Smackdown! A #Green vs #Democrat brouhaha

Friend Perry says I'm more snarky than him, but this time, per the header, he's the one stirring the pot on independent progressive voters. But, I'm here to back him up! ( Not that he actually needs it. Just that I want to jump in.)

What riled him up is a post on a Dems-only Facebook group to which I shall not directly link, which had a link to a Mother Jones article talking about a New York Republican operative using its ballot access laws to put two Greens, unbeknownst to them, on the primary ballot for a Congressional race in New York State against a vulnerable first-term Republican.

First, why this Facebook group was just now posting a link to a five-month-old article, I have no idea. Maybe that's a problem right there?

The Facebook group also included the photo-poster above.

But, let's get at the meat of the issue, as Mojo has another article, from 2012, about rich conservatives giving money to Green candidates in such races.

That said, it's not just Mojo that gives the back of its hand to third-party candidates.

That's one reason I refuse to subscribe to The Nation. And, as I blogged, even somebody theoretically as brainful as Charles Pierce has jumped in the Obamiac wading pool.

Do I believe the Green Party is ideal? No. I've blogged before about its uncritical embrace, at the national level, of pseudomedicine ideas. I also don't think GMO plants are Satan incarnate, though I do cast a skeptical eye on the likes of Monsanto and some particular ways it pushes GMOs. Here is a bit of my thought on that issue, and a bit more here.

Is it often a better alternative to Democrats? Yes. Per Perry, I describe why I vote Green when I can, here. If that's not enough, Dear Leader himself has provided plenty of reasons to vote Green at the presidential level. And continues to do so today. Only the "soft bigotry of low post-Bush expectations" allows for him not getting more flack for the flop in Libya.

Oh, and STOP FUCKING ASKING ME FOR MONEY. William Rivers Pitt nails it. That said, it's not just Dems who do this. I stopped giving money to the ACLU in 2008, maybe earlier; I still regularly get "final notices" from them, just like the Dems. Gang Green enviro groups are horrible about this, and anti-environmental with the amount of trees killed for all their paper hardcopy mailings.

Jon Stewart also nails it, complete with reading those idiotic fund-sucking emails.

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Sometimes, for a comic, more than jokes writing themselves, reality writes the jokes, as when Jon Stewart notes that Democrats are just as money-grubbing as Republicans. A guy named Rich Richman hosting a national Democratic fundraiser headlined by Dear Leader. Gee!

Back to the issues at hand, though.

Dems who whine about Greens taking votes? Get better candidates. Dems who whine about Greens getting GOP help to get on ballots? BOTH "main" parties block third parties; if you don't like it otherwise, go help more Libertarians get on the ballot.

All's fair in love and war, after all. Grow some cojones or ovaries.

Otherwise, Democrats? Stop nominating neolib candidates, especially at the national level.

Beyond that, both "main" parties have for years continued to make ballot access harder and harder for third party candidates. In swing states, they've eliminated fusion candidates or slates. Elsewhere, they've made individual third-party candidate or party-line ballot access harder to obtain. 

And, as for Democrats who equate the Green Party with Ralph Nader? First, Ralph Nader has never been an official Green Party presidential candidate. Second, I've thrown him under the bus myself. That said, people who make the Nader claim are typical Obamiacs.

As for booting people? Daily Kos, the Great Orange Satan, booted me, what, 7-8 years ago, for being too Green. Of course, Markos Moulitsas is the "genius" who thinks there's "secret librulz" hiding inside the CIA.

I mean, with Dems like this, who needs Republicans?

A word to both #Obamiacs and #Hillaryites via Ted Rall

It's the start of the new year, and I'm being snarkier than ever from my skeptical left-liberal perspective.

That said, it's a lot easier with the help of Ted Rall, a master of snark.

Ted Rall's own caption: Hillary Clinton has titles, but few achievements, to her name.
Her campaign is built on hype. People are more into what she would symbolize if she won —
a first woman president — than what she would do. Sound familiar?

That said, a couple of points to note.

First, in 2008, when people asked if I didn't want to help make history,  or whatever, I told them I was voting for both the black and the woman, in the same person, before the Democratic primaries even ended. (I have no idea if Cynthia McKinney had or has something in the closet on her sexual preferences, and it's none of my damned business if she does.)

And, per a friend of mine, I have a new word: "Demdroids."

I define it as a lower digestive system ailment one gets on a no-fiber, all neoliberalism diet.

That said, if you don't recognize that you're being fed pablum with no sustenance in the first place, you don't realize that having a low-grade burning pain in the ass is not the way things are supposed to be. 

Or, you may believe that a diet with 2 percent fiber, and the resultant Demdroids, is enough less bad than the zero-fiber GOP alternative. In that case, don't blame GOP governors for people lacking insurance, don't trot out conspiracy theories about Obamacare's website getting disrupted by wingnuts with DDOS attacks or anything else.

Look at said cartoon above, again, especially the top right panel.

I had thought about having "Be less snarky" as one of my New Year's resolutions, but I realized I'd break that in a New York minute.

Rather, mentally, I'm thinking, "Be more acccurately snarky," or "Be snarky with more precision," is what I'm looking at. New Year's resolutions, or better, goals, are supposed to be SMART: Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic, and Time-bound and, this fits all of them.

That said, looking ahead to 2016.

While Elizabeth Warren might actually do more good in the Senate, I suspect a lot more people will run the possibility of "demdroids" in 2016 unless someone like her enters the Democratic race. Hell, maybe Tammy Baldwin should run, as long as its not on a sexual identity special interest platform.

And, let's see one, just one, Kossack post this at the great orange Satan.

That reminds me of something else. Some of you may recall the whole Daily Kos kerfuffle,where Kossacks accused Rall of racism, and Rall eventually said he would draw Obama differently? What if he just doesn't draw him at all for three more years, while continuing to take potshots? Take that, Kossacks! 

Sadly, instead, he went back to "just" drawing Obama like before. But, there's hope!

Anyway, in one post, Rall bankshots both Obama and Clinton, while perhaps setting the tone until Jan. 20, 2017. And, for Kossacks who are also Hillaryistas, now you know — mess with Ted Rall at your own peril, or with any cybercartoonist who buys coloration by the pixel-barrel.

Charles Pierce takes a swim in the Obamiac wading pool

I like a lot of Charles Pierce's political writing. I like some of it a lot. (And, I like some of his sports writing a lot, too.)

