“I think that there is a real shot we are going to get slaughtered in elections this fall if we aren’t leading the efforts to reform Washington. We campaigned in ’06 and ’08, and if voters don’t see that change, we haven’t lived up to that promise.”

– Steve Hildebrand, deputy campaign manager for Barack Obama‘s presidential campaign, in an interview on CNN.

Welcome aboard, chief!

Now I think the Obama administration is going to pay a price for not having acknowledged the problems with the stimulus bill they signed in January…If the administration felt that was the best they could get, then fine—you sign the bill and take what you can get. But they should have clearly and publicly articulated that while the ARRA was a useful step, it would likely prove inadequate to the scale of the problem. Then in the event that it did prove inadequate, they could say they had pointed this out at the time and maybe the Senate should stop ruining everything.

Instead, though, they proclaimed themselves pleased as punch with ARRA which now creates a situation where it’s not clear what they can really say.

It would have been really awesome if our elite bloggers would have been out in front of this back in February. But I guess in that case you wouldn’t need 1115.org.

“And, just like Lindsay, we see your name in the paper a lot, but we’re kind of wondering when you’re going to actually do something. Sorry, folks, but this president is not fighting for real health care reform. It’s nibbling that leaves insurance companies still running the show.

And the banks, the banks that brought us to financial ruin and then got bailout money, are laughing at us about how easy it was to get back to business as usual.

And scientists keep saying that if we want to keep living, you know, on earth, it’s kind of essential we reduce carbon dioxide by 40 percent in the next ten years. Obama’s bill calls for 4 percent. This is not getting the job done, and this is not what I voted for.

And, this is why I don’t want my president to be a TV star. Because TV stars are too worried about being popular, and too concerned with getting renewed. Oh, you can relax about that one, Mr. President. The Party is doing everything they possibly can to insure that you’ll get re-elected. The Republican Party.

Speaking of which—speaking of the Republicans, if you can’t shove some real reform down their throats now, then when? Folks, Barack Obama needs to start putting it on the line in fights against the banks, the energy companies and the health care industry.

I never thought I’d say this, but actually, what he needs in his personality is a little George Bush. He needs to stop worrying about being loved and bring out that smug, insufferable swagger that says, “Suck on it, America.”

George Bush had horrible ideas—torture, deregulation, preemptive war, tax cuts for the rich—but he pushed them through in their full measure, never mind the Congress or the Constitution, the Geneva Convention — Magna Carta—Hammurabi’s Code. The point is, he didn’t care if it made him unpopular with every human on the planet not named Cletus or Fred Barnes. Which it did.

And what we need to do is to marry the good ideas that Barack Obama has, with a little bit of the Bush attitude and certitude. I’d love it if Obama came out one day and said, “Jesus told me to fix health care.”

In conclusion, Bush was bad, but he never cared if he was seen out in a restaurant having a burger with Dick Cheney. If he wanted a burger, he picked up the phone in the White House and said, “I’m the president, bring me a burger!” And they would say, “Sir, this is NORAD.” “Would you please stop ordering burgers into the red phone?”

I’m glad Obama is president, but the “audacity of hope” part is over. Right now, I’m hoping for a little more audacity.”

(via Your Favorite Rapper’s Least Favorite Blogger)

The Bush administration and their wars gave fuel to the progressive movement in this country, no doubt. I was personally at a loss during the primary battles — from a movement perspective, I understood our job to be to hold fast to our principles and reward candidates for hewing to them and make them compete for our support.

What happened instead was that progressives divided into camps and started projecting progressive opinions onto candidates who had never expressed them, and fought relentlessly to establish a huge gulf between two candidates whose political records were largely indistinguishable. The progressive movement became subverted into a cult of personality on both sides from which it has yet to emerge, sucked in by a media complex that really doesn’t know how to cover an election or interpret politics in any other way.
[...]
More problematic is the way that progressive leadership is sitting things out, which is what Naomi Klein is addressing. Some may feel they have to — if the membership of their organizations are not interested in challenging the administration, many feel they can’t move without splitting them. But it’s a self-reinforcing problem. If the usual progressive validators aren’t saying anything, people don’t perceive that anything is wrong. And it becomes extremely difficult to generate enthusiasm for activism.

