Sometimes Santayana’s Ghost weeps a bit with joy, with those who know history.
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This entry was posted on Tuesday, January 3rd, 2012 at 8:56 pm and is filed under Barack Obama, History, Politics, President Obama. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
Millard Fillmore's Bathtub 
Lower writes:
So, am I reading right that you both (Ed & James) are claiming that the Republicans are 100% to blame for the current partisanship in our country and that Democrats carry 0% of the blame?
No…Democrats do share some of the blame. Though from where I sit right now part of the blame the Democrats have is that they didn’t stand up to your party and kick them in the *** enough to get your party to stop the bullying tactics and find the middle ground. Your party went to the far right, bullied the Democrats into caving on way too many things and then your party went further to the right in response. It’s a bit like when my cousin Drew used to bully me in school…until I broke his nose.
But your party at the moment has the majority of the blame. Your party has made hyperpartisanship an active plank of the party. That your party is willing to let the country burn and the recession not only continue but worsen if it means that the people stupidly put your party back in charge next year.
Because your party somewhere along the line forgot how to compromise. Your party thinks that compromise means that the Republicans get everything they want and the Democrats get nothing. Your party attempts or actually does block everything, from important stuff to stuff that really we should all be able to agree on. Your party suffers from the delusion that in a democratic republic that one party should get its way all the time. Your party has forgotten that sometimes in a democratic republic..that your party loses.
Hell right now your party has somehow made it a partisan issue that the First Lady is an advocate of healthier eating. That really should be no more a partisan issue then Laura Bush’s advocacy of reading or Nancy Reagan’s advocacy against drug use.
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I think “CPS” was what I was looking for rather than “CPA.” Just a little bit of a difference. LOL :-) Wish we could call a CPA too help balance the books, but that’s beside the point. :-)
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I am not trying to deflect the Republicans. Where I see their faults, I have tried to point them out and as a citizen have tried to be vocal in what I believe they need to do to work together with a Democratic Senate and White House.
For instance, while I agree with many of the background principles of those in the House who are related to the Tea-party, I kind of think that they are acting naive in political diplomacy to say the least. They are trying to distance themselves from “the establishment” and have just come across as idealists who have no ground in reality. This is one reason I didn’t care for Michelle Bachman. Who on the left is going to work with the Tea-Party in the arena of ideas? If it doesn’t work well in the H.O.R., how would it work in the Senate where the exchange of ideas is more slow, thorough, and drawn out (supposed to be anyway)? That’s merely one example.
Sigh…I miss Reagan. He had a way of persuading people to his point of view and even if they didn’t always agree, to see the big picture of what he was trying to accomplish for the country. I don’t think either the left or the right has offered someone like that for a long, long time. Clinton, with all his issues, was much better at working with Republicans than Obama.
My contention here (and you and James have added fuel to my fire) is that Democrats are offering no incentive for bipartisan cooperation with their rhetoric or actions. Both sides are in the blame game, knowing that the political waters are fickle at best and are trying to score political points for re-election. If you think that it’s only the Republicans who are doing this then you are not as intellectually honest as I thought, Ed. The Democrats are masters at painting the Republicans in a negative light and have the backing of the mainstream media to get their message out.
Your illustration of someone being beaten up in a domestic dispute is not really how it’s going down right now, Ed. The Democrats are in no ways victims of a bashing from the Right. If nothing else, using your illustration, it’s more like two parents coming in on two children fighting over a toy that each has plans for and each claiming, “Well, he started it!” “No, it was him!” and they’re slapping and pinching each other, thinking it’s the other person’s fault. Usually when both my boys are caught fighting I tell them that I don’t really care who started it. Neither one is handling conflict correction, not showing love to their brother, and not being a help to the situation, so both are in trouble. What is going on in Washington is juvenile,,both sides! I wish both parties could be held accountable somehow.
I’m not saying that the Republicans are not guilty as well, nor am I trying to give them a pass. I’m not a “party” man by any stretch. Honestly, as is seen in the Republican debates this season, Republicans can be some of their own harshest critics! What I am saying is that Obama promised to bring in a new era of bipartisanship. For him to have underestimated his political opposition demonstrates either his political “whininess”, or his political ineptness. How was he supposed to know the Republicans wouldn’t back up socialized medicine, cutting the military, raising taxes on anyone in a down economy, expanding government, expanding the debt, etc.? Really? Does this come as any shocker here that trying to ram legislation down the throat of the American people that is constitutionally debatable at best would come with some measure of resistance from the right? Is anyone actually shocked by this??? My dog could have seen that one coming…and I don’t even own a dog! Using the illustration, if Obama was a parent of these two parties, we would call the CPA on him for how he has treated the Republicans and the American people!
How, beyond a display of rhetorical showmanship, has Obama and the Democrats given any incentive for the Republicans to work with them? In a Republican mind, an exploding debt, economic decline, socialized medicine, etc. are what is keeping this country hostage and they are acting aggressively to try and actually do something about it. Instead of kicking the can down the road for my kids and their kids to deal with they want to actually address the issue. Yet neither party will work together, and so yet again, social security is still socially insecure, our debt continues to explode, etc. etc. etc.
My point in summary is that Obama has NOT kept his promise to bring in an era of unity and bipartisanship. As an American who leans right, Obama has done very little that has incited my excitement for participation in his agenda for this country. The best way to destroy an enemy is to make your enemy your friend. Obama is willing to reach out to a loony dictator in Iran and yet he and the Democrats will not reach out to the other side of Washington to their brothers and actually offer legislation that both parties believes is in the best interest of the country. They cannot or will not build upon issues that blue and red agree. On the right, the Tea-Party is the reaction to an Obama White House and Occupy Wall street is the reaction of the far left. Both poles have been created as a result of the polarization of this president. Rather than creating unity, this president has created new levels of extremes in disunity that haven’t been seen since before the Civil War. Some of the rhetoric on both sides is bordering on frightening to me. In response to his claim to bring in new levels of bipartisanship, I’d say, promise remains horribly unfulfilled.
