‘Carnival of the Liberals’ isn’t

Another Carnival of the Liberals is out. Again, yours truly didn’t make the cut.

CotL is different than most blog carnivals in that it has a 10-post cutoff for posts each issue, making it more selective, if you will, than two other blog carnivals to whom I regularly submit.

My submission this time?

Tim Geithner compares Obama to Bush. Nuff said?

It’s not the first time that something that critiques what passes for American liberalism from further left hasn’t made the cut. That’s OK in and of itself.

What’s not OK from where blog is some of the stuff that gets in.

The main offender? The blogger known as Greta Christina, whose posts regularly make the Top 10 cut, even when, as this time around (no link will be provided), they’re of no connection to any liberal issue. A blog post deriding conspiracy theories is fine for, say, Skeptics’ Circle, but it had nothing to do with liberalism. And, she does nothing for me anyway.

Beyond that, seeing comments yesterday on this Washington Monthly post by CotL host Dr. Biobrain, I now realize why I’m not making the cut. (His comments to my Geithner post only reinforce that. Note to Democrats only "liberals" like Biobrain – look in the mirror before calling somebody like me closed-minded.)

When the idea of someone being to the left of Obama is basically derided, I don’t need to bang my head against that wall any more.

So, I doubt I’ll bother submitting anymore. I can always post my best left-liberal comment of the last two weeks to the blog that hosts the particular CotL.

Kos gets facts wrong itself in Dem-fluffing AP attack

Yet another reason I don’t automatically vote Dem AND why I’m glad I got booted from the Kossack herd of sycophants.

BarbinMD claims the AP is fact-challenged in hanging large responsibility for Gramm-Leach-Bliley on Slick Willie Clinton’s neck.

Tis true that the name of the act, including Phil Gramm, wasn’t mentioned.

But, here’s the bigger things that AP also didn’t mention:
• Two-thirds of House Dems voted in favor of GLB
• Co-author Jim Leach is the biggest Republican to endorse Obama, and he’s never apologized for GLB;
• Before becoming Clinton’s Treasury Secretary, Robert Rubin worked for Goldman Sachs, the single largest donor, by company, to Obama’s campaign.

It’s the duopoly at work!

Barb, if the AP is an “embarrassment to journalism,” you’re an embarrassment to mock indignation. Put a fork in yourself; you’re well done, Barb.

Tom Hayden exposes the real Obama on Iraq — enabler blogs don’t like it

Hayden has crystal-clear analysis of the real Barack Obama position on Iraq, viewpoints that most of his liberal Democratic Party bloggers, the Kos, TPM, WM, etc. on down don’t like, but are still true.

More ambiguous than audacious.

Check.

“(That) pledge also has been laced with loopholes all along, caveats that the mainstream media and his opponents (excepting Bill Richardson) have ignored or avoided until now.

Indeed.

Then he adopted the safe, nonpartisan formula of the Baker-Hamilton Study Group, which advocated the withdrawal of combat troops while leaving thousands of American counter-terrorism units, advisers and trainers behind.

And, as for Obama’s “refining,” Hayden calls him out on that right away.

“I intend to end this war.”

Beyond that, Hayden notes that the whole thrust of Obama’s speech is to buck final responsibility to the military. If Petraeus says, “too dangerous to bring them home,” well, who is Civilian Obama to overrule that?

Read the whole column; Hayden is spot on. Hayden concludes with four talking point “demands” for Obama to show his progressive peace talker bona fides.

I e-mailed Josh Marshall at TPM and he said Hayden is not exactly “whom he goes to for sage advice on this kind of stuff.”

And, that’s why people like you, Josh, are enablers. (Maybe I can get booted from TPM, like I did from Enabling Those We Choose earlier this year.)

I said it before, I almost hope Obama wins just to watch him break all the non-promise promises that he hasn’t already broken.