His Morning Dooley and Evening Jemmy on his Esquire politics blog are fun stuff. His calling Politico "Tiger Beat on the Potomac" is hilarious, and he has an eye for the turn of phrase like that in both politics and sports. He can be a good, even scathing, critic of inside-the-Beltway mindsets, of politics as chess match, and more.

And yet, despite his affection (a bit overdone, in my book) for the Occupy movement, and other things, at times, there's something missing. And, that "something," appears to be a lack of critical thinking. Not that he can't do it, but, on occasion, he fails to do so.

Hence, the title of this post, based on my take on his blog about President Obama's income inequality speech. I don't see it as much more than White House boilerplate, but he gushes, including claiming it's so great precisely because D.C. Village media ignore it.

Let's take the last point first, to quickly dismiss it. The Village also ignores the Green Party, and even more various Socialist parties, but I didn't see you talking up Jill Stein in 2012 just because the Village ignored the Greens' presidential candidate.

But, let's get to the meat of my plaint, and why I see Pierce swimming in the Obamiacs' kiddie pool. (At least he didn't go in the adult area, at least not yet.) And, to do that, I direct you to the actual speech.

Nowhere in the speech does he say what he's going to do about about income inequality. And, nowhere in his blog post does Pierce mention that highly salient fact.

This is even as Obama pushes the Trans-Pacific Partnership.This is even as Obama is arguably as much a full-blown free trader as the Slickster and Shrub combined. And, that's Pierce's biggest failure on the piece.

Past issues that he's mentioned from previous eras in American history? 

Education: Obama fails to mention that he and many other neoliberals are OK with a big-business model of higher education that will likely only increase its cost for many Americans.

Unionism: Obama, like presidents both Republican and Democratic from Carter on, have done little to bolster private-sector unionization. Republicans have, as on many of these issues, been worse, but Democrats have generally been part of the problem, too.

Social Security: Obama and other neolibs want to raise the retirement age, use chained-CPI to reduce benefits hikes and more. So does the Catfood Commission Obama formed. So does the Center for American Progress Obama lauded at the start of his speech.

As for bits Obama does seem to propose? First, they're vague generalities, and second, most probably won't help.

Simplify the tax code: I saw nothing about making it more progressive. Ending any tax credits or exemptions that help corporations send jobs overseas is nice, but a drop in the bucket.

"A trade agenda that grows jobs": But, what jobs at what pay? We already have a trade agenda growing jobs at places like Amazon warehouses. If it does grow jobs at longshoreman-organized ports, Team Obama has been AWOL on supporting strikes by the various longshoremen's unions.

"Streamlining regulations": First, this is the stock neoliberal answer to "waste, fraud and abuse." Yes, there are government regulations that can be streamlined, but, by and large, this is a straw man.

"A responsible budget": What the hell? You don't get vaguer than that. Well, actually, the Catfood Commission IS less vague, and a true liberal doesn't want that, do they, Mr. Jemmy Pierce?

Jobs stuff: ENDA and the Paycheck Non-Discrimination Act are "nice." But, they're more special interest civil liberties shout-outs to LGBT and women than they are about labor issues in general.

Minimum wage: Real stuff. But, why didn't Congressional Dems, including you, then-Sen. Obama, hike it even more than you actually did, in 2007? Why didn't you index its future growth to inflation? Will you do that now? Give the minimum wage a COLA?

"Promise Zones": Yes, my skepticism in politics sometimes veers close to cynicism, but this sure sounds like a neolib version of enterprise zones. 

In short, typical neoliberalism. No grand vision, no great new ideas. Just market-based nibbling around the edges. I mean, Pierce even admits that about the start of the speech. For some reason, though, he seems to think there's something drastically new about the second two-thirds, and there just ain't.

Now, on to a couple of other issues with Mr. Pierce, in which I may get a bit more snarky yet. Head below the fold.

The psychology of Obama and #Obamiacs re #Obamacare struggles

Margaret Carlson has a great, if snide-leaning, takedown-cum-analysis of Dear Leader's personal psychology as a major contributing factor to Obamacare's struggles. Basically, she claims that our alleged hyperintellectual president (hyperintellectual in theory, in reality, of course, on things like constitutional law and the Fourth Amendment, either an idiot or a liar) has a mix of boredom and "cool" that is close to fatal in this case. A sample:

The first (statement about Obama) was made in St. Paul, Minnesota, at the end of the 2008 primary campaign, when candidate Obama predicted that generations would look back and see his nomination as “the moment when the rise of the oceans began to slow and our planet began to heal.” 

Couple this with the assessment of his closest aide, Valerie Jarrett, about his exceptionalism. “He knows exactly how smart he is,” she told Obama biographer David Remnick. “And he knows that he has the ability -- the extraordinary, uncanny ability -- to take a thousand different perspectives, digest them and make sense out of them.” 

Obama “has never really been challenged intellectually,” she went on. “He’s been bored to death his whole life. He’s just too talented to do what ordinary people do.”   

Or what an ordinary president does, for that matter. A chief executive less bored than Obama would have stayed on top of his signature legislation. Those upset that he didn’t are bedwetters, the White House says, nervous Nellies who can’t comprehend the larger picture of health-care reform that will, in due time, emerge. ...

Shame on mere politicians who worry about the next election rather than the next generation. Obama’s cool enrages even his allies. In 2010, after voting for the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, 63 House Democrats lost their seats, a historic rout. And that was before the law actually kicked in and its inadequacies became apparent. ...

The mechanics weren’t as promised. In August, many of the elements needed for HealthCare.gov to function were deemed not ready by the chief contractor, CGI Group Inc., a company hired by the administration despite a poor performance record. As of August, almost nothing worked as promised: Computer systems at the multiple government agencies involved were unable to talk to one another, code was plagued with errors, and the system couldn’t handle even 500 users at a time. What’s more, no one had tended to the even more complicated financial and accounting part of the insurance exchanges. 

None of this was enough to rouse the intellectually restless president’s attention. After the Oct. 1 rollout, he seemed as surprised as your average citizen that the exchanges weren’t working. He keeps suggesting the failure should be mitigated by the fact that his opponents were wishing for it. It took him six weeks to apologize, he still hasn’t held anyone responsible, and not one head has rolled. One reason he could say that the fiasco was “on him” is that his head can’t roll. 

All accurate, dear Obamiacs, on what the actual problems with the federal exchange system is. And, all accurate, I charge, on Dear Leader's psychology.

Now, speaking of possible lying, though I don't know if he's a hyperintellectual or not, here's Josh Marshall, founder of blog-cum-news site Talking Points Memo. Marshall, an Obamiac so in the tank he's for years run a slide show of White House photographers' hand-out pix, calls himself a realist, rather than the O-word, on Obamacare.

