Symptoms of the Bush-Obama Presidency, George W. Obama?

[DarrinS]

You're kidding, right?

With the extremely limited amount of time in which the dems held a razor thin filibuster proof majority (and even that was contingent on Blue Dog democrats who might switch their votes at any time), do you honestly believe that any of those initiatives would've passed both the house and senate?

With the stated goal of "making Obama a one-term president," it's been clear from the beginning that Republicans (and the blue dog democrats who occasionally cave in to the Republicans' whims) had no intention of allowing anything to pass, despite Obama's elected majorities and/or mandate to enact sweeping change.

And yet they got Obamacare through.

[baseline bum]

And yet they got Obamacare through.

By watering it down to the 1990s Republican plan.

[DUNCANownsKOBE]

Lame excuse. You act like Obama & Co are the first ones in history to ever have to deal with the threat of a filibuster.

The Republican minority in congress from 2009-2010 d the filibuster unlike any other congressional minority has.

[DUNCANownsKOBE]

Extending Bush's tax cuts though Obama has no excuse for. And Obama isn't extending them just for "the good of the economy," Obama is extending them because he has rich friends who benefit from the Bush tax cuts just like the rich friends Romney and Bush had.

[coyotes_geek]

The Republican minority in congress from 2009-2010 d the filibuster unlike any other congressional minority has.

Link?

Seems to me like it's more a case of Obama & Co liking Bush's policies, but not wanting to take the PR hit over it. Had Obama and the dems actually tried to pass legislation to get rid of things like the bush tax cuts, the patriot act, gitmo, and all the other Bush era policies they like to pretend to be against and the republicans fillibustered them all, then you might have a point. Instead, the dems did nothing and gave the excuse that the republicans would have filibustered. Pretty cowardish of them IMO.

[DUNCANownsKOBE]

I don't feel like linking a Huffpost or thinkprogress article that sites quan ative totals only for you to respond with "lol the source!"

The Democrats have undoubtedly contributed to how effective the Republican filibusters have been because Obama, Reid and Pelosi are all extremely weak leaders, but there is plenty of evidence out there that the Republicans planned to make a concerted effort to block as much as they could.

Obama would have a much better gripe about the Republicans blocking his plans if he actually took strong stances on issues and focused on the economy rather than try to make Obamacare the signature of his presidency.

[TeyshaBlue]

I don't feel like linking a Huffpost or thinkprogress article that sites quan ative totals only for you to respond with "lol the source!"

The Democrats have undoubtedly contributed to how effective the Republican filibusters have been because Obama, Reid and Pelosi are all extremely weak leaders, but there is plenty of evidence out there that the Republicans planned to make a concerted effort to block as much as they could.

Obama would have a much better gripe about the Republicans blocking his plans if he actually took strong stances on issues and focused on the economy rather than try to make Obamacare the signature of his presidency.

Huffpo is generally pretty good with their data. Thinkprogress rarely is.

Link away if you have anything approaching quality data/analysis.

[coyotes_geek]

I don't feel like linking a Huffpost or thinkprogress article that sites quan ative totals only for you to respond with "lol the source!"

If it's good info, I'll acknowledge it. In fact, I remember the republicans trying to filibuster damn near every Obama appointment, so I'll even backtrack and admit that it wouldn't surprise me at all if the republicans did use the filibuster more than any time in history. That still doesn't justify the inaction by the democrats though. That was still their best chance to undo all those Bush policies they claimed to be against and they did nothing.

The Democrats have undoubtedly contributed to how effective the Republican filibusters have been because Obama, Reid and Pelosi are all extremely weak leaders, but there is plenty of evidence out there that the Republicans planned to make a concerted effort to block as much as they could.

When you don't even try to beat a filibuster you haven't contributed to that filibuster's success, you've guaranteed it.

Obama would have a much better gripe about the Republicans blocking his plans if he actually took strong stances on issues and focused on the economy rather than try to make Obamacare the signature of his presidency.

Obama has to make Obamacare the signature of his presidency because everything else he's done has just been a continuation or an expansion of a Bush policy.

[boutons_deux]

"When you don't even try to beat a filibuster"

If you KNOW you don't have 60, and you KNOW the Repugs are intimidated into rigid, less block voting (eg, vowing NEVER to raise taxes), then you're wasting your time.

