Politics or Poppycock

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Archive for August 21st, 2009

Atta Boy, Barney

Posted by James O'Rourke on August 21, 2009

Center for American Progress

repbarney_onpage.jpg

SOURCE: AP/Elise Amendola

Rep. Barney Frank (D-MA), right, speaks to people as he leaves a senior center in Dartmouth, MA, on August 18, 2009, where he discussed health care reform and financial issues at a town hall-style meeting.

By Sam Fulwood III | August 19, 2009

Finally, someone got in the face of the crazies and threw down the gauntlet.

An ill-informed mob tried to rattle Rep. Barney Frank (D-MA) for two hours during Tuesday night’s town hall meeting in Dartmouth, MA, by following the well-rehearsed script used to disrupt other similar sessions on health care.

But this time the effort backfired. Frank, one of the brightest and most erudite legislators in Congress, flipped the script on the crowd that only wanted to heckle him. Frank heckled back.

The best part came when a woman stood up with a photo of President Barack Obama, doctored with a toothbrush moustache to resemble one popularized by Adolph Hitler, to ask why Frank was supporting a Nazi-like health care proposal.

“On what planet do you spend most of your time?” Frank asked her.

I’ve wondered the same thing as I’ve watched these know-nothings attend town hall meetings in Democratic districts, seeking to dominate the setting with behavior that wouldn’t be tolerated in a kindergarten class.

But I’ve also wondered something else: Why have so many congressional leaders stood in the crossfire, looking like Bambi at midnight? Why haven’t they fought back with facts—and passion? There’s no reason lawmakers, especially those who are on record supporting the president’s proposal for a government-backed insurance option, shouldn’t tell the rabble rousers that they’re wrong—and out of line.

Frank did just that. “Disruption never helps your cause,” he said at one point when it was clear that half of the crowd cared only about creating anarchy. “It just looks like you’re afraid to have rational discussion.” Read the rest of this entry »

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A Little More Heat, Please

Posted by James O'Rourke on August 21, 2009

By Eugene Robinson

Friday, August 21, 2009

Here’s the least surprising news of the week: Americans are souring on the Democratic Party. The wonder is that it’s taken so long for public opinion to curdle. There’s nothing agreeable about watching a determined attempt to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.

A poll released Wednesday by the Pew Research Center reports that just 49 percent of respondents have a favorable view of the Democrats, compared with 62 percent in January and 59 percent in April. This doesn’t mean, though, that Americans look any more kindly upon the Republican Party — favorability for the GOP has been steady at 40 percent throughout the year, according to Pew.

What it does mean, however, is that Republican efforts to obstruct, delay, confuse, stall, distort and otherwise impede the reform agenda that Americans voted for last November have had measurable success. And it means that Democrats, having been given a mandate — one as comprehensive as either party is likely to enjoy in this era of red-vs.-blue polarization — don’t really know how to use it.

That the Democratic Party is no paragon of organization and discipline is almost axiomatic. That’s not the problem. The Pew poll suggests that the Democrats’ weakness is neither strategic nor tactical but emotional. To quote the poet William Butler Yeats: “The best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity.”

There’s not enough passion on the Democratic side, not enough heat. There’s some radiating from the Democratic majority in the House of Representatives, too little emanating from the Democratic majority in the Senate, and not nearly enough coming from President Obama. Republicans, by contrast, have little going for them except passion — but they’re using it to impressive effect. Read the rest of this entry »

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And Why Are We in Afghanistan?

Posted by James O'Rourke on August 21, 2009

Posted by Digby, Hullabaloo at 8:00 AM on August 20, 2009.

A majority of Americans now see the war in Afghanistan as not worth fighting.

The DFHs have convinced the nation about another misguided war.

A majority of Americans now see the war in Afghanistan as not worth fighting and just a quarter say more U.S. troops should be sent to the country, according to a new Washington Post-ABC News poll. Most have confidence in the ability of the United States to meet its primary goals — defeating the Taliban, facilitating effective economic development and molding an honest and effective Afghan government — but very few say Thursday’s elections there are likely to produce such a government.

When it comes to the baseline question, 42 percent of Americans say the U.S. is winning in Afghanistan; about as many, 36 percent, say it is losing the fight. The new poll comes amid widespread speculation that the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan, Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, will request more troops for his stepped-up effort to root the Taliban from Afghan towns and villages. That is a position that gets the backing of 24 percent of those polled, while nearly twice as many, 45 percent, want to decrease the number of military forces there. (Most of the remainder say to keep the level about the same.)

[...]

Should President Obama embrace his general’s call for even more U.S. military forces, he risks alienating some of his staunchest supporters While 60 percent of all Americans approve of how Obama has handled the situation in Afghanistan, his ratings among liberals have slipped and majorities of liberals and Democrats alike now, for the first time, solidly oppose the war and are calling for a reduction in troops. Overall, seven in 10 Democrats say the war has not been worth its costs, and fewer than one in five support an increase in troop levels. Nearly two-thirds of the most committed Democrats now feel “strongly” that the war was not worth fighting. Among moderate and conservative Democrats, a slim majority say the United States is losing in Afghanistan.

The Afghanistan issue has crept to the sidelines of the national debate, but thousands of families are still directly affected. People still die; 6 more Americans fell today, and August 2009 could be the deadliest month in Afghanistan of the entire war. The President calls it a “war of necessity” and “fundamental to the defense of our people” but cannot credibly articulate what that actually means. Juan Cole identifies three main points that Obama makes about the war, which seem fine in isolation, but not in practice:

1. “This strategy recognizes that al Qaeda and its allies had moved their base to the remote, tribal areas of Pakistan.”

2. “This strategy acknowledges that military power alone will not win this war—that we also need diplomacy and development and good governance.”

3. “And our new strategy has a clear mission and defined goals—to disrupt, dismantle and defeat al Qaeda and its extremist allies.” Read the rest of this entry »

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