A sample of him:

Here's why I'm still pretty optimistic.

I base this relative optimism on four assumptions.

The first is legislative: regardless of firestorms about this or that, this law will not undergo substantive changes before January 2017. ...

Second and under-appreciated: the major national insurance carriers have heavily bought into the "Obamacare"/exchange model and have spent almost three years retooling their business models to prepare for it. It's too much to say there's no going back. But the carriers themselves are about as close to being locked in as you can get ...

Third: By early next year you will have millions of new people enrolled in Medicaid, large numbers of people who have health care covered who couldn't get it at any reasonable price before who now have coverage and you will have large numbers of people who have care that is better or cheaper and often both than it was before. ...

Fourth: the most important premise, I think Obamacare is good policy. By 'good' I mean something very specific - not ideal or perfect or the best but that its basic approach of incentives, subsidies, creating better risk pools and efficiencies through exchanges, etc. can and will work to substantially increase access and reduce market failure and medical inflation.

My quick reactions.

On the first, how do you know? If the GOP regains the Senate, obstructionism to the law increases, likely to a point Dear Leader starts "trimming" even more.

On the second, not necessarily, especially if it ties to point No. 1.

On the third? Not that many, as long as most states that resisted Medicaid expansion continue to do so. Besides, again per point 1, that can be shaved off from other parts of the wall.

Fourth? It's good policy if you're a neoliberal. Nuff said.

Meanwhile, I'll believe Dear Leader's team's claims that the federal exchange website has been fixed when we're in the start of a new work week and more people are trying it out.

Oh, I'm sure it's better. But "fixed"? We'll see.

There's weasel words in the story, plus an outright admission that the only part of the site fixed is the consum-user side. The problems with payouts to insurers still aren't fixed.

So, a Josh Marshall type who claims insurers have no "out" and can do nothing but go along for the ride? Maybe that won't be true if that side of the equation doesn't get fixed soon.

Obamacare snafus have Senate Democrats worried (updated)

This is a no-surprise story, but, it's one that, unless Dear Leader gets off the pot on the federal exchange fixes, will only pick up traction in weeks ahead.

Here's the bottom line. The success of state insurance exchanges doesn't matter. Obama's naivete, or passiveness, or whatever, over how much extra lifting would have to be done on the federal exchange because of how many states that would refuse to set up state exchanges, doesn't matter.

The bottom line, put impolitely, is this. Senate Democrats want the damn thing fixed:

"There's only so much muddying up you can do on an issue as important as this," said Tom Bowen, former political adviser to Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel. "People elected politicians who disagree with them as long as they know where they stand. You have to have some flexibility, but trying to sort of shade who you are—that doesn't inspire a lot of confidence."

That part of the quote after the "said" is also important. Beyond fixing the federal exchange website, too many workarounds, like telling people to go directly to private insurers, further muddies the waters. Reportedly, Obama is considering letting people do just that. I think that's idiotic.

Is the concern serious? Well, National Journal says it is:

Indeed, there's a growing sense of fatalism among Democrats. Even as strategists are advising their clients on how to best talk about health care, they badly want to change the subject and hope that the problems go away. On that point, the White House and congressional Democrats are on the same page.

"If the election were held today, Republicans would probably win back the majority," said one longtime Democratic operative tracking internal Senate polling. "But we know for sure the election would not be held today."

First, a sidebar. I've heard people claim National Journal is a right-wing website. Not even close. It's a bipartisan, inside-the-Beltway magazine, a long-form Politico with more brains. Go ahead and believe stuff like that if you want. Believe that the federal exchange website has been the target of politically driven DDoS attacks, while you're at it.

And, then, if Senate Dems' worst fears come true, blame nobody but yourself for a head-in-the-sand posture.

Meanwhile, as of Nov. 27, Senate Dems may have yet another reason to worry. Dear Leader is delaying by a year small businesses' opportunity to hunt for employee coverage directly on the federal marketplace system. I'll stand by to see how Obamiacs explain away this one.

Yes, small businesses can still shop offline, via an insurance broker or directly with insurers, but, this issue also goes to credibility about whether alleged fixes to the federal exchange will work as well as administration claims.

And, as far as the political chess match issue, National Journal explains just why Senate Democrats are worried.

On the House side, Nancy Pelosi can say whatever she wants about Obamacare and standing behind it in midterms. Democrats are already the minority party in the House.

Finally, Nov. 30 is not the only looming date of concern.

There's another deadline. Dec. 23 is the deadline to sign up for insurance for the new year. Maybe Obama doesn't fully hit that target on software fixes either, as Amy Davidson notes at the New Yorker. She, too adds (this is the New Yorker, not the New York Post, folks) that much of the problem is Dear Leader's:

After five years in the White House, Obama still believes that he can go into a corner, tinker with something until it’s better, and win on the merits. The long view can serve him well, but it can also leave him unprepared when the other side won’t give up on an all-out battle. Health-care reform is the President’s signature legislative achievement, and a historic one. To preserve it, he needs to fight for it politically, state by state. This time, the Obama brand alone isn’t enough.

Chances of him truly grasping that? C'mon, we've seen enough of him over five years. Chances are 50-50 at best.

My guesstimate? By Dec. 23, between improving but not totally fixing the federal exchange websites, and various workarounds, but only in federal exchange states, Obamacare there will get to about 75-80 percent of enrollment targets. Whether that becomes a glass half full/skin of his teeth, "win," or a glass half empty "loss," remains to be seen.

That, in turn, raises another issue. If the fix isn't perfect, will Senate Democrats up for election in 2014 want Obama campaigning with them or not? And, how much effort will he put into it?

And, for those of us who wanted single-payer national health care, the failure of Obamacare won't get us closer to that, sadly. Of course, neither will its success, at least not much closer.

4 out of 5 users may actually use #Obamacare! By Nov. 30!

If you're nearly my age, or older, you probably remember the old TV jingle about how "Four out of five dentists ... recommend Trident."

Well, according to the Washington Post, it looks like an earlier blog post of mine saying I didn't expect Team Obama to have the federal exchange website for Obamacare ready by Nov. 30 may just be at least partially true:

The Obama administration has set a Nov. 30 deadline — next Saturday — by which officials have promised that HealthCare.gov will work smoothly for about four out of five consumers who attempt to use it to sign up for health plans. Even now, the official familiar with the project said, CGI’s work on the repairs is not always going well; roughly one-third to half the new computer code the company is writing cannot be used because it is revealing flaws when it is fully examined by a group of outside testers, including some insurance companies.

