Put this together with the earlier posting on judicial nominations, Frank Rich's work on the new lobbyists (key names: Daschle and Gephardt), David Sirota's on the DNC's hostility to leftist primary candidates, and the lackluster showing on healthcare. If he wants to inspire his former supporters, he needs to do more and do it better, not make speeches claiming he is.

thanks steve, if long tall is gonna keep slogging thru the mud, i'm with him.

now, long tall, get out of afghanistan, get that 1st step towards single payer -- the public option -- and hurry up with the basic ordinary standard human rights for all americans, including the right for all to marry.

Right ericfree I also need to workout every day, eat better food, give to the poor, write the great american novel, and just be a better all around person in general.
Short of an actual revolution change comes slowly if it comes at all.

I'm trying to picture Mitch McConnell with a mop in his hands . . . .

While I do appreciate Obama's candor and drive, I wish he were addressing such remarks to congressional Dems as well, to the Blue Dog types who are holding up and distorting progressive legislation and thus standing in the way of Obama's success.

I'd take his speechifying a little more seriously if he helped remove some of the impediments to his own program (*coughDianneFeinsteincough*) rather than supporting the same old DLC/ex-Republican incumbents in the primaries.

i'd like to think Obama will evolve in office -- perhaps some pointy-head has wriiten how all preznits do -- and Obama's will be an evolution a la battin' practice...

...the sooner the better.

Speeches are good, but deeds are better. Cynicism comes pretty quickly, particularly to the left--the left is less gullible than the right and less disciplined. Of course passing major legislation like the stimulus package and health care reform is hard work, but there is a sense that Obama has not fought as hard as he should have for either. Coupled with his inability/unwillingness to step back further from Dumbya's policies on terrorism and security his presidency to date is not inspiring. How much of this is due to the weak support he is getting from his own party, how much is due to the political realities and how much is due to Obama's personality is distinctly unclear, but until he pounds the GOP into submission, they are going to continue to make the case that he is Jimmy Carter redux and speeches are not going to cut it if the GOP can find someone to sell as Reagan redux. The Democrats need to point to tangible accomplishments within the year and while Obama has more time, it will get infinitely harder if the 2010 elections go badly. Obama may think he is just getting started, but he could be finished before the year is out.

"...One of the disheartening part of post-election governing -- and this applies to practically every administration -- is the familiar pattern. Presidents take office with high hopes, governing proves difficult, supporters get discouraged and start to walk away. This occurs instead of seeing activists stay in the fight, engage in activism, and leaning on Congress..."

Well, a lot of supporters *have been* continuously leaning on Congress, and it nevertheless seems that Congress has drawn a blank on all the Really Big Issues that were front and center for the past several years! Sheesh--many supporters I know are of the feeling that these people KNOW damn what they have to do, and we shouldn't have to keep spoon feeding them every single day. They know what's important, they've been told over and over, and we expect them to GET 'ER DONE!

Even though he stumbled over most of the words, George Bush also read some good speeches. I'd like to see some kind of action on something important before this year is over. The menu of important and timely issues is quite extensive, and some of these could be addressed directly and immediately by our dear president.

He's not tired, he's just backing down, backing off and going back on his word all over the place.

The Public Option? Well, that's not really so important, I heard him say recently. The real goal is getting more people covered. Well, if that's so, why didn't he say so during the election campaign?

Iraq. Yes, we're, umm, well not really out of there. Although he may achieve that if he gets us in any deeper into Afghanistan with our zero sum army.

Financial reform. Well, maybe a drop of it, but we wouldn't want to offend all those Goldman Sachs boys, now would we?

Gay marriage? Clearly not a priority.

Higher taxes on higher tax brackets? Ummm?

Prosecute the torturers? Oh dear, could we change the subject back to the economy?

And you can keep going and going, and going through the squashed expectations of those who supported Obama. We voted for change. What we got was a slightly changed George Bush, with a more articulate voice.

Excuse me while I go puke.

