Stop Me Before I Vote Again

"from Gitmo to Afghanistan to the environment to gay rights to secrecy and executive power"

yup that's the barn burner issues
here all right

man has that torn ohbummer a new ass hole

what a bunch of nasty wreckers these catz are

"Glenn Greenwald, John Aravosis, Digby, Marcy Wheeler and Jane Hamsher"

"they have a disproportionately large influence on the political debate, with numerous readers and followers — among them major media figures

they develop the frames and narratives that other progressive Obama critics adopt and disseminate"

-------------------------

then this :

President Obama’s new Rolling Stone interview reveals more about his mindset – and his presidency – than just about any interview I can recall. First, it’s remarkably telling that he delivers a series of prudent, deliberate and dispassionate answers on some of the most contentious issues of our time and then marches back into the room after the interview is over to do this:

[Signaled by his aides, the president brings the interview to a close and leaves the Oval Office. A moment later, however, he returns to the office and says that he has one more thing to add. He speaks with intensity and passion, repeatedly stabbing the air with his finger.]

One closing remark that I want to make: It is inexcusable for any Democrat or progressive right now to stand on the sidelines in this midterm election. There may be complaints about us not having gotten certain things done, not fast enough, making certain legislative compromises. But right now, we’ve got a choice between a Republican Party that has moved to the right of George Bush and is looking to lock in the same policies that got us into these disasters in the first place, versus an administration that, with some admitted warts, has been the most successful administration in a generation in moving progressive agendas forward.

The idea that we’ve got a lack of enthusiasm in the Democratic base, that people are sitting on their hands complaining, is just irresponsible. … We have to get folks off the sidelines. People need to shake off this lethargy, people need to buck up. Bringing about change is hard — that’s what I said during the campaign. It has been hard, and we’ve got some lumps to show for it. But if people now want to take their ball and go home, that tells me folks weren’t serious in the first place. If you’re serious, now’s exactly the time that people have to step up."

thanx Al
i needed this one riot one ranger bit
by el bummer

the distinguished
corporate butler
strikes at his tormentors
far worse then
merely ...violating a citizen's rights

by putting out a hit on him or her

this gratuitous rally the ankle biter brigade
pre figurative "can o one rid me of these scags " line
well
really ....

why wacking this nation's
main frame hu-rights freaks
honestly
peeves me
and grates on my nerves
maybe not quite like
those GWOT victims gettin a nights sleep
interupted
by kicked in doors
and
deep probe third degrees like
'just e-zack-lee ..
where u been this decade hoss ???

that have father S and glenn ford
the river rouge rocket
so up to full steam

maybe i'm not quite there
but
shit i'm close i'm damn close

I'm a bit hurt that we here at SMBIVA didn't draw any Daouist opprobrium. It's fair to say we've done our blogging best to provide frames and narratives for the rhetorical destruction of the O'Bummer regime. I've gone so far as to offer them for free.

"I disagree that what Obama is experiencing has to do with people on the left “turning” on him. I think he may perceive it that way, but in reality he’s just living through the phenomenon of being President in an era of “big data,” where passionate issue advocates can communicate with each other directly and immediately"

http://www.democracyforvancouver.org/wp-content/uploads/2009/08/Jane_hamsher2.jpg

"so its big data eh janey
sheeet gal
check this out
i got yer big data
right here "

I do have to hand it to Daou on one thing. His trollish screed managed to define querulous, concerned, fundamentally toothless liberalism as a form of extremism.

"I know I’ve personally tweeted “someone should ask Robert Gibbs X” only to hear a reporter actually do it hours later"

that's clout janey
tweetie bird clout

stinging questions can it get any cloutier

"People whose families are being deported, people who can’t get married,
people who aren’t getting the medical attention they need
are not going to stop caring about these things"

those are janey's top of the mind
choices

deported undocs
are pulling down ohbummer mojo ??

can't get married !!!!!
thwarted gay marriage
blocking the ohbummer express ??

lack of medical attention
crushing ohbummer ???
must be those 40 k per annum deaths
of the uncovered
suddenly rising up to strangle hope

A blogger contextualizes the thrust of several other bloggers' recent posts. He references Obama's wailing at the 'base's' looming apostasy. He, being a blogger, thinks that the other bloggers are responsible (in part) for the apparent anxiety expressed by Obama.

So what is your point, Al? Put plainly.

I'm just too thick to see the subtle stuff.

Ah, c'mon, Owen. There's something kind of nice about her. All the liberals Daou picked on are pretty nice, for that matter. And I like nice sometimes. Democrats are usually bloody-minded ghouls, who like to ooze toxins and croak out patently insincere bromides.

My point?! I'm a blogger, Boink. I don't need no steenking point.

Oh, okay. My point is that all paid Democratic hacks snap three times to their left for every snap to their right. They snap harder the more it becomes obvious that their paymasters are responsible for the apparent decline in party fortunes. They cry "burn the witch" every time they step in a big pile of shit. They're worse than Republicans. They tear the wings off flies and they urinate in each other's diet coke. They smoke crack and they steal the money to buy it from their grandmothers. That's my point.

http://s3.amazonaws.com/data.tumblr.com/tumblr_l0dsrzS7ne1qa3xguo1_1280.jpg?AWSAccessKeyId=0RYTHV9YYQ4W5Q3HQMG2&Expires=1285993578&Signature=GhyOIPzuw%2Fcl3AsQyfigV1inNW0%3D

I didn't read that Daou post they way you did OR the way CF apparently did.

