I Wouldn't Say Obama "Suffers" from the So-Called Stockholm Syndrome

That's giving him too much credit. The plain unvarnished truth is Obama never was a Democrat in any sense of the word but a Republican passed off as a Democrat.

If there is any proof at all the Democratic Party has been infiltrated by the GOP, Obama is the prime example.

WHAT fucking excuse is there for him to go around and try to hold hands with these fascists who have NO desire to compromise on anything but have as their sole goal the defeat of the Democratic agenda unless he really IS one of them? What excuse is there for him to peddle right-wing "reforms" as gutting Social Security and public education unless he really IS one of them?

Frank Rich is being too kind in my view, but then I always saw through this faker from the time he announced his candidacy for president.

It's LONG overdue for a takeover of the Democratic Party by REAL Democrats instead of these impostors.

Isn't That Rich?

It takes somebody named Rich to write a piece about the superrich and how they were the biggest winners in the midterm elections.

But it has been this way for a long, long time, ever since Reagan swept into office and with him the screwball idea that if you give the rich all kinds of handouts and tax cuts, the money will somehow flow to the peons below. The big scandal, of course, is both political parties have been bought off by the same interests.

And if somehow a real Democrat ever gets elected, that won't be a problem as long as there is the World Trade Organization around to circumvent a country's laws and regulations.

Chalk It Up

to inexperience or the desire to pander to corporate interests in order to explain why the president has squandered vast amounts of political capital this summer.

The GOP is sure to bounce back and make this country even worse off. I can't believe the whole damned thing.

Obama needs to focus on job creation and the economy and forget health care for the time being. It just pales in importance when millions can't find work and those who do have jobs are scared to death they, too, will be poor.

That he let the hard-core base of a leaderless minority party drive the debate only diminished his stature. That’s why his poll numbers on “leadership” declined. The right-wing fringe has become so deranged that it will yank its kids out of school to protest the president and risk yanking more Americans off assembly lines by boycotting General Motors to protest the administration’s Detroit bailout. Even Laura Bush and Newt Gingrich stepped in last week to defend Obama’s classroom homily from the fusillades by some of their own party’s most prominent ideologues. The White House should have landed a punch before they did.

Obama would have looked stronger if he’d stood up more proactively to the screamers along the way, or at least to the ones not packing guns. As the Roosevelt biographer Jean Edward Smith has reminded us, it didn’t harm the New Deal for F.D.R. to tell a national radio audience on election eve 1936 that he welcomed the “hatred” of his enemies. Indeed Obama instantly gained a foot or two in height Wednesday night once that South Carolina clown hollered “You lie!” (One wonders what this congressman calls the Republican governor of his own state, Mark Sanford.) As the political analyst Charlie Cook has pointed out, Obama’s leadership poll numbers have also suffered from his repeated deference to Congress. Waiting for the pettifogging small-state potentates of both parties in the Senate’s Gang of Six is as farcical as waiting for Godot.

But Obama was always campaigning about "reaching across the aisle" with people who have NO intention of compromising their twisted political beliefs. He didn't and doesn't understand the opposition AT ALL. But then again columnists like Frank Rich were huge cheerleaders for Obama last year and should have known he was one of these "conciliators," exactly what we DON'T need running the country.

But of course Obama is in the White House, and he better be realizing what the hell is at stake for him, the party, and the country.

The GOP

has gotten more strident and more "radical" since Obama took office, and one should find the instances of wackos carrying guns a bit disturbing.

However, because the Democrats are all too often appeasing corporations and are too accommodating to the congressional Republicans, they have unwittingly fueled this strident opposition by a few in public.

The G.O.P., whose ranks have now dwindled largely to whites in Dixie and the less-populated West, is not even a paper tiger — it’s a paper muskrat. James Carville is correct when he says that if Republicans actually carried out their filibuster threats on health care, it would be a political bonanza for the Democrats.

In last year’s campaign debates, Obama liked to cite his unlikely Senate friendship with Tom Coburn, of all people, as proof that he could work with his adversaries. If the president insists that enemies like this are his friends — and that the nuts they represent can be placated by reason — he will waste his opportunity to effect real change and have no one to blame but himself.

Obama's reaching across the aisle nonsense will wreck his career. But it isn't just this nonsense that will hurt him. His inexperience is a real detriment in getting things done.

Yeah, the right fears losing its position, but don't forget the followers are not the REAL right. It's the very wealthy who are the ones spearheading this class warfare by trying using social issues propaganda to inflame their less well-heeled supporters all the while screwing over these same people with their tax breaks, etc. worsening the already bad economy.

(Sorry about the truncated post; Firefox went on the fritz a couple of hours ago.)