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No.
When the cops get called to a domestic dispute, and they discover that one spouse has been beating the other with a baseball bat, the cops don’t say “You know, both of you share some blame here. The bleeding person here should share some of the blame, you know.”
Seriously, Joe? I get the feeling you’re trying to deflect justice on Republicans with a claim that “Democrats do it, too.”
Yeah, Democrats made Republicans sweat a debt ceiling increase, adopting wholesale the Republican claims from the previous occurrences — but the Democrats never blocked a debt ceiling increase, and took Social Security hostage in order to force a downgrade in the nation’s credit rating.
There is at least a difference of degree, as well as in perception of reality.
(See Kidd Millennium here. See Sherffius here, though I haven’t found a good, clean version of his “No” cartoon.)
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So, am I reading right that you both (Ed & James) are claiming that the Republicans are 100% to blame for the current partisanship in our country and that Democrats carry 0% of the blame?
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To quote:
So Obama was supposed to turn into Miss Cleo and predict that the Republicans would go batshit crazy and block or attempt to block everything the President and the Democrats tried to do, just to regain power?
Because it’s not like your party can claim that it was doing it in the best interests of the country because your party was willing to let the country crash and burn in the interests of your party regaining power.
Your party, child, is a party of traitors and malcontents.
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Joe, I expect Members of Congress to act in the interest of the nation. When I staffed there, senators all understood that in times of crisis, the good of the nation comes before the pork for the state, and well before the senator, and always well ahead of the senator’s re-election posturing.
I don’t think the Republican caucus in either house is acting for the good of the nation, when they threaten to stop paying the bills even though we have the money in order to wreck the nation’s credit, when they block nominations solely to mar the record of the president, or worse, out of pure pique, when they refuse to spend money to help unemployed people keep food on the table, when they completely reverse positions on health care for no reason other than President Obama proposed it.
I don’t think they’re racist in opposing Obama. I think they have genuinely lost their consciences, and they are anti-American.
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Real peace, compromise, etc. will never be won until each party begins to work on their own share of the problems of civility, sense, etc. If (hypothetically) the Republicans are 80% to blame for this country’s woes, then that means that instead of pointing fingers, the Democrats need to begin by working on their 20%.
Republicans certainly share their part of the blame, from my perspective. They have a LOT to work on, but it is shear arrogance for either party to place the blame solely on the shoulders of the other and will do nothing to fulfill Obama’s promise to bring in a new era of cooperation and bipartisanship.
Ed, basically, if you are not actively working on shoring up the faults within your own ranks then you have no business placing all the blame at the feet of the Republicans for their lack of “intelligence, sense, and common decency.”
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I don’t think Obama can be blamed for not having foreseen the total meltdown of intelligence, sense, and common decency from the Republican Party. Overpromised on the new conditions, possible under the old.
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…and slow the rise of the oceans, and begin to heal the planet…
Are you sure that Obama did not overpromise in his “chicken in every pot” speeches? :-)
By the way, his first promise of this video to reduce the price of healthcare was not kept. According to the CBO, Obamacare will cost taxpayers about and aditional $90 bil more than previously estimated. By 2014 premiums will continue to rise triple the rate they would have if Obamacare never had passed, and Obamacare will make jobs markets worse.
Here is a good article on the subject that is worth the read:
forbes.com/sites/aroy/2011/08/09/medicare-actuary-obamacare-will-triple-the-growth-rate-of-net-insurance-costs/
His second promise was fulfilled in the form of a stimulus check of $400 and $800 (for married couples) for married couples under $250,000 and singles under $200,000. As far as I can see, and you can help me with this if you desire, I don’t think another check will be included in refunds this tax season. Should Obama then be cited with raising taxes on 95% of the country, or should it just be called like it is, a stimulus check and not a real tax cut.
Making the Bush tax cuts permanent and if Congress can approve a longer term payroll tax cut (beyond two months), then I think Obama can really be said to have cut the average American’s tax burden and kept his promise. But my standards of a tax cut are high, I understand that.
As far as harnessing the ingenuity of farmers, scientists, etc…can you say, “Solyndra?” Rats…one promise I wish he wouldn’t have kept. Also, I didn’t know that our nation’s vast oil reserves that Obama keeps trying to close are a “tyranny.” You could make the case that foreign oil is, but Obama has made no progress in helping us reduce our dependence on foreign powers for oil by unleashing this nation’s vast resources, or even our neighbor’s to the north (which is much safer than middle eastern oil).
I like the line: “to lower prices at the pump…” How’s that working these days? Sigh…never got below $3.00 a gallon this winter…
He did bring out troops home from Iraq. I’ll give him that one. Hopefully Iraq (and the whole mid-east) won’t fall apart as a result of his foreign policy, but yes, he did it. Wish he would concentrate some attention to Syria humanitarian issues now, but alas…
Oh, and he did keep his promise to make sure the world sees America differently. Another sigh…
Not sure if the nation is more united than divided now than before as a result of his presidency. We lost our AAA credit rating under his presidency because of divided government. For good of for evil, unless one party is in power, I don’t see the temperment likely to change any time soon.
So, in summation, Obama should keep his job, why? Shoot, I think Hillary would make a better president at this rate, and that case could be made for Biden as well! (and that’s really saying something…)
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