Crankily yours,

One of the disheartening part of post-election governing -- and this applies to practically every administration -- is the familiar pattern. Presidents take office with high hopes, governing proves difficult, supporters get discouraged and start to walk away. This occurs instead of seeing activists stay in the fight, engage in activism, and leaning on Congress.

All very true, unless you are a lackluster Republican President, elected without winning the popular vote, whose only activity in the first ten months of office was to throw away huge budget surpluses on ill-advised tax cuts that put us back into monsterous deficits and then ignored warnings of terrorist attacks only to caught flat-footed, reading a first grade level book by a massive terrorist attack just one month after the warning, disappear for three days while all of America is scared to death, only to emerge on a pile of rubble surrounded by real heros while you rally the country to the cause with a cynically staged photo op. If that is the case then all of sudden you have a 90% approval rate and all the support you need to ram your partisan agenda down the throats of your political opponents.

Nothing succeeds like failure I guess.

actually, lifelong dem, i'm trying to picture mitch mcconnell with a mop stuck somewhere else.

You all should take a hand at doin it for a while before you appoint yourselves to teach it! Most of these comments are truly pathetic.

Sorry but this could not be disingenuous. "Hard" is when you *want* to do something, and you *try* to do it, and someone or something stops you.

Obama *said* he wanted to rein in exec pay at bailed out banks. But what he *did* was send Treasury people to strongarm Dodd into gutting the exec pay limits in the bill. That's not "governing's hard," that's "Obama is corrupt." Period.

Obama *said* in the campaign his health care included a public option. But what he *did* was have Emanuel and Messina cut a deal with Baucus and Big Health to kill the public option. "Hard to govern" would be Obama tried to stand up to Baucus and the Blue Dogs. But what he did was have Emanuel scream curses at MoveOn for criticizing the Blue Dogs. That's not "hard", that's corrupt, period.

The financial crisis was hard by any standard. But literally *every* expert both right *and* left said the only solution was receivership--also the fed's statutory legal duty, not just allowed but *required*--even Alan Greenspan and Lindsey Graham said so. But what Obama *did* was to give close to a trillion dollars of unauditable taxpayer money to the largest banks--essentially friends of his economic team--with which to buy more banks and make the too-big-to-fail consolidation even worse. Small banks that actually drive the economy are tanking while Sachs and bank execs generally report record salaries and profits. That's not "hard", that's corrupt. Period.

Hard would have been to *try* to get health care through that cuts costs and cuts out the oligopoly extortion of Big Health lobbyists. That would mean publicly exposing what they are doing and going eyeball to eyeball with them. But what Obama *did* was to cut *secret* deals that would make Republican blush, with PhRMA and other corrupt entities, and then lie about them. That's not "hard", that's corrupt. Period.

Hard would have been to use the economic crisis to start a major initiative in green energy and mass transit on par with the Kennedy Space Program, creating jobs, stimulating the economy, reclaiming the alt-energy lead from China, etc. What Obama *did* was absolutely *nada*, except that Summers intervened to slash mass-transit funding from the stimulus. Hard? To *try* would have been hard.

All that is leaving aside the regressive positions on executive power, secrecy, warantless wiretapping, torture prosecution, and gay rights.

*That's* why activists are running from Obama, in case you hadn't noticed.

Wouldn't hurt if he'd deliver on some of the easy stuff, like DADT.

To keep Democrats motivated and in the game, my sense is the president should probably deliver ....

some actual fucking Democratic change.

Because playing nice with the repugs sure as hell ain't motivating this Democrat.

*That's* why activists are running from Obama, in case you hadn't noticed.
Posted by: q

Lot of claims about "secret deals" only you seem to know about, no links to back them up. Sorry if I'm not impressed with your "research."

The following phrase comes to mind after reading some of these comments:

"who needs enemies with friends like these?"

Well said q! And Robert we are talking about Obama, not Dumbya. Yours is a typical GOP apologist's observation. or Fox News.

It hasn't even been a year since the election!

1) mellowjohn wins the thread.

2) Obama needs to remember that while Presidential elections are all about the middle-of-the-roaders and undecideds, the off years are all about getting the base fired up.

