I’m really not all that worried about President Obama winning reelection. The GOP Klown Kar is doing all it can to help Obama win another four years. Seriously, if the best they can do is Willard Romney, progressives will have to screw this one up worse than we did in 2000.
Yes, progressives; it wasn’t the Katherine Harris or the Supreme Court that decided that election; Even running an admittedly lousy campaiogn the choice of Al Gore over George W. Bush should have been a no-brainer for progressives, including Ralph Nader, Michael Moore and the like. But alas, those savvy political thinkers on the professional left undermined Gore mercilessly, while leaving Bush untouched.
That was twelve years ago, and you’d think such savvy political thinkers might have learned a little something by now. After all, they’re supposed to be “professionals” right? And aren’t professionals supposed to be better than the rest of us amateurs at politics?
They haven’t learned much of anything.
One reason I’ve been taking on the professional left on this blog recently (and don’t worry, I will take on the right wing, too) is because too many progressives listen to these people and their caterwauling about what “a good progressive” should say and think. They wail about “DINOs” (Democrats in name only), despite the fact that the Democratic Party is a very proud, very diverse party, where all opinions are welcome in the mix. Hell, truth be told, many of them aren’t even registered with the Democratic Party, anyway.
I don’t use the term “DINO” (or anything similar) on this blog because, in my opinion, such a term should be used sparingly, perhaps to describe a right winger who registers as a Democrat just to vote in an open primary. And as a lifelong progressive, I would never presume to tell any other progressive what he or she should do, think or say in order to be a "good progressive." In fact, doing so is a sure sign of a non-progressive, because progressives are supposedly tolerant. Aren't they?
One thing many on the pro left don't understand is that the Democratic Party is a fully (small d) democratic institution, meaning the candidates who are chosen, the policy positions they take, and even how they govern, are all determined by the people inside the party who choose to participate. In short, if you want the Democratic Party to change, then you have to change it from within. Standing outside and demanding that a political party change in order to “get your vote” is a naïve notion, and one that is politically ineffective, if not outright absurd. If you haven’t figured that out after 32 years of neocon domination, then you must be “professional left.” Oh, wait; they don’t actually believe that nonsense; they’re playing to an audience. They’re saying what they think will appeal to you, and get you coming back for visit after visit.
I have nothing personal against any on the professional left. If you look closely at what I write about them, I never get personal. I deal with what they say, not who they are, or what they do. And what they say oftentimes is either untrue, or the truth is stretched beyond its natural limits. They make their livings as provocateurs, which is why they constantly trash President Obama, despite the fact that his record is more progressive than any president since FDR, although Jimmy Carter’s presidency was also very progressive. And provocation is NOT good politics. In fact, it’s the opposite of good politics. Good politics is about getting people to support you, and very few non-extremists support extremism and provocation.
Now, I know a lot of professional lefties are reading this and saying, “I don’t constantly trash Obama,” but in most cases, you really do. I’m not saying they’re lying, exactly; most of what they write is so overwhelmingly negative in nature, they probably don’t even realize it. But they do. Two great progressive things happened this week, so let’s look at how one of the most notorious professional left websites, Firedoglake, viewed them, shall we?
First, the Keystone XL pipeline was done away with. It’s effectively dead. The reliably unreliable Firedoglake covered the story, of course. At the beginning of the story, written by David Dayen, is a link, touting what it describes as the “official rejection” of the pipeline, and what it considers to be “interesting framing.” Unfortunately for the reader, the link Dayen provides is not to anything “official” at all; it links to a Mother Jones story on the rejection of the pipeline. Just for the record, here is the White House statement. (In all fairness, Dayen and FDL include the link as an afterthought on their piece. The White House statement is only two paragraphs long, and is very easy to read. I urge you to compare what the White House actually said to what David Dayen claims it said, and you’ll find a bit of disparity. But the galling thing about the Firedoglake piece is the throwaway at the end.
Here is what the professional journalists at Mother Jones wrote in their piece about the possibility of Trans-Canada reapplying:
In its statement on Wednesday, the State Department made clear that its denial of the permit application "does not preclude any subsequent permit application or applications for similar projects." So TransCanada can apply again, after it works out an alternative route through Nebraska.
It’s true. Trans-Canada can apply again. Which means the ultimate strategy to stop this pipeline is twofold; we have to make the issue so toxic in the public’s mindset that it can’t pass at all; and we have to make sure the government isn’t full of Republicans who really don’t care what the American people think about anything. That's our job as progressives; to spread the progressive message and to keep the bad guys out of government.
Yet, the Firedoglake version of this issue makes both of those tasks more difficult, not less:
A lot of this is blame-gaming, with Obama trying to blame Republicans for the arbitrary deadline before Republicans blame him for destroying jobs in the energy sector. But considering that TransCanada, under the terms of this rejection, can re-apply for a pipeline permit, the nature of this rejection does suggest that a future plan could get approval down the road, given the proper amount of time for environmental review and routing.
