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It’s altogether proper that Obama moves to the center to govern. Capitulating to those who got you where you are? So last year. This year’s model?
“This is the violin model: Hold power with the left hand, and play the music with your right,” David J. Rothkopf, a former Clinton official who wrote a history of the National Security Council, said on Friday, as news of Mrs. Clinton’s and Mr. Geithner’s appointments leaked. “It’s teaching us something about Obama: while he wants to bring new ideas to the game, he is working from the center space of American foreign policy.”
So Obama ...
Whatever
HorsesAss.Org —
A headline from today’s NY Post: “Barack Obama doesn’t fear the enraged, impotent Netroots.”
Yeah, well, whatever.
If that’s the sort of self-soothing that makes the old media and political establishment feel better about their own declining fortunes, they’re free to hide their heads in that particular hole, but personally, I don’t feel all that enraged or impotent. In fact, I’m still a bit amazed at how far we have come in such a short amount of time… and daunted by how far we have yet to go.
This movement we’re part of will take a decade or two to reach full fruition, and we are a lot more patient and ...
Jamie Kirchick Poops His Panties Because He Wants Attention
DownWithTyranny! —
A few days ago I was out doing chores when I jumped back into my car and the NPR station came on. The first thing I heard was the host talking with my friend Jane Hamsher about the Senate Democrats actions in the Lieberman matter. I assume he was attracted by this post she had written earlier. It's always nice to hear Jane on the radio since there aren't a lot of voices in the public forum that speak so clearly and eloquently for the interests of working families and the great moral imperatives that make up "liberalism," from equality and human dignity to empathy and honesty. The guest who followed her sure had nothing to do with any of those imperatives. I didn't know who he was when he ...
Obama: No Fear of 'Enraged, Impotent' Nutroots
JammieWearingFool —
The children are having an online temper tantrum . How funny is this? Barack Obama isn't even President yet, and he's already angering some of his most devoted followers on the party's left wing. This is the mark of what could be a very successful presidency. "With its congressional majority, the Democratic Party has refused to seriously try to end the war, to stop the bailout and to stop the trampling of civil liberties, just to name a few off the top of my head," wrote David Sirota on the popular liberal blog OpenLeft, decrying the serial betrayals of Obama and the ...
On Obama and the Netroots
Booman Tribune —
James Kirchick likes to crow about how the Netroots don't matter. There are a few former (Republican and Democrat) office holders that might beg to differ. But, Kirchick is right about one thing. If Obama listened to the Netroots' advice all the time he wouldn't be president-elect. However, the FISA bill is not one of those examples. The FISA vote was excessive and unnecessary caution and it was Obama's biggest mistake. Having said that, he generally ignored the Netroots' advice and, for the most part, he was wise to do so. He ran a far smarter and more disciplined campaign ...
Define "Alternate Reality"
Riehl World View —
My apologies for the impolite term. But this below from David Sirota at Open Left is a full bore brain fart if there ever was one. Maybe Kirchick is correct in writing Obama doesn't fear the Netroots. Or maybe he just isn't seeing any of them making any sense these days.
As for me, while I'm glad to see Obama taking International affairs and potential threats seriously, the Right and Center-Right need to be careful of reading too much into that. I suspect Obama's designs for domestic policy are still going to tilt rather Left. And that is the ultimate downside for free markets and free thinking people from an administration which is still genuinely liberal at heart. ...
Obama to Netroots: Drop Dead
The American Mind —
The Netroots are happy with President-elect Obama.
When will they turn on him, and will it be a leading indicator of popular sentiment?
“Barack Obama Doesn’t Fear the Enraged, Impotent Netroots“
...
What Did The Five Fingers Say To The Face?
The LLama Butchers —
What Did The Five Fingers Say To The Face? **SMACK** James Kirchick of The New Republic (not a conservative publication by any means) is pointing his fingers at the unhinged Lefty end of the blogosphere and snickering: "Barack Obama isn't even President yet, and he's already angering some of his most devoted followers on the party's left wing. This is the mark of what could be a very successful presidency. "With its congressional majority, the Democratic Party has refused to seriously try to end the war, to stop the bailout and to stop the trampling of civil liberties, just to ...
Enraged? Impotent?
The Mahablog —
... I’m supposed to feel enraged and impotent? Why? I feel pretty good about politics at the moment, actually. Seems to me it’s rightie bloggers feeling enraged and impotent these days. ...
Idiot of the Day: James Kirchick (for arguing that Obama has abandoned the Netroots)
The Reaction —
By Michael J.W. Stickings Writing in the New York Daily News, TNR assistant editor James Kirchick, long an obsessively angry critic of (liberal) bloggers, argues that Obama is "already angering some of his most devoted followers on the party's left wing." Yet the only example he gives is Obama's support for Lieberman, hardly a centerpiece of the Obama pre-presidency. While it is true that many liberal bloggers wanted Lieberman to be given the boot, including me, and that some took it personally, as if Obama were directly attacking the netroots, it's just not that important a move on Obama's part, and, as many of us suggested, ...
When they came for the Greg Craigs, I said nothing, because I was too busy laughing like a loon.
RedState: Conservative News and Community —
Yeah, about that 'trash-talk about Senator Clinton' thing that
the Left was doing...
...I'm guessing that that was probably contraindicated.
She's starting in with Obama's own inner circle, and I fully
expect her to steadily work her way outward:
Before Hillary Clinton has been formally offered the job as
Secretary of State, a purge of Barack Obama's top foreign policy
team has begun.