Has the Kool Aid Finally Worn Off

for Frank Rich? For the first time in many months he finally makes some coherent sense regarding Obama.

Well, when you are in fact a product of the Chicago School, and Obama actually taught at the University of Chicago, and when you surround yourself with Friedmanites of the Democratic persuasion, or neoliberals, any economic policy which seeks to prop up the status quo is going to fail. The status quo, which for the past thirty years has been Friedmanism or some variation thereof, has been a complete failure. If one wants to use the Katrina comparison, you can't plug a leaking levee with a bandaid.

And Geithner and Summers HAVE to be ditched.

Political Commentary

The last eight years were nothing but a free-for-all for every liar, thief, and con-artist, and the public be damned.

The trouble, of course, is the rot is still embedded in Washington, so even after dictator George W. Bush and President Dick Cheney leave, it'll still be there in the person of Mitch McConnell, Richard Shelby, and other dirtbags who want to sabotage anything and everything Obama and the Democrats in Congress want to do. Furthermore, there are still Democrats with a neo-liberal bent, including, I fear, Obama, and they are just as goddamned bad.

Frank Rich

Rich keeps harping on McCain's choice of Sarah Palin to be his running mate by whining about the lack of vetting she received. Rich even has the nerve to talk about the lack of vetting of McCain, all the while ignoring the one who has received absolutely no vetting of any consequence whatsoever, his hero Barack Obama.

And because Obama was deliberately not vetted by the national media, let alone the Democratic Party, the GOP will finish the job.

According to Zogby, the GOP ticket is slightly ahead of the Democratic Party ticket. Obama's favorability ratings are poor; in fact his unfavorables are higher than his favorables.

Frank Rich Shills for Obama--Again

Frank Rich tries to explain why it is Obama, who should be way ahead in the polls, is statistically tied with John McCain before the conventions have even taken place.

It's all because the media hasn't vetted John McCain, in this piece of classic projection, and they have allowed the "swiftboating" of Obama to go unabated.

In point of fact the media picked both of our candidates, being as they are in the tank for corporate America and yes, the Republican Party. Obama had already reached his peak back in February, before the Jeremiah Wright story became public knowledge. It has been downhill for him ever since.

If McCain hasn't received the scrutiny he should, it's because he was the media darling.

We had other and better candidates, Frank, but the media made sure we wouldn't have them.

First of All,

Obama isn't a liberal at all, and in fact he is to the right of the so-called "establishment candidate" Hillary Clinton.

There are many pathways to defeat, and they are more likely if Obama gets the nomination, which I really believe he will not.
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There is little doubt Obama flopped in last week's debate, but that doesn't stop the likes of Frank Rich to try and bail him out of this latest jam.
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Campaign Notes.

Obama is hoping voters will fall for his all-style-and-no-substance act to the voting booth or caucus.
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Although Bill Clinton told the truth about Obama, his supporters and a few in the media who have a vested interest in pushing Hillary on the Democratic ticket are worried the comments will reflect negatively on her instead.
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Frank Rich gets into the bullshit promotion of Obama as some kind of JFK.

It's sickening how people who should know better have fallen for that shit. He's totally full of shit about Obama's chances in the GE, which are totally nil.
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For a few candidates maybe, it's crunch tie in Iowa.

More Campaign Notes.

It was too bad for Hillary Clinton Rory Reid and Dina Titus didn't come to Iowa with their goons to counteract the Bronx cheers she received.
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Oprah needs to get a life with Stedman Graham or whoever else and quit being so obvious about her designs on a married man.
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Whoring for the woman and the black knowing both would lose the GE continues unabated.

The elite despises Edwards and whoever else at the second tier.
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Obama must be using Chicago-style political tactics to try and "win" Iowa, a state he won't win anyway.
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Frank Rich

didn't have a lot of nice things to say about the Democratic frontrunner, given the fact she got caught in weasel words in the most recent debate.

As an aside, I found I enjoyed reading the dead-tree version of the NYT and will probably start getting the Sunday edition every week from now on. It's expensive, but I like sitting down and actually reading it rather than looking at it all the time online.

Campaign Notes.

And this, my friends, is why Hillary Clinton will NEVER be president.

We already have one goddamned family fucking up this country. Democrats need to look forward with fresh blood.

This "inevitability" shit is getting old.

However, it's less the notion that her opponents haven't been effectively going after her as it has been the media have made goddamned sure she will be the nominee, no matter the simple fact she is unelectable.

Elizabeth Edwards

gets a ringing endorsement from Frank Rich, and the person who posted the column in its entirety won't get any endorsement for violating copyright laws.