A homophobe at the inauguration, lousy choices for Agriculture and Education,

[proud2BlibKansan]

replacing Iraq with Afghanistan.

Call me skeptical.

[QC]

1. PUMA!!!!11!! PUMA1!!1!!1!!

:sarcasm:

[proud2BlibKansan]

2. You are confusing me with my insane neighbor

She really was a PUMA.

[jonnyblitz]

3. I find his economic folks pretty fucking scary, too.

and i heard some interesting stuff about that Napolitano lady on Amy Goodman's "Democracy Now" about how she treats illegal immigrants coming across her border in Arizona but i didn't feel like getting into it and arguing with the O-worshipers on here anytime soon about it.

[proud2BlibKansan]

4. Hadn't heard that - thanks

I decided long before November to focus my energies on local races. This was the first presidential race I had not worked on since the 70s. I did give him a little money and I did vote for him. And I am glad he won. But I am also glad I didn't pour much energy into his campaign.

[scrappydo]

5. I worked my ass off to get Obama elected......

and I am so tired of you soothsayers finding something wrong with every decisions he makes. Democrats are so good at eating themselves up - you folks are doing a great job!!!!! Keep it up - just remember to add salt.

[QC]

6. I'm not a soothsayer, though I did predict this fiasco back in October '07.

So maybe I am a soothsayer after all.

[proud2BlibKansan]

7. But I haven't found something wrong with every decision he has made

So you are knocking on the wrong door, dude.

[scrappydo]

17. No, you probably haven't....

but take a look around DU - there are plenty of DUers who cannot wait to jump on Obama for every thing he says or does - and which of the DUers are so perfect that none of us ever makes mistakes? Obama is a human being - we are not going to agree with all of his decisions, but I am sick and tired of people jumping on his back very time he turns around. I do not agree with all of his cabinet nominees but I am not going to make a federal case out of it. The man has not so much as assumed the presidency and so-called Democrats are already eating him alive. I withhold judgment until I see what this new administration will do.

[PVnRT]

21. Piss off

[Liberal_Stalwart71]

14. Napolitano is DLC, another hawkish, mean-spirited DINO. I understood that Obama isn't a

liberal, but his choices reflect such a disdain for liberals. He made up for it somewhat with his picks for Labor and HUD. But choosing LaHood for Transportation (that crook!), DLCers Salazar (Interior) and Vilsack (Agriculture), I think that many people are going to be disappointed.

[Hippo_Tron]

39. Why would you say that she is mean spirited?

[GarbagemanLB]

20. Nader 2012!

Let's call his presidency failed before it even begins!

[Pale Blue Dot]

43. Yes. The difference between Obama and Bush on economics is

that Obama has assembled a team that will COMPETENTLY execute the wrong economic policies, as opposed to incompetently executing the same policies.

[davidpdx]

8. Impeach him, Impeach him

OMG THE WORLD IS ENDING!!!!!

:sarcasm:

[BootinUp]

9. The guy wrote a damn book which praised Clinton

and people are shocked at his centrist politics. You could have had H. Clinton, oh well.

[dflprincess]

11. Like the poster above, I concentrated on local races and prtetty much

sat out the presidential race. And for me it was also the first time since '72 that I'd done that. When the Democrats went along with the media deciding the primary race would be between Clinton and Obama I pretty much gave up. I may have leaned a little toward Obama because I figured I knew what to expect from Clinton and had a vague hope Obama might surprise me once he was elected.

While I never expected much from him, I really didn't expect he'd turn out to be so insensitive to people who had supported him. Selling out other people's civil rights because you think it's politicaly expedient is awfully low.

[Jennicut]

16. Actually we could have had McLame

[Two Americas]

18. not shocked

Opposed.

[eyesroll]

38. Didn't she also write a book that (in part) praised Clinton?

http://www.amazon.com/Living-History-Hillary-Rodham-Clinton/dp/0743222253/ref=pd_sim_b_1

[Odin2005]

10. I find his cabinet very good.

He went for experienced heavy-hitters, not yes-men ideologues, I'm fine with that.

[BootinUp]

12. +1

[Two Americas]

25. so what about Solis?

Very different politically than the previous appointments, in my view. You must hate her, yes? Or is it just a matter of whatever Obama does you support, and anyone who expresses any critical opinion you attack, no matter what?

If the "center" people are going to be happy with Solis, then why all of the attacks on the Left? After all those attacks on the Left, anyone engaging in those attacks who is also happy with Solis was not being very honest with their attacks on the Left, were they? It must have merely been a matter of genuflecting to authority and adulation for a personality, and not about politics at all. Or...?

Ideologue, partisan, fringe, far left, purist - we have all of that with Solis. If that is OK - if the Obama zealots still defend Obama like tigers even when he nominates a leftist, then why was it wrong for us to advocate that he nominate people from the Left?

[BootinUp]

30. I need to catch up on the news and Solis

I have been very busy the week or so and missed a lot. So my +1 comment was more based on his choices for economic and national security positions. What attacks on the left are you referring to?

[Two Americas]

19. quite the opposite

I would say he picked weak people, who are free market and pro-corporate ideologues and yes men.

There is a serious contradiction in that argument. If they are not yes men, if he is reaching to the other side to get diverse opinions other than his own, then that makes Obama a Leftist and not in agreement with you. That means that we dissidents are actually supporting the "real" Obama, who is different that the conservatives he is surrounding himself with. If on the other hand Obama agrees with the views of his picks, then he has surrounded himself with yes men - people who agree with him. It can't be both ways.

[Odin2005]

23. I AM a Leftist.

On economic issues I'm on the left end of DU. I shamelessly label myself a socialist. I just don't follow the stereotype leftist image created by left-wing baby-boomers, and that throws people off.