That said, since it sounds like even the latest promise from Dear Leader is likely to not be ... er, fully operative, to riff back to Richard Nixon days?

Meanwhile, having perhaps learned a lesson, I assume Team Obama's already working on its post-Nov. 30 "spin" plans. And, Obamiacs, especially the ones who have blamed right-wing DDoS attacks, or a CGI Federal who has contributed politically to both parties for allegedly deliberately tanking, are you working on your "spin" too?

Instead, why don't you ask the wunderkind to hold up a mirror to himself, because that's where a lot of the problems started.

Actually, there will be a Plan C.

Assuming that the promises above are indeed too optimistic? First, Obama is considering letting people sign up for Obamacare directly via insurance companies. I think that's a fairly strong indication that HealthCare.gov will NOT be fixed by Nov. 30. And, I believe he'll follow through on that, which in turn will actually cause even more havoc.

Oct. 7 news briefs roundup — Libya, Tricky Ricky, more

• What I take away from the Libya and Somalia raids by our Special Forces?

Beyond the obvious ones, namely that Somalia is a failed state and there's limits to our power in a lot of places unless we want to shed a lot of blood (remember that, you "Syrian action" fanatics) is that our exercise in nation-building in Libya seems to be pretty much of a flop (remember that, too, "Syria action" fanatics).

Also, that, among Obamiacs as well as Bushies, the continued blindness toward this thing called "boots on the ground" seems only to grow in response to concerns like the one I just expressed.

• This NYT piece hits the nail on the head: Rick Perry's job hunting trips are likely not even about recruiting jobs to Texas but instead about a 2016 presidential run.

• Immigrants can help revitalize a "dying" city; one such city, Dayton, Ohio, is actively pursuing them.

• A liberal Catholic philosopher agrees with my insight and says there's no doctrinal changes out of the mouth of Francis the Talking Pope, just "changes of style and tone."

#Sarin in #Syria: Who did it? Cui bono?

Update, Sept. 18: The UN investigation seems to tie the attacks to senior officers of President Bashar Assad. Whether they were following orders or not may still not be final, but the linked New York Times story indicates the answer is yes.

That said, per the oft-cited piece by William Polk at the Atlantic? His "cui bono" was, and still is, a good question. And, if part of why he wrote that piece was pushback, given America's generally poor history of regime change in the Middle East, the neocons leading the charge again on this one and Obama not having a Syria exit plan, the shoot-first warmongers can still look themselves in the mirror.

Now, back to the original blog post.

That rhetorical question in the header is the bottom line to remember, before John Kerry or anybody else on Team Obama gets to sounding so much like Bushies that soon we hear a chemical weapons equivalent of Condoleezza Rice's "smoking gun ... mushroom cloud." (Of course, they're taking their talking points from those of Dear Leader, so, who knows what will happen next.)

But, that leads us to the question of: Who did it? As Aum Shinrikyo showed in Tokyo, sarin is  relatively easy to produce and weaponize/distribute.

There's essentially six possible answers, the way I see it, with thoughts on motive.

1. Bashar Assad, though in The Atlantic, William Polk, after raising the "cui bono" question (right up there with the "follow the money" warning as two of the most important things to know when pulling on strings), said that Assad doesn't benefit. Why? He's been rolling back the rebels the last few weeks without chemical weapons.

2. The Syrian military, without an explicit order from Assad, as German intelligence reportedly thinks. In hindsight, I kind of berate myself for not thinking of this earlier as a theoretical option, if nothing else. Maybe, as some of them thought when he took over from his dad, some generals, or below them, some colonels and majors, think Assad fils isn't tough enough. Answer? They destabilize Syria further then mount a coup when he doesn't respond.

Now, I'm going to sort out various groups of rebels who could have done this.

3. "Secularists" like the Free Syrian Army. Given that they're the ones in US good graces, they arguably have the most to gain from US intervention if Assad is starting to turn things around versus all the rebels as a lump.

4. Kurdish nationalists. Theoretically possible. Given that the Kurdish Workers' Party, the PKK, has announced it has stopped its withdrawal from Turkey, Kurds in Syria might have a lot to gain. The Turkish economy is slipping again and Iraq looks like it could still possibly disintegrate, leaving Iraqi Kurds some choices.

5. Shi'ite rebels, presumably getting help from Hezbollah or directly from Iran. A variety of winners here. Hezbollah might hope it sucks Israel into sending ground troops into Syria, or otherwise bollixing things up. Iran could use a chemical weapons threat as a bargaining chip on economic sanctions against it.

6. Al-Qaeda type rebels. Name recognition for people that are largely "wannabes."

As for who would have had the ability to either produce or acquire chemical weapons?

1. We know the Assad government has them.

2. Army officers reportedly have indicated that control of said weapons might not be that tight, so No. 2 is viable.

3. "Secularists" might include disgruntled former civil servants. If the Army officers are right about loose control, theft is possible.

4. The PKK might have made sarin. Would it have already used it against Turkey at some point if it had, though? That might be a "tell" against it.

5. I don't know about Hezbollah, but an Iranian stockpile of sarin is certainly possible.

6. Not likely unless by theft, I'd say. That said, Iran reportedly told the US that these folks had chemical weapons. The same story notes that the Turks allegedly found sarin in "jihadi" rebels' homes in May.

That said, most of the possible players have at least some benefit from using chemical weapons.

Meanwhile, if it WAS Assad, or rogue generals, it looks like the Russkies are going to try to remove Dear Leader's excuse for warmaking. Yes, technically, John Kerry made the statement in what is being called an "offhand comment."

That said, looking at it below, no offhand comment. It's warmongering with a definite timetable, and a relatively short one, attached. And, if it wasn't Assad, or his generals, who did this, Mr. Heinz 57 Varieties (of Neoliberalism) could wind up being Just.Another.Bushie.™:

Lavrov's comments came after Secretary of State John Kerry suggested earlier in the day that if Syria gave up its chemical weapons by the end of the week an attack could be avoided. 

"He could turn over every single bit of his chemical weapons to the international community in the next week. Turn it over, all of it, without delay and allow a full and total accounting," Kerry told reporters during a press conference in London with his British counterpart. 

Oy. Again, where did we hear these words before? And, if Kerry says "we know you have more than that"? Again, where did we hear that before? Good thing sarin doesn't come in aluminum tubes.

Of course, he's just agreeing with the boss:

(Obama) said that “if we don’t maintain and move forward with a credible threat of military pressure, I do not think we will actually get the kind of agreement I would like to see.”

