Greenwald fillets Obama AND neolib bloggingheads

I have GOT to love, and blog about, a Glenn Greenwald column in The Guardian.

Glenn Greenwald

Greenwald not only fillets the Peace Prize Prez like a cheap carp, he also nails Duncan Black, aka Atrios, by name, and by implication, Josh "the pontificating online publisher" Marshall, Kevin Drum, Steve "former Democratic party operative" Benen (Washington Monthly), Markos "I ban real liberals" Moulitsas (Kos) and other neoliberal/tribal Democratic blogging heads.

And, deservedly so, on the group filleting of a bunch of willingly co-opted DC Village types.

First, the specific takedown of Atrios, which Glenn does simply by quoting old Duncan:

The left ... will create an epic 360-degree shitstorm if Obama and the Dems decide that cutting social security benefits is a good idea.

To which, Glenn says, but a bit more politely: Where's your shitstorm, Atrios?

Greenwald next gives us the specific bill of charges against Obama worthy of being shitstormed:

Fast forward to 2011: it is now beyond dispute that President Obama not only favours, but is the leading force in Washington pushing for, serious benefit cuts to both social security and Medicare.

This week, even as GOP leaders offered schemes to raise the debt ceiling with no cuts, the White House expressed support for the Senate's so-called "gang of six" plan that includes substantial cuts in those programmes.

The same Democratic president who supported the transfer of $700bn to bail out Wall Street banks, who earlier this year signed an extension of Bush's massive tax cuts for the wealthy, and who has escalated America's bankruptcy-inducing posture of Endless War, is now trying to reduce the debt by cutting benefits for America's most vulnerable – at the exact time that economic insecurity and income inequality are at all-time highs.

That then leads to the broader takedown:

Therein lies one of the most enduring attributes of Obama's legacy: in many crucial areas, he has done more to subvert and weaken the left's political agenda than a GOP president could have dreamed of achieving. So potent, so overarching, are tribal loyalties in American politics that partisans will support, or at least tolerate, any and all policies their party's leader endorses – even if those policies are ones they long claimed to loathe.

Atrios? Mr. Drummeister? Josh the blog-publishing pedant Marshall? Markos the banner of true liberals Kos? What's that I hear from you? Crickets? Oh, Kossacks, if not Markos himself, will occasionally criticize Dear Leader, but that's about it. Marshall runs White House press office photography slide shows like he's either addicted to them or getting paid for it. Benen, befitting a former Dem operative, will never bite the hand that once fed him. Drum has focused less on DC Village-type politics lately, but, I have no doubt where his loyalties are. And Atrios is already hoist by his own petard.

Obama is now on the verge of injecting what until recently was the politically toxic and unattainable dream of Wall Street and the American right – attacks on the nation's social safety net – into the heart and soul of the Democratic party's platform. Those progressives who are guided more by party loyalty than actual belief will seamlessly transform from virulent opponents of such cuts into their primary defenders.

And thus will Obama succeed – yet again – in gutting not only core Democratic policies, but also the identity and power of the American Left.

Dear Leader, aka Peace Prize Prez

I've received an occasional smirk from Marshall before, such as claiming I didn't know anything about the Middle East peace process, AFTER I'd read the Guardian's reporting on Al-Jazeera's "Wikileaks" that showed all too well I knew plenty about the peace process.

Otherwise, speaking of that, most the Village-type bloggers above have their own motives for continuing to suck up large.

Kos, from his "secret liberals in the CIA" period on, six-seven years ago, has made clear that for him, winning politics as a game/contest comes first, ideology second. Marshall, from his imitation of the mainstream media in granting superfluous anonymity privileges to White House staffers, has shown that Village-type "access" is his ultimate coin of the realm. I've not even visited Atrios' site for four years now, I think, ever since the vast majority of his blog posts became nothing more than Tweets, basically. Benen, I've not visited with any regularity since it was clear that he remained, at bottom line, a Democratic party hack. Drum's a nice guy, and perhaps less hard-core political than any of the others, but I think some of his nice-guyness is an irrational faith in Obama, a faith in the general vicinity Volvo-driving, latte-sipping, Mayer-lemon-lemonade-making white liberal folks feeling good about helping elect a black guy prez.

But, just as Obama has his Obamiacs, we all know Kos has his Kossacs, and all these left-hand of the DC Village bloggers besides Kos all have their groupies too. If they say it's still fine and dandy to support Dear Leader, then that's what the groupthinkers, the lockstep-marchers, will do.

Finally, this reminds me of recent questions/ponderings about the actual or alleged demise of political blogging. Why? Most right-wing bloggers of top stature have gotten themselves affiliated with think tanks or similar, or, if they're a cut below, take marching orders from the conservative A-list, or talk radio/TV bloviators.

The top pseudoliberal bloggers have taken their marching orders from Dear Leader.

That said, although Glenn comes at these things from a different angle, and has pointed out all of Obama's problems, he hasn't told people to play off the board and outside the two-party box. Et tu, Brute?

Glenn, you can do more. You should do more.