Assisted Suicide in November for the GOP

The political gods have been good to Democrats lately.

Republicans nominated several absolute loons to run for Congress; they painted themselves as protectors and apologists of BP; and in the course of punishing the unemployed, they seriously upset both doctors and governors.

These are weapons that liberal lions like LBJ would have swung to great advantage. LBJ knew how to get Republican votes, but he was unencumbered by any urge to validate Republican talking points.

Now, not so much. Nobody could imagine President Obama pushing around a senator the way LBJ bullied Sen. Theodore F. Green in a famous series of photographs, or backhanding Republicans like FDR did in 1936, when he said, "They are unanimous in their hate for me--and I welcome their hatred."

Truth be told, many Americans are in the mood for a speech like that. They'd welcome a declaration of war against a Republican Party that resorts to twisted half-facts and outright lies; half-facts and lies they've grown so fond of that they actually believe that...what's the word...Garbage.

To be fair to the President, he was born in 1961, came of age during the Reagan Administration, and, while he's an intelligent, educated, and well-read man, probably takes for granted an organized, well-financed right wing that needs to be accommodated.

He's just too young to remember when both parties lived on the same planet, were friends after business hours, and were even -- when the stars were right -- willing to put country above party.

Thing is, that's what it's going to take to solve the enormous problems that George W. Bush and the Republicans left behind in the Oval office -- a willingness to abandon the rancid partisanship that people the President's age and younger think is business as usual, but that the American people are sick of.

The paradox here is that probably the only way to do that is to utterly defeat the right wing, which, whether they like it or not, has been the source of so much of that angry, bitter rhetoric. Then Democrats can re-claim their rightful, historic place -- the political center.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/andrew-reinbach/assisted-suicide-in-novem_b_618971.html

That things are so bad that Republicans have to be utterly subjugated to get back into bipartisanship and civility. I don't necessarily buy that as true, but it's an intriguing idea at the last.

took a lot of shit from the other side of the aisle.

"...well-financed right wing that needs to be accommodated"

Well no they don't. They have a want, but certainly no need to be accommodated. They need to be told "STFU and go away" until they can behave and show a modicum of decorum. So yes, crushing, brutal defeat is in their best interest. When they wake up from it and we have universal, single-payer health care, they can pretend they were for it all along, just as they have been protecting seniors and their Social Security all along. :eyes:

and the disabled in a heartbeat. I mean, in a heartbeat.
And as for accommodating them?
Let them accommodate themselves. That's what they've been doing all along any way.
I am not a Third Way liberal. Accommodation and unreasonable compromise are not civility.

in the first place.

Quote:
These are weapons that liberal lions like LBJ would have swung to great advantage. LBJ knew how to get Republican votes, but he was unencumbered by any urge to validate Republican talking points.
end quote.

I think the majority of us have no urge to validate Republican talking points. If anything, we should be ridiculing them as the president is dismissing them.
}(

a republican senator.

Did the same thing to the governor of Mississippi.
Great stuff.

Andrew Reinbach has been toiling in the vineyards of journalism for 30 years, mostly writing about real estate, banking, finance...and, more recently, about the intersection of politics and money.

Maybe that's why his voice sounds so fresh--and so rooted in the real world.

:applause:
rocktivity

So far he has given in on almost every piece of legislation. He has compromised to the right when he should KNOW they aren't going to support him in any way. Obama is a smart man, but he needs to start leading. I don't care if he wasn't born to witness FDR or LBJ. Obama should know history and he should know how to get tough and get things done. Attempts at bipartisanship when you know your enemy isn't going to support you is stupid and it's certainly not leading. It's 'following' the right wing to more and more disaster. I was an Obama delegate and I worked my ass off for a year to get him elected. I didn't work for someone who would cave in to the right wing. I voted to get progressive causes passed. And if that means getting tough and shoving things through using any method then that's what Obama should have done.

I'm almost afraid to even say what I just said, even though it's true, because so many people attack anyone who dares to speak out. If the people who got Obama elected aren't able to speak out and force him to do the right thing, instead of the right wing thing, then all will be lost. It's obvious Obama doesn't give the left much thought when he continually caves in to the right wing. As one of Obama's biggest supporters I am getting damned tired of not having a strong leader.

day. We need to become more confident I think and more willing to go out and tell the truth. I do have hope that in time we will move more and more in that direction. I think it's really the next ten years or so that will be the danger years. After that, I believe there will be more progressive voters and fewer conservative/crazy voters than there are now.