Wait, wait? Aren't we supposed to "negotiate with our enemies," or is that 2008 campaign statement now inoperable.

No, we're not. I present your Warmonger in Chief:

“The U.S. does not do pinpricks,” (Obama) said in the NBC interview. “Our military is the greatest the world has ever known. And when we take even limited strikes, it has an impact on a country like Syria.”

Wow. The O-bots would crap their pants if Bush had said this.

Now? Per Ezra Klein, below, this is11-dimensional chess brilliance.

Meanwhile, Syria has accepted the proposal. Well, sort of. The foreign minister and prime minister has, but Assad himself hasn't yet commented. And, France is looking to put more teeth into the proposal.

So, if Obama still wants to warmonger, what straw does he grasp at next? (And, if this was rogue generals, Assad has good reason for accepting the idea, and making at least half an effort on following through.)

Anyway, contra Team Obama's blathering, we don't actually know who the hell did this. (More on that below.) 

Beyond that, even the death count is disputed.

Neither Kerry’s remarks nor the unclassified version of the U.S. intelligence he referenced explained how the U.S. reached a tally of 1,429, including 426 children. The only attribution was “a preliminary government assessment.”

Anthony Cordesman, a former senior defense official who’s now with the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies, took aim at the death toll discrepancies in an essay published Sunday.

He criticized Kerry as being “sandbagged into using an absurdly over-precise number” of 1,429, and noted that the number didn’t agree with either the British assessment of “at least 350 fatalities” or other Syrian opposition sources, namely the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which has confirmed 502 dead, including about 100 children and "tens" of rebel fighters, and has demanded that Kerry provide the names of the victims included in the U.S. tally.

“President Obama was then forced to round off the number at ‘well over 1,000 people’ – creating a mix of contradictions over the most basic facts,” Cordesman wrote. He added that the blunder was reminiscent of “the mistakes the U.S. made in preparing Secretary (Colin) Powell’s speech to the U.N. on Iraq in 2003.”

As usual, McClatchy, far more than other mainstream media, cuts through the bullshit of the bipartisan foreign policy establishment. That's why, even more than I've said before, we'd be stupid to go to war.

You'd also be stupid to believe that alleged inside-the-Beltway political master, Ezra Klein, when he claims Dear Leader is at another brilliant game of 11-dimensional chess and has no intention of anything warlike. Klein's now doubled down on teh suck-up, acting like this is the outcome Dear Leader wanted. Only problem? As I've blogged before, Obama usually gets his hat handed to him when Ezra, Matty Y and the rest of the Brat Pack Smart Set claim he's playing 11-dimensional chess. This time, it will be others than the GOP in Congress holding said hat, possibly.

Besides, the more Dear Leader pushes, the more one like me gets cynical about other moves. Like this six-month waiver on not importing oil from Iran for some EU members for being "good sanctions kids." Is this done to give them a bit of economic boost for getting on board with Syria? 

At least Ezra's better than the wingnuts, who claim Obama planned this. (That's despite the "sarin" allegedly found in Turkey turning out to be antifreeze, per the reports of British blogger Brown Moses, who is becoming the go-to guy on Syrian weaponry issues and more for all mainstream media.) Though the idea that the Free Syrian Army did this, if you take away the anti-Obama conspiracy theory, is plausible. That, in turn, is better than the Religious Right's Amen corner for the neocons, at least the nuttier of them,  starting the Gog, Magog and End Times talk about Syria, per this YouTube video. 

But, I did my analyzing, and didn't make my wager, or offer odds.

I'll now address that.

1. Assad? 15 percent chance.

2. Assad's generals as mavericks? 40 percent.

3. Free Syrian Army? 25 percent 

4. Kurds? 5 percent.

5. Shi'ites? 5 percent.

6. Al Qaeda? 10 percent. 

I swapped the original percentages on the last two after reading the Iran warning story above. Folks like the Al-Nusra Front would "gain" by provoking the US into a "martyr-creating" response. I have since updated the odds to reflect some of "joshuaism" in his third comment.

Those odds should show you just how much I see just how convoluted this situation is. So should the fact that I just changed them.

That said, how much of a gap is there, really, between Assad's generals, if they are that maverick, and Assad's former generals running the Free Syrian Army? Given that the Free Syrian Army opposes the Russian proposal, one could argue that it has a vested interest in keeping a pipeline open to loosely guarded chemical weapons, and that the gaps about the same as Team Obama's "before" and "after" Kerry's comment stance.

Sadly, it seems that people who should know better are at least uncritically buying the "Assad did it" line, if not Ezra's line. 

The complexity of Syrian ethnic-religious politics. The Atlantic

Beyond that, I've grossly oversimplified the number of likely rebel groups. Here's Polk, again:

We know little about them, but what we do know is that they are divided into hundreds – some say as many as 1,200 -- of small, largely independent,  groups.

I wish people who say "Assad did it" would admit the possibility, and the not totally unreasonable possibility, that others did it.

Even if you triple my probability of Assad doing that, that's still just 37.5 percent, or 3-in-8, odds that he did. And, none of you have answered Polk, as extended by me, on "cui bono" if Assad was starting to gain the upper hand in conventional fighting.

That said, per the third comment below, I'd buy 60 percent odds of rogue generals doing it. 

Update, Sept. 10: The warmongers are monging tonight, in light of Obama's speech. On NPR just now, Richard Haass, head of the Council on Foreign Relations, was claiming out of thin air that Assad has crossed Obama's red line a dozen times since he made that statement a year ago.

Foreign Policy mag has its mind made up, calling Assad's claims not to have done it unbelievable. And, it goes on to claim that this has all brainwashed right-wingers into trumpeting Assad's claims.

Really? Anthony Cordesman's a winger? 

Update, Sept. 12: Somebody on Facebook asked why it matters who did it if we're trying to stabilize the area, control chemical weapons, and related issues.

Focusing on the "stabilization" issue, here's why it matters:

The issue of who did it influences where we aim our missiles, what follow-up we're going to do, etc. Say rogue generals did it. Directly attacking Assad could strengthen their hand for a coup. Say the Free Syrian Army, human-heart-eaters and all, did it. That could strengthen their hand, and Syria potentially is led by worse than Assad.

And, there's the simple morals issue of potentially attacking the wrong folks.

It matters a lot who did it, if you want to avoid the risk of destabilizing rather than stabilizing, or stabilizing a monster even worse. It matters a lot.  

