33 thoughts on “The Last Moderate Democrat”

  1. A policy of appeasement towards the Tea Party has only resulted in President Obama losing support from his base and independents, so its logical he is ending the policy and is going to war against them for the up 2012 election. Look for more “power plays” as that is what will energize the anti-Tea Party majority to re-elect him.

  3. Rand,

    What do you think the Democrats call President Obama constant caving to the Republicans? You really need to expand your world beyond the radical right wing blogs you read.

    2. You did notice that Obama apparently secretly supports the Tea Party right? I mean, the whole family got all dressed up and summoned their minions in both the entertainment media -and- Hollywood to reenact the Tea Party….

  4. Thomas, could we have some specific instances where Obama caved? The Tea Party, as far as it has any unified objectives, calls for lower taxes, smaller government, and possibly devoluton of power to States. I don’t see Obama having done any of this. Temporary tax cuts don’t count.

    1. Tom,

      [[[he Tea Party, as far as it has any unified objectives, calls for lower taxes, smaller government, and possibly devoluton of power to States.]]]

      Yea, that is their propaganda line, (we are for motherhood, apple pie and the flag…) not that anyone believes it anymore recognizing that the Tea Party is just the Radical Republican Religious Right in a new coat of paint. The Anit-Romney candidates fighting it out for the Republican nomination pretty showed everyone their true colors, so no need to pretend they are something different.

      As for examples of President Obama’s appeasement I will just hit the high points. There was the budget deal last summer when the Tea Party members of Congress threaten to close the government down, then the DOD bill, then this Christmas when they again threaten to close the government down. He also withdrew Elizabeth Warren’s nomination believing they would vote on someone else. Like Lord Chamberlain he learned where appeasement leads you 🙂

      1. Ah yes, the famous “but what those bastards REALLY meant to say was…!” argument. Pardon my skepticism, but since the English language has the words to describe what you attribute to the TP’ers, I think that if that’s what they wanted to say, it’s what they would have, you know, actually said.

        1. Actions speak louder then words and you simply need to look at the record/action of the individuals they support for election to see their actual agenda.

  5. I think Thomas must be confusing “caving in to the Tea Party” with “Doubling down on all the Bush policies that drove liberals crazy.” massive deficits, signing statements, assertion of executive privilege, rule by executive order, arrogance, Gitmo, targetted assassinations, endless war, unemployment, collusion with energy companies, massive payoffs to Wall Street, etc.

    Those aren’t Tea Party policies. The Tea Party formed to halt them. If Obama wanted to appease the Tea Party, he wouldn’t keep raising Bush policies to the Nth level.

    1. Let’s see – Obama tried to close Gitmo, and was blocked by Congress (including his own party). He ended our involvement in Iraq, and our very limited involvement in Libya is over, so I don’t see “endless war.”

      The “executive privilege” at issue here is appointing people to run agencies that Wall Street doesn’t like, and the last massive payoff to Wall Street was from TARP, which was not an Obama idea. I’m also not sure how you can yell about “collusion with energy companies” while also complaining that we’re not drilling enough oil.

      1. Obama claimed he wanted to close Gitmo, but he claims a lot of things. What he did was issue an executive order supporting trials there, along with indefinite detention. Then he added a secret panel to pick out Americans for targeted assassination.

        He ended our involvement in Iraq so abruptly that it started heading toward civil war the day after we left, causing Iraqis to beg us to come back, which we’ll probably have to do to restabilize the area.

        Our very limited involvement in Libya caused about 20,000 shoulder-fired surface to air missiles to go walking into the hands of parties unknown. That could eventually cause catastrophic problems with air travel as we know it. He also pretty much dropped Egypt into the hands of the Muslim Brotherhood, the fathers of Al Qaeda. Mideast peace is not on the menu.

        As for his collusion with energy companies, they have to be run by his friends before they can get hundreds of millions from the government. Aside from Solyndra, he’s forcing the Navy to buy green jet fuel at $15 dollars a gallon (instead of $4), of course from a member of his transition team. If Bush or Cheney had done that they’d have been strung up from a tree on the White House lawn.

        1. George,

          [[[He ended our involvement in Iraq so abruptly that it started heading toward civil war the day after we left, causing Iraqis to beg us to come back,]]]

          Right… That is why they added the day the U.S. withdrew to their calendars of official national holidays.

          http://www.turkishweekly.net/news/129178/iraq-adds-39-us-withdrawal-day-39-to-holiday-calendar.html

          Iraq Adds ‘US Withdrawal Day’ to Holiday Calendar, Monday, 2 January 2012

          Also it was not a hasty withdraw, President Obama was just following the withdrawal agreement that President Bush signed shortly before he left office. So if you don’t like the withdraw date, blame President Bush. Or do you think President Obama also ended the Shuttle program?