That's a cute bunny. It reminds me of nice liberals, right before some miserable Democratic hack comes along to give them the baby seal treatment.

The photo link was supposed to be labeled: "Serving suggestion"

"are left liberals destroying the Obama presidency?"

I do so sincerely wish the left had the power to destroy the Obama presidency.

http://www.ianwelsh.net/leftists-should-take-credit-for-bringing-down-democrats/

If the left had but a 10th of the power ascribed to us oh that would be a thing so much wished for.

Alas... such is not the case. I get the feeling that Obama is looking for scapegoats, and the left is it.

I agree with Al, but I don't know about that "pezcandy" blog, looks like child's play to me.

I tried to agree with Daou but:

1) his exotic name had me in utter reverence for his "personality" and I began imagining him attending an exclusive prep school in Switzerland, followed by a year touring Europe with a Personal Sherpa, followed by the requisite 4 years at Yale, followed by a year at Cambridge (UK, not MA), after which he became a Blogger of Note. What was he writing about, again?

2) After the honeymoon of impression courtesy of his exotic name, I realized he was playing a tired old story: Obama isn't a fucking liar hobbled by selfishness, greed, elitism and a generally condescending outlook. Oh no. Instead, Obama is saintly and noble and is being undone by over-harsh critics like Super-Statist Glenn Greenwald. A novel, interesting and possibly(?) true theme!

3) I want to create a new toy for Xmas 2010 called Play-Daou.

We should hold off judgment on the pezcandy blog. They might be plotting against us, which makes them evil, but that's their right, even if exercising it is wrong.

Charles, I got a big kick out of his mega-essay. It took thousands of words for him to say that a handful people who influence a hundred thousand readers, at best, have the power to undermine people with a measurable influence over tens of millions of people, who have endless billions of dollars at their disposal, who have control of the federal government, etc. etc. This handful, perhaps naively, has given aid and comfort to the enemy by providing them with frames they can use to attack a troubled administration.

After wading through all that, the only question I have concerns the compatibility of bad faith and sincere magical thinking. Can they exist in the same head, at the same time?

Daou today:
"The title of my post (“How a handful of liberal bloggers are bringing down the Obama presidency“) was largely interpreted as a slam on the bloggers themselves. It certainly wasn’t meant as one, which I hope was clear from the body of the post."

I don't think that Al's point about the imbalance of available assets and measurable influence is well taken. It is true, of course, but not decisive. Thoughts remain free, potentially. Current conditions are unfavorable for Obama. The standard means of herding the populace around the flag pole, the external threat, doesn't work so well for the Democrats. The war, as Robert Gates said Wednesday, is an activity for 'other people'. It has been too successfully hidden from view. (They should have allowed more bloodied G.I.'s on the evening news. And they may yet.)

These bloggers may have had an impact on the climate of opinion under these circumstances. The same bloggers have had no influence at all on policy formation wrt the issues that interest them. In an election year when the economy is so brutal it may not take much to curb the voters' enthusiasm.

I certainly hope their enthusiasm is curbed. That at least would be sensible. The Obama regime has given them one disaster after another. Obama himself has a vicious streak at least as bad as Bush's, probably worse, and has set his sights on gutting the remains of the social welfare system. Neither losses nor victories will dissuade him, judging by his track record, but something disruptive of the regime's bubble might at least buy the country some time.

Daou sees a disruption as a bad thing. Tough shit. I see cat food commissions, bankster-hugging, enduring structural unemployment, ham-handed political crackdowns and escalating wars as bad things.

Against all that, he's concerned about the impact of some soft-toothed, querulous bloggers. What an idiot. No backtracking can clean that up.

"a slam against the bloggers themselves"?

...by saying they have immense power? Somehow that's a slam?

Holy Bizarro World, Jimmy Olsen's the editor and Perry White's the janitor!

That's some fine team-roping of the goats, with Play-Daou and Janey and Our Constitutional Lawyer all reinforcing each other's influential-ish-ness. Gosh and gee whillikers! I must rethink my skeptical mistrust of shills, sycophants and toadies -- they obviously curry much favor from Thems Whut Matters. And that **is** what matters, isn't it?

The real story here, as always, is what a fraudulent, prevaricating pigfucker Zerobama is. As Al says, these pricks are merely enacting what they had planned all along, probably assuming the economy would rebound and allow them to be as teflon as Clinton was while he bombed and pillaged and "reformed" and perjured.

Robert Zimmerman should have played him "Ballad of a Thin Man," then crapped on the State Room carpet.

What interests me is the term "disproportionate." These evil bloggers are said to have a "disproportionate" influence.

Disproportionate to what?

I know, I know; Daou probably doesn't really know what "disproportionate" means. He thinks it's a fancy synonym for "excessive". And "excessive" is a fancy synonym for "more than I would like."

But somehow I don't want to believe that the explanation is that simple, and that dull. I want to believe that the choice of "disproportionate" as a characterization reflects some dim obscure unthinking idea that the evil bloggers don't deserve whatever influence they have -- that they've obtained that influence, somehow, under false pretences, to the detriment of more deserving, gatekeeper-approved voices.

Cute bunny link:
http://3000km.tumblr.com/post/498259214