I'm real sorry about Obama and the problems he is having with right wingers who object to his educational speech.

Yes, these wingnuts are nuts and despicable, but until such time as Obama makes it a whole lot more clear that he's on my side - that he's not just Mr. Bush Third Term, he's on his own so far as educational type speech's are concerned.

Yes, I suppose there's still some possibility that Obama could come around on healthcare and actually push through a good bill. And maybe Washington's just too tough a nut for anyone to crack.

But I elected Obama to crack that nut, and if the wingnut meanies and their MSM collaborators are giving poor little Baraky a hard time - that's just not my problem.

In another post, Steve said that the Republican's have a disconnect. Well, we haven't quite reached the point where liberals have a similar disconnect when they rush to defend dear old Barack, we're getting there.

So, my question is: Why is this person even being quoted? Why is valuable space being taken up by someone who is clearly opposed to the education of our youth for one simple reason: He hates the President of the United States.

Where is the Secret Service? Why is he not being confined for endangering the life of Obama and his family? I was once investigated by the Treasury Dept. for making a phone comment they found threatening. My paranoia leads me to believe that those in law enforcement are too near in political opinion to the right to be trusted for our protection. Do you/we progressives trust our local law enforcement persons to protect our right to free speech if it does not align with theirs? T-Shirts, anyone, vs. carrying loaded weapons to presidential appearances?

Thank God that there is a Higher Power in charge. We just don't know what Its plan is, long term.

peace,
st john

I chose conservative leaders whose positions I respect. And Crist, too.

Ouch!!!

Can Crist really be the favorite in the primary if people who think Greer is nuts don't even respect Crist???

I don't doubt that grown-ups will one day help run the Republican Party.

I do doubt that.

I don't doubt that grown-ups will one day help run the Republican Party. I just wish that day would hurry up.

The problem with that wish is, once a person in the GOP becomes a "grown up" (or at least more mature in thought and behavior), they tend to leave the Republican Party.

That was my experience, anyway.

Thoughtful people will at this stage wonder what it is that Omaba and his class have done to make so many people so angry.

Alas, you will need to go to places other than this blog to find thoughtful people.

Thoughtful people will at this stage wonder what it is that Omaba and his class have done to make so many people so angry.

Obama is a Democrat. Democrats make republicans angry. Therefore, Obama makes republicans angry.

That's really the maximum amount of thought you need to put into that statement to come up with an answer. I would love to think that there's some more complex, meaningful, well thought out basis for their opposition to the president, but all evidence we've seen in his term says that party affiliation is as deep as it goes.

Thoughtful people will at this stage wonder what it is that Omaba and his class have done to make so many people so angry.

Really? Obama and his "class"? Is that the word you guys are using now that we figured out what you meant by "elitist" once Lady de Rothschild started talking about what an "elitist" Obama is? Why not just call him Canadian?

It's always OK if you're a Republican.

Fuck that fat fuck Greer and his fat lying face.

I would.

Kudos to you for posting Scott Maxwell's column. I'm a regular reader of his work, and this one was especially notable.

The Republicans will grow up, that is, will stop using campaigns of shouting and slander, when it stops working for them. So far they pretty much get whatever they want whenever they want it.

We know that the corporate press/media will promote their lies and hissy fits, no matter how ridiculous. We know that when these campaigns are aired and given legitimacy by being aired that a significant portion of the general public will believe the lies, will believe that the hissy fit is far more widely supported than it really is or ought to be.

And, sadly, we know that the Democratic "leadership," from the White House on down, will do absolutely nothing.

There is no Buckley to convince powerful Republicans that ejecting the nuts is a strong long-term strategy. This makes the discourse feel awful this year, but also greatly improves the outlook for the Democratic party.

The GOP gains a bit of ground on the language in the final bill, and they cost Obama and the Democrats time and political capital which could have gone elsewhere this year. That's significant, but that's about all they get.

