Registered? Please log in below.
New? Please register.
Here are some reasons why.
Register
User login
Poll
Recent comments
- Joel
- Joel
- Wry Mouth
- Wry Mouth
- Wry Mouth
- crywalt
- Wry Mouth
- john 2000
- john 2000
Active forum topics
Recent blog posts
- Instamonkey: God bless Tom McClintock
- Instamonkey: Penn Jillette on Obama and Vegas
- The Green Police can get the hell out of my head, out of my house, and out of my wallet
- Rep. John Murtha has died (UPDATED)
- Dr. Zaius is now a contributor to Big Government
- The Tea Party, Joseph Farah and Sarah Palin: Trying to distinguish the fringe from the mainstream in the Republican Party
- Peggy Noonan is wrong about liberals and 9/11
- Imagine if America's Founders had Auto-tune, Marshall stacks and Final Cut Pro
- Drinking on the cheap
- No, this is not a bad dream
Who's online
There are currently 1 user and 48 guests online.
Online users
- RobbL
Navigation
Credits, etc.
Monkey logos by Katherine Roe
(who had no part in the color design)
Hosting graciously provided by Oliver Fross.
Instamonkey: Queenan on the 'Man-Up, Barack' brigades
Sun, 10/25/2009 - 22:45 — Ben
Joe Queenan has some tough words for Barack Obama's liberal critics in Monday's Wall Street Journal:
In demanding that the president man up and do the will of the people—as defined by last night's polls—critics are insisting that the president dance with the one who brung him. Well, he is dancing with the one who brung him. Barack Obama got elected president in large part because an awful lot of blue-collar Democrats in Pennsylvania and Ohio and the border states voted for him. He didn't get elected simply because of liberals in Malibu and Massachusetts. So, in reality, Mr. Obama already has manned up. He's told the left wing of the Democratic Party that he's running the show, not them. Not comfortable with that? Go blog about it.
Er... over to you, Joel?
Bookmark/Search this post with:
Chatter (tweets)
- benboychuk: Love that CBS promos for the next Survivor has Abraham Lincoln pitted against the Devil. Put that in your pipe and smoke it, Tom DiLorenzo!
- Poochucker: Outrage re: notes on Palin's palm is rich coming from people whose hero takes a teleprompter into the shitter so he doesn't forget to grunt.
- benboychuk: @Stranahan Buck up, Lee. Could be plenty worse.
- benboychuk: Is Ethan Hawke playing essentially the same role in "Brooklyn's Finest" that he played in "Training Day"? If so, isn't that a little... odd?
- benboychuk: Instamonkey: God bless Tom McClintock http://tinyurl.com/yllofkj
- benboychuk: @PhilHendrieShow The Snickers spot with Betty White and Abe Vigoda. Betty White is a GENIUS.
- benboychuk: @jstrevino Yeah, I won't defend that episode. Truth is, my wife and I were latecomers to the David Tennant Doctor. Critical sense failed.
- benboychuk: @jstrevino The ending alone is worth it. But I sort of liked "Planet of the Dead." I don't know. Maybe I was beguiled by Michelle Ryan.
Alliances
"The Monkeys have been going through my garbage. I blame John Ashcroft."
- Glenn Reynolds
Comments
Over to moi?
That's maybe the single paragraph in the entire piece that has any feel of legitimacy to it. The rest of the piece boils down to: "The president's liberal critics are effete wusses! And being president is hard!" Haha! That Joe Queenan sure is a tough guy! If he could just go around and punch all the WSJ's readers in the face instead of having to do something so soft and hoity-toity as writing, I'm sure that would've been his first choice.
OK, snark off.
I'd counter Queenan by noting that Barack Obama also got elected president in large part because an awful lot of liberal Democrats in Pennsylvania and Ohio and the border states voted for him -- instead of staying home or giving Ralph Nader another chance. He didn't get elected simply because of the blue-collar workers.
Truth is: All winning presidential politics is coalition politics. Successful politicians are good at tending both their base and the folks closer to the center, and yes: that can be a tricky balancing act. But just because it's tricky doesn't mean liberals should shut up. If Obama never gets any pressure from the left to do stuff we want, what incentive will he have to do those things? A politician's feet should always be held to the fire or he'll almost always take the safest and least-principled approach. And Barack Obama is just a politician.
I don't know if I should
But here goes....
Barack Husein Obama is not going to do anything other than what he wants to do. I don't believe he feels any obligation to any group of voters. If anything, he thinks they all knew what he was going to do, and they all voted for it. Now we can spend forever talking about how the news failed to cover what Obama actually said, did or associated with. But in the end, Obama went to DC with a host of other democrats, so even if he didn't run a campaign of lies of omissions, its a good bet he could believe he has some sort of mandate. (Which he doesn't, but I'll leave that alone for now.)
Now that mandate may seem a little tenuous. He might be looking at the political landscape and instead of doing things in the open, now looks to back room maneuvering. He altogether stopped with the health care speeches and interviews, since they did nothing but hurt the cause. It was only after the Senate started making bills that were light on details (the Bacus 'framework' was not a bill) and the negotiations go to the back rooms, did there begin to be an uptick in the support of the bills. Hell, the insurance mandate wasn't even Obama's idea, and he criticized it when it was Hilliary's in the campaign.
It seems to me that Obama is doing all the desires of the Left, he's just stopped doing it in the open. Remember the first couple weeks? 'I won the election' was his response to why everyone should go along with his plans. He has since decided that 'transparency' isn't all its cracked up to be. That takes too much explanation, and the more he explains the more the conservative democrats start catching on that they might have been duped.
Not only him, but the Liberal democrats the House and Senate are realizing the same thing. Pelosi is stuck because the majority of her voters are all far left so she can't stop talking in the open. Which is making Rieds voters more and more uncomfortable with the DNC in general, and putting his seat in jeopardy.
I actually saw a Blue Dog Democrat on Hannity talking about how the Public Option is not something he or his constituents want.
And lets all recall what was the original plan for the health care bills. The whole process was to be wrapped up and signed into law before the August recess. Before anyone knew what was really being voted on. Before anyone knew what was going to happen to them.
Post new comment