The Awakening

Posted: September 3, 2011 | Author: | Filed under: 2012 presidential campaign, Surreality, Team Obama, We are so F'd, WE TOLD THEM SO | Tags: , , | 17 Comments

a little too late …  oh, and some of these folks deserve a swift kick for what they did a few years ago

Paul Krugman:

I’ve actually been avoiding thinking about the latest Obama cave-in, on ozone regulation; these repeated retreats are getting painful to watch. For what it’s worth, I think it’s bad politics. The Obama political people seem to think that their route to victory is to avoid doing anything that the GOP might attack — but the GOP will call Obama a socialist job-killer no matter what they do. Meanwhile, they just keep reinforcing the perception of mush from the wimp, of a president who doesn’t stand for anything.

Maureen Dowd:

Obama’s re-election chances depend on painting the Republicans as disrespectful. So why would the White House act disrespectful by scheduling a speech to a joint session of Congress at the exact time when the Republicans already had a debate planned?

And why is the White House so cocky about Obama as a TV draw against quick-draw Rick Perry? As James Carville acerbically noted, given a choice between watching an Obama speech and a G.O.P. debate, “I’d watch the debate, and I’m not even a Republican.”

The White House caved, of course, and moved to Thursday, because there’s nothing the Republicans say that he won’t eagerly meet halfway.

No. 2 on David Letterman’s Top Ten List of the president’s plans for Labor Day: “Pretty much whatever the Republicans tell him he can do.”

On MSNBC, the anchors were wistfully listening to old F.D.R. speeches, wishing that this president had some of that fight. But Obama can’t turn into F.D.R. for the campaign because he aspires to the class that F.D.R. was a traitor to; and he can’t turn into Harry Truman because he lacks the common touch. He has an acquired elitism.

MSNBC’s Matt Miller offered “a public service” to journalists talking about Obama — a list of synonyms for cave: “Buckle, fold, concede, bend, defer, submit, give in, knuckle under, kowtow, surrender, yield, comply, capitulate.”

And it wasn’t exactly Morning in America when Obama sent out a mass e-mail to supporters Wednesday under the heading “Frustrated.”

It unfortunately echoed a November 2010 parody in The Onion with the headline, “Frustrated Obama Sends Nation Rambling 75,000-Word E-Mail.”

Kevin Drum:

Barack Obama has pretty much caved in to the Republican contention that budget deficits are the biggest problem our economy faces. He’s pretty much caved in to the Republican contention that higher taxes are bad for the economy. And he’s pretty much caved in to the Republican contention that nothing big can done to improve the unemployment picture.

So what’s his next cave-in on the economy? Apparently this. I guess regulatory uncertainty is what’s holding us back after all. So much for the agenda-setting power of the presidency.

Open thread … have at it!!!

(Here’s some info on Chris Britt who penned this great political Cartoon.)