What do they give up? They get no credit whatsoever for the bill's passage or its provisions. It becomes a generational Democratic achievement, like Social Security and Medicare. They lose a lot of credibility toward influencing legislation on other issues (the test for that is not whether they're still on TV, but whether their offers are taken seriously by their colleagues in the House or Senate). There is now an established narrative about Republicans obstructing legislation for no reason other than preventing a Democratic success. The Democratic leadership will start planning on zero Republican votes when drafting legislation in the future, which will freeze them out of much of the process before it begins. Most importantly, when a year's rhetoric consists of nothing but (a) "No!" for political reasons while offering no alternative or (b) insanity, that drives away independent voters.

In short, the GOP has a huge raft of structural disadvantages, no apparent plan and terrible manners. The rudeness is annoying, but the GOP being totally rudderless is fantastic. If there was a machine in my yard that mysteriously produced $1000 of neatly stacked cash once a day, but was also very noisy, I'd learn to live with it.

"R" is for racist and republican.

Also Angie Drobnic-Holan (reporter for SPT) ran Greer's statement through the St. Pete Times 'Politifact' truth meter, which came out "pants on fire" or, to the point completely debunked Greer's message. The key here is that these reporters responded immediately, which I believe is key in slowing down and minimizing the negative impacts these kind of statements have. Good to see some in the media are staying on their toes these days.

What many fail to realize, is that the Republican Party is fighting for its very existance. Like a cornered rat, it will use all methods to survive. Including the 'nuclear option'- whatever that means.

Because over the last thirty years they-in and out of power- have done NOTHING beneficial for the American people.

Tax cuts largely went to the most fortunate.

Deregulation leveraged the corporate elite.
(The Savings and Loan debacle, the Enron Loophole, and the recent international banking crisis destroyed the savings of the middle class, while adding untold wealth to their defacto leaders.)

Near constant war brought huge profits to the Military Industrial Complex, while adding a staggering debt to future generations.

Wages have not kept pace with rising costs-healthcare being the bete noir du jour.

Since Obama came to office the Republicans have been able to identify him as a handy scapegoat for every complaint imaginable. He is, they constantly tell us, black, foreign, elitist,Muslim. Not to mention a Nazi Socialist Communist. Did I mention he's, um, BLACK?

Thirty years of being stepped on by the Ruling Class has created a powerful build up of pressure, and it is going to erupt.

The Right hopes that they can continue to fool the masses long enought to direct that eruption at the Democrats.

If Obama can do for healthcare what FDR did for Social Security, then the Republican Party is doomed.

And that's why they are fighting like cornered rats. Because they are. . .

There is nothing crazy or simplistic about what is happening. This is carefully orchestrated propaganda, laid out step by step, to take down Obama and the Democratic Congress.

This is no different than a political campaign where the incumbent is behind and knows that he needs to go negative. Sure, it's sleazy. But it works (usually).

The Republican leadership will judge this campaign not on whether it was ethical, but whether it works.

Truth be told, it just might.

Obama's real offence for conservatives is that when he gives kids a pep talk next week about staying in school and making something of their life he'll seem like a really nice guy and not at all like the Hitler-like monster these kids right wing parents have been trying to make him out to be. And so maybe, just maybe, all these kids will walk away from Obama's speech thinking their right wing parents are nuts. And they'd be right.

Duncan:

But I elected Obama to crack that nut, and if the wingnut meanies and their MSM collaborators are giving poor little Baraky a hard time - that's just not my problem.

I concur. Note that Obama cracked that nut when the issue was bailing out the banks. He bailed them out despite opposition from many Republicans and the general public. We know he can crack nuts when he is motivated. Question is, why isn't he motivated to push through a single payer health care system? That plan is no more radical than giving away trillions of dollars in guarantees to bankrupt and criminally negligent banks.

If it extremely hard to push for single payer system from where we are, I understand starting with a compromise, which is what the "public option" is all about. Obama has to put his energy behind a public option and once that is enacted, execute it well and use that as a spring board to a single payer system in his second term.

