Boy, Steve, you're hearkening back to dark days in US history as if they were honorable for Congress.

The post-9/11 Congress gave the President unlimited authority to attack whatever country in the world he wished, explicit authority to attack Iraq, allowed unlimited wire-tapping of law-abiding US citizens, torture, kidnapping, detention without trial. It was a gross inflation of the President's powers.

I understand that you expect Obama, like Superman, to use his powers for good, not for evil. Still, we have a Congress for a reason, and it's not to serve as the President's doormat.

I agree that times are tough and will get a lot worse absent concerted action. And i agree that Republicans in Congress have been unimpressively obstructionist. That's a long way from recommending that we essentially get rid of one whole branch of goverment.

Cheers,
Carl

Is it too much to ask lawmakers to think that way again?

It's the wrong approach. Bush's war on terror worked primarily because the boogie man was invisible, and you could only imagine how dangerous he might be. Here, you can't just say the sky is falling without doing more immediate damage. Instead, Dems have to counter the it's-not-so-bad argument by pointing out it's not just the unemployment rate. It's also the stock market values, bonds held by retirees, home values, credit card debt, etc. It's the combination of all these things plus the potential of a domino effect that makes it imperative we act immediately. Instead of creating a boogie man, they must point to the visible, and explain it soberly.

One party - the Republicans - don't do bipartisanship because it's no longer an operational tool given their talk-radio base. Us vs Them demonology is necessarily their only "idea".

While it's fun to think of a party destroying itself in the intellectual pig swill of Sarah Palin, Joe the Plumber, and Rush Limbaugh, you've got to remember the consequences. It means that close to half this country is nearly insane and that insanity will likely infect the entire political discourse. We're no longer debating real ideas, real problems and real solutions. We're debating "reality" itself. That's why this situation is so disturbing. It's virtual nihilism.

Maybe if we promise the Repubs they can indefinitely detain CEO's in gitmo and waterboard one or two they will get on board. Though I guess they would prefer to detain and torture the poor and the non-white who caused all of this by buying houses.

It is no use trying to explain or change Republicans at this point. They are not worth the anger expended on them. They need to be beaten a few more times before the media gets that they are no longer a potent force. But trust this: the people, who conducted a popular uprising through the electoral system over the last two years, see what is happening with great clarity.

In 2001, the cost of inaction was unthinkable. In 2009, inaction -- or inadequate action -- can have lasting negative consequences.

That's putting it mildly. I want to see lots of Democratic lawmakers in front of microphones asking why their Republican colleagues are willing to allow total collapse of the global economy if they can't completely get their way on the discredited policies that got us into this mess to begin with.

Why are Republicans worried about solving the "housing crisis?" Returning to the housing bubble isn't going to solve a damn thing. We need good paying jobs. Prosperity will return only when Americans are back to working making decent wages. Sadly the Republicans and the press don't understand that we can't go back to the good old days of 2005.

With all due respect, Steve, I disagree. We've already had two terms of lock-step allegiance to the executive branch, and it didn't turn out well for the republic. True, it's unfortunate that we have to deal with the contemporary GOP, as intellectually bankrupt and morally adrift as they are. But dissent is good for the country, and we shouldn't be encouraging a "no questions asked" mentality.

Now, if only the questions being asked were good questions.

I want to see lots of Democratic lawmakers in front of microphones asking why their Republican colleagues are willing to allow total collapse of the global economy if they can't completely get their way on the discredited policies that got us into this mess to begin with.
Posted by: shortstop on February 2, 2009 at 9:22 AM

That won't happen. The press doesn't put lots of Democrats on the tube. The press is in cahoots with the Republicans. They won't even point out the insanity of their positions.

This is much more serious than 9/11. Al Queda never had the military and political assets to do more than marginal damage to America. I know, 3,000 is significant but it was by far the most successful terrorist attack in history and despite their best efforts, radical Islam's future capabilities in the west are more in line with London and Madrid than in replicating or expanding on 9/11.

On the other hand, the collapse of the American economy will, like the Depression, cause hundreds of thousands of premature deaths and widespread suffering. The GOP posturing for political benefit in light of this potential severity, is reprehensible.

Obama seems to be playing softball; the Repubs, hardball

That won't happen. The press doesn't put lots of Democrats on the tube

Ron, let's take our understanding of the right-wing corporatism of the MSM as a given. That being said, the Democrats who are in front of microphones aren't saying this.

Steve, you're getting nailed for having mentioned the mindless signoff of Congress on everything Bush wanted after 9/11, and as a result, some people are concluding that you advocate the same thing now. Might want to be a little more specific in explaining that it's the urgency of the situation, not the exact reactions of Congress, that is comparable to 9/11. Really, asking a party that just voted in unison against a stimulus package to wake up, get off their asses and stop pretending we have unlimited time to act is not comparable to "doing away with the legislative branch," and nothing Steve has ever written would lead one to conclude that he advocates the latter.

