcoming for uncovering their nefarious plan! Jeeze!

"Sarcasm" (I can't get the similes table to open-probably another conspiracy).

"Glen Greenwald and Rachel Maddow demonize the President"

Really?

Come now.

Perhaps you should go after right-wing Republicans and their "moderate" blue dog Democratic enablers as much as you attack liberals you disagree with.

Then we wouldn't be in this fucked up situation we're currently in. As it is however, Clinton managed more financial sector deregulation than Reagan, outsourced our manufacturing sector, consolidated media control to a handful(literally) of RW corporations, killed 500,000 innocent Iraqis, ripped apart our social safety net, and take away even more of our civil rights under the aegis of the "War on Drugs".

Yep, damn shame the left didn't derail his agenda.

"town hall meetings" and roasting Max Baucus' sorry, chickenshit, DINO ass for not supporting healthcare that works for Americans and not Big Insurance. Montana didn't even vote for Obama and they're pissed as hell at Baucus for how he's supporting his Big Insurance donors.

Three quarters of Americans are for universal health care, does that mean that they're all LEFTIES who are trying to undermine the President?

...enjoys the approval ratings he now has, then absolutely not, despite the msm, the repug slime machine, or any other group. The only way it works is if Obama loses favorability with the population in general, and I just don't understand anyone on the left wishing to open the door to another republican in the White House despite their dissatisfaction. Thanks.
quickesst

Despite what might have been some reasonable points in the body of the post, you lost all credibility with that heading.

n/t

I am curious to hear that.

The irony of reading that rant capped off with a call to end demagoguery is just so funny. Even funnier than 'the left derailed Clinton' and that in itself is comedy gold.

he gave to the Left.

On balance, I think Jimmy Carter was the truer public servant. Bill Clinton was far more the politician.

There's an imbalance in the formula when the truer public servant is less successful than the successful politican. Neither man did a whole lot to build Democratic organizations in regions of the country we needed to compete in. Robert Byrd, by no means a flamboyant liberal Senator, was a thorn in Carter's side for months. Bill Clinton was more the magician but the short side of that is that too many people felt tricked.

I supported Ted Kennedy's challenge to Carter for the 1980 Democratic Primary. Even when it was clear that Carter would be re-nominated, I was still for Kennedy. I wanted Mario Cuomo to be the nominee in 1992 and had several other picks well ahead of Bill Clinton. The Democratic Party did not fare very well under these two men politically. Congressional majorities were threatened and lost. The national party was almost comatose in region after region.

There was no Howard Dean-inspired 50-state full-court press. In 8 years of Bill Clinton the Democratic Party lost significant ground and ideologically acuity. We did nicely in the 2006 elections and better still in 2008, certainly. And we did it without Clinton. Handily.

The Left???

Really???????

Wow, despite paying close attention to politics throughout the Clinton years, I never knew this.

Suck me dry and call me Dusty. This is astonishing news!!!!!!!!!!!111111111111111111

is just enough to make my head spin.

See the past 8 years if you don't believe me.

You will find the usual "centrist" DEMS giving un-questioning support to Bush and attacking the "far left" over everything from the invasion of Iraq, labor, tax cuts for the wealthy, etc.

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Maybe Prez O has enough true grit to hold on through this, and really accomplish.

In 1993 conservative pundit Irving Kristol advised the GOP that the Clinton proposal "should not be amended; it should be erased," because "it will revive the reputation of the party that spends and regulates, the Democrats, as the generous protector of middle-class interests.“

In 2008, the Cato Institute has stated that “blocking Obama's health plan is key to the GOP's survival. If Obama succeeds in passing health care, then people who might have been conservatives will like it, and will be more likely to vote for the people who passed it.“

If Clinton had come up with some health care plan worth defending in 1993, then the left would have defended it. It's really too bad we weren't able to derail NAFTA, which cost us control of congress as union volunteers sat on their hands that year.

Cute strawman you have there. Nope, we won't get citizen friendly healthcare, not because of liberal infighting but because it isn't in the interest of the health insurance and pharmaceutical and hospital corporations.

Nice try, Einstein, but epic fail.

