Thomas Frank interviews Cornel West:
Frank: I... remember... being impressed by Barack Obama who was running for president... I sometimes thought that he looked like he had what this country needed... That was a huge turning point, that moment in 2008, and my own feeling is that we didn’t turn.Another neoliberal centrist with a smile and with a nice rhetorical flair? That's what I hoped I might get when I voted for Obama in 2008. He never assured us he'd be a left-winger, but some people — people who wanted that — projected their hope onto him, and of course, he invited everyone to see him as the embodiment of whatever it was they hoped for.
West: No, the thing is he posed as a progressive and turned out to be counterfeit. We ended up with a Wall Street presidency, a drone presidency, a national security presidency. The torturers go free. The Wall Street executives go free. The war crimes in the Middle East, especially now in Gaza, the war criminals go free. And yet, you know, he acted as if he was both a progressive and as if he was concerned about the issues of serious injustice and inequality and it turned out that he’s just another neoliberal centrist with a smile and with a nice rhetorical flair....
West: And we ended up with a brown-faced Clinton.That's crudely stated, and I wouldn't talk like that, but that's about exactly what I hoped for. A pragmatic centrist like Bill Clinton, and as a bonus, we get the first African American President. I didn't vote merely on that hope. It was also the case that John McCain lost me. It's always only a choice between 2 (or, rarely, 3) candidates. You can't get everything you want, and you can't know everything about what you are getting.
Frank: Is there anybody who thinks he’s progressive enough today?Ha ha. That's reminiscent of the old Pauline Kael quote — which I'll take the trouble to quote correctly: "I live in a rather special world. I only know one person who voted for Nixon. Where they are I don’t know. They’re outside my ken. But sometimes when I’m in a theater I can feel them."
West: Nobody I know.
Hey, Professor West! Meet me. I'm an Obama-'08 voter who thinks he's progressive enough. He's even too progressive. I voted for Mitt Romney in '12 because he seemed to be more of a pragmatic centrist like Bill Clinton, and we'd have had the bonus of the first Mormon President. I'm outside your ken, Professor West, but sometimes, when you're on the internet, you can feel me.
Frank: There’s a lot of disillusionment now. My liberal friends included. The phrase that I have heard from more than one person in the last year is they feel like they got played.Who gets played in this world? Take some responsibility.
West: That’s true. That’s exactly right. What I hear is that, “He pimped us.” I heard that a zillion times. “He pimped us, brother West.” That’s another way of saying “we got played.”
Frank: What on earth ails the man? Why can’t he fight the Republicans?...Frank is the author of "What's the Matter with Kansas?," so the notion is: Something is wrong with you if you're not left-wing.
West: I think Obama... doesn’t realize that a great leader, a statesperson, doesn’t just occupy middle ground. They occupy higher ground or the moral ground or even sometimes the holy ground.... He always moves to the middle ground.... You go straight to the establishment and reassure them that you’re not too radical... These guys are running things, and these are neoliberal, deregulating free marketeers...Middle ground... not too radical... that's what I wanted. Higher ground... holy ground... that's what scares me. That's where the demagogues want to take us. Government is not religion, and it shouldn't feel like religion.
West: I think part of it is just temperament. That his success has been predicated on finding that middle ground. “We’re not black. We’re not white. We’re not rich. We’re not poor. There’s no classes in America. We are all Americans. We’re the American family.” He invoked the American family last week.Yes, and that temperament was what got him elected. Go back and read, for example, Mara Liasson at NPR, writing in September 2008, "Even-Keeled Obama Built Image On Bridging Divides." ("He has reacted with characteristic cool and caution to the Wall Street financial crisis, holding back at times while his rival charged ahead. His campaign mantra is 'No Drama Obama.'")
West continues:
West: It’s a lie, brother.If it's a lie, it's the lie that got him elected. If it's a lie, he was posing — posing as a centrist. But West wants to say he was posing as a progressive. When? Where? For which voters? Not the centrist voters like me who made his election possible.
