Obviously the Republicans are trying to fight back because the Obama White House is succeeding in unmasking them and the vested interests. And no doubt its discomfiting to the establishment media types as well.

Keep up the fight, White House!

In support of the establishment's new claim that Obama is punishing enemies is the WaPo.com sub-headline on the article about the House committee vote on repealing McCarron:

Move signals determination by Democrats to punish insurers for criticism of Obama's agenda. Sen. Reid also plans repeal as part of Senate bill.

Sheesh!

This article in the WaPo is on target.....Who's afraid of the free market? The GOP fighting tooth and nail....good read... No wonder Obama is being smeared so badly.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/10/20/AR2009102003073.html?hpid=opinionsbox1

Taking positions 180 degrees from the positions you took yesterday -- See GOP Operations Manual, page 2.

Page One.....Whatever Democrats are for, you are against.!

You are obviously forgetting that wingnuts make their own realities where apparently ruthless wuss's are normal :)

BHO is turning American political discourse into something that resembles the tribal warfare in his native Kenya.

Dana Perino had her 15 minutes used up when she said, as WH press secretary, that girls like her didn't understand missile defense. Too complicated.

Al needs to reexamine his eyeglass script, this is just organized politics. Which is why it seems so unexpected to some, coming from Democrats.

Obama's foes never seemed all that interested in maintaining cordial relations with the White House to begin with...

Dead on. Between calling Obama a racist Nazi and praying that he die in the White House, Obama isn't burning any bridges with these assholes. He's just piling more rocks on top of the rocks they live under.

"he can't be both".

Sure he can.
And Hitler.
And the antichrist.
And a terrorist.
etc. etc. etc.
Get with the program, Steve.

SO... the Obama admin is supposed to take all these smears lying down? And if they do pipe up to defend themselves they're 'burning bridges"
Goddamn we live in a FUCKED UP country.

I guess we'll know the right is getting organized when they're able to hold a thought for longer than a news cycle.

the gregg judd bridge is probably one of the most regretable of the burned bridges.

but it is remarkable how obama could burn it completely down with the big gregg judd knife stuck in his back...

Steve says "President Obama can be a weak, risk-averse, overly-conciliatory neophyte, or he can be a ruthless, cut-throat, political-machine boss out to destroy anyone who gets in his way. But he can't be both."

It is not one or the other -- they don't care. For the the wingnuts, the fundamental problem with Obama is that he is black. They oppose him because he is black. They will cry "socialist," "Nazi," "Communist," "Kenyan"; but at the heart of it all is that a black man is president. That is why they cry about "getting their country back." Sorry -- the Fifties are over.

albedo business details incognito decade energy

Obama can be anything the right-wing smear artists want to be the flavor of the week:

Week 1 -- Hitler/Nazi
Week 2 -- Stalin/socialist
Week 3 -- Ineffective waffler
Week 4 -- jack-booted thug, showing an "amazing lack of bi-partisanship."
Week 5 -- ???

The right-wing never worries about consistency or logic or having a message that actually makes sense.

All these criticisms boil down to: Obama - Bad! Big gummimint socialist/facist/nazi/welfare-ite!

Progressives just assume slogans ought to have some intellectual content so we underestimate what the right-wing is doing. They're whipping up the froth.

Obama is now so "evil" they don't even have to say what he's done. It's just "Obama! Grrrr!"

You see evidence of that in this very thread:

"BHO is turning American political discourse into something that resembles the tribal warfare in his native Kenya."

See how easy that was? Look how many lies and smears are in one short sentence?

1. Obama is from Kenya. This is just assumed on right-wing blogs regardless or logic, truth or common sense. No need to even argue it.

2. If Obama attacks his political enemies that's "tribal warfare." -- Note the racist tone. "Tribe" = black = primitive = foreign = "Not-American" = not legitimate.

Those bridges Obama is accused of burning are just as real as the Republicans' alternative health care plan and just as substantial as their alternative budget plan.

I do wish the establishment would pick a theme and go with it. President Obama can be a or he can be a ruthless, cut-throat, political-machine boss out to destroy anyone who gets in his way. But he can't be both.
—Steve Benen 2:20 PM

Yes he can. He can be "a weak, risk-averse, overly-conciliatory neophyte" on Mondays, Tuesdays and Fridays, and he can be "a ruthless, cut-throat, political-machine boss out to destroy anyone who gets in his way" on Wednesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays. And he can swing either way on Sundays depending on the questions asked Sunday President John McCain.