But Obama does bear some responsibility for the current state of affairs. The administration has consistently moved to distance itself from progressive leadership, refusing to even meet with the Progressive Caucus until recently. They have also consciously corralled progressive organizations and sought to strictly control their messaging. Media Matters and the Center for American Progress may have been important voices in the progressive movement at one time, but they’re little more than arms of the White House now, playing a zero sum game with Republicans who really don’t matter. When Democrats control both Congress and the White House, nobody needs the GOP’s help to pass legislation.

I understand that nobody wants to be on the outside like they were during the Bush years, but the price of a few cocktail parties at the White House — and the threat of lost donors — is buying a lot more than it should. There is some weakening around the edges, particularly among intellectuals concerned with finance issues (like Klein) and unions staring down a series of broken promises (like Gerard). Some predicted that Afghanistan would cause a split, but I never bought it. It’s probably going to take a big, stinging Congressional defeat — like Employee Free Choice — before any of the progressive institutions feel they must declare themselves independent of the White House and focus their energies on movement values once again.

I think this is a terribly important post. I don’t know what Jane was saying in real time, but you all know that is what I have been saying. The 2008 Democratic primary is going to keep political science students busy for a generation. I still can’t believe something that absurd could even exist. But even the hardest of hard core Hillary supporters are now for the most part giving Obama the same free pass his pathetic sycophants are. All of this despite how far out of his way Obama has gone to disassociate himself from the mainstream of his party. Just this week, Obama named two more Republicans to his administration, one to an arts (!) position, and one to be Army Secretary because of course Democrats can not be trusted with national security-type positions. He is actively working against liberal Democrats trying to run for the Senate in New York and a real Democrat trying to run against fake Democrat Arlen Specter in Pennsylvania. I really have no idea why the gay community hasn’t openly revolted over the broken promises and outright neglect with which Obama has treated them, unions as well.

For the last year, on the rare occasions that I allow myself to be pulled into political discussions, it always comes down to “well, would you rather McCain and Palin were in the White House?” That’s not valid anymore, and if you find yourself saying it, remember, suicide isn’t just for celebrity masturbators. The election is over, and the choice isn’t between Obama and McCain, it’s between making Democrats do the right thing, or allowing them to be just slightly less destructive than the Republicans who preceded them.

Media Matters and CAP, as Jane writes, are as stuck in the past as the people they wish to influence. I don’t care what the latest Rush Limbaugh travesty happens to be, nor am I interested in the breathless headlines Think Progress gins up about Dick Cheney or to drive traffic. Bad policy is still happening, and it’s not the Republicans who are proximately to blame. It’s time to wake up and realize that Democrats in Congress aren’t going to automatically do the right thing. It’s also clear that Obama doesn’t want to fight for what’s right. So you can accept all this in the spirit of “hey, at least he’s not Bush,” or you can stop tolerating this nonsense and start applying some pressure. Yes, it would be nice if the progressive leaders and A-list bloggers got off their asses and started to lead, but hey, cocktail parties. Now I’m pretty openly dismissive about all of this Web 2.0/social networking stuff, but it seems to me, it’s easier than ever to organize and at least be heard by this administration. Unless you think they’re doing just fine…

What have we seen the last few weeks? Democrats caving to GOP demands and inserting useless tax cut provisions to appease them. Then they vote en masse against the stimulus in the House. Meanwhile, Obama hands yet another cabinet post to yet another Republican, this one a right-wing small-government ideologue who voted to eliminate the Commerce Department he will now head just a few short years ago. Then he gives a schizophrenic acceptance speech where he thanks New Hampshire’s governor for caving to his demands for a GOP replacement for his seat, while at the same time arguing that it’s time to get past “partisanship”. Oh, then he punches Obama in the face by denying him a critical cloture vote on the Senate version of the stimulus bill.
[...]
During the Bush years, the best interests of our country took a back seat to the GOP’s failed ideology. Right now, it looks like the best interests of our country are taking a back seat to the failed ideology of “bipartisanship.”