Update 2, Sept. 12: The Nation is halfway right about alleged Syrian expert Elizabeth Bagy. It is a wag the dog, to some degree. But, it's part of the bipartisan foreign policy establishment. Kimberly Kagan, the founder of the Institute for the Study of War, is part of the neocon wing of the bipartisan foreign policy establishment. She is Fred Kagan's wife, Donald Kagan's daughter in law and Robert Kagan's brother in law.

For Greg Mitchell to not have drilled down that far is kind of sad.

Jon Chait, filibuster, #Obamiacs and the reality-based community?

Remember when Democrats, riffing on Karl Rove and his minions, said they were the "reality-based community"?

Well, top Obamiac fellator Jon Chait once again proves that's not true.

His latest malfeasance? Crowing over the deal in the Senate where Majority Leader Harry Reid and Minority Leader Mitch McConnell agreed that the Senate GOP would stop filibustering a pack of Obama nominees in exchange for the Senate not doing a "nuclear option" and entirely killing the filibuster.

Here's his first teh wrong:

Democrats had proposed to change the Senate’s rules to prevent filibusters on executive branch nominations (but not to ban filibusters of legislation or judicial nominees). They’ve won.

Nope. No win. Obama still has multiple DC Circuit Court nominees in limbo. And Reid couldn't even get an agreement to force an actual Wendy Davis-style filibuster.

Then there's this:

Republicans got one face-saving concession: Democrats have to pick new names for the NLRB. This became an issue because Obama tried to execute an end-run around Congress by appointing them to their positions when Congress was functionally, though not technically, in recess, and was struck down by the Republican-controlled D.C. circuit court. 

As at least one labor group makes clear, this isn't a "face-saving concession." Instead, the Turtle had ramped up the whole idea of the "not in recess" recess precisely for this reason. Instead, this is a clear cave for Dear Leader.

Of course, even that's not the stupidist Jon Chait-ism. This is:

The deal was brokered by John McCain, who undercut McConnell and is fully emerging, yet again, as his old centrist self.

Wow, McCain a "centrist." Only in Jon Chait's Obama Happy Meal world.

John McCain a fucking centrist. Now I've heard it all.

Once again, IOKIYAO to spout this bullshit.

It's this same Beltway-based (yes, he's in NYC, I know) mentality of politics as chess game, and Dear Leader allegedly being the master of 11-dimensional chess (NOT) that I loathe. It's the same thinking that led Daily Kos founder Markos Moulitsas to put personalities, followed by personal victories, over policy victories.

Obama plays 12-dimensional #SocialSecurity chess with 11-dimension mind, gets burned

Eleven-dimensional chess is the inside-the-Beltway idea of a master politician thinking not just one move ahead, but at least one dimension ahead, of his foes.

Obamiacs both inside and outside the Beltway, in things like the Bush Obama tax cuts, the sequester, and now budget deals, have consistently said that we mere true liberal mortals couldn't see ahead the end result of Obama's 11-dimensional moves.

Well, it seems like the GOP is handing him his hat in the 12th dimension on chained CPI for Social Security, older eligibility age for Medicare, and more.

And, per the second page of the story, the right-wing talking machine is already spreading lies:

“Politically, this is not a winner. Our brand is the party that brought you Social Security,” said Rep. Rush D. Holt (D-N.J.), adding that his mother said she had heard that Obama was eliminating benefits for people older than 80. “We’ve now opened up the door for rumors about how Social Security will be reduced or eliminated. We don’t need that.”

Wow.

Followed by this:

The Club for Growth, another group that promotes conservative economic policies, threatened to find a primary opponent for Walden. President Chris Chocola noted that in 2005 “it was Republicans who said no” to President George W. Bush’s more ambitious plan to overhaul Social Security by adding private accounts.

Nooo, it was we the progressive people who helped stop it.

So, these are the folks whom Obama thought he could sweet talk with his mellifluous voice singing Kumbaya. (April 30: Democratic House members eying midterm elections are trying to distance themselves from that voice.)

Meanwhile, the "most transparent administration in history" signs into law the bill I saw last week, where Congress exempts its own members and staffers from online financial disclosures.

Obamiacs must have perpetual flu viruses; they can't wake up and smell coffee.

Once again, Obama, and Obamiacs, demonstrate the soft bigotry of low expectations.

I am more and more at the point where I fully think Obama's a worse president than Jimmy Carter.

But, just at times I wonder whether W. was that stupid, or rather, he was that devious, I wonder whether Dear Leader is that politically naive, or its more he's that, that, that neoliberal, that, re the Obamiacs, he's in Dimension 13, looking for even more austerity.

#Obama, #Obamiacs, crickets and Social Security

"Crickets" is the most likely sound we'll hear from Obamiacs after Dear Leader just "sold out" Social Security. (April 30: Crickets is not the sound from Democratic House members, struggling to distance themselves from Obama before midterm elcctions.)

Those who do feel compelled to speak will offer one of the following options:
A. This is the "best possible deal" he could get to prevent sequester-like problems from recurring.
B. He's actually got some secret political jujitsu planned because he knows the House GOP won't accept it.
C. Social Security actually is in trouble.

Response:
A. Bullshit. Obama is again compromising for compromise's sake because he continued to be in love with the allegedly messianic powers of his mellifluous voice. Once again, Shrub Bush's favorite line about "the soft bigotry of low expectations" exemplifies his successor.
B. I actually heard this in the run-up to the sequester. That's a sequester that Obama helped cause, by the way, in part because he's too dumb to deal with the GOP in the first place.
C. Spoken like a true neoliberal, anybody who says this. Actually, not all neolibs like this, even. Brat Pack op-eder (not a journalist) Matt Yglesias worries that Obama has created a political box for himself.

And, as for longer-term relief from austerity in Europe and austerity lite in the US?

A debt jubilee, or anything close to it, won't happen, to riff on Voltaire, until the last neoliberal politician is strangled with the entrails of the last neoliberal technocrat.

I think again of a Catfood Commission whose members were all appointed by Obama.

Meanwhile, there's lots more fun with Obama and social issues.

The very insightful Doug Henwood of Left Business Observer notes that a lot of businesses will opt out of continuing to offer their employees insurance next year.

Why?

The $2,000 per employee penalty is less than half their annual per-employee cost for their share of health insurance, on average.

And, if you're lower middle class and without insurance right now? Obamacare sounds great on paper. But ... paper's going to be part of the problem for people unaccustomed to the paperwork that insurers will snow them with. CJR has the extensive details on what this will probably be like, as America's Health Insurance Plans is surely loving this part of the self-gifting of the Obamacare it helped create.

