Gas and Circuses
By Mitch Berg
Watching Obama’s cabinet appointments, it’d be tempting to ask “wow – with an overwhelming mandate like they had, why are they not going straight for the end zone, rather than suddenly and visibly racing for the center?”
The answer, of course – they didn’t have a sweeping mandate. It was a clear victory, all right, but McCain (thanks largely, I think, to Sarah Palin bringing out a base that’d been sitting on its hands since February) actually got about as many votes as Bush did in 2004; he’d have beaten Kerry. Obama swept into office on millions of new voters – and as Minnesota Third, Sixth and Senate races showed, his coattails weren’t especially sturdy; people apparently voted for Obama and nothing but the Obama.
So how does the left feel about this?
I’m not one of those who thought an Obama presidency would be the First Coming for the American Left, so I’m not going to indulge in much hand wringing over whether he has or hasn’t deviated from campaign promises. Anyone who can’t read reality between the lines of a campaign speech deserves whatever disappoint they feel.
For someone who follows politics, that just makes sense. It crosses party lines; Ronald Reagan disappointed social conservatives by restricting his anti-abortion agenda to preaching from the bully pulpit, among many ecumenical examples; anyone who watches politics knows to be a little cynical or accepting of pragmatism, however you want to call it.
But among the less jaded, is it possible to catalog the extent to which Obama has been oversold -indeed, the extent to which Obama oversold himself? The light worker, bringing enlightenment to the benighted; the messiah; the guy who’s going to solve your problems by holding up his end of a quid pro quo that started when they went to the polls and put him in office.
How accepting are they going to be when he doesn’t levitate and make the flowers bloom in January?
December 4th, 2008 at 8:38 am
It’s really only you rightwing goofs who have oversold Obama with all the wacky “messiah” stuff. It just happens that he’s really popular. Which is actually a plus in an election, as you found out to your considerable dismay.
As for running to the center, it’s kind of a foreign concept to you kooky Rovelings who, as members of a minority party, feel you can only win by picking out the 49% of the country you don’t like and spew hatred at them. Ever consider that, while the dems are at the top of the hill and you are at the bottom cutting each other’s throats over petty stuff, Obama may be working to lock in a Democratic majority?
No, of course it didn’t. Well, anyhoo, if you’re still obsessing over the election, here’s a video I bet you’ll like:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LKKG5BIaODw&feature=related
December 4th, 2008 at 9:18 am
You are assuming that the general public will even be allowed to notice. The MSM has been in the tank for this guy from the get-go, and they aren’t about to allow anything he says or does to compromise their ideal vision of him. If they don’t report it, it never happened. The column–inches and face-seconds will drop and be replaced with more American Idol re-runs, or talk of them– anything to hide the reality we were told had to “change.”
They will have a huge advantage, too, in the natural talent and ability of most liberals to believe that whatever they say or believe at the moment is the ABSOLUTE TRUTH, regardless of what they said or believed ten minutes ago. Nobody called attention to Obama’s manifest shortcomings during the campaign, they’re not about to admit to them now. That would be admitting a mistake, and liberals never, ever admit a mistake.
December 4th, 2008 at 9:30 am
More clown ravings. Obama was the one who said that when he was elected the rise of the oceans would begin to slow. When did Obama become a Republican?
Clown’s second paragraph is incomprehensible. For God’s sake he regularly spews hatred at the 47% of the “Wingnuts’ “racists” “brownshirts” etc that voted for John McCain.
introspection is not AC’s strong point.
December 4th, 2008 at 9:37 am
Mitch is right. Millions of voters don’t constitute a mandate.
ACORN’s Mickey Mouse operation doesn’t count in November and it doesnt’ count in That One’s approval ratings now.
He’s not really that popular.
/jc
December 4th, 2008 at 9:45 am
Au contraire, Slash. Obama is incredibly popular with people who like to spend other people’s money.
December 4th, 2008 at 9:46 am
Is it me, or is AC sounding more and more like the peever?
December 4th, 2008 at 9:54 am
Teary hallucinated: “For God’s sake he regularly spews hatred at the 47% of the “Wingnuts’ “racists” “brownshirts” etc that voted for John McCain.”
Angryclown does not like racists, wingnuts or racist wingnuts, Teary. And he likes to mock them, that is true. But it turns out Angryclown isn’t running for president. That’s kinda where your – what shall we call it, logic? – breaks down. Obama has managed to claim a mandate from lots of different voters, while keeping you extreme rightwing kooks isolated and irrelevant. Normal people think that’s a good thing.
December 4th, 2008 at 9:57 am
AC is kinda desperate, it’s feckless to “speak truth to power” when you are on the same side as the power. He’s reduced to kicking crippled puppies, not a pretty thought.