If he doesn't even get us a decent public option, well, what is in it for me? Why would I want to get excited about a guy who is acting not that different from Bush? Rhetoric and intent only go so far.

I don't doubt that grown-ups will one day help run the Republican Party.

And that is why you fail.

Remember Reagan's Eleventh Commandment?
"Thou shalt not criticize a fellow Republican."
This dishonest advice (because it inspires putting loyalty above truth and the public interest and transparency) spread around Republican circles and is now indeed a true pillar of faith. That makes them "shameless" and reprehensible. Legitimate and honest public servants are quick to call out erring comrades.

Furthermore, how can grown-ups run the R party, if their followers are wretched, pubescent loonies?

BTW, about private insurance "death panels":
http://www.reuters.com/article/newsOne/idUS202570+02-Sep-2009+PRN20090902

California's Real Death Panels: Insurers Deny 21% of Claims

Of course, this will convince a whole generation of kids that Obama is so cool it hurts.

How many kids will stand in the doorway with a HOPE T-shirt just to freak the parent out?

More effective than hair dye and less icky than a piercing.

I have a little news for Jim Greer, Republican Asshole. I'm a left-wing Democrat and I've worked my ass off every day of my adult life, and if I were ever present to hear him say what he's quoted as saying about Republicans and Democrats, I'd get right in his face, and we'd settle it outside. And I fight dirty.

What a prick.

To where do you wish the republican party to run, Steve? I know you want us all to wish fervently for a viable republican party. I just can't figure out why. Perhaps, you think the dems are on the brink of being too socialist or, perhaps you have lost faith in the ability of the US to be a true functioning democracy and have become a servant of the corporatocracy out of fear or resignation.?

"That was different," Greer said.

Well, of course it was. Greer's a nobody, so the kids weren't likely to pay much attention to him. Obama, OTOH...

It is amazing how liberals deny how deeply partisan and offensive Obama's speech will be. Obama will essentially telling students to follow his example when it comes to school and not that of G. W. Bush. There is no greater liberal lie than the importance of a working hard to get a good education.

Socialism is the last refuge of the bigot

This isn't about rude republican children throwing hissy fits. This isn't your ordinary republican hate, or even ordinary southern republican hate for all things democrat. Calling Obama a socialist is code for "that nigger ain't my president and he ain't gonna flap lips at my kids." It is best everyone understand this right now. We are dealing with camouflaged racial hate of the meanest and ugliest kind.

And this hate isn't going away. Let's be clear on one thing: All these racists are touching antenna and they are plotting to overthrow, ruin, and subvert everything this man proposes. Everything. Including the health care they so desperately need. The hate is so deep they'd rip up their social security checks it they thought it would help put Obama in their rifle sights.

We are talking about a solid 23-30% of this nation. The sooner everyone gets in their heads that these people are ungovernable, volatile racists who bring nothing but anger to the debate... the sooner we can get on with actually using our Democratic majority to do good things.

Needless to say: Time is of the essence.

I don't doubt that grown-ups will one day help run the Republican Party.

Never happen. Not before one of the Fox faithful employs a rifle to redress the Obama 'coup' and definitely not after.

The story about Greer talking politics to kids is not surprising. One could actually see this kind of hypocrisy directly in his press release. Note his references to prayer in school and the War on Christmas, and note his language about students being "ostracized by their teachers and classmates" for not participating. This is all language from someone well-versed in the debate on allowing prayer and other religious activities in school, clearly from the side of wanted to institute it. He sees no problem with indoctrinating kids, so long as it agrees with his values.

Of course, I don't think that Greer actually believes a word he said about what Obama intends to do; it seems pretty clear from the press release that he was simply taking the opportunity to attack Obama on whatever fictional grounds he could muster.

Greer doesn't appreciate that more Democrats actually work making new value, compared to so many Republicans who play financial shell games. Those games increase the players' share, without creating new value.

They are Whigs. The party is doomed. They will - just as the Whigs came back as Republicans - incarnate again under another name, but no party 70% of whom think Sarah Palin is a viable choice for president can long survive as a viable force.

