"Let's Repeal 2010" - Gail Collins at the NYT is becoming one of my faves

[quiet.american]

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/17/opinion/17collins.html?scp=2&sq=gail%20collins&st=cse">Let's Repeal 2010

This week, Congress passed the huge reform of the financial industry that it had been working on for nearly two years. You’d think there would have been cheering from coast to coast, but the left was disheartened to discover that contrary to all previous precedent, Congress had passed a bill that was imperfect.

....Meanwhile, down in the House, John Boehner, the Republican leader, raised the ante, calling for repeal.

Who says that Boehner just hangs out at bars and tanning parlors and doesn’t work hard? The man is tireless! Everybody else was exhausted, but he wanted to start over.

And the money quote for me is:

With all these great ideas around — debate more, start over, don’t clean the windows — it’s a wonder that Washington hasn’t become the image of Athens in the age of Pericles. But instead, all Barack Obama’s critics have been able to do is make the country feel gloomy about Barack Obama. He’s passed more major legislation than anybody since Franklin Roosevelt and he’s got popularity ratings that look more like Martin Van Buren’s.

Amen, Gail. Obama's working at a furious pace to get this country afloat again, even as those who should know better rip holes in the ship and then complain it's still leaking!

[Number23]

1. It's interesting that some people try to make it seem as though it's status quo or part of the

"establishment" to support Obama.

This article and countless others (and I swear more and more come out each day) seem to prove the exact opposite -- that it takes reason, maturity, and exposure to reputable information to support this President and that the more you know, the more likely you are to support him. In 2010, bucking the "status quo" means shaking off the naysayers.

The people who have to grit their teeth just to find something praiseworthy that this administration has done are the "establishment" now. That's actually pretty damned funny when you realize that so many of them consider their constant criticism, harping and negativity to be some sort of badge of Cool Outsider-ness. They are more a part of The Machine than those who support the President and most of them are too damn stupid and full of themselves and their alleged intellectual superiority to realize it.

[RoyGBiv]

2. The information in the quote is wrong ...

Roosevelt was not popular during his first term. Obama's popularity is actually higher than Roosevelt's likely was. (A direct comparison is not possible.) Furthermore, given that the type of opinion polls that are used to determine these things weren't even imagined at the time of Van Buren, using him as a point of comparison is stupid.

Yes, I said "stupid."

I appreciate the message the author of this piece is trying to portray, but the methods are as flawed as those used by individuals presenting the opposite message ... and that is part of the problem.

The bigger part of the problem is that public opinion means nothing. The American public, as a whole, is stupid -- there's that word again -- and will remain so as long as all it does is seek information that agrees with its prejudices.

[quiet.american]

3. I take your points Roy - my thoughts -

I think there is a distinction between a humorist piece, and a wonk piece. Gail Collins is primarily a humorist writer. If you go to the NYT and read over some of her other columns, you'll see there are many things she writes that are not meant to be taken literally from an analytical viewpoint. She's not writing as a Paul Krugman.

In reading over your comment again, also -- she is not comparing Obama's popularity to Roosevelt's, but Obama's capacity for accomplishing his progressive agenda as aggressively as Roosevelt did. And for that, she makes the point, his popularity is low - why?

[Number23]

5. Roy, "stupid" must be the word of the day

I used it in my post too referring to the establishment, knee-jerk criticizers.

[Cha]

4. Gail Collins nails the typical republicon hypocricy..

<end snip from your article>

“Presidents are certainly entitled to vacation, just like everybody else, but there is a fine line as to when presidents should do it, what they should and where they should do it,” a former member of George W. Bush’s staff told CNN. The staff member in question, Brad Blakeman, was in charge of appointments and scheduling. Surely there is nobody better qualified to discuss this important subject than the man who helped the previous president get out of town for a third of his entire time in office.***

The Republicans have now set up a site called “Golf or Gulf” that lists all the things Obama has been doing for the last three months when he could have been sitting around worrying about the oil spill. He had Paul McCartney over to the White House. And he played golf 10 times!

Let’s repeal the oil spill and start all over. The right way to handle the disaster, it appears from the many, many critiques, would have been to:

— Call all the oil company executives together to come up with a plan.

— Denounce all the oil companies.

— Apologize to the oil companies.

— Tell Paul McCartney he cannot sing in the White House until all the pelicans are clean."

*** And, of course, cnn would never question brad blakeman's scheduling bush's vacation days for a third of his time in office while he and cheney were pillaging and plundering our country..leaving it in such a state of crisis that President Obama came along in the nick of time.

The corporatemediawhores and those who furiously don't grab their own mop but sit around whining that the President isn't cleaning up fast enough.. wouldn't think of opening up their tiny lens.

[bobburgster]

6. 3 cheers for the "money quote"

hit the nail on the head.:thumbsup: