I'm sure Pres Obama is a great chess player, but as a poker player

[Turn CO Blue]

or a negotiator, well, er...he's "teh suck".

Sorry.

Don't get me wrong at all - truth told, I still love President Obama. I am actually one of those "cheerleaders" that these progressive sites sneer about.

But mostly I guess I love his potential. Yes, he still has potential.

Do you know what I see as the problem? Probably not, and probably don't care, but here goes:

He sees the compromise itself, the art of compromising, the humility required to give up and go past your "line in the sand" itself as THE GOAL and not outcome of the deal as the goal. Sorry, WE - THE COLLECTIVE WE - ARE INTERESTED IN THE OUTCOME - NOT HOW YOU FUCKING GOT THERE. He could tell them all to "fuck off" in the most unstatesmanlike way - but if they walked away with increases in revenue, I would have said, well, that guy may be a bit of a hothead, but he gets RESULTS.

WE WANT RESULTS, OBAMA. WE WANT WHAT WE WANT. WE WANT WHAT WE'VE ALWAYS WANTED!

The problem is not an infiltration by the DLC, it's not that he's Manchurian, it's not the stress, it's not that he sold out, it's not that he's overwhelmed, it's not the Koch brothers, it's not any of that. It is this:

He'd make a shitty salesman. He'd make an even shittier Texas Hold'em player.

Can you imagine Obama's strategy when he plays Monopoly? "Oh dear, I already have hotels on houses on two of this color group. Uh, I wouldn't feel right having a monopoly on Orange. Here, you take the third orange property, it's a gift."

Compromise and reaching across the aisle and giving in on some points here and there may SOUND like "noble Nobel behavior", and may be wonderful, good and lofty goals. But we're dealing with either... petulant, small-minded ideologues or bought-and-paid for corporate water-carriers.

And Obama is a true statesman, an old-school comity type of guy. I say in an alternate timeline he would have been a top Senator forever, who would have put some grand bills on the floor and even made major legislative history, perhaps.

But then instead he ran for the highest office. And took that silly idea/ideal of compromise with him.

He may be great at 11th dimensional chess, who knows?

But he has some piss-poor strategists and negotiators working on his team.

He -- and WE -- really would have been FAR, FAR better off taking some blue collar, white collar hardcore dealmakers with him on the healthcare debacle and the debt ceiling debacle and you name it.

He should get a couple of Texas Hold'em champions, a couple of car salesmen/women, a couple of high-powered litigators, some sports agents, and the world champion team for Risk or Monopoly - truly more EFFECTIVE - BETTER OUTCOMES -- than this bunch of suits and clowns and over-educated paper-pushers that he apparently has around him.

Sigh.

[grasswire]

1. community organizer

Now we know why the Pugs laughed so hard about that. To them, it meant "Pushover."

[Fire1]

4. Pot? Kettle? n/t

[TheWraith]

2. Maybe it's the fact that government is not a poker game.

As Josh Marshall put it, these comparisons obscure more than they illuminate.

[Recursion]

3. Really? He certainly seems to have made Boehner cave

I suppose if you think future Congresses will honor the discretionary spending "cuts" that got passed, then he failed, but that's never happened before. He got a debt ceiling increase until after the election, defense cuts, Medicare cuts that were already part of HCR but hadn't been realized in budgeting yet, and Yet Another Blue Ribbon Commission which will fail just as miserably as the previous dozens have, with trigger mechanisms that make Republicans very uncomfortable. He disentangled the Bush tax cuts' expiration from the debate (keeping them will require the commission to find another three and a half trillion) which leaves the Republicans with nothing to offer this time to keep them. This isn't even 7th-dimensional chess; this was a case of Obama finding a meaningless face-saving measure that would let Boehner cave and raise the debt ceiling without actually making cuts.

[Fire1]

6. BRAVO!!! Dammit!!! BRAVO!!!!! Well said! n/t

[Armstead]

8. Those triggers will set up another manufactured "crisis."

Not to be simplistic, but I can easily see a scenerio where the GOP will hold those cuts hostage, and if the trigger does kick in, blame Obama for "destroying national security."

IMO Obama handed the Pugs a sword of Damaclese to tie above his head...and also a pair of scissors to cut the string holding it up.

[Recursion]

9. I suppose they could try, but I think the public wants defense spending cut

So I think he wins that one. Though it does bother a bit me since defense contracting is one of the few remaining heavily-union industries.

My own guess is that the commission will morph into a tax reform deal with lower rates than under Clinton in exchange for removing most exemptions/deductions/etc.

[Armstead]

14. We'll see...But the GOP is very good at things like that

(Since I grew up i home where my father supported us with a salary from defense contracts andthe local econony relied on it, I do share mixed feelings about that.)

[Turn CO Blue]

11. Yeah, please do try to sell this compromise as

a big "win" for us all. Once Obama himself introduced the idea of putting SS and Medicare on the table, you can know they WILL be cut. Maybe they'll be restored later.

That stuff in the future apparently gets to count as a "win" for now. Coincidentally, I plan to lose 40 lbs in the future, so give me my lifetime membership to WW now, please?

I counter and say that the progressives on these boards would not be running around like their hair is on fire if this were the friggin awesome win you're describing.

Even better still, tell me how the negotiating tactics were so outstanding and how the compromises to big insurance and pharma in the Affordable Healthcare Act were the biggest win for the middle class since FDR... YAY!

[Recursion]

13. Your WW point is what I'm saying

Coincidentally, I plan to lose 40 lbs in the future, so give me my lifetime membership to WW now, please?

Exactly. The deal "cut" discretionary spending for future budgets that this Congress doesn't actually have any power over. They're meaningless. They'll only happen if we have a future Congress that's willing to actually enact them, and if we do then they'd do it anyways with or without the "long term plan". We didn't actually do anything about spending here.

putting SS and Medicare on the table, you can know they WILL be cut

Probably not SS, since it will be politically painful without actually giving them on-book deficit reduction (which is what they'll need). Medicare will probably be cut, but Medicare needs to be cut: we can't keep letting providers raise prices three times faster than inflation. That's one of the central tenants of health care reform.

tell me how the negotiating tactics were so outstanding and how the compromises to big insurance and pharma in the Affordable Healthcare Act were the biggest win for the middle class since FDR

Probably not the biggest since FDR, but pretty damn big. (Hell, my insurance just lowered its premiums so it won't have to send us a rebate check.)

[BeyondGeography]

5. I was on board from Feb. 2007, and I agree with you

He wants to be the last reasonable man standing, the adult in the room. The likable, wise man. Wrong era, and he should have realized it right from the start. He wasted six weeks waiting for Olympia Fucking Snowe to sign on to the stimulus bill so he could call it bipartisan. I call that an early warning sign.

More disturbing, he drew exactly the wrong lesson from the midterms, embracing Republican arguments extra hard and doubling down on compromise. Wrong, Barack. WRONG.

Can he admit to himself that he is profoundly wrong?

Earth to Barack: You are in a bar fight with drunks. Many of us still stand behind you but please wake the fuck up.

[Fire1]

7. Hey, that's the way he is. I don't think anything rattles him and

some people are just like that. He's very secure in his skin and alot of folks don't like that!

[BeyondGeography]

10. That is appealing

But what does it matter when he's leading himself down a political rat hole?

I would hate to look back at this presidency as a huge missed opportunity, but that's what we're looking at without a serious course correction.

[Fire1]

12. I'm sure he knows he's not going to please everybody. It

would be silly for him to try.

[msongs]

15. pleasing his republican friends is satisfaction enough lol nt

[Fire1]

16. same ole tired meme. Good for you. n/t