Of Keynesian dropouts and activist buffoons

Reports the Washington Post:

A growing number of Democrats are threatening to defy the White House over the national debt, joining Republican calls for deficit cuts as a requirement for consenting to lift the country’s borrowing limit.

These Democratic, Keynesian dropouts hail from North Dakota, West Virginia, Arkansas, Minnesota, Colorado and Missouri: purplish territories of the simplistic and befuddled; territories soon, probably, to expand in numbers, as even more voters are beguiled by befuddled simplicity.

Even though "The White House has condemned efforts to attach additional measures to the debt-ceiling issue" -- Jay Carney, for instance, has blasted such deliberations as a "dangerous, risky idea" -- I'll give you one shot at guessing who the activist left will scorn and blame when concessions and compromises inevitably materialize.

For all its rather progressive triumphs during President Obama's first two years -- healthcare reform, financial re-regulation, the stimulus package -- the Democratic Senate is essentially a conservative body. It sat in willing complicity with Republican efforts to water financial reform, to subdue the more public aspects of private healthcare's modifications, to weaken stimulating demand with supply-siding tax cuts.

Yet, I'm a political realist. I understood why Senate Democrats hailing from swing-voting states with a penchant for electorally conservative revenge shied away from whole-hogging those bills. I didn't much like it, but I understood it. The White House understood it as well; just as it understood that it's but a campy fantasy of self-satisfied activists that a president can sit a senator down and successfully instruct him to vote himself out of high office.

In brief, President Obama embraced unwelcome compromises for what they were: choiceless extortions. Because that's the way politics, representative democracy and Washington work. Always have, always will. 

But who got the blame, from the blame-issuing left? The extorters? -- or the extorted? Yep. That guy.

Prepare for a repeat of self-righteous horror and misdirected blame-laying on parade.

Comments

[Alli]

you ain't lyin. I look forward - NOT - to those people saying, "what happened to the guy who gave that speech?" "what happened to campaign/candidate Obama?"

[wtf]

Ha! I thought you'd gotten over the professional left and those selfish little baby activists who don't understand Obama must compromise on all things and has absolutely no ability to change the national narrative about the role of government. This buffoon activist/retard/drug addict won't be donating a penny or a second to the reelection campaign. So please make your plans now to pick up the slack by busing yourself to the swing states. You'll really enjoy canvassing in Scranton.

[Alli]

@WTF: why do you come here?

And yes, the rest of us will walk the talk while you and your buddies pound the keyboards.

[janicket]

"This buffoon activist/retard/drug addict"... Ah, so good to see one who diligently practices the ancient dictum: "Know thyself."

[Dorothy Rissman]

wtf, only comes here to stir the pot. I suspect he/she is not even a dem. He is a republican in dem clothing.

I get mad these blue dogs, but I understand they are in a difficult position. Sherrod Brown totally annoyed me on carbon omissions. The president did not call him out, but he struts on msnbc constantly criticizing the president. It all drive me crazy.

[beulahmo]

"Blue dogs" are a maddening part of the Democratic Party coalition, no doubt. People on the left need to understand that they are a different species than the party-line Democrat. No amount of railing and shaking of fists at the heavens will change the complications in building legislative coalitions because of electoral realities in "purple" America.

Oh, and WTF -- go fuck off. We don't give a damn about your pennies or seconds.