two recent Cockburn columns on Obama the Obeisant Shill

"What a slimy fellow Obama is"

"Every time I look up he's doing something disgusting"

"a symbol of everything that's been wrong with the Democratic Party for the past twenty years"

SRSLY

xpost hahaha nice try morbius but the rules i'm referring to are the unspoken rules of seniority that go with ANY JOB in the US and apply to BOTH repubs AND dems in offices all over america and in politics this goes x 20; second of all for obama to create a noble rift in the democratic party six months away from midterms elections would be suicide. some people though, some people just act like they were born to lose...

hardly

Good stuff on MoveOn's crap Big Media Buys strategery after Obama in #2, also.

or, indeed, at all!

Eisbar, I didn't know much of that about Booker, but Newark's been a cesspool of pols forever (since before I was born there!).

but that obama's flacking for lieberman (as undeniably detestable as joementum is) isn't something that i'd necessarily hold against him. file it under "paying yer dues."

xpost: it's precisely because so much is expected of obama that he has to play the game well in his early years in the senate - the freshman on the team doesn't have the prerogative to start ignoring departmental orders, ESPECIALLY when he's been anointed the golden child. and again, somehow there's this idea that obama has to be better than everyone else just to be considered as good as them.

xpost to colin: the same rules applied during kennedy's time, carter's time and clinton's time, and y'know, probably john q. adams' time, too, so i'm not sure about the causality here

get it?

"Let's wait for the real Obama once the dues are paid" reminds me of the Liberal Second-Term Clinton we were promised by the starry-eyed in '96.

"when Hillary does it"? Like when she draws breath?

xpost: morbius i'm not saying i like it, i'm just saying it's very very very par for the course and i'm guessing actually totally unavoidable in our current set-up, so subtracting race from the equation makes cockburn's singling out of obama nonsensical

you mean, like conservative Dems and some Republicans?

gosh these people seem to elect EVERYBODY! Its always refreshing to have a Dem Party apologist shill reiterate that the votes of the poor, minorities, and liberals count for so little.

The problem with the "safe black" line here is that it comes with a comparison to Rice.

"House nigger" accusations against people like Rice tend to be based on the idea that black people should be Democratic loyalists who talk like progressives, and that black-conservative success thus means selling out to the enemy. The reason this is shitty is because it strips black people of the opportunity to believe whatever they believe and be taken seriously for it.

Casting that over at Obama -- a Democratic loyalist like any number of black politicians -- would thus be based on what: the idea that black people should be political radicals who decline to cooperate with the political establishment at all? Stripping black people of the opportunity to, umm, be a meaningful, powerful part of the current political process at all?

That said, I'm not sure race is that big of an issue here: it seems like basic (and potentially useful) contrarianism in pointing out that the golden child isn't that golden, just good and likeable. It's the use of words like "slimy" and "disgusting" that's over-the-top and galling and stupid, unless Cockburn's prepared to describe anyone who functions within the established congressional system as reprehensible. "Not as golden as we've enjoyed thinking (though for obvious and legitimate reasons)" is a far cry from "slimy."

i apologize if my use of "house nigger" offended, but given what i know about cockburn and his political views i see him projecting his own fears and obsessions. and, to repeat tracer's point, it really doesn't make any sense to me either w/t taking into account obama's race (and how someone like cockburn seems to think that a black elected official "should act.")

nabisco, I would't say "anyone," but Cockburn has precious little use for many in either chamber except Feingold, Durbin, McKinney, Sheila Jackson Lee, etc. People who lead with their scruples, and whom the strategist types find risible.

xpost
A Harvard education isn't an automatic signifier of a closed mind ... but it's the way to bet.

If you just woke up from a coma and read a discussion about Obama and race, I'll bet you'd never guess that he's Kenyan and white. Ha: "safe black" = more like "thin nose, light skin, this guy's alright!"

A.C. cites numerous examples of this -- Obama voting for "tort reform," to re-up the Patriot Act, keeping mum on Guantanamo, being part of the Dem counterattack on Murtha -- but maybe EVERYTHING is garden-variety dues-paying?

Also, I think I would much rather have nabisco in Congress than almost anyone mentioned in this thread. Run, sir!

(Morbs, if reacting negatively to any and all criticism of black leaders being dismissed as "house nigger" accusations by people who don't have any practical experience as to precisely how offensive that behavior is is a prime example of the closed Harvard-educated mind, then yes my mind is sealed shut. Feel free to continue being a dick who publicly disapproves of anything that isn't white and/or gay; it's funny.)