West: You’ve got to be able to tell the truth... We’re not a family. We’re a people... And a nation always has divisions... and your foreign policy is running amok with Israelis committing war crimes against precious Palestinians and you won’t say a mumbling word about the Palestinian children. What is history going to say about you? Counterfeit! That’s what they’ll say, counterfeit. Not the real thing.The "real thing" that West wants is a real thing that Americans would not have elected.
Posts
205 comments:
1 – 200 of 205 Newer› Newest»A learning experience for you liberals, if you're willing to take advantage of it: government usually does the opposite of what you want even when your own guy is in charge of it. Shouldn't this take a bit off the edge of your enthusiasm for having government do more and more?
Anarchy ≠ Progressive
educated and intelligent are not necessarily the same thing.
"Shouldn't this take a bit off the edge of your enthusiasm for having government do more and more?"
Based on where I live, Schackowski's district in IL, no. Lefties never admit defeat or that they are wrong about anything.
Bad schools? We don't spend enough money. Housing market collapse? Predatory lenders and corrupt bankers. And on it goes. As Cornell West asserts Obama was just not "progressive" enough. Watch that meme catch on now it has been give an official vetting by Cornhole West.
Obama has a streak of Bill Ayers and Charles Manson in him. That is not necessarily "progressive."
If Cornell West views the current president as not progressive enough, where, oh where on the political spectrum, does West reside?
He played them alright, and he continues to play us everyday.
The pragmatic Bill Clinton set the stage for Osama Bin Laden and his gang. We can't afford much more of that kind of pragmatism.
Except that there was absolutely no reason to think that he would be any of those things.
educated, intelligent adults and Cornel West.
Which one of these is not like the other??
If I got a quarter for every byline that went something like, "Wow, Obama's ineptness and status-quo presidency sure blindsided us" I might be able to pay for my govt mandated health care
When guys are saying it's an estrogen orgy, as in 2008, listen to them.
Women can't vote worth shit. They ought to take that into account.
Sort of like flying an airplane on instruments. You feel you're turning right. The instruments say you're not. Believe the instruments.
Ah, it's just my inner ear, you say to yourself. Truth is out there to correct it.
Give your feelings a pilot. That would be guys.
And the rubes keep self- identifying. Conservatives are the stupid ones, yet we saw this coming a mile or more away.
If one is educated and intelligent, why did u fall for the huckster?
fEeeeeelings, nothing more than FEEEEEeeeeLINGS and a nice crease in his pants.
The Clueless learning again they are clueless. Again blaming someone else.
Obama didn't do anything much different than standard politics. He tried to appeal to as broad a cross section as possible.
Voters and these so called elites should stop looking for a political Messiah. They come about as often as the actual one.
What ridiculous children. Anyone with a bit of self awareness knows that no matter what your lofty political ideals, you run into the rocks of reality when you take office and have to actually govern. The country is centrist, so presidents have to concede a lot of their agendas to political reality.
So Obama didn't usher in an era of left-wing flower circles and sunshine? Either he turned out to be a moderate in liberal clothing, or he's just too incompetent to enact a progressive agenda, or just maybe that's how Washington works--and I think it's likely a combination of the three.
But if you were having fainting spells back in 2008 because you were so moved by Obama's lofty rhetoric, you're probably an idiot anyway.
We got what happens when you buy a pig in a poke - when we don't do our due diligence. There was no end of evidence that he was groomed by the Chicago machine and would be just what they wanted him to be. I imagine that his handlers are more than just the Chicago machine now, but it's no mystery who they are in general: "Come meet the new boss; the same as the old boss."
You can't get everything you want and you couldn't have known?
Known knowns
Known unknowns
Unknown unknowns
Or one looks at the paper trail we were allowed to see....and some of those unknown unknowns might have become known unknowns.
The man was simpatico with disenfranchised Marxists after all. And the Constitutional scholar found it filled with negative rights cos he only wants to help people....
Then there was the no real job...and great thoughts and oceans receding....
Nah. Unknown unknowns lefties in power.....rme
Seems like it was only yesterday I saw all the cool kids walking around with a copy of Dreams From My Father tucked under their arm. Everything they needed to know about The One was right in there, or so they thought. The book was as shallow as its author.