"Blue Dogs" and "centrists" with actual voting power who take millions from conservative lobbyists are not the problem- the real devil here is those darn noisy bloggers!!!!

I wish we were strong enough to derail the DLC, the Blue Dogs and the corporations who fund them.

I think plenty of people on the left supported Clinton and support Obama, just as some of the people who attacked Clinton and attack Obama who are nominally part of the Democratic coalition, are not particularly progressive.

I think the distinctions are (1) between those who have at least a basic understanding of the political process and those who don't, (2) those who value party unity as a tactic and strategy, and those who in terms of personality or philosophy bristle at party unity or discipline, (3) those who have patience and those who don't. And so on.

For example, I don't think it's possible to get single payer health care right now -- not politically possible, not fiscally possible, not administratively possible to implement. But I do think it's possible to get public option. Moreover, I think public option will, over time, inevitably turn into single payer or something very close to it. This strategy, btw-- public option as the camel's nose in the tent that leads to single payer -- was Edwards's proposal during the primaries, not Obama's and not Hillary's

So there are people who have the same political leanings (the "left") because their ultimate goal is single payer. But some people are willing to follow the strategy of getting there through public option, and there are other people who won't settle for anything less than single payer now, and will turn against the administration and the Democrats if they don't get it now.

That's not a left/right divide; that's a question of whether one thinks in terms of strategies or in terms of demands.

it's a classic strawman.

You can't define all the opposition to Obama's (so far) center right lean as coming from the "left", and it's really bullshit that it's being tried by Obama's more partisan supporters. It's nothing more than an attempt to stifle the discussion about where the Democratic Party is headed - and it's a discussion we, as members of that Party, need to have...

especially after they won Congress and Newt became Speaker.

Impeachment over a blowjob. A big Congressional shutdown of government for several weeks because they didn't like his budget (I can imagine their comments if a trade union had stages a similarly disruptive strike!) Jesse Helms essentially threatening him with violence and getting away with it.

He was in the position of (fairly successfully) riding a bucking bronco for six years; but it wasn't due to the Left, that I can see.

We're currently watching the Far right destroy the "mid-right" of the GOP right now.. the far hard lined Christian Conservatives drawing their lines in the sand telling everyone that they need to go "farther to the right" to gain voters and we sit back and laugh at their stupidity.

We KNOW that most Americans live in the middle... which is why Independants & swing voters determine elections.

Yet, as we laugh and point at the Right... we are happily oblivious as many do it on the left. I'm not sure if some people don't KNOW or don't CARE that the rest of the country really actually DOESN'T want exactly what those on the far left want - but they are screaming and pushing for it anyway.

Kudos to the OP - you're dead on with this. "Patience is a virtue" my mom used to always say... and she is correct. The GOP pushed through an agenda that the country as a whole neither wanted of asked for.. a war, stemcell research, etc. And all of that will be gone soon enough. Let's learn a bit and realize that it takes long lasting politics and attitude changes to make something stick in this country.. pushing through a lot of this with an iron fist "just because we can" in the first year isn't the way to approach it.

K&R.

What parallel universe do you inhabit?

Of all of the revisionist bullshit to be found in these parts this takes the cake.

If you need a boogey man to attack- attack the so called "centrists" who actually have used their real life, tangible, actual voting power to stall Obama or any progressive agenda--Not a virtually powerless "blogosphere" who expects Obama to reflect at least some of their liberal values.

Blogosphere? LOL! Please- they cant really derail anything Obama does- it takes a "centrist" with voting power in congress to do that. In fact, they already have.

The problem here is that we need a new boogey man, but some of us don't want it to be other conservative DEMS.

No need to fabricate a "leftist" Emanuel Goldstien figure when we already have conservative "centrists" who actually exist.

As in, "radical far left".

Or at least pretended to.

I'd love to see this poster attack Joe Lieberman, Evan Bayh or Max Baucus with as much passion as he attacks the hard working, loyal DEM base- something tells me he doesn't have it in him.

I've been here for 8 years, and I honestly don't think I've seen a single thread address them. You'd think all these people so upset at Nader would be even more upset at the ones in their own damn party that voted for Bush.