On the whole, Americans seem to be fairly stupid - but not that stupid.

Using the ignoramuses as a loyal base by demonizing reason can actually work for a time as long as grownups are actually in charge, behind the scenes. But when the lunatics actually take over the asylum, the result is very messy, very quickly.

If Obama were to play his cards right and remember he is a Democrat, providing single payer to America, he could solidify Democratic control for at least a generation and probably two.

He is a Democrat, isn't he?

Well "am", I will use a Whimseyism to say that you "ain't" a thoughtful person; in fact you probably do not think. What, you and the nuts consider, an "uppity N*g*r did was to be elected president, and all the bigots, be they white trash or the old moneyed types who believe themselves to be the aristocracy, can not stand it. The intellectuals are the only group who can appreciate intelligence and sanity.

Jon Voight was on Huckabee today accusing Obama of stirring up "civil unrest." Jesus.

Oh no! Did another big bad Republican call Obama a socialist!

I'm in complete agreement with James E Powell and Duncan Kinder above. Republicans can stretch this envelope as far as they want, and it will keep working for them because the Democrats are so concerned with what the Republicans (and the corporate media) think.

You could have a thousand "Media Matters", Steve Benens and other political fact checkers out there. In the end, it won't make a bit of difference. Republicans have learned that they can toss out words like "liberal", "socialist", "ACORN", etc, and the Democrats will run away from those terms with their tails between their legs. They'll cave. They'll do whatever it takes to look like a respectable, business-friendly party.

Democrats have 59 (FIFTY-NINE) seats in the Senate, and they spent all of July and August looking like chumps behind their podiums getting shouted down with buzzwords and jettisoning the public option.

Unfortunately, this dynamic will not change anytime soon, because money is king in Washington. So we have a Republican (neo-Confederate) party, and then a Democratic (Rockefeller Republican) party. No socialists (ok, one), no liberals, no greens. Republicans will take potshots at Dems all day long, egging them further and further to the right, and all the while this country will continue its long, slow decline.

I wish I could still share the view of many in the first half of this thread that the Republican Party's bizarre, uncivil, untethered-from-truth behavior is a long-term blessing for us because it has them in a death spiral. I've looked at a fair amount of reputable polling and reputable political prognostication over the summer, and it sure looks to me like the numbers are moving in the Republicans' direction. The spread is narrowing on the generic ballot, independents are moving away from giving Obama favorable ratings, predictions are increasing for the number of off-year R pickups in Congress.

the Republicans' despicable desparation should be the death knell of the GOP as a viable party shown any respect in mainstream circles. alas, that may be giving the American public too much credit, as there are now several states where a plurality of the population believes Obama is not a US citizen.

it would be nice if there were a simple way to split into a reality-based country and a separate country for those living in the Beck-Limbaugh-Rove fantasy land.

They got talking points, we got conversation...

Zeitgeist:

...the Republicans' despicable desparation should be the death knell of the GOP as a viable party shown any respect in mainstream circles.

One of my reasons for pushing Barack over Hillary was the idea that 23-30% of this country (the Cheney dead-enders) couldn't stomach having a black man as president.

And I was definitely right there.

My thinking was that his presidency would drive these cockroaches out of their corners and into the sunlight. My faith was that sunlight would prove fatal. What I did not anticipate was that MSM would actually treat the racists as a prime demographic to gleefully serve rather than condemn.

And that's why the death knell is in abeyance. We can't even call the racists "racist." We have to use cutesy terms like "crazies" and "loons." Terms of endearment, if you will, for racists.

Meanwhile the racists have found a fine and sticky substitute for nigger: Socialist. It is on the lips of every republican blogger, shouter, politician, and pundit.

If the left had any idea of the war they are in they would simultaneously start calling out "it isn't about socialism it is about racism." All the bloggers. All the left pundits. All of us. Make them deny it. Make them play defense. And then, when they are playing defense make them explain why socialism (medicare for example) is horrible and needs to be killed.

