This is a perfect example of why Obama would get blamed if unemployment benefits expired.

[BzaDem]

Some people say Obama should let all the middle class tax cuts expire and let unemployment benefits expire, and blame it on the Republicans.

But why would that work? DADT repeal failed yesterday, with all but one Democrat voting for and all but one Republican voting against. But on THIS VERY BOARD, people are blaming Obama! Not the Republicans that nearly-unanimously killed repeal. It's all Obama's fault.

This is a PERFECT example of what would happen if unemployment benefits expired. Republicans know that when things get bad -- people blame the president. If so many people here so easily and naively play right into Mitch McConnell's hands, and blame Obama, just imagine who someone who didn't follow politics (and didn't even know who controlled Congress) would blame.

[young but wise]

1. Agreed.

[tcaudilllg]

2. Bush would have vetoed.

Why won't he?

[Kber]

12. You can only veto legislation that is passed

not legislation that isn't.

[Donnachaidh]

3. So the 99ers were left in the cold -- where was the outrage THEN?

This is all smoke and subterfuge....

[BzaDem]

4. So because the 99ers aren't helped, you want to deny help to the 26ers and beyond? n/t

[lame54]

5. let them expire because they should NEVER have been put in place...

Fixing that hemorrhage of the tax system should have been done immediately

[aquart]

6. So we are to be destroyed so no one will pick on Obama?

In what universe does that make it a good decision?

[BzaDem]

7. The bill does not "destroy" you.

My point is that if even people here fall for the Republican spin, then Obama would be the one that got blamed for middle class taxes going up by thousands and unemployment benefits dying for those unemployed for more than 26 weeks.

[aquart]

8. Yes. It does. I'm not shortsighted.

[BzaDem]

11. Your first two sentences contradict the third. n/t

[katnapped]

19. He's going to get blamed for something anyway

This pre-capitulation isn't going to save him from the mean nasty names.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

9. Does that mean that you too will fall under the magic spell that blinds other people?

What keeps you immune to being hoodwinked?

[BzaDem]

10. "What keeps you immune to being hoodwinked?"

Because I don't first decide to blame Obama and then look for the reason later? Because I actually follow what goes on in Congress?

[tom_paine]

13. Another Conventional Wisdom Junkie. Sigh.

The strange thing is: in a nation with a healthy functioning media, judicial and political system, you're attitude is both commendable and 100% correct. Given that there is ALWAYS some level of a "story behind the story", during good times the differential is relatively insignifiant.

However, in nations in which the opposite is true (the 1970s Soviet Union, for example) or a nation in transit from the healthy or semi-healthy state state to the opposite, the Conventional Wisdom suddenly ranges from misleading and only half-true to 100% disinformational/misinformational bullshit. If you were talking the Conventional Wisdom BS in the 1978 Soviet Union, you'd be laughed out of the bar as either naive or a Communist Party stalwart (pretty much the same thing). In such a case, it would be the proper response.

So, my first question to you would be: Would you describe our nation, as it stands now as a nation with a healthy functioning media, judicial, constitutional, electoral and political system?

My second would be: How often do the Repugs scold their base publicly? Would that be NEVER?

But, before I go too far afield, let me just say that, while we aren't quite the 1978 Soviet Unions yet in terms of the laughable bullshittery of Conventional Wisdom and the "official" National Dialog, I believe we are closer to that state than we are to post-WWII America.

And as Conventional Wisdom and the "official" National Dialog get more ludicrous, ridiculous, Foxified, and wholly detatched from reality, your clinging repeatedly to Conventional Wisdom will become comical, naive and ridiculous.

Just a heads up. Please go back and read my first question and rate the overall health of the entire US "System" as comprised of the five aspects I have listed.

[BzaDem]

14. I'm not sure how your questions are at all relevant to my OP. Even if we assume for the sake of

argument that our nation is unhealthy in every possible way, none of that affects the reality stated in my OP.

As for Republicans scolding their base, well, their base tends to blame the Democrats when they can't get what they want (unless elected Republicans are actually the cause of failure).

[tom_paine]

17. Yes, it does. Because you ascribe no level of "story behind the story"

as it pertains to the larger pattern. Which, if you agree that the nation is unhealthy, is much more likely to be true.

Obama, his administration, and the Democratic Leadership has systematically betrayed pretty much every single one of it's constituency groups since he got into office. Teachers, unions, gays, environmentalists, constitutionalists, liberals, etc. Pissed them off and threw them under the bus.

