Obama and Clinton are Eisenhower Republicans?

That is what I heard on KPFK yesterday afternoon. It was a good discussion. One question that was repeatedly asked is why don't we hear more from progressives on the things Obama and Clinton have done. (They don't read DU I guess) Also they wanted to know why there was no push back on the right wing lies about Obama.

The discussion was going like this. Clinton was called a labor president yet NAFTA was anti labor. Obama did not defend the public option and is not using the federal power he could to create jobs as in the new deal.

So the conclusion was that both Clinton and Obama are more like Eisenhower Republicans than they are like progressive Democrats.

I am not trying to start a fight here but I would like to say that I agree with the premise of the show which was that we will not see a progressive movement coming from this administration just as we did not see one from the Clinton administration.

I am disappointed by that because during the election run up I was so certain that there would be a hard turn to the left in the country but I am back to believing that I will not see it in my life time.

So, let's ask the question again in a couple years. ;)

See, it's easy to agree with an opinion,
in particular one that has no facts,
just some lame generalization hooked up to it.

But please, give us some fucking facts as to why you have come to the now cliched conclusion that you are disappointed because during the election run up, you were so certain that there would be a hard turn to the left.

You didn't elect a Tan Kucinich, so why would you think that someone who labeled themselves a pragmatic non-ideologue would resemble a "hard" left.

And what in the fuck is a hard Left turn? Did you really believe that Obama was going to padlock Wall Street, closed down insurance companies, end all wars and socialize the entire economy? What fucking planet were you living on during the campaign? That's what I want to know.

Like Obama said, turning that great big cruiser ain't gonna come from one swift push on the steering wheel, cause that would just lead to a crash.

Plus....Nevertheless, we are turning left...
and at least, I back my shit up!


Promises about PolitiFact's Top Promises on the Obameter
http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/promises/subjects/politifacts-top-promises/



fifth major lesson of 2009: center-left disagreement is essential to center-left governance
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=433x111718



Obama unveils $250 million math, science program
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=433&topic_id=112514&mesg_id=112514



White House Releases Name Of Every Visitor For First Time Ever
http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2009/12/white-house-releases-name-of-every-visitor-for-first-time-ever.php?ref=fpblg



Obama's Smart Sex Education Funding
http://blog.newsweek.com/blogs/thegaggle/archive/2009/12/28/obama-s-smart-sex-education-funding.aspx



Obama Administration Looking Out for Labor in 2010
http://www.mydd.com/story/2009/12/29/101312/85



Jobless Claims Fall Unexpectedly as Layoffs Ease - lowest level since July 2008 in sign of recovery
http://abcnews.go.com/Business/wireStory?id=9454580



Senate approves Lubinski, nation’s first gay U.S. Marshal
http://minnesotaindependent.com/52601/senate-approves-lubinski-nations-first-gay-u-s-marshal



Obama Curbs Secrecy of Classified Documents (NYT)
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/30/us/politics/30secrets.html?_r=1&src=twt&twt=nytimespolitics



Progress in Pres. Obama’s Goal of Ending Child Hunger by 2015
http://demopedia.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x7336540



President Obama announces new rules for electronic health records
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/30/us/politics/30secrets.html?_r=1&src=twt&twt=nytimespolitics



Obama Quietly Changes U.S. Immigration Policy
http://news.newamericamedia.org/news/view_article.html?article_id=f35b300ec73d76f7ccc97e547a14056a



Obama, HUD Announce $1.4 Billion For Homeless Assistance Programs
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/30/us/politics/30secrets.html?_r=1&src=twt&twt=nytimespolitics



Labor chief moves on job safety, workers' rights
http://www.salon.com/wires/ap/business/2010/01/01/D9CV9R2G0_us_labor_the_enforcer



No U.S. combat-related deaths in Iraq in December
http://www.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/meast/01/01/iraq.us.deaths/


US commander in Iraq says troop drawdown on track
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100102/ap_on_re_mi_ea/ml_iraq



Obama orders air security review after jet bomb attempt
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/8431732.stm



Sorry, We’re Still Closing Gitmo
http://theplumline.whorunsgov.com/terrorism/white-house-to-lieberman-and-repubicans-sorry-were-still-closing-gitmo/



President Obama - Most Admired Man In America in 2009
http://www.usatoday.com/NEWS/usaedition/2009-12-30-1Apoll30_ST_U.htm?csp=34



Obama takes the heat Bush did not
http://news.yahoo.com/s/politico/20091230/pl_politico/31049



"Blaming Barack Obama for eight years of George W.Bush"
http://www.examiner.com/x-33986-Political-Spin-Examiner~y2010m1d1-Blaming-Barack-Obama-for-eight-years-of-George-WBush








Five notable bills from '09
http://www.congress.org/news/2009/12/28/five_notable_bills_from_09?all=1



The New Yorker's Hendrik Hertzberg wrote...