Probably deep down Obama is a socialist, but who knows? He is so inept no one really knows for sure and it doesn't matter anyway. He can't get it done. Sure, bring on the executive orders, not like the next President can't cancel them out. The awful healthcare law, Gays in the military and some lame executive orders will be his legacy. What a great President. Whole paragraphs will be written about him. Two more years of this empty suit than he is gone and good riddance.
The notion that Obama isn't a Progressive is simply a presentation of the "No True Scotsman" fallacy.
Obama represents perfectly what modern Progressives are and what they do when they wield power.
Is Althouse outside of Professor West's "ken"? After all they are both tenured professors.
"I think part of it is just temperament. That his success has been predicated on finding that middle ground. “We’re not black. We’re not white. We’re not rich. We’re not poor. There’s no classes in America."
Are these guys sentient? Obama wields class resentment as a cudgel.
As Pappy Maverick said, "You can fool all of the people some of the time, and some of the people all of the time, and those are very good odds."
And so Obama and his MSM pals fooled over 50 percent of the voters (while suppressing the Tea Party with the IRS), TWICE.
Good luck if the American voters vote in Hillary, cause we are gonna need it.
Everyone who expected anything of him is going to end up disappointed because he wasn't anything -- he was too incompetent to achieve anything on his own. If you wanted a Progressive, well he didn't achieve much that was progressive. If you wanted a centrist neo-liberal, well, he didn't get you that either. He has mostly just puttered around aimlessly on the edges of other peoples' policies, issuing the occasional oblivious, grandiloquent statement as things fall apart. His signature "achievement" -- the shambolic mess that is the ACA -- has more to do with Pelosi's mastery of Congressional procedure than it has to do with him. He was an irrelevancy even there. All we have is his unthinking, reflexive attitudes -- poses rather than policy.
For those of us who dislike the direction those mindless irritable mental gestures of his tend to take him, his very incompetence is perhaps his single most attractive feature.
Centrist voter? Maybe in Madison, you still tested out at 76% liberal.
Ya voted for a Chicago pol who surrounded himself with Chicago pols. Ever check out Jarretts history?You hoped the 1/2 black portion would sooth your boomer life. Or he'd lay his hands upon the country and say "HEAL." He was never that man and nothing in his background (Rev. Wright, cof cof) suggested it.
Some of us knew before 2008 he'd make it worse.
Stop digging.
I agree with whomever wrote and I paraphrase we will know we've moved.on when we elect a black republican.
"If Cornell West views the current president as not progressive enough, where, oh where on the political spectrum, does West reside?"
Presumably, somewhere left of center...where Obama assuredly does NOT reside, which is the point of West's completely accurate excoriation of Obama.
People did not merely allow themselves to believe Obama would be what they wanted him to be; he actively promoted himself as being something he was not and would not be. He lied.
Now, the more perspicacious of us could see that, as I did. I had planned to begrudgingly vote for him, until he broke his promise not to vote for the revised FISA bill as written, (i.e., it included greater latitude for government use of wiretaps without warrants and, more crucially, it provided retroactive legal protections to the telecoms for being accomplices to Bush's illegal wiretapping). That Obama could and would so blithely break a specific vow not to vote for the FISA bill as written before he was elected as President told me clearly he would not keep his promises and had no compunction about lying to his constituents. A candidate who would do this before getting in office certainly would have NO reason to adhere to promises or tell the truth once he obtains office. He has already learned his followers will let themselves be shit on without protest.
And so it has been.
Probably deep down Obama is a socialist, but who knows?
Nope.
Deep down, Obama has no deep down.
Obama's appeal, more than any successful candidate I can remember, depended upon his supporters assuming that the was lying to get elected. Anything centrist he would say, his supporters would nod knowingly and assert that he had to say that, he couldn't say what he really believed. Even Althouse assumed that his professed Christianity and belief in God was what he had to say, but that he was lying.
Sometimes, there's no subtext; the text is all there is.
Pffft like a lefty wouldn't have met a FISA bill s/he didn't like. Cold War baby, cookie.