The House Repugs KNOW they can't repeal ACA but they plan to have a vote on it anyway, because they LOVE wasting their time (self-fulfilling their ideology that "govt is the problem") vs. moving the country forward.

[TeyshaBlue]

lol @ wasting time. As if efficiency was ever a metric congress was concerned with.

[DarrinS]

The Myth of Republican Irrationality

President Barack Obama thinks Republicans are in the grips of a “fever.” Only if they can be coaxed back to rationality, through the calming effects of his reelection and perhaps some aromatherapy and a deep-tissue massage, will Washington ever work again.

By work, he means pass his priorities, of course. That is the operative definition, too, for all the liberal analysts rending their garments over the breakdown of our governing ins utions. If only everyone could sit around a table and agree that President Obama is the personification of reasonableness, the country’s faith in government could be restored.

Instead, Republicans insist on the extreme tactic of . . . blocking the president’s agenda. Eminent Washington-based think-tankers Thomas Mann and Norman Ornstein have devoted a book, It’s Even Worse Than It Looks, to explicating the horrors of an opposition party opposing things. It’s a nightmare brought about by Republicans who are “dismissive of the legitimacy of its political opposition.” The duo writes this, unironically, at the end of a paragraph calling Republicans extreme and immune to facts and evidence. How very civil.

This whole line of argument from Obama on down is partisanship wrapped in a veneer of high-mindedness. The current crisis is that not enough bills are passing; if Mitt Romney is elected with a Republican Congress, the new crisis will be that too many bills are passing.

The scourges of Republican obstructionism must have missed 2009–2010, when the president basically worked his will, and it wasn’t exactly a tableau of good government. He signed a stimulus bill that even supporters admit was poorly crafted. He passed a health-care bill by buying off special-interest groups and abusing the legislative process; it remains unpopular, and a central provision may be ruled uncons utional. He signed an enormous financial reform that is so complex, no one quite knows how or if it will work.

The resulting backlash was the product of the passage of the president’s big-ticket items at a time when Republicans lacked the power to obstruct. If President Obama didn’t want to be stymied by Republicans in Congress, he should have been more careful about stoking a wave election that brought 63 more of them to the House. None of them campaigned in 2010 on passing higher taxes to pay for the Obama spending binge, or on lending a bipartisan imprimatur to the status quo they were elected to change.

The case for their kamikaze impulsiveness always comes back to last year’s debt-limit showdown. Republicans wanted the debt-limit increase coupled with significant spending cuts; the president, initially, wanted it coupled with no spending cuts at all. In a country with a $15 trillion debt, which of those positions is more outlandish? In the end, the Republicans settled for a dog’s breakfast of a debt deal that satisfied no one — i.e., made a pragmatic choice that acknowledged their limited power in a divided government.

It was one of a number of compromises during the past year. “Tax Cut Extension Passes; Everyone Claims a Win,” read the New York Times headline last February when Congress passed an extension of the payroll-tax and unemployment benefits. In the summer of 2011, the president went barnstorming and demanded that Congress pass measures — including free-trade deals, patent reform, and tax credits for veterans — he said were essential to the economy. Congress obliged on almost every count.

The deadlock on the more consequential matters is a function of the conflict of visions. The mindlessly obstructionist, heedlessly irresponsible Republicans in the House have written their vision into a comprehensive budget and passed it twice, knowing full well that Senate Democrats would reflexively say “no.” The budget embodies a partywide consensus on an affirmative agenda that will quickly be taken up should Romney win the White House, to the howls of almost everyone now complaining that nothing gets done in Washington.

By that time, partisan obstruction will no longer be an offense against good government, but the highest duty of all patriotic lawmakers.

[boutons_deux]

"partisan obstruction will no longer be an offense against good government, but the highest duty of all patriotic lawmakers"

QED: Repugs are ing insane, 100% ill will towards the 99%, while wrapping themselves dishonestly in the "patriotic" flag (implying their opposition is both traitorous and illegitimate,to be eliminated).

[DarrinS]

"partisan obstruction will no longer be an offense against good government, but the highest duty of all patriotic lawmakers"

QED: Repugs are ing insane, 100% ill will towards the 99%, while wrapping themselves dishonestly in the "patriotic" flag (implying their opposition is both traitorous and illegitimate,to be eliminated).

