bmaz at Emptywheel ain't too happy with Obama right now and, frankly, neither am I

it's not a pretty thing when i'm getting disenchanted only fifteen days after the election and well BEFORE the inauguration...

When I was first sworn into the bar, I had the good fortune of being mentored by an experienced and wise senior partner. One of the first things that he taught me in dealing with other parties was to be aware of the long arm-short arm syndrome. This is where a person has a long arm for taking, and a short arm for giving.

When it comes to the netroots, Barack Obama has the long arm-short arm syndrome. He has taken much from us in terms of support, voice, momentum, money, footwork and energy. Obama has given little, if anything, in return to the netroots. Unless you count disdain and scorn. And pokes in the eye with a blunt stick.

but wait, there's more...

on the attorney general choice...

[I]f you like the corporate apologist, rich people coddling, torturing approving and covering, illegal wiretapping loving, breakdown in the career ranks bullshit DOJ of the last eight years, you will absolutely love Eric Holder. He will, of course, be nominally better that Mukasey. If that is good enough for you, he is your guy! Thanks Barack!

and how about that stand-up guy, joe lieberman...?

Now, how exactly did we come to the point to where the guy who bolted the party and actively campaigned side by side, hand in hand, for the better part of two years for the race baiting Republican shame-meister John McCain? Who caused this love to be given to one of the netroots' most hated men? Uh, that would be good old long arm-short arm Barack Obama.

Obama didn't just shaft the netroots though, he stuck the shiv in the American people by engineering Lieberman's retention of his DHS Chairmanship. That man should not be allowed in the same universe as that committee. The American people are entitled to a man that will do the freaking job. A great American city was drowned. People are dead. Tens maybe hundreds of thousands are effectively still homeless. Billions of dollars were wasted. He. Did. Freaking. Nothing. Nada. Zilch. Zero. Say goodnight New Orleans, and tell Barack Obama thank you!

and, yes, there's much, much more... i hate to think that my serious reservations about obama are being validated right out of the box... oh, well... my six weeks of cautious optimism were kinda pleasant even if they were totally misguided...

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The Democratic party's "left wing"

today's wapo showcases a lengthy, front-page article on how the crazed lefties are attacking poor bay area democrat, representative ellen tauscher, and how the party's "left wing" is destroying democratic "moderates..."

...the grass-roots and Net-roots activists of the party's left wing had already settled on their new enemy...

how dare you, wapo, characterize me that way...

yes, i'm grass-roots, and, being a blogger, i guess i'm net-roots too... but i don't consider myself a member of a "party" nearly as much as i consider myself a u.s. citizen who is hugely concerned with what's happening to my country... i have zero time or patience for any elected official who can't stand up and forcefully speak out against it, and, unquestionably, that puts me in opposition to a shamefully high percentage of those in both parties who claim to represent the electorate, but in fact are enabling the actions of a criminal administration bent on accumulating absolute power... just because i happen to care deeply about the principles upon which the united states was founded and am taking the time and energy to put those beliefs out there on a daily basis, does not make me the subversive, left-wing nutcase that you imply... admittedly, you try to soften your stand later on in the article by saying this...

...the Democratic takeover has energized and emboldened the party's liberal base...

i will cop to being a liberal, and, de facto, that probably puts me in the camp of the "party's liberal base..." however, i wouldn't go so far as to say i'm "emboldened..." on the contrary, i'm probably more discouraged right now than i was BEFORE the november elections... the wapo captures precisely why i feel that way by - cluelessly - revealing tauscher's modus operandi...

She said she doesn't trust anything the Bush administration says, but it's the administration in power. "I want to represent my constituents, so I have to work with this president," she said. "I'm a pragmatic person. I don't have the luxury of saying, 'I'll come back in January 2009 and try to get some work done.'"

like so many of her erstwhile colleagues, tauscher doesn't get it... there IS no "working with this president..." dealing pragmatically with the bush administration has already pushed the united states to the brink of a dictatorship... we can't afford an ellen tauscher any more than we can afford a hillary clinton or a joe lieberman or a joe biden...

there's another thread running throughout the article that makes both markos and moveon into kingmakers... if you read daily kos regularly, it is transparently clear that markos is anything but, nor does he have any ambitions in that direction... and moveon is one of the least centrally-directed, most grass-roots driven organizations i have ever seen... while the wapo has at least begun to grasp a smidgen of the fact that there are no "leaders" in this grass-roots, net-roots driven revolution, they still want to play the celebrity game... i can tell you that markos, for one, ain't playin'...

[Markos is] often portrayed as a raving ideologue, but he's really a savvy strategist; he has no problem supporting conservative Democrats in conservative districts, such as new Rep. Heath Shuler (N.C.). But he sees no need to tolerate a DLC type in Tauscher's district, where Sen. John F. Kerry (D-Mass.) received 58 percent of the presidential vote in 2004. And he said that primaries are the only way to force incumbents with safe seats to pay attention to constituents.

"We're creating real democracy," he said.

read that last quote carefully, wapo... "real democracy..." think about it... it's THAT concept that has the democratic leadership scared to death... and i would appreciate it if you would cease characterizing those who are working to save the united states from a criminal administration as left-wing loons bent on wiping out any hint of "moderation..."

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