OBAMA'S A CENTRIST! OBAMA'S NOT FOR PEACE!

[walldude]

What Obama is is the right person in the right place at the right time. Period. All this fucking whining is getting on my nerves. We have been living in and causing hell all over the planet for 8 years. Any position Obama takes is going to be left of where we are right now. If Obama even glances over his left shoulder we will be better off than we are right now. I don't give a flying fuck if he's a "centrist". He's the first goddamn black American president, and he comes in at a time when America is at it's worst. A time of financial crisis, a time of war, a time when the worlds opinion of us is in the toilet.

The whole goddamn planet needed someone we could get behind, a leader we could all trust and relate to. Up pops Obama, who had to overcome racism, who had to fight an uphill battle, who had to win 2 races against infinitely more powerful opponents. I'm not much on astrology or religion or anything like that but if you can't read between the cosmic freakin lines on this one then you are blind. Obama is going to radically alter the course of human history. All the hand wringing and whining isn't going to change that. If you want to bitch about something Obama is doing, WAIT TILL HE FUCKING DOES IT. All this speculation is just crap that feeds the Sean Hannity's of the world.

[Danieljay]

1. that is why I'm slowly removing myself from this board. People tend to look for things to bitch

about.

I'm with ya, man.

[Posteritatis]

11. Given the last eight years..

I figured it would take awhile for people to realize that there is in fact a light at the end of the tunnel that isn't simply another oncoming train.

The endless bitching - or at least some of it, the pettier or more doctrinaire stuff - annoys the hell out of me and just keeps showing how much the perfect is the enemy of the good. On the other hand, look at what most of the people here have put up with - or, more to the point, not put up with - since 2000 and in many cases quite a bit longer. Complaining about the government is a tradition here (and should remain one within reason!), and we've just come out of one of the, if not the, ugliest electoral campaign in American history. Certainly the longest (hell, one of the longest anywhere, ever), one of the most emotionally exhausting.

People are tired. They're desperate. They've had a really, really shitty eight-year-long day. When you're tired, desperate and have an extended lousy day, you're gonna be cranky for awhile. Does crankiness annoy me? Most of the time, it does. While I don't share in it right now - the propositions aside I'm feeling pretty good about the election, and I'm optimistic about the new administration in general - I also entirely understand that a lot of us have been locked into this mode where there's another outrage over every hill, where every action by the government warrants either suspicion or derision, where yet again my personal desires are just not making it up there, where things have been really, really bad for so long that we can't quite see solutions that might actually happen.

You're right that people are looking for things to bitch about. To a point they should be; that's part of what's supposed to make the system work here, and a lot of the recent problems come from the fact that you spent eight years under a government which was brazen enough to deny that people were bitching in the first place. So I do think people are going to be doing that for awhile yet, both with good reason and without as a result of that being the way things were done here for a long time.

So yeah. It bothers me, but I can see why it's there, why it's probably going to be around for awhile, though I also think it will calm down as people grok that Obama's actually happening for real now and not just as an ohpleaseohplease hope about winning the election. I wouldn't write the site off over it, but I would try to be patient with it for awhile, to see how things go when the first properly elected American president in this century actually gets to start changing things. The people who expect instant doctrinaire perfection are deluded, but they've always been; a lot of the rest of us just want to see evidence that things are improving, and a few days after the election isn't enough time for that yet.

[BunkerHill24]

16. tell me again what we have gained from 2006? ‘Speaker policy’.??

[BeFree]

30. Well

The pubbies fell flat on their faces every time they accused the dems of being partisan. Indeed, it was long term strategy for the dems to play rope-a-dope. We now control the whole kit and kaboodle. And if that don't give ya hope, then you may be hopeless. But I hope not.

[Posteritatis]

31. I'm gonna guess the president's vertebrate; Pelosi doesn't even have a notochord. (nt)

[MadMaddie]

32. You are leaving! Don't do that!

The fun is just begginning!!

[az chela]

2. Hey Walldude

I have really missed you.I have been working to help Cindy and Obama and guess what Cindy is filling out a form to be secretary of defense in Obamas administration.NO one would be better at it then her.
Hope you are fine and that your wife and kids are doing great/
AZ Chela AKA Judy

[cali]

4. please tell me you're kidding. that is literally insane.

She has no experience of any kind whatsoever.

