TIME - Joe Klein - "Why Are the Dems Distressed About Obama?" - Great Read!

[TomCADem]

Joe Klein hits the nail on the head. Many folks on both the left and right forget that Ronald Reagan had sub-forty percent poll numbers in his second year due to high unemployment. Yet, Reagan is now regarded as the perfect example of a conservative Republican President despite the fact that Reagan frequently strayed from from conservative orthodoxy as noted by Joe Klein below.

http://swampland.blogs.time.com/2010/08/23/dems-depressed-and-disheartened/?xid=rss-topstories

The lead item on Politico--titled "Dems Urge Obama to Take a Stand"--is almost surrealistic. Take a stand? The guy passed health care, a stimulus bill that helped avoid a Depression, a groundbreaking financial reform bill that is too complicated to be popularly described, a bailout that enabled General Motors and Chrysler to survive. He nominated two estimable women to the Supreme Court. He restored America's image in the world. I can go on...

But Dems are distressed? He's not populist or ideological enough? Oh please. There are several ways to go about the presidency. Ronald Reagan chose one way: he said one thing and did another. He was for cutting back the size of government, but didn't. He was for lowering taxes and he did, but then he raised taxes--two of the laegest percentage increases in American history--when his supply-side "philosophy" proved a phony. He confronted the Soviet Union, but he also would have agreed to massive reductions in nuclear arsenals if the Soviets had allowed him to pursue his Star Wars fantasy.

Barack Obama has chosen another way.

He has pretty much done what he said he'd do. His achievements are historic. But he hasn't wrapped them up in an ideological bumper sticker--or provided some neat way for the public to understand it, or pretended to be a yeoman simpleton, noshing on pork rinds, clearing brush and excoriating the business community. That is a real political problem. He delivered a stealth tax cut to 95% of the American people; I've never seen a politician cut taxes and not take sufficient credit for it before. He made it impossible for Americans to be denied health care coverage because of pre-existing conditions or chronic problems; somehow this has gotten lost in the "socialist" shuffle as well. He ended major combat operations in Iraq, on time and without much fuss--without using the word "victory" or denying the continuing problems involved in cobbling together a coherent government there. Another President might have hyped this "achievement" relentlessly.

[CakeGrrl]

1. k and r

[XemaSab]

2. Another K&R

Some bridge is missing its troll. x(

[begin_within]

3. So where are the jobs?

[DearAbby]

5. Stimulus added millions of jobs in Q2

http://www.reuters.com/assets/print?aid=USTRE67N55X20100824

[WI_DEM]

24. Yeah, Obama could just turn around 8 years of GOP rule in a year and half!?

Get real.

[hulka38]

4. Just Joe reconfirming that he sucks ass.

[Diane R]

6. Wow. Is this DU or FR?

[Tarheel_Dem]

12. Great question. (nt)

[ellie]

20. And that is why I

did not donate to DU this time around. Too much FR not enough DU.

[tomp]

28. wow, used to you had to disagree with obama to be called a freeper.

now all you have to do is insult joe klein. what has this place become, indeed?

[Ignis]

37. Scared.

[Arkana]

23. Did I walk over to FR and not notice?

[Rincewind]

7. K&R

[Control-Z]

8. K&R n/t

[dkf]

9. In another time and place those things would be historic. But today the only thing that matters is

Jobs.

[girl gone mad]

10. Rah, Rah, Reagan!

:puke:

[Name removed]

11. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[jonnyblitz]

13. UN-fucking-REC!!

what a steaming crock...

[jgraz]

14. Oh shit... Joe Fucking Klein.

What, Dick Morris wasn't writing today?

[depakid]

15. Falling back on Joe Klein surely is weak- as most readers of DU from, say 2001-2006-07

would do well to remember.

I'll tell ya what Graz- there's a reason why things like "institutional memory" are important to groups and organizations, public and private.

[Ignis]

36. !