Very interesting that Cornel West singles out the actions of the IDF, committing 'war crimes,' against 'precious Palestinians.' Are not Syrian children precious?
I realized that the bloom was off the rose when this Obama girl burned her Obama shirt.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VIMnIh10po0
Her and West feel like President Selfie is not progressive enough. Based on the polling, most of the rest of us are just tired of the Democratic War on Competence.
Don't mistake ineptness for not caring, the regulatory agencies and pens are ready. They already found a way around Hobby Lobby cos 16 forms of BC aren't enough.
The elite betters got played and the work-a-day dumbasses like me saw right through this guy.
Reneging on the public financing promise should have been the first clue that this guy would say, and do anything to get elected. He then proceeded to rape campaign finance law. "Look at all these small donations! Little people giving their pennies to help me!" The womenz really eat that shit up. The FEC decided that McCain's finances needed to be audited, and Black English Spice skated.
Womenz started faintin at the rallies. "Stand back. Get her a bottle of water. We got a paramedic in the crowd?" It was always a woman that fainted. "It was summer time and those rallies were like totally crowded," said the intellectuals.
At the end of the campaign, Swaggy Smiley went all Johnny Football on Johnny POW and the eggheads were thrilled! He is so cool!
Now they want to bitch about being pimped? Hilarious!
Obama was a member of the Chicago political machine. He was successful because he did what the machine told him to do. His primary loyalty was to the machine and like all members of the machine his primary job was to help the machine accumulate more power.
He had no real qualifications for being President. His supporters were pretty much reduced to citing his "first class temperament" and how well he was running his campaign when it was pointed out that he had no executive experience whatsoever.
In addition, there were plenty of indications that he was an ideologue: twenty plus years of attending Reverend Wright's church, "spreading the wealth around", "electricity prices will sky rocket" and a narcissist "healing the planet", "we are the ones we have been waiting for."
But for some reason intelligent people who are normally perceptive decided that voting for him was a marginally better choice than his opponent.
And considering the first opponent was John McCain, I can't say I disagree with that proposition. But just about everyone on the conservative side of the political divide predicted that a replay of the Carter years was the best case scenario. Unfortunately, we were correct.
Frank: There’s a lot of disillusionment now. My liberal friends included. The phrase that I have heard from more than one person in the last year is they feel like they got played.
West: That’s true. That’s exactly right. What I hear is that, “He pimped us.” I heard that a zillion times. “He pimped us, brother West.” That’s another way of saying “we got played.”
Hmmmm. Has anyone here ever called Zero a con man? Hmmmm.
Doh.
OK, you proved too stupid to spot a con man, please don't vote again Mr. Frank and Mr. West.
I didn't know West was also an anti-Semite. Black people are the biggest bigots. Ask the gay community about that.
"...but that's about exactly what I hoped for. A pragmatic centrist like Bill Clinton, and as a bonus, we get the first African American President."
Okay...
"I didn't vote merely on that hope. It was also the case that John McCain lost me."
LOL
Womenz started faintin at the rallies.
Don't forget the "I love you" that was shouted by a trusted staffer at every campaign stop, and the "I love you back" response.
I'll guess the fainting woman was staged as well.
If you paid attention in 2007, you would have seen what I saw and still see. An arrogant, divisive, race baiting poser who ran on Hope and change, and people trusted him. He lied then, and he is still lying. Just open your eyes and ears....
"Everyone who expected anything of him is going to end up disappointed because he wasn't anything -- he was too incompetent to achieve anything on his own. If you wanted a Progressive, well he didn't achieve much that was progressive. If you wanted a centrist neo-liberal, well, he didn't get you that either."
Obama is an actor. Reagan said he thought every president would do better having been an actor but that assumed he had real beliefs and competence. Obama has no real belief other than a childish attachment to leftist ideology, like many actors.
Cecil B DeMille said, "It's sincerity that is most important. If you can fake that, you've got it made." He would have loved Obama.
"Is Althouse outside of Professor West's "ken"? After all they are both tenured professors."
I'm outside of his ken, and he's outside of my barbie.