December 4th, 2008 at 10:10 am
“while keeping you extreme rightwing kooks isolated and irrelevant.”
47 out of one hundred people voted against your guy, AC. That’s not isolated. That’s not irrelevent.
That’s just 2 percent fewer people than voted for Clinton in 1996 and 4 percent more than voted for Clinton in ’92.
There goes your ‘logic’, funnyman!
December 4th, 2008 at 10:24 am
There goes your ‘logic’, funnyman!
As we have all learned by now, mangy clown’s goal on this blog is not to apply logic to…well…anything, really.
December 4th, 2008 at 10:41 am
It’s terribly interesting to me that even after a fairly convincing victory in the polls, AC and Penigma still insist on leading most of their “arguments” with a personal attack.
December 4th, 2008 at 10:55 am
You are only saying that, Bike Bubba, because you are a hate-spewing nutwing.
December 4th, 2008 at 11:02 am
Normal people think that’s a good thing.
http://hk.youtube.com/mershm
When did you ever get a normal person to take you seriously enough to tell you what they think, AssClown?
Pffft. Sit down, have another beer and STFU, ya goof.
December 4th, 2008 at 11:16 am
The brake lights came on when angryclown said:
“Normal people think …”
Whoa there, angryclown! You aren’t my ‘go to guy’ when it comes to what circus people think, much less “normal” people.
December 4th, 2008 at 11:24 am
What’s “fairly convincing” about 8.5 million under-informed suspicious “voters”?
Mitch is right, there’s no mandate here. Clown better keep blustering to hide that fact.
Chambliss just proved that Georgia is basically a center-right state.
/jc
December 4th, 2008 at 11:39 am
Right-o, Slashman, and they were stupid voters too!
http://tinyurl.com/6bp6ta
December 4th, 2008 at 12:49 pm
“It’s really only you rightwing goofs who have oversold Obama with all the wacky “messiah” stuff. ”
You know those clueless nimrods who come out of the restroom with a six foot long streamer of toilet paper stuck to their heel? And then they walk around like that all day, totally clueless as to why people seem to be laughing at him? Angry Clown reminds of one of those guys:
http://prn.newscom.com/cgi-bin/pub/s?f=PRN/prnpub&p1=20081130/NYSU003&xtag=PRN-prnphotos-77258&redir=preview&tr=1&row=1
December 4th, 2008 at 1:08 pm
Bike Babbler said: “It’s terribly interesting to me that even after a fairly convincing victory in the polls, AC and Penigma still insist on leading most of their “arguments” with a personal attack.”
Angryclown leads birthday greetings to small wingnut children with a personal attack. Angryclown creates personal attacks in his sleep. To observe that Angryclown has made a personal attack is like noting that Swiftee has shit his pants in a drunken stupor.
December 4th, 2008 at 1:09 pm
Slash,
Glad to see you’ve dropped the Colbert act in favor of your traditional misdirection.
Didn’t say Obama didn’t have a mandate. Merely that it was neither overwhelming nor sweeping.
And the point (if I may be so bold) of this post was a response to Charlie Quimby…
December 4th, 2008 at 1:51 pm
AC, that’s why you’re who you are, a loud and furious person of no substance, that we give you attention is kinda sad.
December 4th, 2008 at 1:58 pm
Sen. Craig had a mandate in the MSP men’s room.
December 4th, 2008 at 2:09 pm
I didn’t think the personal attack on small children started until you had successfully lured them into your tiny clown van, AssClown.
December 4th, 2008 at 3:48 pm
I have no hopes of dramatic events, much less miraculous ones, transpiring from our prez elect; so it would surprise me to find anyone else does. I expected him to be centrist all along; I think many people did. It would be refreshing if Obama didn’t fit neatly into existing categories of liberal or conservative.
I do have hopes of a change in the trend from “imperial presidencies” with the entry into office of an individual who has a greater depth of knowledge of the constitution than our current embarassment, “W”. I would love to see the balance of power restored between the three branches of government. (Color me a fan of the thinking of conservatives like Andrew J. Bacevitch, which seems to track similarly to that of Obama on occasion.)
Which may be naive on my part. It will remain to be seen if Obama is any better at resisting the impulse to expand his office than his recent predecessors.
December 4th, 2008 at 3:58 pm
Yes, AC, I realize that’s your MO. It says a lot about why you apparently cannot put forth a decent argument, even when your cause is pretty straightforward.
Ugh, Swiftee.
December 4th, 2008 at 9:32 pm
Dog gone, why did you think he would be a centrist?
Rhetoric or his voting record?