And perhaps just being a liar will do with that sheepskin, you jerk.

which words were those? what is "the DLC wing," who is in it, and what basis is there for your assignment?

I'm further "right" (on your measure) than you are, and if I'm thought of as right-wing, I'm not bothered by it. What I WANT is for people who would complain about the party from the left to wake the fuck up and recognize that the set of people who would consider voting for us contains a much larger subset of people like me or to my right than people like them. Included in that subset are a great number of "the poor, minorities, and liberals."

In some ways I secretly do want to end the 2 party system - it would make clear how marginal the real left really is, and probably save us from the worst of the right (while shifting the country marginally in that direction, most likely).

that's really my position re this issue, too. and that touches upon my REAL problem here -- cockburn is not exactly the most trustworthy person to be making these objections, given his past.

A.C. cites numerous examples of this -- Obama voting for "tort reform," to re-up the Patriot Act, keeping mum on Guantanamo, being part of the Dem counterattack on Murtha -- but maybe EVERYTHING is garden-variety dues-paying?

these are all issues to be considered -- though i would also like to read and understand obama's rationales behind these moves before judging. not to mention that you could cherry-pick ANY elected official's record to make them fit whatever yer storyline is.

OK, otoh, when has Obama stood up and done himself proud with a principled vote or speech, then -- or is that also beyound fair 'expectations' of freshmen?

I don't doubt even gabbneb's essentially good intentions, but this mindset just reminds me of every Ward Sutton cartoon on suicidal Dem passivity.

why do you think that someone (obama or otherwise) who does not share any or all of YOUR principles, has NO principles AT ALL?!? when did obama become yer personal dancing horse?

The 'real left' is marginal, undoubtedly - but when did that happen. Even you couldn't say with a straight face that the 'real left' was always marginal in American politics. They were a force for change for eighty years, from populists to Progressives to labor rights to civil rights, until the early '70s.

How did the 'real left' lose its voice and its influence?

And that's central to the problems people have with Obama. He was presented as a hope for the 'real left' (of the Democratic Party) - he was the young, strong, black man from Chicago who would stand up for 'minorities, poor people' and all those other base groups. And instead he's playing politics as usual (perhaps even politics more reprehensible than usual). That's going to make people upset.

Cockburn is, of course, an asshat. But to start inserting 'house nigger' in his mouth or questioning his motives (re: young white guys in Obama's position not held to the same standards as Obama is bullshit - there are no young white guys like Obama's position!)

Building a winning coalition is what the Dems THOUGHT they were doing the last 6 years, and the evidence doesn't back them up (despite the Theft of '00).

said who?

xpost

none of those movements ever elected a President

It's at-the-ready lines like "how marginal the real left really is" that make practical/centrist Dems sound like Ken Melman (see, at least I know that name, as it's so close to Herb's of Kiki & Herb).

Which, yeah, people who actually want to foment progressive change should tell the Democrats to go fuck themselves, not bother with third parties and probably not vote. But the Democrats' inability to inspire anyone ain't helping anybody.

Crashing the Gate concentrates on the tactics for a new Democratic strategy. These include, first, shifting power away from single-issue advocacy groups, like the abortion rights movement, environmentalists, and labor unions, and toward a revived Democratic Party itself. Such groups have long been the main constituency of many Washington Democrats, sources for both money and volunteers, and as a result they have been able to impose on the party their own orthodox approaches to important issues. It is true that such groups as NARAL—the National Abortion and Reproductive Rights Action League—and the Sierra Club join pro-Democratic electoral coalitions such as ACT (America Coming Together) and MoveOn.org. But the trouble, as the authors point out, is that giving prominence to such groups seems to confirm Republican stereotypes ("treehuggers"). Worse, the activists concerned with single issues cannot reliably deliver electoral victories. Often their efforts are simply counterproductive. In May 2005, for instance, NARAL endorsed Rhode Island Republican Senator Lincoln Chafee for reelection this fall because he said he was pro-choice. On the other hand, as Jerome and Kos point out, he voted to make the militantly anti-choice Bill Frist Senate majority leader, and he sided with the Bush administration on the crucial vote on a filibuster against Supreme Court nominee Samuel Alito.