But all the left bloggers are too chicken to go there. And getting everyone on the same talking point? Impossible.

Another way to frame these ideas:

Imagine if you could get 23-30% of Americans to agree to do something in lockstep fashion. Imagine further you could get their hottest emotions linked into the equation. You would have a potent force that could shout down just about any good idea put up by an incoherent party of conversationalists.

And that's of course is what is happening with the public option. And that of course is why Barack Obama and the Dems must not cave on it.

There is a much more powerful war going on here. This is about much more than merely health care. It is about the survival of good and necessary ideas. Even when those ideas issue from the mouth of a black man...

Greer's hypocrisy on this matter is breathtaking, but why was he allowed to go into classrooms to deliver explicitly partisan political messages to kids in the first place?

Steve: "I don't doubt that grown-ups will one day help run the Republican Party. I just wish that day would hurry up."

I'm not going to hold my breath.

I don't doubt that grown-ups will one day help run the Republican Party.

Wouldn't hold out too much hope for that. Right now, there is nobody in the Republican party who has the guts and the standing to put the crazies, who are as vicious towards 'fake conservatives' as they are towards 'communist/fascist liberals', in their place.

On the contrary, at the moment the crazies feel strongly emboldened and have no reason to go quietly into the dark. And the longer they dominate the public face of the GOP, the more difficult it will become to dislodge them. My guess is that it will take at least two election cycles of defeat and rejection for the GOP to begin dealing with its crazies problem. And when the party starts to do that, it may not be able to survive the internal warfare it will require.

Unfortunately, there is an even darker possibility. With some help from inept Democratic leadership, the crazies in the GOP actually might 'succeed' and inflict significant losses on the Democrats in 2010. If anything, that will embolden them even further and give them at least another two years of dominance in the GOP until the 2012 election.

If they then succeed in making Obama a one-termer, or in defeating whoever runs in his stead for the Democratic party, they will have become an integral part of the GOP and the political landscape in the US will have shifted so far to the right as to being unrecognizable even from where it is today. That, plus the fact that the loudmouth GOP ideologues don't have a clue on how to govern, would spell disaster.

Trying to win over independents and thereby controlling the political field from the center is a fine strategy in abstract terms. But as things now stand, it is about time for Obama and the Democratic leadership to realize that too much mushy bipartisanship will only further demoralize the activist base of the Democratic party. If those troops are not prepared to do battle, and if the 2008 first time voters stay at home, the motivated irregular crazies in the GOP camp might well have a shot at carrying the day.

The election of Obama HAS forced the Radical Right to show its true colors (as it were) and so face the devastating, disinfecting power of bright sunlight. I am actually more sanguine than many in this thread that radical conservatism has overstayed its welcome with the vast majority of the American people and is a declining force in our politics.

Conservatives can destroy but they can't govern. They can make a lot of noise at town hall forums and kick up a lot of dust but not much more. I think one big reason Obama's numbers are down is that casual voters are registering their anxiety with all of the right-wing led commotion that the media is reporting. And when people sense that government is getting out of control they naturally turn to dictatorial strongmen, as the right wing knows.

But I also see a discernible change in MSM coverage. They are beginning to sense that dangerous forces are afoot, ones we have not ever dealt with that require a different language and even a more extreme vocabularly for describing them. More and more commentators I've noticed are willing to call these whackos, whacko. Words like fascist are appearing more and more -- not to describe Obama, but to accurately describe a conservative movement seeks political power for the purpose of achieving cultural "purity" (White Christian Nation) and, if we accept that the fringe Texas Southern League secessionists may be reflecting a deeper well of conservative separatist sentiment, are completely unwilling to share political power with opponents, the prerequisite for democracy.

We must not be too harsh on Obama. He came into office hoping to heal the wounds of a decade or more of harsh polarization. What he did not count on, and which we are all adjusting to, is the challenge of finding a way to govern a nation with a constitutional structure premised on deliberation and compromise when one of our two major parties wants no part of the democratic process -- not unless it can be guaranteed a monopoly of power.

