Even Thom Hartmann calls out POB's Address on Extremes of Both Parties

[KoKo]

for what it is!

Thom says there ISN'T an EXTREME on the LEFT ...like the TEA PARTY ON THE RIGHT!

http://rt.com/shows/big-picture/

---------

So...What I want to know is WHY does OUR PRESIDENT still Compare Dem Left which worked to get him ELECTED with TERRORISTS on the RIGHT? After his inauguration Rahm Emmanuel came out and dissed the Left...then Robert Gibbs followed up with a follow up attack on the Left Dems. It was like a Spit in the face to us on the Left. We are begged to vote for him and not Third Party and we Did and then they tell us we are no different from the TEA PARTY?

WHY DOES HE DO THIS? Over and Over and Over....?

What President would Diss his Own Party Members? A President who has been called a Muslim...whose Birth Certificate is Still Questioned....who has Repugs wanting him Impeached who has RW Crazy/Terrorists waving Confederate Flag and throwing over Barricades to get to the White House where just weeks before a Mentally Ill Woman with Child in the Car was shot and killed for driving Up to a White House Barracade!

What's in it for Him? WHY DOES HE DO THIS! TRASH HIS OWN? TRASH HIS OWN?

If there's an explanation from those close to him...Staffers or Anyone...can you please explain this?

[Tarheel_Dem]

1. OOO

[William769]

12. ...

[greatauntoftriplets]

13. LOL. I'll forget the kiss.

[winter is coming]

2. Trash his own?

Where did you get the entertaining notion that President Obama perceives the left as "his own"?

[KoKo]

4. Well..that's an interesting point you make. I guess I live in the Hopeful

Crowd the ones who try to believe people when they run for President that at least SOME of what comes out of their mouths (given the politcal rhetoric) can be taken to be at least a "guide" to how they will govern. I don't expect Ponies and Rainbows...but, the direction he spoke of did not seem to be one of Bush II.

So...you are saying I was Duped. Didn't read carefully enough or just a clueless "low information voter" who was easily deceived by a Candidate who ran for President after 8 Years of Disaster with Bush...that I was clueless to not expect that I might get Bush II who was more Elegant in his Speech and a Better Deceiver?

[winter is coming]

5. I'm saying you probably made the best choice available at the time,

but that doesn't mean it's turned out well.

[Doctor_J]

36. They all voted for him

So they are his own in that sense.

[BluegrassStateBlues]

3. I've heard people on the extreme left call the President a terrorist.

For fulfilling his basic duties as the commander-in-chief.

Thom Hartmann is just playing to his loony audience, as usual.

[leftstreet]

6. Where is this 'extreme left' of which you speak?

[GliderGuider]

9. Why, it's right over there... yes, over there to the left... a little further ... further ...

Oh wait, no it's not, those are just some ordinary citizens...

[KoKo]

7. You have gotta be Kidding! Is this Satire? You need a disclaimer on

your post if you are wanting to be taken seriously.

[RobertEarl]

8. Are you saying leftists are loonies?

Cuz that does seem to be H.'s audience.

[ljm2002]

14. Cite please...

...Using the excuse of "well some of them called him names" (without of course citing any), is just lame IMO. Any President gets called names and has to put up with sniping from fringe elements. That does not mean they need to dismiss their base.

Yet our President does it, time and time again.

I am proud of President Obama and our Democrats for standing their ground during this latest debacle. More of that, please.

[NuclearDem]

19. Well, what do you expect when you blow up children with drones? A Nobel Peace Prize?

[Tarheel_Dem]

21. On Kremlin sponsored TeeVee no less. I think Obama bashing is a requirement over there.

[BlueCaliDem]

29. Just as long as people don't talk positively about gay rights.

I don't understand why Thom Hartmann, a bona fide Liberal, would associate himself with Kremlin teevee that's so anti-gay rights.

[Tarheel_Dem]

38. I think the answer's pretty simple: $$$$$. Obviously, TH comes pretty cheap.

[BlueCaliDem]

28. I've heard a few on the radical Left call him that, too.

And I generally agree with most of what Thom Hartmann says, but I don't condone him being on Kremlin-approved teevee where no one is allowed to talk positively about gay issues. As a bona fide Liberal, I don't know why he'd want to be on their network.

[JDPriestly]

33. Thom Hartmann is a pretty mainstream Democrat.

The leadership of the Party is far to the right of those who keep the lower echelons of the Party running, of those of us who register voters and get out the vote. If we had our choice helping the middle class and saving the environment would be top priorities, not left at the bottom of the list. I would put solar panels on every roof in the Southwest and put as much government money and focus into transporting the energy manufactured that way across the nation as we put into the building of the railroads that opened up the West in the 19th century.

Do you realize that it was the railroads that allowed the West to be developed, that caused Americans to settle in small towns and farmers to work the fields within traveling distance of the rails? Do you realize that it was our government that granted vast strips of land to the railroads to make that possible.

And today, our government is barred from creating the equivalent of the railroads for transporting new energy across our country by a bunch of stupid Republicans and conservative Democrats. And Obama is too cautious to do what President Lincoln and other presidents of the 19th century did to help our country grow -- invest in the energy rail of tomorrow because he is beholden to a bunch of conservatives and refuses to listen to the liberals who side with him on nearly everything.