By contrast, Harry Reid of Nevada, the Democratic leader in the Senate, says he is personally against abortion —but he has still resisted many of the federal judges opposed to abortion the Bush administration has proposed during his tenure. (Reid will be the keynote speaker when the Kos community, who sometimes call themselves "Kossacks," holds their first convention in which they will physically meet this June in Las Vegas.) Kos and Jerome are also eager to see Democrats break with some of their past positions in order to reach new voters—Dean's stand against gun control as governor of a rural state appealed to them, for instance, and they've found a politician they can admire in Brian Schweitzer, Democratic governor of the red state of Montana, who favors a number of liberal reforms but also backed the program of the National Rifle Association.

Their point is that the Republicans have prospered by ignoring ideological consistency. They've held together a disparate coalition that ranges from right-wing evangelists and other promoters of conservative moral values to big businesses dependent on federal subsidies and tax cuts, each of whom realize they will get more of what they want by cooperating in joint efforts. A Democratic majority in the House and Senate would protect abortion rights even if individual senators were wobbly on the issue. "No one's narrow agenda is served by being in the minority," they write. "A governing majority would mean far more for everyone's pet causes. Let the party be the party, with the movement outside looking in." They represent, to use Dean's favorite applause line, "the Democratic wing of the Democratic Party."

from http://www.nybooks.com/articles/18910

I do see a conflict between improving the lifes of Americans and voting for bankruptcy reform, the PATRIOT Act, etc.

milo your suggestion for progressives not to vote is scintillating, tell me more about this awesome strategy for national change.

gabbneb are you fucking joking? labor didn't play any role in getting FDR or JFK elected?

the Hill Country is more of an honorific title then?

fuck if i know if obama is going to be the major player he's tagged as or not. a lot of that's really going to come down to him. i'm willing to give him some time to work on it, though.

What does the latter mean?

(And the hell I don't. We may not be in 10 years, but a Democrat can't get elected dogcatcher outside of a couple of cities, sometimes not even there, and our political system is as punitive toward the poor, minorities, immigrants, etc. as anywhere.)

see redistricting

yes, Texas is the most conservative big state, beating out Georgia, but there are a good handful of small states (and any state counts) in which Bush beat Kerry by 10-20 more points than he did in Texas, and several more in which the results were comparable.

Dallas elected a Hispanic sheriff last time, but the city government itself remains more than a little conservative (possibly owing to the general ineptitude and infighting of black leadership). Austin isn't half as liberal or Dem-friendly as people think. I try to avoid Houston, but it seems to be a better situation than Dallas.

They didn't elect him for his strong stand against the rising tide of Bushco, trust me.

I am a safe white gay, sheathed from head to toe in latex.

"Safe black" has nothing to do with what he thinks or how he considers either Rice or Obama, but he's making presumptions about how the Establishment sees them.

Rice and Obama are, by any definition, safe - they aren't boat rockers, they aren't Sheila Jackson Lee or Cynthia McKinney, they aren't going to "show up in a daishiki," they choose to work within the political power structure that exists.

http://www.thegreenhead.com/watercooler/images/urkel_proof_1.jpg

http://vintagejenny.com/images/0401dashikidress1_small.jpg

Unsafe Secretary of Treasury posing with unsafe pop star:

http://www.usafricaonline.com/bono.oneil.ghana.jpg

http://cycledreamsmag.com/images/shopping/warna.jpg

"...in his advance to the high table he is divesting himself of all legitimate claims to be any sort of popular champion, as opposed to another safe black, like Condoleezza Rice (whom Obama voted to confirm). The Empire relishes such servants."

"As do Democrats" is bullshit. I'll criticize the Dems left and right (clearly), but it's undeniable that minorities (and women, and gays, etc.) actually play a role in their policies and everyday business. That's simply not true of the GOP. The GOP knows this, knows they lose the black vote by 70%+ every election, and as such I have a difficult time seeing their presentation of non-whites as anything but propaganda. "See, we're not really the party of Strom Thurmond and Jesse Helms and Trent Lott!"

when gwb was asked in 2002 why he didn't attend the NAACP annual convention - held in texas that year - he said well, i've got colin and condi

At his press conference on Monday night, Mr Bush answered: "Let's see. There I was sitting around the table with foreign leaders looking at Colin Powell and Condi Rice _ " His voice then trailed away, he shook his head and moved on to the next question; the implication being that two black people in his inner circle was a substitute for outreach to the rest of the community.