          1. And the day after we withdrew the Shiite Prime Minister issued an arrest warrant for his Sunni vice president on charges of assassination and terrorism, so the VP fled to Kurdistan. That was followed by a no-confidence vote in the second highest ranking Sunni in the government, also a member of the same secular party as the VP. About 3 days after that 68 people were killed in bomb blasts in Baghdad. The bombings have continued, and on Jan 5th, 72 people were killed in bombings.

            McCain and other top Republicans said Obama screwed the pooch. The White House said “no comment.”

          2. George,

            And as a soverign nation those are THEIR affiars, not ours, as much as you are itching to send young Americans back into harm’s way to get killed and injured to satisfy your desire to be the world cop. Or were you planning to add Iraq as the 51st state?

  7. Regarding “caving” – many Democrats were upset that Obama agreed to the $1.2 trillion in budget cuts to get the debt ceiling passed. Many Democrats were upset that he even entertained talks with Boehner regarding the “grand deal” of $4 trillion in cuts. Heck, going back to health care, the “firebaggers” are still cranked that he didn’t get a public option put in the bill.

    To me, these look like reasonable compromises. To partisan liberals, they’re sellouts, and to the crowd here they are apparently chopped liver.

    1. The $1.2G “cut” relative to a baseline so inflated that real spending is still going up?

      How about we reset the baseline to the 2008 budget and start from there?

    2. “To me, these look like reasonable compromises. To partisan liberals, they’re sellouts, and to the crowd here they are apparently chopped liver.”

      But then, anything short of death camps for “deniers,” “Teabaggers,” and “JBSers” is a compromise to someone as left as you…

  8. Glad to hear “Il Dufe” is “caving” to the Tea Party. Maybe next he’ll cave to the Cato Institute and the National Taxpayers Union–a kind of pro-freedom Domino Effect. Any day now he should be announcing: “Hey, all that statist crap I learned as a Red Diaper Baby and later in the New Party and Rev. Wright’s church? What a load of hooey! I just read THE ROAD TO SERFDOM–no, really, this time I actually read it, no pretending–and boy was I wrong about a lot of things most of my life!”

      2. Chris, the time to talk about compromise would have been in the 2009-2011 period. He didn’t. I’ll have to see, but I bet the political views I favor will get a better deal for 2013 than these limp “compromises” such as budget cuts that don’t actually cut budgets and other such things.

      4. How about take half a loaf when it’s offered, instead of complaining that it’s not two loaves?

        Because it’s a bad analogy. A better one would be the president driving the car toward the cliff at 100 mph, and the GOP turning down his offered compromise to slow down to 50 mph, when the required solution is to stop the damn car and turn back from the cliff.

  9. This article was before the Tea Party survivors started cutting each other up in the Republican primary. It will be interesting to see what the most recent numbers are.

    http://articles.latimes.com/2011/nov/29/news/la-pn-tea-party-poll-20111129

    [[[Buyer’s remorse? Poll shows tea party support fading]]]

    [[[The report from the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press released Tuesday showed support for the tea party dropping nationwide, with more Americans viewing the movement unfavorably. The view of the Republican Party in the 60 districts represented by members of the House Tea Party Caucus has also suffered.]]]

    The odds are not only will the public’s rejection of the Tea Party result in President Obama getting re-elected, he will probably have a Democratic House as well to support his initiatives. Sorry folks, But the Tea Party is indeed ending. 🙂

    2. Thomas, by those numbers the Tea Party still ranks neck and neck with liberalism, and it’s only been around two years.

      1. George,

        Its only had its new coat of paint for the last two years, but the Radical Right has been around since the Red Scare of the 1950’s and just as the liberals represent the 10-15% on the far left, the Teat Party represents the 10-15% on the far right. But the majority of Americans, including the President, are in the middle and are getting fed up with the extremists.

  10. Getting back to the topic of the thread… what kind of Bizzaro world are we living in when the guy who spearheaded Gore’s attempt to throw out military absentee ballots in the FLorida Recount and a major cog in one of the most corrupt political machines in the country is considered a MODERATE Democrat?

    In defeating Obama the GOP may win a battle but lose the war as public perception of what is “moderate” keeps shifting leftward. I’m also disappointed that rather than defend capitalism, all the non-Romney’s in the election have adopted the language of the left to attack him. If we can’t have real capitalism, all this is moot, as we’ll soon be lining up for bread no matter who gets elected.

  11. MarkD,

    The same Bizzaro world where Gov. Romney is considered too liberal by the Tea Party to vote for while the candidates they consider conservative attack him for representing the capitalist ideal.

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