(cross-posted at vastleft.com)
At Open Left, David Sirota breaks a shocking story: Obama broke his promises for an open and transparent process for debating health-care reform.
President Obama made an explicitly clear promise to hold negotiations over national health care legislation not only in public, but on C-SPAN. And this wasn't a minor promise - he made the promise as an instrument to attack his Democratic primary opponent Hillary Clinton, insisting that because Clinton refused to open up negotiations to such transparency in the past, Clinton was a legislative failure.
President Obama has now broken his promise, first by cutting secret deals with the drug industry, and now by endorsing a plan from congressional leaders to hold final legislative negotiations behind closed doors. These are the facts, and they are not in dispute - even though the White House insultingly pretends they are.
What is in dispute - rather incredibly - is whether or not this should be seen as A) acceptable and B) newsworthy. And those members of D.C.'s Church of the Savvy who are arguing that the promise-breaking is acceptable and not newsworthy are deftly presenting their conservative, Establishment-coddling propaganda in the most effective way: As allegedly "progressive" and/or "objective" arguments.
If only I'd mentioned the little-reported lies about a transparent process here and here and here and here and here and here and here and here and here and here and here and here and here and here and here and here and here and here and here (directly to Sirota) and here and here and here and here and here and here (and not to mention here and here) when there was still time for the big blogs, activist groups, and "progressive" media figures to blow the whistle on this.
Like they say, hindsight is 20/20. Still, how could I have missed such an essential development!
At least President Obama, apparently, has nothing to regret.
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I'm sure you get knocked around often
By those accusing you of just wanting to dance around the blogs singing "I was right, I was right!"
But what you've been doing is very important, because if we can't hold our "allies" accountable, how are we ever going to keep our opposition honest?
He who will not reason is a bigot; he who cannot is a fool; and he who dares not is a slave.
- Sir William Drummond
Nah, the wronger they get...
... the louder they say (or mime) "la-la-la-la-I-can't-hear-you."
Naturally, no response to the most-recent of those citations, nor to many of the others. RHIP.
Oh my goodness...
that is absolutely hilarious.
Today's regressivism: Those who were wrong get all the clicks and the kudos; those who were right get nothing but scorn and accusations of racism.
I'm lovin' it! /s
Never vote for people who hate you.
ERA Now!
The Widdershins
The irony that eludes them...
… is how many of them were in the same boat, as DFHs
marveling at how the Bill Kristols and Tom Friedmans kept — and often upgraded — their jobs.
I think you need to apologize for being...
... prematurely correct!
First they ignore you, then they ridicule you, then they fight you, then you win. -- Mahatma Gandhi
Top bloggers can't be wrong
They can only be wronged.
"Transparent" is just another one of those
words that no longer means what you thought it did.
Just think of it as Barack Obama broadening our rhetorical horizons and bringing his vaunted change to dictionaries everywhere (although I think his version of the OED - where the "O" is no longer "Oxford" but, of course, "Obama" - is probably called a "dick"-tionary).
I can't find the original item, but...
... see this re: the redefinition:
Doesn't "transparency" mean that no one can see it? Sounds about right.
~~~By vastleft on Mon, 03/23/2009 - 2:13pm
http://www.correntewire.com/how_will_whi...
EDIT -- here it is: http://www.correntewire.com/tell_me_again_how_government_gives_anybody_trillions_dollars_no_transparency_and_no_accountability_l#comment-138016
No one may be able to see it, but it seems
we are able to see see through it.
link, link, link, link, link
Couldn't you have done this post without all the distracting links. As that commenter said:
I joke (of course).
Poor David, "if only we had known". If only there had been some place, some method, to point out what was happening, in real time. What would we call that thing, that place, that method?
Sorry, I don't fall in love with politicians. I'm not that desperate.....
I suspect that David did know, and that it's one reason...
... he posted very little about HCR
at Open Left.
My theory on the relationship between PO
advocacy and the silence about the transparency lies:
My one direct interaction with Sirota on HCR is on a post where he acknowledged the mistake of substituting "public option" for single-payer, though he both absolved his caste for its central role in making that happen and also urged on the continued pursuit of PO at the time. He speaks of a post-mortem for the "professional left." Whom might that properly include?
HCAN't hired Sirota
they hired Sirota, Des Moines Dem and some other front pagers.
I won't even accuse them of selling out, because I can so easily understand how it all happened. It was right after the huge November victory, and so many were brimming with enthusiasm to work for Obama's agenda. And it was so easily to believe that single payer was not going to happen, while the public option would offer access to health care for millions who did not have it, at least if you believed the HCAN't marketing. And then once invested in the PO
concept, they could not bear to give it up.
But now it is impossible not to see that the PO was a fail, so they are in a where to we go from here mode.
Golly gee, but this is so MCMish-- the analysts/pundits who were
right about the run-up to the Iraq Invasion? Where are they now? Not appearing on the MCM.
Too sad that the lefty blogs are following that pattern....
Yes, jawbone,
that is exactly what it's like.
Remember Bill Kristol, who said that the divisions between Sunni and Shi'a in Iraq were a "myth?" Isn't he still Serious
, whereas Phil Donahue (whose show was very popular on MSNBC) was UnSerious for inveighing against the invasion, and his show was canceled because of it?
This is what happens when you forget who you are. As lefty activists, it is our duty to push the Powers that Be to the left. And no, you can't do that from inside the Village
, as so many are just starting to discover.
I think this may be why the propaganda was so insistent upon pushing the notion that Obama was an "outsider" and not part of the Washington Way like Evil Hillary. This made Obama appealing to people like Rachel Maddow and David Sirota, without whose imprimatur this whole clusterfuck may never have happened.
Unfortunately, Obama is from Chicago. And the Chicago Way is either the same as, or worse than, the Washington Way.
Oy vey.
Never vote for people who hate you.
ERA Now!
The Widdershins
Did Sirota lose his napkin
n/t
Only tyrants rig elections.
Criticisms shouldn't be taken as personal attack
In respose to okanogen [Thu, 01/07/2010 - 1:22pm] uncalled for provication (see below)
Actually, I do like this post, it lays out an argument and then provides links to support it.
What I criticized and what Okanogen lacks the intellectual chops to understand...is skipping the part where you lay out an argument and going directly to links and forcing the reader to waste time trying to figure out just what you are trying to say.
And SURPRISE...things have improved on that count. There are far fewer posts with an incomplete sentence leading to a series of links in which you have to surmise the intent. And I have also taken Lamberts advice, I've come here less often and comment less often. I see Okanogen, thinks he chased me off...good for him.
What Okanogen fails to understand in his NW passive aggressive way, is criticism shouldn't be taken as personal attack, often it meant to help the person accomplish their desired task.
And this line "I joke (of course)" hah, what a tell, keep sreading your bile Okanogen.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
link, link, link, link, link
new
By okanogen on Thu, 01/07/2010 - 1:22pm
Couldn't you have done this post without all the distracting links. As that commenter said:
How about cutting down on the...link, link, link,link, link, link,link, link, link,link, link,link, link, link,link, link, link,link, link, link,link, link, link, link, link,link, link, link,link, link, link,link, link...stuff.
This is an important subject, but nobody will get that from the way you posted this!!!
Write something cognitive with a couple [AT THE MOST] highly germane links, or write on trivial subjects that have no importance.
I joke (of course).
Poor David, "if only we had known". If only there had been some place, some method, to point out what was happening, in real time. What would we call that thing, that place, that method?