What do you do when you find that one of only two major American political parties hates the America as it really exists, not the one that exists in its fevered fantasies.

That is the challenge Obama now faces, and it may be this challenge that is the real definition of "post-partisanship."

The first tenet of the Republican Noise Machine is to deploy sophistry.

The average American listens (A) to his choice of 'news' -FOX/Limbaugh vs Democracy Now/Olberman. And (B) listens with half an ear.

So when a pontificating pundit begins any statement with "Most agree/Everybody knows" they tend to believe whatever follows, Truthometer's "Pants on Fire" be damned.

Back to the sophistry: I recently heard a Republican't spinmeister say that the Defense Department yearly appropriations was tiny, less than one half of one percent, of the GNP.

While true, expenditures have absolutely NO connection with the Gross National Product. The FACT is that the Defense portion of the budget (Money collected thru taxes), at more than 700 billion dollars, is a huge percentage!

But the average American, listening with half an ear, and less than half a brain, will nod his head and say 'good point'. . .

Like Kennedy and Clinton before him, Obama has a special way of resonating with young people, and it is THIS that the wingnuts fear, regardless of how innocuous his actual message is.

In another aspect, this is no different than crossing the street with your kids if you see a black man approaching. I wish someone from the right would just come out and state the obvious.

It's another dying gasp of a party that can't govern, can't win elections, and have no coherent answers.

You got to love it, though. The Radical Right's advice for people who don't like Obama in the White House is: secede from the Union. Their advice to parents when the President speaks to the schools next Tuesday is: keep your kids home from school. Do you think the Radical Right is being anti-social? Could be.

I, too, was brought up by a parent who encouraged "looking at both sides of an issue"...doubtless one of the reasons for my political positions today...but with the atmosphere that has overtaken this country since 2000 (actually mid-90's) and the increase in mentally ill leaders of the REPUG party I'm afraid it is the ACHILLE'S HEEL of progressives/liberals/Dems whatever...sadly, if there is to be any change we shall have to hope it comes with our youth...but given that they have their eyes/ears/fingers into tiny electronic devices and will be the beneficiaries of the educational/political/media institutions now operating here I'd say Canada/Switzerland/etc are looking pretty attractive!!!

In 1955, America's premier political observer Walter Lippmann published a book called "Essays in the Public Philosophy" he had started writing in 1938 during the rise of fascist and communist dictatorships. In it, Lippmann posited that Western liberal democracy -- what he called the traditions of civility of reasoned debate between antagonists all committed to a shared political community toward some common good -- was under assault, from within as well as without, by what he called the utopian "counter-revolutionaries" who promised they could bring heaven to earth by dispensing with Socratic argument and debate so long as everyone conformed to their utopian blueprint for society. Lippmann published his book at around the time of Joe McCarthy but before the rise of the Radical and Religious Right. Yet, had he seen these movements I am sure Lippmann would have put them in the same category as the fascists, communists and radical Jacobins of the French Revolution as embracing the rigid utopian ideology that makes democracy impossible.

I'm sorry to say I agree that a lot of this unhinged hatred is based on racism, pure and simple. Sure, they were the same in many ways with Clinton, but it's just a whole new level of hatred now. I think maybe the fact that they can't just attack him on something personal, like with Clinton, so they have to pretend that they oppose him based on the issues--which is where they expose themselves, because they clearly don't have the first clue about the issues. Even the "smart" Repubs, like Maria Bartoromo on CNBC, doesn't know the basics about Medicare.
The teabaggers and townhallers are even more clueless(if that's possible), and since they can't simply say that they won't accept a n----- president, they call him every other name in the book. Socialist, nazi, commie, whatever, doesn't matter. They just hate him because of who he is, a black president with more intelligence and class than the lot of them combined.

designer wedding dresses, prom dresses, formal and bridesmaid dresses, and bridal gowns are special clothes. Women wear them to mark various rites of passage in their lives. Think of the bride in her wedding finery.