http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=439x278972
Obama gives his State of the Union Address, something for everybody, some things good, some things bad, Democrats rally round, polls show it was well-received, case closed, end of story.
Not quite.
Here is a man who spent 2 straight years caving to the Republicans thinking the public would ultimately side with him, seeing how intransigent they are. Democrats were demoralized, the Republicans never turned over a new leaf, Democrats stayed home, the enthusiastic Republican fanatics rushed to the polls out of proportion with their percentage of the population, Obama looked weak, alienating independents and we got a Republican Congress even though at the start of Obama's administration there were all these predictions that we would have a Democratic Congress forever, the Republicans were through, etc. I saw plenty of that here on DU.
Harry Truman said, "If you run a Republican against a Republican, the Republican will win every time."
Obama went ahead and bailed out the banks and Wall Street but never did a jobs program, pushed healthcare that did in Clinton, and bang zoom, the GOP took over.
On top of this the liberal Nobel laureate economist Paul Krugman consistently said that bailing out the banks and Wall Street was a very inadequate way to do stimulus since the rich already have more money than they can spend whereas the non-rich immediately spend the money you give them which then passes from person to person in a "multiplier effect." Instead, Krugman wanted a Federal jobs programs and things like that. On top of it all Krugman criticized Obama's stimulus in terms of actual dollars which he said was half of what we needed.
Krugman pointed out that we only really got out of the Great Depression with the massive spending in World War II and that now, albeit on peaceful purposes, we need that level of stimulus to get out of the economic near coma we are in. Instead, Obama in his speech tells us the stock market is way up, even though jobs are not. Krugman pointed out that it was that kind of spending in World War II that put people to work in factories (albeit defense factories) that resulted in the 1950s being so successful economically. He also pointed out that the added stimulus spending would have less dire interest rate impact than feared and part of the stimulus would be paid back in higher tax revenues from the economy going up. He also pointed out that it wasn't just the Stock Market Crash of 1929 that gave us the Great Depression but the fact that Herbert Hoover followed it with the chaser that he cut spending. Sort of like getting run over twice. When someone is badly injured they need life support. You don't pull the plug on the life support to save electricity. Krugman said this is the wrong time to fix the deficit. Good later on. But not now.
So now, after the horses have already left the barn, so to speak, after the GOP has already taken over Congress because Obama kept sucking up to them, ensuring that no such additional stimulus will be approved, NOW, all of a sudden Obama suddenly remembers his base and calls for spending on high speed rail, alternative energy, education, infrastructure and so on.
Too late. Where were you, Mr. President, for the last two years when we still had a Democratic Congress that progressives were SCREAMING at you that we needed more stimulus and we needed jobs programs?
You were busy packing your administration with Republican suck-ups and doing tons of sucking up yourself. Now calls for a second stimulus are dead in the water, now that the GOP has taken over Congress. This is all to appease the base with empty words.
There's a Jewish joke about a rabbi who is adjudicating a dispute in the ghetto between two litigants. One presents his case and the rabbi says, "You know what? You're right." Then he hears the other litigant and the rabbi says, "You know what? YOU'RE right." The rabbi's wife asks, "How can they BOTH be right?" Then the rabbi responds, "You know what? YOU'RE right TOO!"
Everybody's right.
Listening to Obama's speech was for me like that. He is for alternative clean energy. He is for dirty coal. He is for dangerous nuclear power, nuclear plants also being sitting ducks for terrorists hijacking planes.
He wants to do something about lost jobs going overseas. But he spouts the GOP mantra that those jobs aren't coming back. The GOP point was shut up and learn to like starvation wages while we make money hiring people in India. And Obama is spouting off this crap that it's a new world, a new world economy etc. get used to it. The same garbage the aristocracy has been shoveling at labor unions for years. If we have unlimited free trade there will ALWAYS be someone somewhere earning 2 cents an hour taking jobs from us. There is a need for some protectionism and tough sh*t on those who don't like it. But no, protectionism is a dirty word to Obama.
On and on Obama took both sides of one issue after another. And he's throwing bones to the right wing over and over, ROTCs on campus for instance. Cuts in spending. Fiddling with Medicare and Medicaid.
Now. Given that he is offering something to both Democrats and Republicans, but the Republicans control the Congress where legislation originates, which of these multiple choices do you think is going to get passed? And with some tweaking and bones to critics he will always be able to peel off enough Democrats in the Senate who face tough reelections that with massive GOP support he will get the right wing agenda passed in the Senate too. The OPERATIVE part of Obama's speech is the part where he caved to the GOP. THAT’S all that will get passed for the next two years.
Eliminating breaks for the oil industry? That is a regular riot. It will never happen under a GOP Congress. High speed rail? Same deal, too many pro-GOP lobbies, oil, airlines, auto industry will kill high speed rail as usual.
Why didn't Obama propose the high speed rail, the alternative energy and so on BEFORE the GOP took over the House?
Obama will get things done - the REPUBLICAN part. He will say, I finally got around to listening to the Democratic base. But oops! Too late! The GOP won't go along! THAT IS ALL WE HAVE HEARD FOR THE LAST TWO YEARS!!!!