:spray:

[LittleBlue]

16. Uh... because his approval rating is low?

Possibly because unemployment and the economy aren't improving? Maybe that's why! :think:

[Skittles]

17. serious pretzel logic

[Hekate]

18. Kick and Rec. The final paragraph nails it down

>> At a moment as complicated and unnerving as this, it isn't hard to imagine a failed presidency--although, of course, it would be foolishly premature to do so. But it is not possible, at this point, to imagine a dishonorable Obama presidency; he has faced the national crisis in a manner that may be politically flawed, but he has not run from, or fudged or demagogued, the problems. He has done pretty much what he said he was going to do when he ran for office. That is something Democrats should be able to live with, proudly. <<

http://swampland.blogs.time.com/2010/08/23/dems-depressed-and-disheartened/?xid=rss-topstories

"But it is not possible,a t this point, to imagine a dishonorable Obama presidency." Thank you Mr. Klein.

Hekate

[Usrename]

31. Hell, he shut down Gitmo on his first day as president.

What more do people want?

Oh, wait...

[sendero]

19. What a moron..

... all kinds of great HCR that kicks in YEARS from now, a financial reform bill that is bysantine and Kafkaesque when all we really needed was Glass Stegall, he's ending Iraq on Bush's schedule, he's jumping into the doomed Afghanistan with both feet, hey Joe, not all of us are as fucking stupid as you.

[Phx_Dem]

21. K&R

[Liberal_Stalwart71]

22. Reagan's poll numbers were much lower than Obama's at this time...

...AND the unemployment rate was HIGHER at this point in Reagan's tenure.

That's why I don't understand why Democrats continue to fall for this bullshit!!

[WI_DEM]

25. There still will be those here who read this and say "Preident Kucinich could have done more."

[ChimpersMcSmirkers]

32. or Hillary, which is rather ironic since Hillary is probably more to the right then Obama.

There's a PUMA brigade floating around and about DU. Party Unity My Ass is it's clarion call.

[indepat]

26. Just think what could have been accomplished with a little-left-of-center agenda rather than a

perceived, at least to this writer, right-of-center agenda. The probability that the nation is likely in a depression is becoming more evident and no right-of-center agenda is going restore this economy and millions of lost jobs. :P

[Uzybone]

27. Not all Dems are distressed, some are...some for good reason

and others because distressing is part of their DNA.

[Name removed]

29. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[mdmc]

30. Oh great Obama could be another Ray-gun

[jenmito]

33. K&R. Joe is exactly right. n/t

[Sentath]

34. A longish response

health care: Err, no. Insurance accessibility perhaps

a stimulus bill that helped avoid a Depression: Yup, tho more was, is and will be needed.

a groundbreaking financial reform bill that is too complicated to be popularly described: Which worries me that it may be too complicated to have the heartening effect on public confidence in the financial sector that it needed to have. It may also be too complicated to have its intended effect in some areas, too many loop holes and sidesteps, but we will see. I'm hopeful.

a bailout that enabled General Motors and Chrysler to survive: Yes! (and wasn't one of those even profitable?)

He nominated two estimable women to the Supreme Court: Yup, absolutely.

He restored America's image in the world: Err, we certainly had a wild upsurge in popularity there for a while. I wonder what that looks like 'bout now what with Gitmo and the 2 wars and associated ugliness?

He delivered a stealth tax cut to 95% of the American people; I've never seen a politician cut taxes and not take sufficient credit for it before: Agreed, this is a real problem.

He made it impossible for Americans to be denied health care coverage because of pre-existing conditions or chronic problems; somehow this has gotten lost in the "socialist" shuffle as well: Yes!, this item from the Insurance Reform is Awesome. Whether this will make any practical difference in the availability of Health Care for these conditions is still a developing situation.

He ended major combat operations in Iraq, on time and without much fuss--without using the word "victory" or denying the continuing problems involved in cobbling together a coherent government there. Another President might have hyped this "achievement" relentlessly: I dunno. It still feels like weasel words with so many still there and going to be there forever.

Thats the first 3 paragraphs, the next one says: the recession/depression and culture wars are a mess. I agree.

Para 5: Yeah, we'd still be in trouble. But maybe we could be jubilantly defiant in our distress.

Para 6: Here we need one of those candidate v.s. president montages. Yeah, he has done alot. Historic amounts maybe. But I still believe we have reasons to be less than jubilant.

[butterfly77]

35. Many people forget..

"WE ARE THE ONES WE ARE WAITING FOR!"