If a black Republican president had come in, helped turn around the banking and auto industries (at a small profit!), insured millions through the private sector while cutting Medicare, overseen a sharp decline in illegal immigration, ramped up the war in Afghanistan, reinstituted pay-as-you go in the Congress, set up a debt commission to offer hard choices for future debt reduction, and seen private sector job growth outstrip the public sector’s in a slow but dogged recovery, somehow I don’t think that Republican would be regarded as a socialist.
If you overlook the hippie baiting rhetoric, Tricky Dick first term record was to the left of both Carter and Clinton. Now that’s a deep dish. Uh oh, now I’m thinking about Chicago style pizza. Mmm, pizza.
HT: My old friend Steve Caldwell on Facebook.
Yeah, but those are the rules!
Yeah you rite, Susie. Alas, alack and other A words.
This is true, but this has nothing to do with Obama’s job performance and everything to do with the fact that these are generally sociopaths who just hate, and use hate and fear to drive people into voting against their economic interests so that they can capitalize on it.
The mystery with Obama is why he keeps reaching out to people who have shown, time and time again, that they do not in any sense of the words, operate from a position of honesty and integrity. Basically, all the power groups he supported and saved from the fire turned around and threw vast amounts of money towards electing Republicans. How’s that for a thank-you!
At some point, you just have to wonder if Obama isn’t just the world’s biggest sucker.
Obama isn’t the world’s biggest sucker, but he IS, generally speaking, a moderage to liberal Republican, at least in tone and rhetoric once he was inaugurated.
So, Sullivan’s only partially right: if Obama was in the Republican Party, perhaps he wouldn’t be called a socialist, but he also would never get elected president in the first place…
I agree, MichaelF, that Obama would never be that close to the real levers of power if he were a Republican. And maybe he honestly believes that he is doing the work of a Democrat, because I do believe that he is an honorable man. Which is what makes his story so tragic, given that the electorate just chose to reward all the cynical machinations that drives the Republican party.
One thing I’ve learned through tragedy is that it shows you who your real friends are. Hopefully, Obama will learn this lesson prior to 2012 and stop covering for the people who are stabbing him in the back.
hmm, TARP is a Bush creature and, arguably, Bush is to blame for the drop in illegal immigration, not Obama. Sully is simply running interference for his crush.
I hope the same, CVS, and hold Obama in high regard — he’s a VERY decent man, he’s accomplished great things on the basis of his intellect and character (unlike his predecessor in the Oval Office), and his patience with degenerate creeps like Mitch McConnell, Mike Pence, et al, is somthing I’d never be able to do…
However, the more I think about it, the more I realize that the rightward skew of the national discourse means that anyone who’s a “liberal Democrat” today–or, perhaps, anyone holding office who’s called a liberal Democrat — is pretty much the equivalent of a Rockefeller Republican.
Which, in retrospect, isn’t as leftward as I’d like, but compared to the batshit insane alternative, I guess I’ll take…
Unfortunately, Sullivan is wrong again.
The problem isn’t just that the Republicans are engaging in partisan kabuki. The problem is that they either believe this shit or don’t care about it. Why would they not care? Because they stand to gain financially, and/or because they’re so intent on destroying some of what’s good about this country that they don’t care what the collateral damage might look like.