The advisers who helped trash the former First Lady's foreign
policy credentials on the campaign trail are being brutally shunted
aside, as the price of her accepting the job of being the public
face of America to the world. In negotiations with Mr Obama this
week before ...
links for 2008-11-23
FullosseousFlap's Dental Blog —
Both sides in California's Prop. 8 battle look ahead to 2010
Instead of settling the question of gay marriage in California, the election merely ushered in a new, and in many cases more heated, phase of the campaign, with both sides looking ahead to 2010, when the matter could be back on the ballot.
This could happen no matter how the state Supreme Court rules. The court ...
Left Already Disappointed With Choosing Obama
Stop The ACLU —
... who quotes James Kirchick of The New York Daily News: They should take a deep breath before reaching such conclusions. Only 22% of voters this year consider themselves “liberal” while 34% call themselves “conservative,” numbers roughly unchanged from four years ago. And as Doug Schoen pointed out in this space, it was moderates, not liberals, who played the decisive role in electing Barack Obama President. Obama knows this, which is why he has repudiated the Netroots time and time again, on issues ranging from Iraq withdrawal to FISA reform. Equally important, he rejected the ...
The Brutal Truth
A Chequer-Board of Nights and Days —
As delivered by James Kirchick : Barack Obama isn't even President yet, and he's already angering some of his most devoted followers on the party's left wing. This is the mark of what could be a very successful presidency. "With its congressional majority, the Democratic Party has refused to seriously try to end the war, to stop the bailout and to stop the trampling of civil liberties, just to name a few off the top of my head," wrote David Sirota on the popular liberal blog OpenLeft, decrying the serial betrayals of Obama and the congressional Democratic majority. The Democratic Party, he wrote, has "faced no real retribution" for its manifold heresies, something that Sirota believes he and his band ...
NOT EVEN A BONE FOR THE NETNUTS
Right Wing Nut House —
Here, in the winter of conservative blogger’s discontent, a small ray of sunshine has peeked through the black clouds and brightened what has otherwise been an unrelenting skien of gloom and doom. I am talking about how president-elect Barack Obama has tacked to the center by reaching out for establishment Democrats and Clintonites to fill in the first blanks of his administration’s personnel sheet and the reaction to that by our blogging friends on the left. And then there’s the sore spot that is Joe Lieberman and the monumental sense of betrayal felt by the Kos Kids that the “traitor” wasn’t boiled in oil and his bones made into a xylophone. Now, truth be told, the leftosphere has it all over conservative ...
The Brutal Truth
RedState: Conservative News and Community —
As delivered by
James Kirchick:
Barack Obama isn't even President yet, and he's already angering
some of his most devoted followers on the party's left wing. This
is the mark of what could be a very successful presidency.
"With its congressional majority, the Democratic Party has
refused to seriously try to end the war, to stop the bailout and to
stop the trampling of civil liberties, just to name a few off the
top of my head," wrote David Sirota on the popular liberal blog
OpenLeft, decrying the serial betrayals of Obama and the
congressional Democratic majority. The Democratic Party, he wrote,
has "faced no real retribution" for its manifold heresies,
something ...
JAMES KIRCHICK: Barack Obama doesn’t fear the enraged, impotent Netroots….
Instapundit —
JAMES KIRCHICK: Barack Obama doesn’t fear the enraged, impotent Netroots.
Dumbasses to the Right of Me, and Apparently Dumbasses to the Left Of Me, Too
Daily Pundit —
Barack Obama doesn’t fear the enraged, impotent Netroots
Barack Obama isn’t even President yet, and he’s already angering some of his most devoted followers on the party’s left wing. This is the mark of what could be a very successful presidency.
“With its congressional majority, the Democratic Party has refused to seriously try to end the war, to stop the bailout and to stop the trampling of civil liberties, just to name a few off the top of my head,” wrote David Sirota on the popular liberal blog OpenLeft, decrying the serial betrayals of Obama and the congressional Democratic majority. The Democratic Party, he wrote, has “faced no ...
Obama's Foreign Policy: The Case for Pessimism
Antiwar.com Original —
W e know the sellout is a reality when we listen to Jamie Kirchick praise Barack Obama's national security appointments: "Barack Obama isn't even president yet, and he's already angering some of his most devoted followers on the party's left wing. This is the mark of what could be a very successful presidency," he snarks. Kirchick , in his role as Marty Peretz 's alter ego, is pleased as punch with the incoming Obama-ites, who appear to have abandoned their " netroots " early on and ceded the foreign policy realm to the pro-war Clinton wing of the party. He is mostly concerned with gloating over the fact that Joe Lieberman wasn't expelled from ...
The Emerging Obama Administration
Newshoggers.com —
... By Cernig
As my colleague Libby Spencer wrote yesterday, you were maybe expecting a Kuchinich Cabinet? If so, you weren't paying attention to shifts in what comprises the "center" of the Democratic Party and of America as a whole, or were listening too much to the Rightwing's noise machine.
Obama's economic team, announced today, includes Timothy Geithner as Secretary of the Treasury; Lawrence Summers as the Director of our National Economic Council; Christina Romer as Chair of the Council of Economic Advisors; and Melody ...
Did Hamsher snub Kirchick on NPR?
Michael Calderone's Blog —
Having right and left counterparts duking it out is a staple of cable news and talk radio. But it's not always easy to book, as Slate's Chris Beam reports.
Senators don't go on with members of the House, who in turn won't appear with anyone other than elected officials of their rank or higher. So why did Howard Dean refuse to debate his Republican counterpart, RNC Chairman Ken Mehlman, on the Today show in 2006? Host Meredith Vieira called Dean out on the air. Part of the reason was simply airtime, a Democratic spokeswoman explained; you can't say as much when you're on with someone else. But it's also a stature issue. Both were chairman of their respective parties, but Dean was a former governor ...