This is not a new pattern, but has been going on years, during the whole comical "keeping our powder dry" years of 2001-2006, followed by the Democratic Congress that Gave Bush Everything he Wanted, oh and by the way, the demonstrably corrupt Rovian US Atty Leura Canary remains US Atty to this day.

My God, it goes all the way back to the Iran-Contra committed sabotaging their own investigation (they refused to look into anything before 1985...like say, how Bush originally got in so chummy with Iranian Terrorists and Hostage Takers?) and the laughably corrupt and comical Bushies Jerry Nields and Lee Hamilton throwing softball after softball at Ollie North. I remember screaming at the TV, "What are you, Republicans or something?" even though at that time I was like you, a Conventional Wisdom Junkie, and never once questioned or guessed that maybe something more was going on than what I was seeing on TV.

Do you see the relevance yet? What Obama has done isn't the first time this has happened, or even the fifteenth. More like the thousandth over a span of decades of Democratic Leadership being weak and continually acting against their own base and even their own self-interest. Acting for all the world as if they despise their base and WANT to lose elections.

Against this 30 year backdrop, does my question to you become more relevant? Either we have the dumbest, weakest individuals representing us since the 1933 German Social Democrats (Google them or read "Defying Hitler" by Sebastian Haffner for edification) or something, I know not what, is going on beyond what we see on TV and the Conventional Wisdom that you are so attached to as I once was until 30 years of upside-down snapped open my eyes.

Along those lines, have a listen to a BBC Special regarding a 75 year old example of this puzzling behavior by the greatest of our Liberal Presidents, FDR. You will not regret listening to this (it's 20 min.), I guarantee it. Pay special attention to the ending.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/history/document/document_20070723.shtml

[BzaDem]

18. I guess that I would disagree with your entire premise

that Obama has "betrayed pretty much every single one of it's constituency groups since he got into office."

So given that I think that premise is a crock, I don't see the relevance to my OP. My OP shows that Obama is going to be blamed whatever happens (even by people here). Therefore, he needs to do what he can to extend unemployment and the middle class tax cuts.

[tom_paine]

22. Defensive much? Again, you miss my point entirely. I didn't say just Obama.

I said Obama, and our entire Democratic Leadership going back 30 years and more.

And if you have been following DU and can't see how Obama has pissed off all the groups I mentioned, listing specific examples, then you are oblivious, probably purposefully.

Did you even READ the rest of my post? Doesn't sound like it. Sounds like you read the first line and went off all half-cocked busting the first thing that came to your mind.

How old are you? Just curious. You sound young.

If you don't see the relevance, then I can't explain it any clearer. But I don't think you read the post, let alone processed it. It's bad enough that all the Hannidiots and Beckheads on the RW do that shit, but do you have to emulate their tactics in your quest to squelch all legitimate criticism?

I thought I was having an intelligent conversation with an open mind. I didn't realize that I was having a blathering match with a disturbingly common archetype that appears on all sides of the political spectrum. It rhymes with Spam-a-bot, in your case. If you were a RWer, you'd rhyme with Creeper.

So, I'm done wasting time with you, no point. I type paragraphs of thought-out information, and you give me Spam-a-bot. Maybe you should go joust with all the Freepers on yahoo.com if you are that desirous of back-and-forth blathering, squelching opposition flatly and not bothering with high-falutin' concepts and debate and pointy-headed stuff, eh?

Or you could go back and read my first post again and THINK for a minute about what I said, and especially make sure you click on that BBC link to listen to it.

But you won't do that. So, youngster, feel free to blather and tantrum on me and have the last word. I'm done with you.

[ddeclue]

15. WRONG: DADT is Obama's fault because it doesn't require a vote in the first place.

All he has to do is NOT appeal the favorable ruling from the Federal judge that stops DADT and it ends today.

[BzaDem]

20. So you would support allowing a President Palin to de facto repeal any law she wanted, as long as

she could find a single district judge (out of 700) to rule it unconstitutional? Medicare? Social Security? Food Stamps?

Is that REALLY what you want? Doesn't sound like "faithfully executing the laws to me."

[ddeclue]

21. FALSE CHOICE. Stop the appeal and let it take effect and THEN worry about passing a law in 2011 or

2012. The more people get used to it the harder it will be for the other side to argue against it. And it would NOT be as easy as Palin issuing an E.O., she would have to overturn the judge's ruling on appeal assuming there even IS a President Palin.

FAIL.

[cottonseed]

16. Many liberals here put an Obama mask on their Kucinich dolls and stroked vigorously.

Daddy can't change the way government works kids.