When Congress reconvenes a few days from now, it will be on the cusp of enacting a sweeping reform of American health insurance and health care that could be, as the President put it on Christmas Eve, just after the Senate passed its version of the bill, “the most important piece of social legislation since the Social Security Act passed in the nineteen-thirties and the most important reform of our health-care system since Medicare passed in the nineteen-sixties.” Perhaps he was exaggerating, but not by much. Jonathan Cohn, the New Republic’s health-care correspondent, calls the bill “the most ambitious piece of domestic legislation in a generation—a bill that will extend insurance coverage to tens of millions of Americans, strengthen insurance for many more, and start refashioning American medicine so that it is more efficient.” Paul Krugman, the Times’ resident Nobel laureate (and a frequent Obama critic), calls the bill “a great achievement” that “establishes the principle—even if it falls somewhat short in practice—that all Americans are entitled to essential health care.” Princeton’s Paul Starr, the author of the Pulitzer Prize-winning history “The Social Transformation of American Medicine,” calls it “the single biggest measure on behalf of low-income Americans in more than forty years.” How big? The University of Chicago’s Harold Pollack has done the sums. By the time the reforms are fully implemented, “the Senate bill would provide about $196 billion per year down the income scale in subsidies to low-income and working Americans.” That’s more, Pollack notes, than the federal government spends on the earned-income tax credit, Head Start, assistance to single mothers and their children, nutrition programs like food stamps, and the National Institutes of Health combined.

None of these people, from Obama on down the wonk scale, deceive themselves that the Senate bill, which now must be merged with its (marginally stronger) House equivalent, comes within hailing distance of perfection. All of them recognize that the final bill, in the now overwhelmingly likely event that it surmounts the remaining hurdles, will be flawed and messy. All of them also understand that, compared with the status quo—and the status quo, not perfection or anything like it, is the alternative—it will constitute a moral and material advance of historic proportions.

Nevertheless, a nontrivial portion (though far from a majority) of the Democratic left, particularly its Internet cohort, feels alienated and disappointed, with the bill and with the President. As the Senate vote neared, Markos Moulitsas, the chief of Daily Kos, sent his followers a tweet: “Insurance companies win. Time to kill this monstrosity coming out of the Senate.” MoveOn.org called on “progressives” to “block this bill.” Arianna Huffington dismissed it as “reform in name only.” Keith Olbermann, MSNBC’s Savonarola, lectured the President that he was about to consign his countrymen to a “Chicago stockyards of insurance” that would be “immoral and a betrayal of the people who elected you.” Even Dr. Dean himself—Howard Dean, the former Vermont governor, Presidential candidate, and Democratic Party chairman—wrote that the Senate should defeat the bill, claiming that it “would do more harm than good to the future of America.” And in the nether reaches of the left blogosphere the epithets flew. Obama is a “sellout.” He’s a “liar.” He’s a “Judas,” a “fraud,” a “corrupt fool.” He’s a “Liebermanite.” (Ouch!) He’s “an Uncle Tom groveling before the demands of the corporations that are running our country.” (This last not from some anonymous blog commenter but from Ralph Nader, without whose efforts Joe Lieberman would be just another former Vice-President.)
http://www.newyorker.com/talk/comment/2010/01/11/100111taco_talk_hertzberg#ixzz0blnq29Qk

Please start a thread Frenchie. I'll be glad to K and R. :hi:

Actually this post works better as a response than as a thread.

Something about the fact that my name is FrenchieCat appears to bring out
the unre'ccing crew out of their hidey hole. :shrug:

I'm on the "un-rec" list these days as well. ;)

Please start a thread.

:rofl:

And why is it funny?

You're a real highbrow, hey?
cause your joke is way over my head....apparently! :eyes:

actually i don't see the humour either... :shrug:

http://64.27.15.184/parchive/


Daily Briefing
Wednesday, January 6, 2010 5:00 pm 0:58:31

Eisenhower and Obama may top him!

Thirty years or so ago, no one would recognize either Clinton or Obama, based on their policies, as Democrats. It is just that the Republican Party has gone so much to the lunatic fringe that we fail to recognize Clinton and Obama for what they really are: Pawn of the rich and corporations.

many of the conservative Southern Democrats that gave both Kennedy and Johnson difficulty. The first name that comes to mind is Strom Thurman who didn't become a Republican until 1964. John Rarick, longtime congressman from Louisianna, and James Eastland, long-serving Mississippi Senator are others.

Besides the segregationist southern Democrats, there were Democrats who were extremely conservative on foreign policy matters. This would include Larry McDonald (Texas)and Pat McCarran (Nevada at the extreme right and others like Henry M. Jackson a cold war anti-communist hawk but strong supporter of civil rights and early critic of Joe McCarthy.

On the other side of the coin, Eisenhauer wasn't much of a Republican. When he first considered running for office, he thought to run as a Democrat. He maintained close ties with many Democratic leaders throughout his life. He entered political life as a Republican as much because there was a leadership vacuum in the Republican Party and a big bench among Democrats. His brother, who was much more conservative than Ike, had been a longtime Republican fundraiser in Washington State, and introduced Ike to Republican financial backers in Washington and California. He was what many Republicans today would call a "RINO".

Who knew?

Center right/center left they sway back and forth and thus we are left with the status quo of corporatism, capitalism and imperialism.

capitalism or a "free market", is a rigged shell game dominated by monopolies and outright theft. a properly regulated system promotes innovation and competition, two things the republicans give a lot of lip service to but actually despise.

the european systems the republicans call socialist, aren't really socialist, they're capitalist as well, they just have a lot more regulation to prevent a lot of the bullshit our system is rife with.

i'd support the nationalization of banks, health care, and energy, and leave the rest to the private sector so long as the proper safeguards against corruption are in place.

the systems where all property is government owned haven't worked out so well.

And they will tell you that they are both Marxists. :rofl:

He was 100x more progressive on pocketbook issues than Obama and Clinton. We could only hope to have an Ike in the White House today.