More Obama and the soft bigotry of low expectations

I've said more than once that one of Shrub Bush's most notorious phrases actualy fits Obam (and Obamiacs) quite well.

The latest proof?

Dear Leader's claim that "I'm no Dick Cheney" on drone warfare. Well, the actual direct quote was, "This is not Dick Cheney we're talking about here."

Well, Maximum Leader, Mahmoud Ahmedinejad could say "I'm no Adolf Hitler" on anti-Semitism, too, couldn't he?

That said, Dear Leader made his statement to a group of Democratic senators.

And when Jay Rockefeller — someone who exemplifies Teddy Roosevelt's "backbone of a chocolate eclair" — is the one to start expressing concerns, Obama's claim is weak tea indeed.

Of course, that's just part of this bigger issue:

While Obama defended his handling of the issue, he told his former Senate colleagues he understood their concerns about being left out of the loop on such sensitive decisions, senators said. The president noted that he would have “probably objected” over the White House’s handling of this issue if he were still a senator, they said. But, according to the sources, he noted his viewpoint changed now that he occupies the Oval Office — not a room in a Senate office building.

And, many Obamiacs still say, IOKIYAO.

And, that's part of the problem.

No it's not, first of all. Party affiliation does nothing to justify an imperial presidency. The back-to-back "reigns" of LBJ and Tricky Dick showed that 40 years ago.

Second, even if Rand Paul was grandstanding with his filibuster (and dumb enough, or venal enough) to accept AG Eric Holder's non-answer "answer," that doesn't excuse Obamiacs from playing CYA on Holder's fanny, let alone Obama's.

But, back to the main point.

Obama did do wel by raising EPA fuel standards. Arguably, though, that was for "energy independence" reasons more than environmental ones.

Other than that, his administration has generally been a string of sellouts, including recently, and that's exemplified but not limited to Keystone XL.

I'll say nothing too much about his love for the banksters beyond his ire at Frontline's report over his administration refusing to prosecute.

And, we all have heard about the sequester; between his Catfood Commission and other things, it's at least arguable Obama halfway likes the sequester as well as halfway causing it.

"Is we learning yet?" Jay Rockefeller finally started.

#Obamacare and digital medical records - John Doe can't win

At least not so far. Currently, the big "winner" in digitizing medical records is not patients, getting more reliable treatment when moving from doctor to doctor or hospital to hospital, but companies that do the work of digitizing records.

While proponents say new record-keeping technologies will one day reduce costs and improve care, profits and sales are soaring now across the records industry. At Allscripts, annual sales have more than doubled from $548 million in 2009 to an estimated $1.44 billion last year.
Gee, what a shock.

"Shock" No. 2 — how this happened, including the revolving government-industry door of "the most transparent administration in history.

None of that would have happened without the health records legislation that was included in the 2009 economic stimulus bill — and the lobbying that helped produce it. Along the way, the records industry made hundreds of thousands of dollars of political contributions to both Democrats and Republicans. In some cases, the ties went deeper. Glen E. Tullman, until recently the chief executive of Allscripts, was health technology adviser to the 2008 Obama campaign. As C.E.O. of Allscripts, he visited the White House no fewer than seven times after President Obama took office in 2009, according to White House records.  

So, as more and more of Obamacare gets implemented, let's be prepared for more and more real shocks of how it doesn't save so much money after all, and more and more fake "shocks" of how that came to be.

Of course, for some, IOKIYAO.

And, speaking of such things, neoliberals are good at the Orwellian Newspeak:

“We really haven’t done any lobbying,” Mr. Tullman said in an interview. “I think it’s very common with every administration that when they want to talk about the automotive industry, they convene automotive executives, and when they want to talk about the Internet, they convene Internet executives.” 

Nope, not "lobbying." Just "convening."

And, trust me, there will be real shock sticker shocks we haven't yet come across in Obamacare, or at the least, promised savings that never materialize.

Here's another, not a financial one directly (yet):

The records systems sold by the biggest vendors have their fans, who argue that, among other things, the systems ease prescribing medications electronically. But these systems also have many critics, who contend that they can be difficult to use, cannot share patient information with other systems and are sometimes adding hours to the time physicians spend documenting patient care. 

So, we're not even getting what we're supposed to be paying for.

But, no matter. Like Reagan looking for a pony after finding pony shit, Obamiacs in the rank and file will believe the true gold will soon show up. Meanwhile, Glen Tullman and his wallet keep on smiling.

And, in other Obamacare news, a few Senate Dems say Team Obama is foot-dragging on some implementation issues. Maybe that's because there's no "convening."

This is why I worried so much about one aspect of Obamacare when it was put forward: the lack of cost control.

Promises of what things might do in cost control is no substitute for regulation on statuatory stipulations specifically toward that end. And, from no federal bureau of insurance regulation through no mandatory paperwork uniformity for hardcopy records and on to other things, plenty of promises don't add up to a hill of beans.

In some cases, this may have been nothing more than naivete, believing that such savings would become real. I hope they're right; I'd love to be proven wrong.

But, in other cases, and from people higher up the Team Obama ladder, like Tullman? They surely knew any promises they made were being overstated at the time they were making them, at the time they were "consulting" with America's Health Insurance Plans.

But, hey, this is the "most transparent administration in history" and I'm just a poor Obama-skeptic, more and more Obama-cynic, peon, so what do I know, right?

It's OK if you're an Obamiac

Remember the first decade of this century, when the acronym IOKIYAR arose?

It summed up in shorthand the ideas of Karl Rove and others that they would just check out from the reality-based world.

Well, now, it's clearer than ever that it's time for IOKIYAO — the "O" standing for "Obamiac."

Example No. 1? Obamiacs are overall OK with Dear Leader's unconstitutional, silent-killer drone warfare plan.

And by Obamiacs, to get blunter than Joan Walsh, we mean, "White, Volvo-driving, latte-sipping, Meyer-lemon-for-lemonade-squeezing (neo)liberals."  Here's the key point:

In a YouGov poll of 1,000 voters last August, (Brown University political scientist Michael) Tesler found significantly more support for targeted killing of suspected terrorists among white “racial liberals” (i.e., those liberal on issues of race) and African-Americans when they were told that Obama supported such a policy than when they were not told it was the president’s policy. Only 27 percent of white racial liberals in a control group supported the targeted killing policy, but that jumped to 48 percent among such voters who were told Obama had conducted such targeted killings (which Tesler refers to as the “Obama cue”).

That said, per Walsh, such folks need to get more skeptical about the alleged success versus actual reality of the drone program.