His words were certain to cause outrage, and seemed an uncharacteristic piece of political ineptitude.

"You can't be president of all the people when you only want to be president for some of the people," said the NAACP chief executive, Kweisi Mfume.

Julian Bond, the NAACP chairman, said of Mr Bush: "We knew he was in the oil business - we just didn't know it was snake oil."

Mr Bond said that groups opposed to civil rights now held "unprecedented power" in the Bush administration.

A justice department spokeswoman, Barbara Comstock, said the speeches ignored the administration's actual record.

The Houston Chronicle suggested that the snub had been deliberate: "In search of a more receptive audience, Bush is taking his message of home ownership, welfare reform and faith-based initiatives directly to the African-American churches, service providers and others who may be more likely to embrace it."

The Chronicle reported that in a recent internal White House memo on political strategy African-Americans were the only group listed under "areas for improvement".

At the 2000 election, Mr Bush won just 9% of black votes, and there is bitterness that without the effective disenfranchisement of many black voters in Florida, Al Gore would be president.

© Guardian Newspapers Limited 2002

xpost no!!! ew!

ive always loved that one photo of really young julian bond

ROFFLICIOUS

I'm changing my answer to "kinda".

xpost i don't get anything like that in tennessee but i can easily imagine it, like if you're in an elevator with a guy and a girl with a big ass and she walks out and the guy feels like he's got free reign to relate his sickest fantasies to you

HAHAHAHA!

I take back what I said. You really never can give GWB too little credit.

Cuz his race is irrelevant as a political factor. So we could just refer to him in '04 as a gutless, prevaricating shit.

cockburn's daughter is some kind o' somethin

cockburn's daughter is some kind o' somethin

?

I've come to hate this guy.

never trust a wealthy socialist

i still can't believe that video exists - still - at whitehouse.gov

>You don't hear anyone accuse John Kerry of being a "safe white." <
Cuz his race is irrelevant as a political factor

I know what you're saying, Morbius, but I don't think you actually mean this: Race is obviously a relevant political factor in the candidacy of any white candidate, it's just an unspoken/invisible one.

cockburn's daughter is some kind o' somethin

-- banriquit, Tuesday, June 10, 2008 4:32 AM (5 hours ago) Bookmark Link

come anticipate 'the year one' with me

yes. But a factor that no one talks about (or tries to use against someone?) is more, I dunno, nearer to a "constant"?

never trust a wealthy socialist

What kind do you trust?

dennis perrin lol

Your humble correspondent is happy to be tapping this at his cluttered desk, rather than texting it in from the emergency room. Earlier this morning, while driving the fine Michigan streets that are the envy of Ozark gravel road riders, I nearly bought it. Sitting at a red light, blasting Rob Zombie's "Dragula," enjoying my caffeine high, I felt some contentment. I do most mornings, before the day's shit wind whips up and blows its fecal horror in my face. That usually doesn't occur until afternoon, after I've run errands and mixed with some of the local population.

uhhh what

http://dennisperrin.blogspot.com/2008/06/clouds-part.html

Perrin is most definitely not wealthy.

"uhhhh what" wd be a much more descriptive handle for you.

Rob Zombie's "Dragula" would be a better one for you

...

Perrin is most definitely not wealthy.

we guessed

He's mopped floors fairly recently in fact. Did you ever fucking do any such low, shameful proletarian shit, Prince Eustace?

are you for real dog

lol

I admit I lolled at "Prince Eustace"

Cosign

Wait, does that make Morbius Aslan, showing Gabbneb the error of his ways?

ethan should change his name to Edmund.

Invoking Narnia was entirely accident; I don't know that shit, DAWGS!

Eustace, gabbnerd variety:

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/e/e4/New_Yorker_cover.jpg/200px-New_Yorker_cover.jpg

http://jacobinmag.com/blog/2012/07/alexander-cockburn-1941-2012/

alexander cockburn RIP

i respected him just enough to post this column here instead of there: http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2009/12/24/anthropogenic_global_warming_is_a_farce.html

that is so fucking classy of you

couldn't be more OTM on Obama-warning, eh?

for obama to create a noble rift in the democratic party six months away from midterms elections would be suicide. some people though, some people just act like they were born to lose...

How's winning workin' out for us/you?

Had forgotten exactly how right he was about the Chief.