Whether TransCanada goes that route isn’t yet clear. I will say one thing in praise of the coalition that stopped this pipeline for now, however. Like SOPA and PIPA, most observers believed that this pipeline was a done deal not very long ago. The activists worked on this, and got the President to delay a review until after the election. At that point, Republicans wanted to make it a political issue – more than they wanted a pipeline – so they forced the 60-day timeline that led to today’s rejection. But the activists did play this well, forcing the confrontation that blew up the deal. So good for them.
It's obvious the professional lefties at Firedoglake literally cannot say anything without slapping the president in the process. It must be in their DNA. Obviously, they think it makes them look smarter than everyone else, which would again, be wrong. It is a fact that Trans-Canada can apply again in the future. Everything else in the above is an attempted slap at President Obama, and is completely fact-free. The pipeline was a “done deal” until protesters “forc(ed) the confrontation that blew up the deal”? No, it wasn’t.
The reason the GOP had to attach it to the payroll tax bill was because it was the opposite of a “done deal.” For Dayen and FDL to suggest otherwise is just silly. Was David Dayen not paying attention when Democrats and President Obama were roundly rejecting the pipeline and the Republicans were intent on pushing it as hard as they can through any means possible? How the hell do you think such a provision ends up in a bill to extend a payroll tax break? Here’s a news story from last month; perhaps his memory is faulty.
Before I get to the attempted swipe at Obama regarding SOPA and PIPA, note Dayen's use of the phrase “(M)ost observers believed…”. Seriously; for a guy who fancies himself a political "expert," the use of such a phrase is intellectually dishonest, if not an outright lie. He has no way of knowing what “most observers believe” about anything. It’s a rhetorical device akin to Fox News’ infamous “some people say,” but it’s even more insidious, because it can almost never be true, in a journalistic sense. I suppose, if you’re reporting on an execution, and you’ve gathered quotes from most observers in the viewing room, it could be true. But Dayen was talking about legislation. And given that Pelosi and Reid were extremely vocal in their opposition to the pipeline, as were quite a few non-Congressional Republicans, who were threatening a court fight if it was implemented, no “observer” with a brain in his head could possibly consider this pipeline a fait accompli. In fact, given that Obama still had a month to go before the deadline, it would seem “most observers” Mr. Dayen knows aren’t pating very close attention. In fact, in the same article, he contradicts that notion. If Republicans were trying to "trap" him into rejecting the pipeline, then obviously it couldn't have been a "done deal," could it?
When someone uses this phrase “some people say,” your bullshit detector should go off right away. But when someone – regardless of claimed ideology – says “(M)ost observers believed…” you should know the author is full of crap, because there is no way to know this.
Now, about SOPA and PIPA. Not only are neither of these bills even close to “done deals,” both are effectively dead. PIPA was dead in the water, because it would never get through the “kill anything Democrats pass” House. SOPA had a slightly better chance of passing, albeit in modified form, although the possibility of its passage has never been better than iffy. SOPA was unique, in that it had progressives and Tea Party Congresscritters on the same side against it. So, it’s absolutely untrue to claim anyone saw either bill as a “done deal.”
Dayen also implies that President Obama was prepared to approve SOPA and PIPA, until protesters forced his hand, and made him back off. I challenge Dayen to come up with a statement from the White House in support of SOPA or PIPA, before this week. And now, the Obama Administration is on record as being against the bills.
Yet, this is what FDL’s David Dayen has to say regarding the Obama Administration’s rejection of SOPA/PIPA:
In the end, it was not necessarily the White House’s opposition as much as the pressure on House Republicans that has all but doomed anti-piracy legislation for the year. Darrell Issa, who along with Ron Wyden has been out in front of the opposition to SOPA and PIPA, the respective bills on this issue, says that he secured a promise from House Majority Leader Eric Cantor that no bill will hit the House floor without “consensus.”
Obama can’t get any credit from these folks on anything he does. Yes, Darrell Issa has been out front against SOPA and PIPA, but that’s because his party is in the majority in the House. Obama’s promise to reject this legislation if it comes to him in anything close to its current form will either effectively kill both bills, or force Congress into a completely different approach, because there's no way they’ll get a veto-proof majority. I would also note that the president will probably take a fundraising hit for doing this, since Hollywood and the music industry were both in favor of these bills. So much for that complaint about the president, eh?
See, here’s the thing; if Darrell Issa and Republicans were key in killing SOPA and PIPA, why were both bills still alive? Why did they essentially not die before Obama rejected them?
I’m not an “Obamabot” because I instinctively like everything President Obama does, or because I belong to a cult. I support President Obama because he understands politics, and he does what he has to do to get things done. And he has gotten a lot done, regardless of what the naysayers think. That so many on the professional left seem to think they need to trash Obama and Democrats to have "credibility" is why our side keeps losing elections. Tell the truth, and we win. Period.
By the way, their constant negativity doesn't even work. Here is a basic analysis of their traffic. They might want to try another approach.