You didn't really get the last sentence, did you? He was saying 'partisan obstruction' will be the highest duty of patriotic lawmakers when those lawmakers are on team blue.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sarcasm

[coyotes_geek]

"When you don't even try to beat a filibuster"

If you KNOW you don't have 60, and you KNOW the Repugs are intimidated into rigid, less block voting (eg, vowing NEVER to raise taxes), then you're wasting your time.

Lame excuse. You act like Obama & Co are the first ones in history to ever have to deal with the threat of a filibuster.

[boutons_deux]

filibusters succeed, that's why they are used.

how do you "deal with" less than 60 Senators voting with your side?

[boutons_deux]

Once a bureaucracy and precedents are established (DHS, 2 wars, Patriot Act, etc under dubya and head and ACA under Barry) and $100Bs are committed, it's effectively impossible to kill them.

[TeyshaBlue]

filibusters succeed, that's why they are used.

how do you "deal with" less than 60 Senators voting with your side?

Perhaps the first step would be to resolve to actually try rather than fold like a cheap lawn chair?

[boutons_deux]

if you don't have 60, you don't have 60.

The Repugs think any compromise with a illegitimate Dems is not manly. Repugs don't compromise, they VOW not to, they only obstruct.

[TeyshaBlue]

Ok. So your answer is: It's so hard we shouldn't even try.

Got it.

[boutons_deux]

no, it's impossible, so why waste time?

the House Repugs will repeal the ACA soon to throw red-meat to their extreme right wing rabid dogs, but Reid already said repeal ACA is dead in the Senate because the Repugs dont' have 60.

Arithmetic isn't your strong point, is it?

[TeyshaBlue]

lol @ impossible. Reason isn't your strong point, is it?

[scott]

Right. Both Bush and Obama believe in Bush's tax cuts, Iraq, Afghanistan, Gitmo, corporate welfare, the Patriot Act, warrantless wiretapping, massive defecits and a whole slew of other similarities, but Obama does it in an "it's okay because I'm on blue team" kind of way. Big difference there.

And on the flip side there are the "Obama is a socialist" crowd, who think we should add Bush to Mount Rushmore.

Only Blue Teamers and Red Teamers are incapable of seeing the similarities between these two.

[scott]

lol @ impossible. Reason isn't your strong point, is it?

To boutobot's credit here, he actually does make a good point. Both sides are so -bent on never compromising that there is nothing to try for.

Marco Rubio, all other opinions of him withstanding, went on the Daily Show a few weeks ago and was (begrudgingly) willing to accept that his party is (at least partially) responsible for the deadlock. The modern idea of compromise is "the other side does what we want." Some of the New School make no bones about it, and even go so far as to say it publicly and are winning support BASED on that idea! It was Mourdock's entire theme in ousting Sen. Lugar.

http://content.usatoday.com/communit...1#.T_tvlCtYuPQ

This is all the spiraling bitterness from Ken Starr and the Bush v. Gore decision. Both sides have made it their #1 priority to beat the other side, not to do what's best for our country.

[Insert boutons telling us it's only the Republican's doing it here]

(PS: I think the Blame Game goes 70:30 Red Team:Blue Team right now)

[FuzzyLumpkins]

Unfortunately, both parties have followed Gingrich's playbook ever since. According to UCLA political scientist Barbara Sinclair, about 8 percent of major bills faced a filibuster in the 1960s. This decade, that jumped to 70 percent. The problem with the minority party continually making the majority party fail, of course, is that it means neither party can ever successfully govern the country.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...122301319.html

[boutons_deux]

This is all the spiraling bitterness from Ken Starr and the Bush v. Gore decision. Both sides have made it their #1 priority to beat the other side, not to do what's best for our country.

[Insert boutons telling us it's only the Republican's doing it here]

(PS: I think the Blame Game goes 70:30 Red Team:Blue Team right now)

Where did I say it's only the Dems?

But since Pappy Shrub/A er, then Gingrich, then the Repugs suckering the "Christians", then Fox Repug Propaganda network and the entire right-wing hate media empire, ALL ALL ALL the Repugs have been polarizing and dividing and moving to the extreme right for 25+ years.

There has been no such extreme leftward movement from the Dems.

Reagan and Eisenhauer wouldn't have chance of holding power in today's Repug block-voting, vow-taking hate circus.