Read Paul Krugman in the Times today on Obama's "lemon Socialism:" if profits are made they go to the nation's mismanaged banks, if losses, to the taxpayers. Put together with Rich and Robert Reich in the Post yesterday on the battle between economic "structuralists" and "cyclists," favored by O's boys, and you have a powerful three-pronged indictment of Democratic economic policies delivered by three of the most respected liberals in the country. Only good news in this: the next election is a year and a half away. The bad: the damage that may happen between then and now thanks to government mishandling of the crisis and letting the greedballs off the hook.

shortstop: You might take a look at last week's graph on Media Matters' County Fair: the major networks are interviewing Republican politicians at a rate of more than two-to-one over Democrats. When they do condescend, they're not talking to people like Rich, Reich and Krugman, or even Feingold and Harkin.

ericfree,

I've seen that graph you recommended, but it only tells half the story. I would like to see it weighted by viewership.

doubtful: Media Matters didn't give that information, but it's not hard to extrapolate. Fox, which has the closest ratio between Reps and Dems, has the Dems on to insult them, and they love their insults. MSNBC, which interviewed twice as many Reps as Dems, weighted the Reps heavily on Matthews and Morning Joe, since they're afraid to go on Maddow and Olberman. CNBC and FBN are still buying into the Old Wall Street paradigm, they go to the Reps to tell them what's wrong with Obama's bailout plan. (From their point of view, nothing, it turns out.) And CNN, which posted the most miserable gap of all, is just nuts, trying as hard as they can to become the new Fox. Someone should tell them they're living in 2005, with the result they're losing the left without gaining from the right. But none of them, except for O&M, are interviewing significantly from the left, or anywhere outside the Beltway cheesebags. Not a good sign for the longterm economic direction of the country. Shoulda been Reich instead of Geithner, Dean instead of Daschle, Edwards instead of Holder, Hightower instead of Vilsack, but it's not, and aside from Rich, Reich, Krugman and some of the blogs, the message isn't getting out. We'll see how defensible this is a year from now.

Right, try to panic Congress and the electorate again, like Bush did, only this time get them to mistake a credit crunch for a liquidity trap and piss away limited sovereign credit capacity without undertaking anticorruption reforms, even though systemic corruption under previous administrations was the whole fucking reason for the crash. You fucking idiots.

Steve, you're absolutely right about this. It's not about dominance and submission, or who won the last fight and who should win this one. It's about the fact that this really is the kind of crisis we thought we were in after 9/11. The ship really is heading toward the iceberg, the captain is trying to avoid the collision, and all the damn Republicans care about is whether they can damage the captain's career. And I mean all.

Why stimulus will fail.
Let me make an analogy...

If a generally responsible person loses a job and can't pay his bills, help from parents, unemployment insurance, or other sources may (or may not) get him through hard times.

On the other hand, if a decadent, mumble-and-stumble, hopeless drunk with bad hygiene is given money, he will blow it on demon rum, cigarettes, and drugs.

The US is like a hopeless drunk...drunk on profligate spending. Already saddled with crushing debt from the borrow-and-spend legacy of the supply side lunatics added to the tax-and-spend legacy of the Democrats, the ultra-liberal King of Spenders, Bush, delivered the coup de grace with two unnecessary wars, a veto pen that ran out of ink, and so forth. Giving untold trillions to Nancy Pelosi and the Congress to spend is like giving a hopeless drunkard hundreds of cases of cigarettes and fine whiskey.

The US is too far gone for stimulus; it is time to face reality and return to fiscal conservatism, i.e, living within our means. Probably too late for that.

But dissent is good for the country, and we shouldn't be encouraging a "no questions asked" mentality. Now, if only the questions being asked were good questions.

Amen to that. With the Democrats securely in power and close to a filibuster-proof Senate majority, it's essential that we have a responsible, intelligent opposition party. Unfortunately, the GOP is clearly not that party, and hasn't been for many years. Everyone, liberals included, would be better off if the Republican party were destroyed and replaced by real, old-fashioned conservatives, but that's obviously not going to happen.

If we are to invoke Patton, then might I offer up a fourth option as to how the Republikanner Hun ought to be dealt with?

"Split them [the Krauts] open with a bayonet, tear out their intestines, and use them to grease the tracks of our tanks."

The metaphor should be. The right and the left percive two head lights coming at them. They think it is a truck with right and left lights. In reality they are motercycles. The truck is in the center with no lights.

the ultra-liberal King of Spenders, Bush

Oh, Luther. You do make me laugh. Does "liberal" have any meaning for you outside of "person I don't like"?

A few things:

* One of the GOP's most prominent repeated memes over the past 30 years is that government is the problem. Given this, in the GOP mindset the *best* thing that they can possibly do is to keep the government from accomplishing anything. It's almost a syllogism:

Government is the problem;
GOP obstructionism can impede the functioning of government;
GOP obstructionism prevents a problem.

* Looking @ how the GOP Congress impeded virtually every Clinton initiative during the '90s, can anyone be surprised that they're doing the same w/every Obama initiative?

-Z

Hmm. Is this the comparison you really want to draw? Hey, Senators, why don't you act like you did when Bush was President? I think not.

What we should really be hoping for is that they'd come to the negotiating table in good faith, which they're obviously not doing.

I'd really rather NOT have a toadying congress ever again, thank you.

Even when my team is in command.

Congress' JOB is to ask questions and be thoughtful, deliberative...

I suppose what you mean is that we got the exact opposite.
Brainless YES-men, replaced with equally mindless NO-men.

DeLay's iron discipline has bred a worthless automaton where we should instead be seeing a useful, skeptical source of counterpoint.

It's takes a great deal of the joy out of the confidence I feel that the GOP will not be granted power for at least 3 election cycles. Democrats minus Republicans with the leeway to offer constructive criticism will not be as beneficial as they otherwise could be.

Are senate republicans going to be reading "My Pet Goat" on the senate floor while dems are trying to get the stimulus package passed???