Nader is the Dem's Clenis, there's no other explanation. A scapegoat that lets us ignore any problems within our own party. it's not our fault in any way. God forbid we look inwards for any answers.

Maybe they could argue that the "DLC" is the same scapegoat for the moderate/liberal DEMS, but damned if the DLC types were not actually wrong about quite a few really big issues.

As I said above- they need a boogey man for when they fuck it all up, but it obviously can't be one of their guys. Enter "The Far Left" (shudder)

The Stab-in-the-Back Legend (German: Dolchstoßlegende...literally "Dagger stab legend") refers to a social theory popular in Germany in the period after World War I and before World War II, which attributed Germany's losing the war not to military defeat on the battlefield, but to the public's failure to respond to its "patriotic calling" at the most crucial of times, and to intentional sabotaging of the war effort, particularly by Jews, Socialists and Bolsheviks. The legend echoes the epic poem Nibelungenlied in which the dragon-slaying hero Siegfried is stabbed in the back by Hagen von Tronje.

Link

I mean we had the typical circular firing squad routine that apparently comes with with Democrats having power but I don't blame the so called left more than any other part of the party. I also accept that Reaganisim was still in the midst of its course and the majority of Americans were gung ho on silly season, so things were only going to move a hair anyway.

As for Obama, I don't think the left of the party is particularly the cause of strife. There's just not the huge a disparity in beliefs between Obama supporters and many of his vocal critics. I see it substantially as idealists blowing steam and the refusal to accept the status of being part og a governing coalition. Many remain first and foremost advocates of their issues that expect to be paid back for their efforts.

since I don't support Obama's center-right corporate agenda.

Your concern is noted.

1. It's not making "the perfect the enemy of the good." It's making "the bad the enemy of the worse."

2. Obama is not offering the left "99% of what they want." He's been distancing himself from the left at least since January of '08, and his administration reflects that. His appointments reflect that.

As someone on the left, I'm not getting ANYTHING I "want" from Obama. My top 3:

1. Universal, single-payer, not-for-profit health CARE.
2. Education: no more NCLB, undo all the efforts at privatization, allow actual EDUCATORS to create the changes needed to improve the system.
3. End the bogus war on terror, get our military out of the middle east.

There are more, but he hasn't, and won't, do any better with them than he's done with the most important 3.

:eyes:

and nationalize Chase Manhattan. The rifle blasts as those ceo's were shot by the firing squads will stay with me in my old age as a glorious memory. To say nothing of the tenfold increase in union membership and the free Rolls Royce every welfare mother was given.

:sarcasm:

Clinton's programs were killed by the DLC wing of the party. IT was DLC'ers who blocked the healthcare reform plan of the day, and it was DLC Dem candidates in 1994 who cost the party control of Congress by attacking Clinton from the right, vowing to oppose pretty much anything he wanted, and demoralizing the voters who were needed to elect them. Those candidates ended up almost universally losing their seats after all that, because a conservative Dem will always lose to a Republican.

There is no way in hell you can blame "the left" for Clinton's failures or the Collapse of '94. The DLC did all that.

truly sets my teeth on edge.

BTW, there was never any point in the Clinton Administration when the left objected because we ONLY got "99% of what we wanted". In those years, we'd have jumped for joy if we'd ever got 40% of what we wanted.

This OP is bullshit.

As a matter of fact, I voted for Clinton in 92. For the life of me, I can't seem to recall the left derailing Clinton. Considering that extraordinary rendition started under Clinton, I wish the left had managed to derail him. The fact is they didn't even try.

The right derailed Clinton. Conservative Democrats and Republicans. Clinton also derailed himself. Since we're revising history, maybe you'd care to lay blame on liberals for Clinton's impeachment, too.


If Obama's agenda includes cementing the Bush administration's expansion of executive power and continuing to wage wars we can neither win nor afford, then yes, I will work hard to derail his agenda. If his agenda includes restoring the rule of law and the balance between the haves and the have nots, then I will have his back.


The choice is his.

And Alexander Cockburn sent a bottle of wine to their table.