Never underestimate the ability of the noise machine to talk convincingly out of both sides at the same time.

Anybody who can be a Fascist Marxist can be anything!

But, see, he can only be a Fascist AND a Marxist because he's such a celebrity and the media are so in the tank for him.

Bleh: Actually, Obama is a Fascist because he can't speak without a teleprompter and a Marxist because he's black.

President Obama can be a weak, risk-averse, overly-conciliatory neophyte, or he can be a ruthless, cut-throat, political-machine boss out to destroy anyone who gets in his way. But he can't be both.

Why not? That would only make him human -- and what's wrong with having a real human being in the WH?

Dana Perito is a little yap dog, ignore her, it's easy.

It's only been 10 months, and they're burning bridges in a lot of different places." -- Dana Perino

Them bridges ain't been burnt, dear heart. Them's *pontoon* bridges, which have just been moved into different -- more useful -- positions. Like, instead of dealing with the traitorous Chamber of Commerce, we're now extending them directly to the doctors and other *productive professionals*. You, middlemen, had had your chance and blew it.

It's really quite simply for "we" Obama supporters. Change "WE" can believe in. Obama never asked McCain supporters to believe in it. They believed in Country "club" First.

He'd better marginalize his critics. The trillion dollar deficits that he quadrupled and the 10% unemployment aren't going to go away by themselves and he's completely incapable of dealing with them so he better silence his critics.

The only bridges that are burning are the Bridges to Nowhere!

"at the heart of it all is that a black man is president."

I don't think this is true. If Hilary was in the WH there would be similar accusations; and even for any white male. I suspect they would even launch attacks on Democrats as conservative as Bayh.

The GOP's strategy here is simple: they figure if they fling enough shit against the wall, some of it is bound to stick. So far, the wall has proven fairly shitproof.

You see evidence of that in this very thread: "BHO is turning American political discourse into something that resembles the tribal warfare in his native Kenya." See how easy that was? Look how many lies and smears are in one short sentence?

Al is a parody troll, and a pretty obvious one at that. Has been since the days of Kevin Drum. You look like an idiot when you respond to him.

Jeebus, I get tired of having to tell people this.

Jeebus, I get tired of having to tell people this.

Then stop expending so much energy on it and just focus on something else. There's no "have to" about it.

Obama can be portrayed as anything his adversaries want him to be, and that can change on a dime. Right-wing opinion manipulators assume the mainstream media and the public have an effective memory span of maybe 72 hours -- and, sadly, they seem to be right, at least about the MSM. A further advantage is an alternative media universe (Faux News, Limbaugh, et al.) that happily pounces on new memes and pretends the old ones never existed.

The trillion dollar deficits that he quadrupled ...

Ah, Republican math. Why the heck did anyone ever think of these guys as the "fiscally responsible" ones when they can't even figure out basic decimals and fractions?

The Republicans are trying exactly the strategy that lost Kerry the White House. He accused Bush of various different, contradictory things and none of them stuck.

Now it seems to be the Republicans' turn to make the same mistake.

Republican President Reagan raised the US debt by 260%.

By the time Republican Presidents Reagan and Bush I were out of office they had raised the US debt by 400%.

Republican President Bush II more than doubled the US debt.

And Republicans always blame someone else for their indebting of America.

-----

For the record, only Democratic President Clinton paid down the US debt as a percentage of GDP.

http://HavenWorks.com/us/debt

Republicans Are Debtors.

Steve sez:

President Obama can be a weak, risk-averse, overly-conciliatory neophyte, or he can be a ruthless, cut-throat, political-machine boss out to destroy anyone who gets in his way. But he can't be both

majun asks:

why not?

Have to go with commenter majun on this.

These are by no means mutually exclusive, even on the same issue.

The ability for the White House to achieve any success in the "War with FoxNews" is roughly equivalent to the "War on Team America" that North Korean leader Kim Jong Il attempted after it's creators made him look like a fool in the movie, "Team America: World Police".

It was said that Kim Jong Il had ordered that the writers, Trey Parker and Matt Stone (still alive), be assassinated, a step that I don't think Obama is ready to take, but of course like Nancy Pelosi said, the war of words could inspire terrible violence which could reflect badly on the President.