As usual there was no toughness, no drawing a line in the sand. Harry Truman was called "Give 'em hell, Harry." Truman replied, "I don't give the Republicans hell. I give them the TRUTH. And they THINK it's hell."
Instead, Obama spent much of the speech reinforcing Republican ideology, beliefs and BULLSH*T.
Do you know WHY the GOP spent so much time screaming about the deficit under Obama when they never did under Bush? Because, as some Republicans have actually said, they see stimulus as PORK BARREL SPENDING. Spend enough on things people want or need and you get reelected. So they have come up with this mantra that Obama better not spend, the deficit is the reason there are no jobs, which is a total lie, and it is all so that they can keep the Democrats from doing the things needed to win the hearts of the public and get reelected.
Caving in to the GOP talking point that the deficit is the dire problem is a fool's game and Obama never speaks the DEMOCRATIC position. Don't forget that Eisenhower gave us the interstate highway system. A lot of what Obama said in his speech was like the words of a moderate Republican, nothing more. The GOP sets the agenda. The GOP tells everyone what to think and believe. And Obama does very little to rebut their ideology. And then he wonders why we got a "shellacking" in the 2010 election, to use Obama's own term for what happened.
So what happens from here? Firstly, Obama probably thinks that by giving the GOP some of what they want they will be forced to go along with some of what we want and make a deal. This has not happened for 2 years. They can keep obstructing no matter what because in any case THEY CONTROL THE MEDIA. If we are quiet it will never come back to haunt them. This is the president who fired an African American member of his government on a rumor because he had to have her out before Glenn Beck came on. His thinking is so short term, that he has absolutely no stick-to-itiveness to rub in and drive home a point over time and NAIL THE OTHER SIDE. He doesn't do anything to stop the Comcast merger. He doesn't protect net neutrality adequately.
He doesn't respond to Glenn Beck. I remember how Clinton once took on Rush Limbaugh. Obama would sooner hide under the desk. Millions have the fantasy that Beck speaks the truth because Obama can't take him on. Obama also confined his response to the Supreme Court corporate personhood decision to basically one speech. He wouldn't make a real fight of it, wouldn't rail and go after them. Now some Supreme Court justices have corruption issues but guaranteed Obama's Justice Department won't go after them just like they wouldn't go after Bush officials. We are living through a judicial coup d'etat but Obama won't speak out more than one speech basically.
So now he's a Republican, whistling in the graveyard.
The Talmud tells of a king who fortified his kingdom, but his capital city he did not fortify. And the Talmud says of him that he was a fool.
Obama is not defending the base, the home turf, Democratic boilerplate. He is not defending the home ground. Only because Democratic lawmakers put enormous pressure on him he is not listening to his right wing screw-Social-Security commission. (Though who knows if he'll cave in on THAT.)
Any other Democratic president would have seized on the GOP plot to destroy Social Security and he would have nailed them on it BEFORE THE 2010 MIDTERM ELECTIONS and we would still have a Democratic Congress.
There was violence and threats all through the 2010 election and Obama never made a stink about it. The average American read local news and didn't know what a national problem this violence was. Had Obama used the bully pulpit to make a stink about this DURING THE ELECTION there would still be a Democratic Congress AND GABBY GIFFORDS MIGHT NOT HAVE GOTTEN SHOT EITHER. If Obama didn't want to make a stink about the violence during the campaign for his own security reasons, he should have had surrogates like Joe Biden make the stink. We would still have a Democratic Congress now.
So now, after leaving the barn door open so the GOP could take over, NOW, all of a sudden Obama talks about some of the things he could have done HAD he not opened the door for the GOP to come in. All of a sudden he's for a second stimulus now that it's too late. The whole speech was a farce. He will never get the Democratic part of the speech passed but because he refuses to throw down the gauntlet with these bastards and is so desperate to get anything done even if it is something that SHOULDN'T be done, he has left himself vulnerable to their hanging tough, continually moving the goal posts and forcing him to keep caving for ANOTHER two years.
The Republicans, meanwhile, have proven that they don't need to get anything done and they will roll him once again despite his appeasing them. And if they do go along with a few things they will make it look like HE agreed with THEM and then, since the economy will go up some during this period regardless, they will say, "See? When you vote Republican, the economy will go up!"
Because Obama is not drawing clear lines with the GOP and is busy being in bed with them instead of making a clear distinction with them, he opens himself up to their interpretation of everything that happens. He makes their obfuscation easy. And then they will blame him for everything that goes wrong while taking credit for everything that goes right. Obama's determination to be in bed with the GOP leaves them an opening to play hocus pocus and obfuscate everything and take all the credit and dish out to him all the blame.
I think the speech was a disaster, the work or a lemming, not the fighter we need. He has set up two years of more weakness and failure and laid the groundwork for more GOP electoral gains.
The man has just seen this sort of appeasement lead to massive GOP gains but he learns nothing.
The result of all this is simple. The GOP is headed towards historic reversals of their loss in 2008 and we are in big trouble. In 2012 we will get a GOP Senate and are in grave danger of losing the White House.
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