If progressives don't like Kagan, tis their, no, OUR fault.

The facts are obvious. An elderly liberal, plus an ailing younger justice - clearly, President Obama had the opportunity to pick no less than two new justices. We knew this in 2008. Things did not change over the last two years.

What did progressives do in advance of the obvious? Nothing. We picked no favorites, did no research, found no stars, even though our side has many of them.

If we wanted a true progressive as the nominee, we would, and should, have done our own search, found two candidates of impeccable background, training, and experience, with a seriously progressive tilt. And we would have blanketed the White House and the Senate with our support of those two candidates. Sure, Obama would have still picked Sotomayor, but if we had been unified enough, consistent enough, and done our jobs well enough, I suspect that Obama would have done everything to quiet his left, and given us one of the two.

The way this White House operates is obvious. Squeaky wheels get the grease, or in this case, the nod. When the UltraConservatives in Congress step up in unison, Obama makes accommodations. When we stood up, at a time that everyone else thought health care reform was dead, and demanded a bill, Obama finally pushed one through. How quickly we forgot the lesson (as painful, drawn out, and sour it felt at times) we should know by heart. If we remain quiet, the Obama White House thinks that we will support their decisions uniformly, and without dissent. If we raise our voices and make our demands known, he will move in our direction.

This is no criticism of Obama. After 8 yrs of tin-eared, reactionary, war-mongering neocon leadership, where the WH gave orders and that GOP responded with a salute and a lockstep march, it is very refreshing to see a pragmatist in office. The thing with pragmatists is that they listen and act thoughtfully in response to outside events. That is why silence on our part is so silly and shortsighted.

Sure, we are exhausted. Grumbling under our breath. Upset at some of the White House decisions. But that is to be expected. Obama is America's president, not simply a democratic one. He takes his oath and his office seriously, professionally. Therefore, if we want things changed, it is up to us to make it happen. I am convinced that we will be happy with his response when we do act.

On the other side of the aisle, the GOP has never rested. They've lost 2 elections in a row. But, because we were caught napping, they pretty much stole a senate office in Mass., even though Mr. Pretty Boy seems to have put his own future into a ditch, especially with the last Globe interview. Yes, he is that stupid, seems to be the general, shocked, and unhappy reaction. The GOP already has outlined plans to destroy Kagan's nomination. The talking points are already being taste-tested by various senators, congressmen, and pundits, seeing what might stick. Hell, Karl Rove announced his plan to take over government. Again. They hardly act like a minority party, with 17% approval ratings. In fact, their policy of no might actually work, unless progressives get back into the game. If these type of disclosures don't activate the liberals and progressives, we deserve to lose in November.

Kagan seems to be a serious, good, solid choice. Even if she is not as liberal as we might like, she also will not be relegated to the sidelines, because of her many skills. On top of that, she is young, and scalia's evil soul has only so many dastardly spells left.

The bottom line is that we have a lot of work to do.

if we want things to go our way, we have to work for it.

I, too, think Kagan is a very nice choice. Many progressives seem to find fault with her. If they want someone more progressive, they need to work the system. Just because we own the White House and both houses of congress is hardly a guarantee of victory. We've seen that all too often so far. When we do stand up, good things happen. When we sit on our fat asses, we lose.

education and persuasion of the general public. That's how the right grew their numbers. It's tough to convince politicians to sacrifice their political careers for various causes. So instead of taking them down it would be far more effective and productive to increase the percentage of the public that support liberal causes as well as finish rehabbing the liberal label that the right so effectively trashed.

He ran to the left of Hillary. He wore is "anti-war" stance during the primaries. He was for a public option before he decided it wouldn't work. He was against cadillac taxes, until he was elected.

It's kinda hard to blame the victims here.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/37074480/ns/politics-supreme_court/

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/37068995/ns/politics-more_politics/


She's certainly neither a progressive, nor a liberal.

rather it was people's opinions

one person one vote - the tea party gets this but some progressives don't seem to. Votes matter.

lies and all.

The spinelessness shown by Democrats in office during that fiasco was simply unforgivable. Now that ACORN has been shown to be innocent of those trumped up charges, I ask again, WHERE ARE THE DEMOCRATS?

The DLC wing of this party hasn't lifted a finger to stop anything that leads to voter disenfranchising. Not the demonization of ACORN, not the proliferation of electro-fraud machines, or right wing media consolidation, etc.

Why not? Because their goal all along has been to destroy the Democratic party from within. And it's working all too well for them. :evilfrown:

I don't think she will want to stay more then two years and she will want to go out with a Dem President still there, before the 2012 election.
I wonder who the next one would be as Kagan and Sotomayor were on everyone's short lists if a Dem won the Presidency before Obama even became President.

The fact is that Obama had a true progressive in Dawn Johnsen, but he abandoned her and left her twisting in the wind in regard to her appointment as solicitor general. In addition, progressives DID work VERY hard for Candidate Obama who promised many things and made many pretty speeches that rallied the progressive wing of the Democratic Party to work tirelessly for him. The simple fact of the matter is that we were lied to and the ONLY effort at this point that would sway the Obama Administration to honor their campaign promises is a massive movement to REJECT Obama as a candidate in the 2012 elections. While I think that even that effort is doomed to failure, it may be the seeds that bear the fruit of a true liberal agenda for the Democratic Party. A party which looks increasingly like it too has been "acquired" by corporate interests.

to consider.

One GOP trait that always amazes me is how they stay uniformly on message, every step of the way. That must be some incredible blackberry system they have set up. If the Democrats in the House or Senate showed 1/2 of the same unified response, the GOP reactionaries would collapse like a bowl of jello, but without the bowl.

Clearly the progressives went all out to have Obama elected. But why stop now? Why not work just as hard to do the heavy lifting that needs to be done? It often seems as though we feel that we won, therefore, our work was done, and congress and the WH would simply roll along, reading our minds, fulfilling our dreams, while we did little or nothing. Do you disagree that we slept on the job in Mass? (Should I ever attend mass, I suspect I would sleep, too, to be fair)

The USA has fully morphed into one corporate right-wing duopoly.

The only "choice" that the American voter gets is to choose who wears the jerseys for the ruling elites who are the true corporate OWNERS of this nation.

to this administration.

They just had no interest in them.

Personally?

Or did you simply rely on hope that one of them would have been the choice?

Did you make any calls, write any letters, talk to others to do the same? somehow, I doubt it.

Unless and until we make noise, we remain part of the background.

I don't think there's anyone on the court with stronger pro-gay credentials.

then Pamela Karlan would have been a much better selection.

It shouldn't be. The days of "We're here, we're queer, get used to it" have turned into "Don't ask, don't tell".

But with the right wingers determined to make it an issue, then the nominee should have been one who was much better suited to replace Stevens AND just happened to be gay.

If you're going to end up fighting homophobic neanderthals either way, do so for a nominee who isn't going to agree with them on so many things.

It's a political act to out somebody, as a way of taking away the "stigma" that makes it a slur to even suggest. It should be as commonplace as questions about John Roberts's South American adoptions or Clarence Thomas's wife's political involvement.