[senseandsensibility]

10. He's referring to the far left loonies who will

object to cutting social security and medicare.

[Oilwellian]

15. Yes...

you're far left if you want to protect those programs. You're far left if you can't accept unrestrained government spying. You're far left if you want Wall Street convictions. You're far left if you don't want the TPP. You're far left if you want cuts in the Defense Budget. We're far left if we want to strengthen public schools. I could go on...

Obama has moved the party so far right, center left is the new far left.

[KoKo]

17. Well ....I'm wondering what kind of Flag will Get Dems worked up if

Bernie Sanders leads a Crowd out there to Break Down Barricades.

Is there a FLAG FOR THE LEFT? What would it Be?

I'm thinking the French Revolution...but, forget my history...but didn't they have a special flag when they stormed the Bastille and some of it is now incorporated into the current flag of France?

Or is there an American Equivalent that hasn't been hacked by the TeaParty Terrorists for their own use.

Maybe we need to invent our OWN FLAG. I'm thinking something back to the Native Americans...just because I think they at least had something that goes back to the true roots of America. Maybe there's something there...that we can find.

[Oilwellian]

24. We can just paint our bodies blue

and scare the center right silly.

[KoKo]

31. lol's...True! n/t

[Spitfire of ATJ]

37. That's all we need is to be black and blue.

[Broward]

22. Yes, far left of Obama, but not far left

[Zorra]

16. Fuck corporatism, centrism, and bipartisanship, all are nothing but malignant corporate cancers

in our party and country, waiting to metastasize and cause more periodic amputations of our economic well being, rights, safety nets, environmental health, and liberty.

Austerity, sequestration, disaster capitalism, all the product of centrism.

Centrism causes RW extremism to grow and flourish. 30 years of insidious Democratic party centrism is what led to our government being taken over by deranged teahadists.

And every second of every day the 1% cancer grows ever more wealthy and virulent as it spreads its rot spreads throughout the the 99%, a far RW revolution of the very worst sort, the revolutionary dictatorship of the plutocrat. The return of Feudalism.

Just say no to right wing ideas and policies, always.

[6000eliot]

20. What, you mean the group that has done nothing but carp and complain

since the day he took office? Why would he want to call THEM out?

[last1standing]

27. Maybe because we stood by him in his hour of need?

The left wing of the party stood by him during this shutdown and never waivered in its support. The moment we're not needed, it looks like Obama shoved us aside.

Again.

[colsohlibgal]

23. Makes Me Crazy Too

Extremists on both sides - really? Calling people calling Obama a Muslim Kenyan Criminal the same as wanting single payer, a VAT, and raising taxes some on people who can afford it?

In a perfect world the republicans would go the way of the Whigs, the corporate democrats like Obama and both Clintons could be the new party right of the other party, which would consist of what the late great Paul Wellstone used to call the democratic wing of the democratic party - pretty close to the way it all was pre Ronnie.

I try to hold out hope Obama might veer left some but after this, and with the knowledge he's all in on the TPP corporate coup, that hope is small.

[Oilwellian]

25. As we celebrate the splintering of the right wing...

the same thing is happening in our party as well...it just hasn't come to a head yet.

[haikugal]

26. Don't forget the Keystone XL pipeline....

I don't think we can afford to wait for him to do anything real anymore. Occupy scared the hell out of them because it was real and it was clear about what's wrong and how to fix it. We have to get in the street and put the pressure on...like we did during the antiwar, civil rights, women's movement. No one is even mentioning climate collapse...what good is any of this if our planet dies?

I think Obama likes to punch "the hippies"...I think he views us that way. His loss...but I don't feel like crying about it because I'm pretty fed up and angry about what's happening to us.

[KoKo]

30. We just have to keep calling him out on it when he disses fellow Dems...

Not just us here and we are not alone. I'm sure other Dems heard that Address and thought the same. It wasn't necessary for him to lump us in with the TeaBagger Terrorists.

There are Environmental, Civil Libertarian, Legal and other groups pushing back so we are not alone here on DU.

[hopemountain]

32. perhaps those of us who are now considered

far left loonies can work to get a majority democratic congress and then work to clarify what "left" means at that time? because if we start bashing the progress that has been made to this point (2 steps forward - 1 step back) - we will destroy the house we've built like the republicans are doing with fervor and ego.


that trashing his own? i cannot speak for the president on this - but it is an old school survival way of keeping things 'workable' as best i can explain. its about distancing oneself from the extremes - so that at least there can be some room and common ground with the opposition while not alienating them fully - that's what i am thinking. the left are 'mericans after, all, and obama represents them, too.

compromise (obama's ideal of how to move a country forward) is not easy and the out comes suck because no one gets what they really want. i think he has learned a few lessons in this, too - because his own ideals are becoming clearer and clearer to him - so, there are some things he will not compromise on. and that is a good thing.

[ReRe]

34. I heard that false equivalency today too...

... in his address and couldn't believe my ears. I turned the channel as soon as I heard it and didn't actually think of it again until you brought it up here. It does strike me as a bit condescending. I do hope someone can explain why he does it. An actual explanation, not a litany of slams against Thom Hartmann.

[Doctor_J]

35. he does like to insult and shit on liberals who send money and vote and get absolutely nothing

in return. I guess we should not expect much from a self-described moderate republican.

[jsr]

39. Recommend