Bigger takeaway is Tesler's research in general. He has four simple questions to determine "racial liberals." But, unlike a Chris Mooney, he doesn't trot out a bunch of neuroscience, or even the latest psychological profile theories, to make overblown claims. He just uses his four questions to distinguish groups, then looks at polling breakouts of them on specific issues.

Also per Walsh, he sounds like someone for skeptical liberals to keep an eye on.

Did Obama set a new progressive agenda? (Updated)

So claims BuzzFeed, in part based on these quotes:

"Our journey is not complete until our gay brothers and sisters are treated like anyone else under the law –- for if we are truly created equal, then surely the love we commit to one another must be equal as well," Obama said, going farther than ever before in support for gay marriage.  

"We will respond to the threat of climate change, knowing that the failure to do so would betray our children and future generations," Obama said. "Some may still deny the overwhelming judgment of science, but none can avoid the devastating impact of raging fires and crippling drought and more powerful storms."

And, pre-Inauguration, his list of executive actions on gun control.

Well, pardon me if I hold my breath until we see action, not words.

Will the Obama Department of Justice file an amicus brief when gay marriage hits the Supreme Court? If not, how will he explain himself?

Will he propose climate legislation, and do it smartly by starting with the Senate? And, who will replace Lisa Jackson at EPA and Kenny Boy Salazar at Interior? Those two Cabinet positions will be clear "tells." So will be any split in reaction to them between more conservative, establishmentarian "Gang Green" environmental groups and more aggressive ones like the Center for Biological Diversity. And, no, just because he spoke a lot about climate change doesn't mean he will be able to get much done, or even try to.

On gun control, in case you've not read what I've already written, here's a summary:
1. He never hired someone to run ATF, a vacancy he inherited from Bush;
2. He's prosecuted 1/10 of 1 percent of gun purchase violations;
3. Getting CDC, NIMH, etc. to look at mental health/gun violence connections requires money. Unless Obama wants to redistribute the current budgetary pie for those agencies, money requires Congressional action.

On voting rights, the real action would be to nationalize voting laws, at least for federal-level offices. States would have to adjust laws for state-level offices rather than have dual ballots. Combine that with giving the Federal Elections Commission more powers. Then, nationalize the Voting Rights Act. It placates Southerners, addresses discrimination against American Indians and Hispanics outside the South, addresses GOP-controlled Northern states attempts at inner city anti-black voter discrimination and more.

Are you holding your breath over anything even close to that?

So, while not to put too much a damper on dyed-in-the-wool Democrats' parties, I'm not holding my breath. This man has had more liberal yearnings psychologically projected on him, and in my opinion undeservedly so, than anybody since Jack Kennedy. If only Chris Hitchens were still alive, and still alive without having jumped headfirst into the shallow waters of neoconservativism, he could be writing away.

So, if "speak" = "set" then Obama (although he didn't mention gun control today) theoretically set a a new progressive agenda. But, since he referred to "We the People" enough, let's look at the paragraph, the prologue to the Constitution, that made those words famous:

We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

See all those "action" verbs? None of them is about "speaking."

And, via another blog, the whole speech is here. Kind of panders to Lincolnisms, doesn't it? On the written word, it looks kind of ... long, too.

Finally, as a secularist, one who has noted Obama's occasional references to secularism in the past, but also his religion-only moral compass at times like his post-Newtown speech, I find the speech is a bit God-heavy. Five references, and with the male pronoun after the last one, all clearly aimed at the traditional (Judeo fig leaf)-Christian one.

Update, Jan. 22: Per White House spokesman Jay Carney, Dear Leader, aka Compromiser-in-Chief, is already backpedaling.

(I)n the White House briefing room a day later, Obama spokesman Jay Carney said he couldn't speculate about future actions. He said that while climate change was a priority for the president, "it is not a singular priority."

On gay rights, the president had declared that the nation's journey is "not complete until our gay brothers and sisters are treated like anyone else under the law, for if we are truly created equal, then surely the love we commit to one another must be equal as well."

But Carney said the president was speaking about his personal views and would not take federal action on same-sex marriage, which he continues to see as a state issue.

So, get a clue, Obamiacs.

There will be NO amicus brief in the Proposition 8 case. Other than playing around the edges, there will be no new actions on climate change and global warming. (Nor on other environmental issues, sadly, including no wilderness designation in an area around Canyonlands National Park that really needs it.) There will be no requests for Congressional funding for any of his so-called "executive actions" on gun control that need money.

Beyond that, the address had nothing about trade issues, nothing about financial regulation issues, basically nothing about economic liberalism.

Besides, Harry Reid has no balls and won't get any real Senate filibuster reform, despite his claims.

Jon Chait STOPS fellating Obama, becomes bigger hack

Exactly two months ago, political insider Jonathan Chait wrote a big steaming pile of blather with this headline: "The Case for Obama: Why He Is a Great President. Yes, Great."

It included such dreck as this:

Obama can boast a record of accomplishment that bests any president since Roosevelt, and has fewer demerits on his record than any of them, including Roosevelt. 

And dreck that is indeed.

Says who?

Not just me, but ... Jon Chait!

Exactly two months later, he writes, with this headline: "Why is Obama Caving on Taxes?" and proceeds to excoriate Dear Leader up one side and down the other.

That includes this closing paragraph:

Obama may think his conciliatory approach has helped avoid economic chaos. Instead, he is courting it.

That's a Loooong ways away from "great," isn't it?

Well, the second Chait is right. But, refusing to let even 10 percent of that thought into a political puff piece two months ago (Note: Obama's biggest achievement, allegedly, Obamacare, actually is Nancy Pelosi's doing) shows just how much a hack he is.

But, really, he's a representative of a type. In days ahead (whether the House approves the "fiscal slope" deal or not) you'll see others like Chait, neoliberal but not quite as conservative as Dear Leader, and still clueless as to how bad an executive leader he is, similarly burn rubber and strip clutches at the strenuousness of their change-of-direction rethinking about O'Bummer.

I'll bet we soon smell similar burned-out clutches from Josh Marshall at Talking Points Memo, Markos Moulitsas at Daily Kos, Steven Benen at Washington Monthly, and Kevin Drum at Mother Jones, among others.

In order of hackery, Kos is right there with Chait, as is Benen, a consistent Democratic Party fluffer. Marshall at times ranks higher on the snootiness level, though.

And, even IF the House GOP approves this ... a definite if ... this is only a two-month Band-Aid. Why?  The "great" Dear Leader didn't get a debt ceiling long-term fix as part of the deal.

In any case, let's see exactly sort of Ricky Ricardo "splaining" they do.