Because really, all Obama cares about is getting reelected. He doesn’t want to talk about the very real trail of human damage his lack of leadership leaves in his wake. He doesn’t care that he continues to empower the Tea Partiers and the fundie extremists by handing them whatever they want — apparently he’s too busy daydreaming about himself as the New Reagan. I don’t even think it’s incompetence. This piece of shit deal passed because these are the policies he wants:
Democrats managed to jettison the policy rider aimed at defunding Planned Parenthood, but they also caved to $6 billion more in overall spending cuts than they previously said they would tolerate. And the final stop-gap spending bill included language preventing D.C. from using tax dollars for abortions.
So far, the media spotlight has focused most intensely on Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) and his high stakes balancing act of trying to please his Tea Party base and corral his unruly conference without angering coveted independent swing voters who decide elections and preferred a deal over a government shutdown. In the end, however, Boehner kept his poker face all week and with $39 billion as the final figure, and ended up surprisingly close to his $40 million spending target.
President Obama, who launched his re-election campaign earlier this week, will face some serous fallout. His liberal base, which is still smarting from the lame-duck tax cut deal Obama struck with Republicans in December, will inevitably say he gave up too much ground in reaching a deal and kept his hands too clean in the process — wanting to appear as the “grown-up” and the “referee” — all the while bemoaning being forced into that position by recalcitrant Congressional leaders.
“This feels an awful lot like the tax cut deal,” Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-NY) tweeted near midnight Friday. “I gotta bad feeling.”
In fact, in his remarks announcing the deal Obama boasted about achieving the biggest annual spending cut in history, while referencing the tax-cut deal he struck with Republicans in December.
“A few months ago, we were able to sign a tax cut for the middle class … Now the same cooperation will make possible the biggest annual spending cut in history,” he said.
Some Democrats, especially those in the Senate likely were bristling at those words. For weeks, Senate Democrats have been practically begging and pleading for President Obama to get in the game and directly engage in budget talks — to come to their aid and leverage the full weight of his bully pulpit to prevent Republicans from getting the upper-hand.
“The President needs to play a much greater role in these negotiations,” Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) told TPM in early March. “The President doesn’t want to engage in this fight because it’s really, really hard, because we’re up against a government shutdown and we can’t keep funding the government with these stop-gap measures.”
When asked what Feinstein thought would help Democrats gain an upper hand she was blunt: “Presidential leadership.”
And is very proud of himself.
Of course, why wouldn’t he be?
And, I almost forgot, he’s very rich now.
You really can’t beat his life trajectory, can you?
And he ain’t finished yet.
(Or is he?)
After all, it’s been clear for some time that he sees himself as Reagan Republican (without the slightest insight into how repulsive that term was when coined).
And remember the now-rich Clinton bragging about “ending welfare as we know it?”
Thanks for following this so closely and calling it (him) as you see it!
There are no Dims trying to lead us to victory in D.C.
And damn few Dems.
S
P.S. Oh yes, and the media spotlight stays on the clowns in order to distract us. The Boner couldn’t be a better leader for these crooks.
Boehner kept his poker face all week
Whoops, it’s late.
I meant a “Reagan Democrat.”
Of course.
S
I think its more than being worried about being re-elected. I think he’s worried about what he is going to do after his term(s). He was not born to wealth, but he has risen into the highest social level of the wealthy and I expect he likes it. He has two daughters to raise and put through Harvard or Yale, and a wife who likes to vacation in the fanciest resorts and who has a taste for high fashion. Remember how they said that the Clintons would be broken by all those legal expenses? Now they are both wealthy; he makes hundreds of thousands of dollars for a speech; they live in mansions and travel the world with the elite. Obama takes care of the wealthy so they will take care of him.
Luke 16: [1] He also said to the disciples, “There was a rich man who had a steward, and charges were brought to him that this man was wasting his goods.
[2] And he called him and said to him, `What is this that I hear about you? Turn in the account of your stewardship, for you can no longer be steward.’
[3] And the steward said to himself, `What shall I do, since my master is taking the stewardship away from me? I am not strong enough to dig, and I am ashamed to beg.
[4] I have decided what to do, so that people may receive me into their houses when I am put out of the stewardship.’
[5] So, summoning his master’s debtors one by one, he said to the first, `How much do you owe my master?’
[6] He said, `A hundred measures of oil.’ And he said to him, `Take your bill, and sit down quickly and write fifty.’
[7] Then he said to another, `And how much do you owe?’ He said, `A hundred measures of wheat.’ He said to him, `Take your bill, and write eighty.’
[8] The master commended the dishonest steward for his shrewdness; for the sons of this world are more shrewd in dealing with their own generation than the sons of light.
[9] And I tell you, make friends for yourselves by means of unrighteous mammon, so that when it fails they may receive you into the eternal habitations.
[10] “He who is faithful in a very little is faithful also in much; and he who is dishonest in a very little is dishonest also in much.
[11] If then you have not been faithful in the unrighteous mammon, who will entrust to you the true riches?
[12] And if you have not been faithful in that which is another’s, who will give you that which is your own?
[13] No servant can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon.”
Mr. Obama couldn’t negotiate his way out of a paper bag
coated in acid. Susie is being way too kind here. Trump
allegedly has investigators out in Hawaii. Maybe they’ll find
his spine.
Apparently, Mammoth Cave is not just a place in Kentucky.
Sometimes I think wishing for Obama to have a (or show some) spine might be something we’d all regret. I fear he’ll decide to show “some spine” by going after Medicare and SocSec. That would get all sorts of post-presidency rewards from rightwingers and corporatists who despise the social safety net.
DiFei just might regret how he’ll lead.
And I don’t see much spine or leadership from our DC Dems.
What can we do???