It's sad that she (and you) think that this is actually a good idea- either as a some sort of stunt to make some sort of point, or as a serious endeavor to be SoD.

[az chela]

15. It was a joke for Walldude.Since she was nominated for the

NOBEL PEACE PRIZE.Actually Cindy is good at anything she does so who knows????But of course she is not really doing it

[dailykoff]

13. Sheehan would make a GREAT Secretary of Defense!

Good grief we haven't had such a department since WWII. What we've got is a monstrous war machine used for enriching weapons manufacturers and defending predatory capitalism at its filthiest. Cindy could do a million times better than anyone Rahm is likely to pick.

[cali]

19. that's just silly fantasyland

stuff. It takes someone with loads of managerial experience on a grand scale to handle such a position.

And Rahm Emanuel is not the person who will make such a decision.

[dailykoff]

20. "It takes someone with loads of managerial experience" to lose 2.3 trillion dollars?

Really? Cali I love you but you're so out of touch it's ridiculous.

[cali]

26. Donald Rumsfeld is a war criminal.

and sorry, Defense needs someone who actually has some grasp of the issues at hand as well as managerial experience. That ain't Cindy,and I'm not the one out of touch.

:hi:

[Posteritatis]

33. ...says the person who thinks the Chief of Staff selects the cabinet... (nt)

[Danger Mouse]

23. That's just absurd. What are her qualifications?

[dailykoff]

She's a citizen who opposes the war and a gold star mother

who's sacrificed a family member to it. She also ran a political campaign. Those are better qualifications than most of the neocons making policy now.

[cali]

27. Thoise aren't qualifications to run a huge gov't department

they just aren't.

[msallied]

39. I'm sorry, this is the most ridiculous screed I've read in quite some time.

If you don't see the conflict of interest involved in having an anti-war activist running the DOD, then you're operating without a brain.

[dailykoff]

41. No, I don't. I'm not in the business of war. Perhaps you are. (n/t)

[Danger Mouse]

44. It's the Secretary of Defense!!! Like it or not, we need to be able to defend ourselves.

I want somebody competent at the helm who is not afraid to use force if necessary.

[dailykoff]

46. Fine, I want somebody who'll shut the damn thing down

or at least cut it down to a useful size. The war's been over for 68 years and we're going into debt up to our eyeballs to pay for useless crap. Cheer up, you're more likely to get your wish than I am.

[az chela]

3. Forgot to say this is a great post and as usual you are right on

[TZ]

5. agreed.

I'm tired of people treating "centrist" like a four letter word. Liberals only make up 17% of the country. Time to face reality...the mainstream is "centrist" and thats where Obama's policies are going to be aimed at. He'd be foolish to be governed exclusively by the minority.

[Oak2004]

34. Not true

"It's that the word "liberal" has been debased by right-wing propaganda. When you actually poll the "centrists" -- and many of the "conservatives" -- on the issues, they turn out to be liberals.

[cali]

6. great post

i've thought the same thing about planets or the fates or the universal forces of whatever being behind him.

[msallied]

7. Hear Hear!!

What people need to realize is that having an ideologue in the White House is dangerous for all of us. We've seen that. For eight years. If you want to govern "The People" and not just a sliver of the people, then you have to make strides to appeal to ALL PEOPLE. Even the ones that we might *gasp* disagree with on certain issues.

[creature of habit]

8. Obama is cautious

and I think he will be a great deal stronger on national security issues than anyone ever imagined -

[Warren Stupidity]

9. Why it is important that there is a vocal Left

I agree of course that the Obama administration will govern from the 'center'. The issue here is where exactly that center will be located. If we on the left, many of us having worked and donated our asses off to get Obama and a Democratic Congress elected, almost all of us who have curbed our criticisms during the long campaign season, now sit down and shut up while the Corporate Media and the Republican Party lockstep lobby for a continuation of the rightwing disaster known as the last 30 years, then what we will most likely get is a center-right Obama administration.

If there is no pressure from the left pulling at the Obama administration it will drift right.

The election is over. We can speak freely now. We can pressure this new administration EVEN BEFORE HE FUCKING DOES IT, as generally that is far more useful than BEMOANING WHAT HAS BEEN DONE.

[dailykoff]

12. Great points!

He's said repeatedly that he wants input from the electorate, and if he doesn't hear from those opposing the wars, you can bet he'll give the Dem hawks like Rahm everything they want, since they're also the money boys.