And so far, the base has every reason to be skeptical of Obama. We'll feel a bit better about him if a good health care reform bill comes out of Congress. But too often, he's negotiated with himself, giving away large chunks of the stimulus bill and the climate change bill before getting to the point of actually horse-trading for votes. And he's failed to put any weight behind some pretty important things, like bankruptcy cramdown.

At some point, he's got to stop treating his base like people who have nowhere else to go. And in Congress, that might be true. But it's not true with voters in a non-Presidential year: they won't vote Republican, but they can just stay home.

Those of us who post here or at other blogs will show up at the polls in November 2010, regardless. But people in his base who don't think about politics every day like we do, won't show up unless he gives them some decent reasons to. So he'd better get cracking. Because it doesn't look like the economy will be bouncing their way by this time next year.

There is a high real-world cost, however, to both the attitude often expressed in comments here ("This wasn't the change I was promised and worked hard for; I wont lift a finger next time.") and among the less political-junkie types ("Whew. Glad I was part of history. Now, where was that TV remote?"

The changes we want will get harder and less likely, not more likely, if the Republicans regain control. Moreover, the lower-info voters that were part of Obama's numbers will decide that supporting Democrats is pointless - the 1994/2010 pattern will be stigmatizing.

It won't punish those Dems who need punishment so much as it punishes everyone. I'm sure everyone here noted the stats from Virginia and New Jersey: it isn't that Dems and Indys are suddenly breaking Republican, its that in the likely voter models many more Republicans say they will turn out. Where you are about to see that is Iowa, where Grassley is going to win a race that we should be able to take from him, and Culver will get replaced by a Republican has-been. All of these races are because the losing Republicans are fired up and the winning Dems are either demoralized (if they are politicos) or complacent (if they are once-every-4-years Dems).

How can it really be that after two serious beat downs in a row the Repubs are more fired up than we are? And how is it that with an opportunity to build up numbers in a way that helps in the long run, we're going to let them up off the mat?

Its times like this that when I get an urge toward ideological purity I look around and remember that our pragmatism could knock off someone like Grassley or help Deeds. I know pragmatism is sort of a dirty word around these less moderate parts, but if there was ever a time to set aside the slights and disappointments of the past 10 months and fire the hell up, that would be between now and Nov 2010.

Hey, sorry the Prez couldn't just wave a magic wand and make everything happen at once. But, he's got an entrenched, corrupt, conservative majority to deal with in congress and a national media machine that sold itself to that corrupt conservative majority many years ago. I happen to think a more aggressive stance against the thieves and thugs would have worked better this last six months, but that's not Obama's style. Looks like he's finally figuring it out.

The Public Option? Well, that's not really so important, I heard him say recently. The real goal is getting more people covered.

Nancy Pelosi has her act together for the public option and Harry Reid doesn't. Obama, like Clinton, Carter, and Kennedy before him, has had to deal with a senate that looks upon him as an under-aged usurper. Of those three, Kennedy managed to get the senate Democrats on his side, Carter and Clinton never did. Herding mammoths is not a quick or easy process.

Iraq. Yes, we're, umm, well not really out of there.

We are leaving, right on schedule, as promised during the campaign. Were you expecting Star Fleet to transport everyone out a week after the inaugaration?

Although he may achieve that if he gets us in any deeper into Afghanistan.

We can't get into any deeper s*** in Afghanistan then we all ready are. For those not paying attention last year, we and NATO and the Pakistanis were losing that war, and losing it badly, and we still are. I said then and I'll say it again. The one event that could give the Republicans leverage to overthrow the Democratic majority in 2010 or 2012 is a perceived catastrophic defeat in Afghanistan. It isn't just a question of throwing the Afghans to the dogs or the Pakistanis, which I find morally appalling, there is also a threat that the thugocracy might get another chance to ruin this country.

And, yeah, we don't have a definition of "victory" in Afghanistan and there might not be one. So we are in situation where we might not have a way of winning, but we can lose big time. Do you suppose Dick Cheney has a big, hearty, coughing chuckle when he ponders the trap he set for Obama there?