I assume this interview was before the Hamas Public Execution Spree, not that Brother West would see anything wrong with shootin them spies in the head.
John McCain becomes a better and better candidate as his actual campaign recedes into the cobwebs of history.
Let's all recall how he suspended his campaign for the Presidency to go back to DC and do ... what, exactly?
Like any Senator (including Obama), McCain is great at deliberating. Actually making a decision is something he flails at.
The choice foisted on voters in 2008 was horrible.
You vote and hope for the best.
Now that we've heard from Robert Cook, I'm hoping to hear from Amy Goodman at Democracy Now! and maybe Rik Hertzberg over at the New Yorker, and sooner or later a cacophony of chatterers who'll come to 'empathize' with whatever you put in front of their cameras, careers and egos.
It can't be the ideas, so it must be Obama, or the Republicans, or events, or racism, or the system, or the hicks and rubes in Flyoverland, or the 'broken system,' or the Patriarchy, or the bitterly-clinging capitalists, or the dated portions of the Constitution.
Maybe the bourgeoisie was too falsely unconcscious so there's work to be done, comrade. Keep those bullhorns ready. The work is never done.
I mean, the data is there, the scales have been removed from our eyes. It's practically (S)cience.
Why is America so rooted in its own national pride, ignorance, traditions, customs, Constitution, local connections and protections against power?
Where is that 'international community' and why can't America contribute to the Global Human Council and have free and equal libraries and color-blind people like the brochures?
The progressive position, "We need a deeper hole."
Maybe it is time to revisit your thinking about why McCain "lost you" and consider whether your reasons were actually valid in light of new information, instead of accepting them as a given.
But hey, that's just me.
Lefties never stop jerking each other off about how wise and good they are.
Also - "[...]Israelis committing war crimes against precious Palestinians[...]"
Fuck Cornel West. Fuck him right in the ear.
I have a very low opinion of Barak Obama. And its identical to the one I had in 2008. There were numerous tip-offs: non-votes in the senate, no articles in the Harvard Law Review despite being editor, tithing ($23,000) to Jeremiah Wright the previous year, close association with Bill Ayers... Many facts were available that attested to his far-left leanings and a complete lack of character. And that he is totally disinterested in actually governing.
Let's face it. He was appealing to the lady parts, young LIVs wanted to show the geezers and obviously he is BLACK.
precious Palestinians
Shark. Jumped.
chrisnavin.com said...
Now that we've heard from Robert Cook, I'm hoping to hear from Amy Goodman at Democracy Now! and maybe Rik Hertzberg over at the New Yorker, and sooner or later a cacophony of chatterers who'll come to 'empathize' with whatever you put in front of their cameras, careers and egos.
It can't be the ideas, so it must be Obama, or the Republicans, or events, or racism, or the system, or the hicks and rubes in Flyoverland, or the 'broken system,' or the Patriarchy, or the bitterly-clinging capitalists, or the dated portions of the Constitution.
Maybe the bourgeoisie was too falsely unconcscious so there's work to be done, comrade. Keep those bullhorns ready. The work is never done.
I mean, the data is there, the scales have been removed from our eyes. It's practically (S)cience.
Why is America so rooted in its own national pride, ignorance, traditions, customs, Constitution, local connections and protections against power?
Where is that 'international community' and why can't America contribute to the Global Human Council and have free and equal libraries and color-blind people like the brochures?
That's worth repeating
I don't know what it takes to win a thread, but this is a winner.
Cornel West is saying something important: many on the left are dissatisfied with Obama.
That's easy for West; he'd be dissatisfied with Karl Marx.
But Obama, he's not left enough, not black enough, not American enough, not hurt enough...too enriched by Wall Street, too encouraged by big business, too inclined to support the military.
The left in America is going into the wilderness. They don't know what they want anymore, except that they want what you and I may already have.
Yeah, I agree with Robert Cook: deep down, Obama has no deep down. As Gertrude Stein said about somewhere near Los Angeles, there is no there there. That's why the golf, the military incidents, the willing lies about Benghazi, the Jeremiah Wright crap, the multiple autobiographies, and the rhetoric without follow-through. Obama does not know what to believe.