But I'm also a pragmatist who most most Americans don't agree with me.

[Two Americas]

24. Solis

The Solis choice is encouraging, I think. You?

[Odin2005]

28. Very much so!

[Two Americas]

29. wish you would post in a little more detail

I can see an outline of an interesting political stance in your posts. I would enjoy seeing you expound in a little more detail at some point. If you post anything that you think might of particular interest on this dichotomy between being a political leftist, and what you characterized as baby boomer liberalism, give me a heads up by pm if you could.

[Odin2005]

34. Sure, I'm be sending you a PM sometime later tonight or tommorow morning. n/t

[Hippo_Tron]

40. The "heavy-hitters" is probably the biggest trend I have seen in the assembly of this cabinet

We also don't know what role the cabinet is actually going to have in making policy. Obama might choose to govern more through the Executive Office of the President than through the cabinet. The cabinet has significantly less power when you have a President that is actually engaged in policy (something that cannot be said for our current moron-in-chief).

[jefferson_dem]

13. Ya...Obama="More of the Same"

Fucking neocon dlcer bigot-enabling war-mongering corrupt...

Right.

[glitch]

15. But not Far Right, so it is an improvement.

Wish we could graduate from baby steps though.

[Two Americas]

31. not the way it works

It is an improvement as a personal choice. But winning an election is no substitute for actually showing up on the battle lines - or even knowing where they are - and fighting.

The right wingers will not stop fighting, will not hold hands and make nice, will not cease or relent in the pursuit of their all-out war on the working people. Peace and post partisanship would be nice, but not at the price of surrendering, of rejecting self-defense.

Elections are an effect, not a cause, and are but one small part of the process. "Just choose this, and all will be well" reflects a naive consumerist mentality, and is very dangerous in politics.

We are being urged from all quarters to make nice, to not fight, to visualize peaceful outcomes or something. That is very alarming, since real human beings are and will be enduring very real suffering as measured in objective reality by objective criteria, no matter what frequency we are all vibrating at.

It seems to me that the more people seek inner peace and pursue other narcissistic goals, the more death and suffering there is. Sometimes self-defense is in order, is the only path to peace, and if that is not true today for working people around the world then I don't know when it would ever be true.

It is easy for those who are relatively immune to and insulated from the harsh realities to look inward and focus of their own emotional state and spiritual growth, and most people here do live in a circle of privilege that is denied to the vast majority of people in this country, let alone around the world.

So no, baby steps hold no interest for me. I think that is an excuse for complacency and denial. Merely having made a better choice than the far right holds no charms, either. It is like saying that fire fighters are better than arsonists. So what? That goes without saying. But the fires rage on, and now we are reaching out and making nice with the arsonists so as to "include" them. Still the fires rage on. And those who point that out are under attack. That is a bad sign.

I don't care to enjoy personal inner states in the midst of a nightmare of suffering and abuse. I will fight. I will focus on others, not on myself.

[glitch]

33. I should have included an eye roll or a sarcasm tag.

I thought "right but not far right (ie Rick Warren)" and "baby steps" was enough to show I was being utterly facetious (really hard to do in posts but still I try), my bad.

I too feel we don't have any time to try baby steps. Maybe if we didn't have a perfect storm of environment and economic collapse, and fascist takeover we could. But we do so we can't.

[Two Americas]

35. heh

I have never seen things get so strange around here - or anywhere else, as far as that goes. It is really hard to tell who is being serious and who is being sarcastic, you know?

Reminds me of what Tina Fey said about doing parodies of Palin - she said they didn't need to write gags, they just used her words verbatim and it sounded like a parody.

Some people are posting in deadly earnest. and I think that it must be a parody. Others post parodies that are more believable than the posts they are doing the parodies on.

Probably the most solid and unambiguous position that is required for DU membership is support for the GLBT folks. With the Warren selection, Obama has put people in the position of an iron clad DU policy colliding with their need to defend everything Obama does.

Warren would be banned here. Yet he is given a symbolic and highly visible position in the inauguration. How do we reconcile this - a person being welcomed by the administration, who would be extremely unwelcome here? I think that attempting to reconcile those two is driving people a little crazy.

[glitch]

36. Ain't that the truth re parody. And re Warren: he is irreconcilable.

There really is no justification for honoring him with a gig at the inauguration. I would like to hope that Obama has some kind of brilliant plan that will salvage the situation and make it clear to Americans and the world that there is no room for bigotry in the big tent, but so far I haven't been able to muster any.

I will be awestruck if he pulls something like that off, however not holding my breath.
I do think people need to not worship heroes and accept that everyone makes mistakes.

If Obama were to admit a mistake here he could salvage some of my respect. Adults make mistakes and admit them, as a people I think Americans are very forgiving (perhaps far too forgiving, but that's for another post).
:hi:

[proud2BlibKansan]

22. Since I never said any of that

it would be wrong, not right.

[IndianaJones]

26. a homophobe? lol. nt.

[proud2BlibKansan]

27. You think Warren is NOT a homophobe?

:wtf:

[Vinca]

32. Well, heck. Let's just skip the inauguration and impeach him.

Maybe Grandpa and Mooseburger are still interested in the job.:sarcasm:

[TK421]

37. You are being deliberately divisive to this board and therefore have no voice here anymore

you are sowing seeds of discontent here and are no longer welcome....

GO BACK TO FREAKREPUBLICK YOU TROLL!!@#$!$$$$ :sarcasm:

[Freddie Stubbs]

41. Skeptical of what?

Didn't he actually campaign on the idea of increasing the troops in Afghanistan?

[PM7nj]

42. I know. I fell the same way.

Damn, if only John McCain and Sarah Palin had been elected! As a liberal gay man, I would feel so much better!