Financial reform. Well, maybe a drop of it, but we wouldn't want to offend all those Goldman Sachs boys, now would we?

Considering that half the congress and most of the nationa media are owned by the money men, how quickly did you expect it to happen? Serious financial reform is going to take years to cram through the legislative process.

Gay marriage? Clearly not a priority.

Obama never said it was. Who told you otherwise? The states are slogging through that process while Obama tries to keep us from falling into another Great Depression.

Higher taxes on higher tax brackets? Ummm?

With our entire national culture tied to the worship of the almighty buck and 30 years of anti-tax demogoging to overcome? Try 2011 or thereabouts.

Prosecute the torturers?

Even with the precaution of keeping on Gates at Secretary of State, Obama entered office with less control over the national security bureaucracy than any president since Lincoln, with the added burden of a spineless, corrupt senate and powerful media opposition. This is an ongoing threat to our democracy that should be analyzed more. We'll see what the Attorney General can come up with after he gets his people in place.

Meanwhile, we are working with the Russians on nuclear disarmament, our "friends" around the world are actually working with us again, and we've made a start on cleaning the rot out of the bureaucracy. Obama is turning more and more to working with his actual friends in the congress instead of coddling his enemies. It's going to be an ugly and tedious process.

Presidents take office with high hopes...

then:

* states secrets get re-enforced
* Afghanistan gets ecalated
* indefinite detention gets supported
* DADT repeal gets put on the shelf
* republicans are made relevant
* bush crimes are supported
* the bush criminals are absolved of their crimes
* corporate sponsored HCR is the starting point and its downhill to worse than nothing HCR from there.
* in the midst of economic catastrophe the military budget is INCERASED
* cram-down to help people stay in their homes gets trashed
* Glen Beck, and other wingnut cretins are encouraged to continue their smear campaigns by getting EXACTL the response he wanted.

but its the activists fault for losing interest because they are soooooo fly-by-nightish and UNSERIOUS. RIGHT!

Here's the ever-unctuous Marc Ambinder questioning whether there was a deal and noting the White House denial of its existence. And here's Carper publicly arguing to kill an amendment in Finance markup because it would interfere with that deal that doesn't exist.

Here is a low-down on the AMA, hosptial and public option negotiations.

The public option deal was apparently an agreement that it wouldn't be at Medicare rates, not that there would be no PO at all. But if you believe Obama has done a tenth of what he could do--if he wanted to--in his sleep, to gin up support for the Public Option, I have a bridge to sell you.

Sheesh. Are we capable of doing anything more than criticizing and complaining? It's not constructive or productive to be perpetually disenchanted, disappointed and living in a state of bitter disbelief all of the time.

Patience, positivity and pragmatism are really underrated qualities among my fellow lefties.

I truly wish we'd stop eating our own.

I think Obama's eye is on not just the immediate mess, but systemic dysfunction in Washington as well. Many fundamental changes are needed, but those are the most difficult to effect. He seems to be naturally cautious, preferring to go slow and steady. He values the process - a welcome change.

Furthermore, the President's powers are limited. He can't change everything in under a year on his own. "Be the change you want to see", said Ghandi. Obama is right. Staying active and engaged is the challenge. Empowered people act, bringing strengths and creativity to bear, involving others and building a movement. *That is how a largely unknown one-term Senator got himself elected, folks. He believes we should be involved in the workings of our government. How else are officials to be held accountable? Sometimes I think Obama is far more radical than anyone suspects. :)

Absolutely, Steve.

I sure haven't heard it enough.

Trying again - are all links held by moderator?

http://politics.theatlantic.com/2009/08/ive_been_trying_to_peel_1.php

Here's the ever-unctuous Marc Ambinder questioning whether there was a deal and noting the White House denial of its existence. And

http://fdlaction.firedoglake.com/2009/09/23/carper-public-defends-secret-phrma-deal-in-exchange-for-support-ads/

here's Carper publicly arguing to kill an amendment in Finance markup because it would interfere with that deal that doesn't exist.

http://fdlaction.firedoglake.com/2009/08/13/shorter-rahm-if-this-all-goes-south-baucus-owns-it/

Here is a low-down on the AMA, hosptial and public option negotiations.