Ms. Althouse, justify your vote however your ego demands. It won't change the fact that you voted based on your emotions.
Bottom line; you voted for someone with zero executive experience, a lackluster record in the state senate and an achievement-free stint unless you count running for POTUS)as a US Senator. And that was about all we knew of him besides his skin color.
Even before the 2008 vote Obama was breaking campaign promises...remember his pledge on how he was going to fund his campaign? And what about all the anonymous foreign money that flowed into his coffers that he claimed he couldn't do anything about?
Face it, voting for someone about whom you have no real information and who, pre-election, was already spinning his promises is simply voter malfeasance.
You made a mistake. Face it, embrace it and learn from it.
I suspect you have...a little.
I wish you well.
Of all the various killings in the Middle East, West picks up on those in Gaza. The Gaza casualties are to the Middle East proportionally about the same as police killings are to Bloods/Crips fatalities.......Yellow journalism. Has there been one published photo of a Hamas operative setting up a rocket or mortar by a UN school?. Lots of pictures of wounded Palestinian children but no pictures of Hamas operatives......Obama knows where to go for his fund raisers. Not much sense passing the chicken bucket around at Ferguson rallies. The stock market is setting new highs. I've got no problem with that. He got something right. I knew it was just a matter of time.
Cookie: "Deep down, Obama has no deep down."
Sounds reminiscent of an Alan Alda line from M.A.S.H: "Deep down, he's shallow"
Hillary 2016. Prepare for the same story, the same act, the same result. Stop paying attention to Obama and realize you are going to repeat the same mistake.
Btw the answer to the question is "no."
Bob Ellison: "Obama does not know what to believe."
Hmmmm.
I think that's generally correct, although I would have characterized it as Obama does not know specifically what to believe, but he does know that he's supposed to be over there somewhere on the left/far left/crazy left.
However, since he is unbelievably shallow and ill informed, he doesn't even truly understand even the lefts positions, much less his political opponents (though, to be fair, that is a common trait of those on the left).
That's why obama is not an effective spokesperson for the left or the desires of the left.
He wants to be, he simply doesn't know how.
And if you can't do that, how are you supposed to be able to create the rhetorical justification for going in a particular direction and get people to follow that vision?
You can't.
Obama is a leftist at heart, but he doesn't know what that means beyond "I hate conservatives, America isn't exceptional, the West sucks and leave me alone so I can eat my waffle!"
And so we drift.
Balfegor said: Everyone who expected anything of him is going to end up disappointed because he wasn't anything -- he was too incompetent to achieve anything on his own.
I disagree; single issue voters (read:gay marriage advocates, pro-abortion feminists)got exactly what they wanted, and La Raza WILL get what it wants.
I have thought Obama really has no political beliefs other than the generalized leftism of the faculty lounge, a belief in the state and an even bigger belief in his mission.
Seriously, what can one really expect from a guy who is just a relay swimmer in the river of history?
Paraphrasing Teh One who was going to roll back the oceans...
We are the ones we've been waiting for.
As a centrist myself, I am perfectly happy, especially after the unhinged radicals that occupied the last administration. No one was ever going to confuse Cheney with a centrist.
Obama isn't a darker hued Clinton. The Clinton's folded like a pack of cards when opposition to their health care plan seemed like it was going to be a political liability. Obama was made of mildly sterner stuff and has seen off the critics to at least a draw if not an actual victory. The Clintons have no core. Obama is by nature a centrist.
Everyone who expected anything of him is going to end up disappointed because he wasn't anything -- he was too incompetent to achieve anything on his own.
Balfegor, I absolutely agree.
The people who I know who still like him/love him are just solid Democrats who are always going to like a Democratic president. Plus, they think the GOP is unfair to him and they like the way he takes it to Republicans.
People looking for leadership from Obama who are now disappointed should have paid more attention to the work he did with Bill Ayers for the Annenberg school challenge. It was all about throwing money at mildly socialist ideas with no accountability or real plan.