Theda Skocpol:

In response to what you are saying: Obama is, sadly, much to blame for giving the Republicans so much leverage. He defined the challenge as biparitsanship not saving the U.S. economy. Right now, he has only one chance to re-set this deteriorating debate: He needs to give a major speech on the economy, explain to Americans what is happening and what must be done. People will, as of now, still listen to him — and what else is his political capital for?

Speaking as a strong Obama supporter who put my energies and money into it, I am now very disillusioned with him. He spent the last two weeks empowering Republicans — including negotiating with them to get more into Senate and his administration and giving them virtual veto-power over his agenda — and also spending time on his personal cool-guy image (as in interview before the Super Bowl).

It’s completely beyond me how long it’s taking supposed smart people to come around to what has been so obvious for so long. You can not have paid close attention to Barack Obama since his 2004 DNC keynote and not get that this is where things were headed the whole time.

Update 2:30 PST:

Ryan Avent

A changed tone in Washington, if costless, would be a wonderful thing. But voters put Obama and Democratic majorities into office in order to get results. If Obama chooses to embrace Republicans even as they actively work against the interests of the vast majority of Americans, then we have to question his judgment. It takes two to change the tone. Republicans aren’t interested, and they’re using his overtures to undermine the American economy and the Obama presidency. Obama’s mandate is his to deploy or squander, and the speed with which he has lost control of the storyline on stimulus suggests that he has miscalculated in figuring how much magnanimity that mandate affords him. Whatever illusions the administration might have had that making nice on the stimulus bill would generate a comity that would carry over to other legislative priorities must now be shattered. This is what the process is going to look like for the next two years. Obama must either find a way to win or get as much enjoyment as he can out of the presidency while he has it. And winning needn’t mean an all out declaration of war on his GOP antagonists. But at this point Obama seems reluctant to twist arms at all. Given the stakes, this is inexcusable.

Uh, the time for evaluating Obama’s judgment was during the Democratic primary. Nothing he is doing now is different from what he promised he would do then.

“There’s only one thing we’ve got to do in this stimulus, and that’s create jobs. I’m a little concerned by the way Mr. Summers and others are going on this … it still looks a little more to me like trickle-down.”

Welcome aboard, Senator Harkin.

Update 7:30 PST: (NYT):

Senator Kent Conrad, Democrat of North Dakota and chairman of the Budget Committee, said lawmakers and the incoming administration had differences over how to focus the huge federal spending in a recovery bill. “Investment, investment, investment has got to be the central focus: energy, roads, bridges, waterways, housing,” he said. “Job creation is Job One.”

Mr. Conrad, who described the meeting as extremely positive, said Mr. Summers ended it by telling the senators, “Message received, loud and clear.”

Several Democrats on the Finance Committee earlier in the day questioned the proposal to give tax credits worth $500 to individuals and $1,000 to married couples. Several senators said that initiative would provide a token sum of money, which taxpayers were likely to save, not spend.

Senator John F. Kerry, Democrat of Massachusetts, and others also criticized a proposal to give businesses a $3,000 tax credit for each new employee they hire, saying it was unlikely to influence business decisions.

Welcome aboard, Senators Conrad and Kerry.

At least two tax cuts that are part of Barack Obama’s stimulus package have been criticized by lawmakers, tax experts and economists for being potentially too expensive and ineffective, signaling that they are likely to face resistance on Capitol Hill as congressional leaders begin direct negotiations with the president-elect’s team.

The Obama Doctrine – 1115.org (1/5/09):

So to sum up, Obama’s first order of business is a stimulus package because the economy is in deep trouble. But he’d rather devote 40% of the cost to tax cuts already proven ineffective so he can start his term off ceding valuable ground to insane maniacs.
[...]
The problem is that tax cuts, especially the carry back/carry forward business cuts, can’t possibly help this…

It’s almost like I know WTF I’m talking about…