The public option deal was apparently an agreement that it wouldn't be at Medicare rates, not that there would be no PO at all. But if you believe Obama has done a tenth of what he could do--if he wanted to--in his sleep, to gin up support for the Public Option, I have a bridge to sell you.

Tried to post some links but all "held by blog owner". Check out firedoglake if you want to get up to date. Or google Tauzin and "secret deal". Or just keep up with the news.

"That's a socialist mop"

Hahahahahahaha! Oh, Obama... He's really quite hilarious.

P.S. I watched his motorcade come off the freeway after he landed in San Francisco yesterday!

The single biggest priority right now has to be jobs. Jobs for teens. Jobs for college graduates. Jobs for recently and chronically un-employed folks.

Nothing else matters.

We have got to fundamentally alter the long-term employment prospects for our country.

Bailing out the banks did squat for most of us. The stimulus package? Just a fly on the ointment.

The military sucks up way too many tax-dollars, with little to show for. How long are we gonna be in Iraq? Afghanistan?

Health care's a great cause, but so is alternative energy. Where are the battery plants? The solar-cell factories? The biofuel farms (not ethanol but cheap fiber-based-bacteria/yeast/algae energy products)?

Education's great too....but there has to be a job market, a broad, sustainable one that will thrive for generations.

Me? I don't think Obama has really even started to kick butt yet.

We tend to get distracted by "fluff" and forget that a sound economy is jobs, good wages, and safe work conditions.

Jobs overseas should be taxed at 110%...That will domesticize our work force!

Zeitgeist nails it and I will go a bit further and suggest that in my experience there's an inverse relationship between ideological purity and responsibility for actual outcomes.

Are we capable of doing anything more than criticizing and complaining?

Sadly, no. We lefties are much more comfortable declaring someone's presidency completely dead less than a year after his inauguration than we are doing the actual hard work necessary to reverse the last 30 years of Republican rule.

No wonder the Republicans keep stomping us -- the first time anything gets even the least bit hard, it's "oh we've been betrayed" and "I'll never vote Democrat again" and "let's watch 'America's Next Top Model' instead -- politics is too hard."

Buncha frickin' whiners.

Blah, blah, blah.

Kick some ass, Mr. Obama.

You know what? I prefer he shut up and instead name some 40-something covert liberals to the Federal Bench. Read the WaPo article on the judicial noms today and I am mad.

Conservatives get ideological wrecking balls and all we get are technocratic centrists?

Check out firedoglake if you want to get up to date.

You mean the same firedoglake that ran with John Aravosis's hysterical rantings and insisted that John Harwood said the White House dissed GLBT activists even though Harwood says that's not what happened? That firedoglake? Or is there another one that's actually been right about things lately?

Mnemosyne, I'm one of those people who gets to choose between my persecution or my neglect every two years, as you are perfectly well aware. I hardly think it's whining to expect Obama to not attack me and use my life as a football to score cheap points with bigots ala Donnie Mclurkin. Being told, "where else you gonna go, huh?" is not a motivator to support anyone. When I hire someone, I expect them to work for their pay, not collaborate with my detractors and trash me to everyone in town.

There will always be a long list of disappointments, reversals, and failures. The list will always piss you off. There will always be items on the list that are over your patience threshold. The list will always make you think it is useless to continue to engage.

It's up to you to let the list intimidate you, but if you do, it's unlikely to get any shorter.

Mnemosyne, I'm one of those people who gets to choose between my persecution or my neglect every two years, as you are perfectly well aware. I hardly think it's whining to expect Obama to not attack me and use my life as a football to score cheap points with bigots ala Donnie Mclurkin.

I don't have a problem with people being upset over things that have actually happened, like McLurkin. I do have a problem with people manufacturing controversies out of whole cloth and then pretending it never happened when they get caught, as just happened with the Harwood thing. No one at the White House said that LGBT activists should shut up, and yet we got an entire weekend of hysterics over something that never happened.