[crossroads]

10. Well said!

[az chela]

17. Barack needs to make ending the war one of his top priorities

No more blood for Bush and Cheney

[dailykoff]

14. Making Rahm his lieutenant is basically a signal that the wars will go on.

They need to stop and he needs to hear it, loudly. He's won the office so there's no need to tiptoe around it any more.

[AtomicKitten]

18. Emanuel will be Obama's facilitator as COS; he won't be involved with crafting policy.

Not too fine a distinction I think for this discussion.

[dailykoff]

22. If only it were that simple.

But we both know it isn't. Rahm will basically be Obama's Lieberman. If all he needed was a personal assistant he could have hired somebody who actually needed the job.

[Danger Mouse]

24. Based on what? Something you pulled out of your ass?

:banghead:

[AtomicKitten]

25. Based on the damn job description.

:banghead: indeed

[dailykoff]

38. Based on the fact that Rahm is a right-wing war monger.

Forget what you hear on the media, he's a pro-war hawk.

[cali]

36. Obama made quite clear he intends to boost troop levels in Afghanistan

and that troop withdrawal in Iraq will be over a 16 month period. Even there he left wriggle room by saying he'd listen carefully to what commnanders on the ground say.

I don't like it, but he was clear as could be about Afghanistan.

Emanuel's appointment doesn't mean much of anything except that President Obama is serious as hell about getting his legislation enacted.

[dailykoff]

37. It also means the threats and/or attacks against Iran are still "on the table"

and that sucks.

[Borgnine]

21. If only I could rec this a thousand more times.

People want Obama to be the left equivalent of Bush, failing to see that the liberalization of America is a gradual progress. It always has been.

[Two Americas]

28. an elected representative

Obama is an elected representative. We support politicians we hope will listen to us. They cannot very well listen to us of we do not say anything.

People expressing their opinions are performing their duty as citizens. Calling that "whining" is suppressive and anti-democratic.

Ironic that you say we have all been waiting 8 years for this, and then tell those you happen to disagree with that they must wait longer before they can speak.

The only reason any politician would ever take a position to the left of what we have now is because we speak out about it.

The problem is not with the politicians. Obama ran a brilliant campaign and may well become a great leader once in office. The problem is not with the people. They have utterly rejected Reaganomics and the extreme right wing. Rejecting the right wing and "free market" economics IS a left wing political position, it is what it means to take a left wing political position.

The p-ro0blem is with those among us who wish to subvert representative democracy and replace one form of autocratic rule by another - "our" fearless leader to who we all must express blind loyalty.

If you want Obama to move to the right, say so openly and honestly. Do not tell citizens that since "we" have "won" that we all must get in lockstep now.

[bevoette]

29. fuckin A - i like it! (nm)

[jonnyblitz]

35. Obama IS a centrist and I doubt he has any intention of ending

the war anytime soon. :shrug:

[LittleClarkie]

40. I would have no problem with him being a centrist

I could never figure out how the right saw a socialist. I saw a centrist. The country needs a centrist right now. Obama will do things that piss off both left and right. And that's just fine. It's about healing the country and bringing us together.

[Augdog20]

42. Robert Gates & Schwarzenegger too! -blog link

Check out NY Times article posted to my blog; cites centrist trend:

http://bluesunited.blogspot.com/

(foreign press links cited on my post.)

[bigwillq]

43. Obama is a centrist.

Hell, I believe that half of the Democratic party is also. And even if someone votes with the majority of the Democratic party 90 or 95 percent of the time still could mean that that person is a centrist.

The only true progressive candidate this cycle was Dennis Kucinich.

I will wait and see what Obama does. I certainly agree that Obama will do a lot to change the attitude of this nation, and quite possibly the world. I don't see anything though in his policies that will "radially alter the course of human history".

These are not knocks on the man, I just feel that Obama will govern from pretty much from the middle of the road based on what he said during this election and by what he accomplished so far as an elected leader.

[EstimatedProphet]

45. You're just getting this?

This is the exact same thing as DU's anti-Pelosi brigade. It's the same thing as the people who are screaming about how Pelosi didn't impeach Bush - WHEN SHE NEVER CLAIMED SHE WAS GOING TO! Too many people need to understand that the world doesn't cater to their whims.