Unfortunately, this is all reminding me of the Prop 8 disaster, where the No on 8 people blew a 20-point lead in the polls and then spent months thrashing around trying to figure out who they could blame for their own failure. They ran a bad, lazy campaign and they lost, but of course it wasn't their fault.

For every one of you "Democrats" on this comment page who are lamenting the slow pace of Obama's progress, go back and read - slowly and often - his explanation of just the size disaster he was handed by the previous administration.

The one thing I feared with Obama's candidacy and election was that too many people would get too excited about Obama and invest in him too much hope. He is not going to clean up town in less than a year. He was given an unenviable task in about - oh, five really crucial areas - and it will take him time. I think he's doing a great job so far.

You can criticise him all you want for being "slow" and not doing the "liberal" things you elected him to do. It's okay to critique him, but just remember that he's doing a job very few of us would have been able to do. I certainly wouldn't want to be president.

Let him do his unenviable job. He's not going to do everything you want him to do. Cut him some slack.

By the way, anyone who is on this page complaining about how Obama's not doing anything but hasn't, say, donated towards No on 1 or another ActBlue project, you are, in fact, asking to have everything handed to you on a silver platter without having to raise a finger.

For how long, I wonder, will he be "just getting started"?

Valwayne-

That's a really great spoof at a foaming-at-the-mouth, reality-challenged troll.

Either that or you wandered off of Glenn Beck's site.

I expected to get flamed for my first comment, but wow! some serious discontent out there. Wish it were not so, but seemed predictable a year and a a half ago: he's an extremely intelligent, very capable guy, but cold and a dealmaker, and his deals often benefit himself and his friends more than the country.

I agree with zeitgeist too, we're infinitely better off with the Big O than any Republican. The difficulty, though, is in motivating a base that is also pretty intelligent and doesn't see the change it knows the country needs. Rahm'n O've got another year, and if they don't show us something we may all suffer for it. Sure would prefer Howard Dean in Rahm's position, and Krugman and Reich in place of Geithner and Summers, but I'm repeating myself.

He lied. He said he won so all need to listen and follow. More of a dictator mentality.

You mean like when he said, "I'm the decider"?

Oh, wait, that was your guy who said that, wasn't it? You know, the one who decided that we could fight two wars and get a tax cut and then couldn't figure out why we were out of money since the Magical War Fairy was supposed to pay for everything.

Unemployment is 9.8% and rising, Mortgage foreclosures are still rising.

If this is still true in the second half of 2010, it won't make any difference what version of health care and / or cap and trade actually passes. Republicans will take effect control of Congress and Obama will be reduced to being the guy running the war.

Good will to all. We all need it.

Someone forgot to tie their bag of dicks tightly enough, and they got loose all over this thread.

No one Republican would set America to self-destruction economically and internationally.

You know, if you were projecting any harder, we could be showing "Memento" on the wall in front of you. Because, as we all know, it was Obama who invaded Iraq without bothering to budget any money to pay for it. Geez, he's pretty powerful to have been able to do that 5 years before he even became president.

There was some other guy who was president until recently. Who was that? Funny, it seems that you guys can't remember anything that happened prior to January of 2009.

Wow, who invited all the right-wing trolls?

Although the sad part is that some of Obama's supporters sound an awful lot like a lot of the anti-Obama, Glenn-and-Rush-loving doomsayers. Perhaps that should give Obama's supporters pause.

I pronounce this thread officially dead.

Is that War fairy of which you speak the any relation to the Healthcare Pixie Dust Fairy that's propping up our bankrupt Medicare program?

Because it was much more important to go overseas and kill 100,000 Iraqis than it is to save the 45,000 uninsured Americans who die every year right here at home.

Iraqis have a guaranteed right to health care -- it was written into Article 14 of their new constitution by the United States. Meanwhile, American citizens have to go without healthcare.

Why do you want to use our money to give things to Iraqis but refuse to use that same money to give the same things to your fellow citizens? Why do you love Iraq more than America?

[Comments have been turned off on this thread and most of the trolling comments deleted.]