Obama's results were so bad he completely left it off his resume and lied about his relationship in knowing Ayers.
Should have been a big, fat clue for a man with such a small resume. But people were so in love with Obama in 2008, there was no being rational.
Obama has a deep down. He is committed to statism. It is the ideology that is failing. Cooke and West are doing what all progressives do when progressive policy fails; they say they just need the right leader and it isn't Obama. Progressives whining about being played are just following the same script repeated throughout history.
People who value freedom are the ones getting played.k
Althouse continues to play Marion to Obama's Professor Henry Hill.
Except that since this is not a musical comedy, the country is not marching to 5% economic growth and world peace and the seas stopping their rise to the tune of Seventy Six Trombones.
"As a centrist myself" - ARM
Maybe among readers of the Sydney Morning Herald.
People who complain about McCain suspending his campaign to go back to DC should acknowledge that SENATOR OBAMA wanted to stay in Florida **to practice for his debate** and avoid getting involved in the biggest issue facing whichever man would become president.
I played at an event for largely middle class and well to do blacks in Oakland yesterday which included an auction for some black womens health organization or other. Vacations in Costa Rica and dinners in fancy restaurants brought active bidding and good prices but when the auctioneer brought out a large framed picture of Obama with his "We are the ones we've been waiting for" speech on it, and signed by Obama himself there wasn't one bid. The auctioneer even jokingly accused the audience, at least 95% black, of being Republicans but the silence was deafening.
And delicious.
Robert Cook clings to the old "Socialism has never been tried" trope, in another form.
Lolol Barry's a centrist. With friends like rev. wright and Bill ayers? And Valerie Jarrett? Much less his daddy who he wants to be worthy of.
So Tim, in your learned opinion, is there any viable argument that Obama is not a centrist? Both left and right see him as leaning too far the other way. Isn't that by definition the fate of real centrists?
"educated and intelligent are not necessarily the same thing."
I think they're ignorant too.
"ig·no·rant adjective \ˈig-n(É™-)rÉ™nt\
: lacking knowledge or information
: resulting from or showing a lack of knowledge"
They're doing it again. Playing semantic games to evade responsibility. How many times can they repackage their antiquated philosophy and present it as "liberal", "progressive", or "change"? There is a classical liberal philosophy. There is a classical progressive philosophy. There is an American philosophy which combines the best of both, which is neither left nor right in the traditional sense.
As for Obama, he is a leftist, which is characterized by their predisposition to form monopolies or engage in monopolistic behaviors. However, the dysfunctional or unproductive aspects are a keystone of Western leftism or libertinism, which is neither liberal nor progressive in the classical sense.
Somewhat reminds me of the photo/joke I recently saw that the left wanted more government, and what they inevitably get are SWAT teams tear gassing protesters. The similarity here is that the left is funded by crony capitalist who see more government as the route to more wealth for them, because their money financing the election of leftist politicians positions them on the inside when competing for the benefits of that bigger government.
I should note that this election is moving in a similar direction - for example progressive billionaire Tom Steyer has pledged many of the millions he garnered from the Porkulus Green Energy giveaways to elect progressive candidates - presumably so that he can make even more from his close ties to powerful Dem politicians.
At least on the Republican side, this debate between crony capitalists and smaller government is played out fairly and mostly in the open. Former Majority Leader Cantor was unseated this year in that fight. Radical progressives like West still pretend that the power that they influence and seek somehow is acquired in some pure way, ignoring that their mechanism is the Democratic Party, which is the party of bigger government and more crony capitalism (which are inseparable). Crony capitalist money was used to buy the Presidency for their guy, Barack Obama, and the Wests out there somehow expected that he wouldn't have willingly paid off his backers for giving him his own 747s, helicopters, tribute song, big house, private retreat, and the ability to play golf around the country at the best courses whenever he wanted to.
"and as a bonus, we get the first African American President."
Yeah, that backfired, didn't it? It is a real tragedy that America's first black President is so hopelessly incompetent.
@rhhardin wrong.
Guys had the bigger bro crush on Obama. Remember Hillary was in the primaries. The females that showed even a hint of wanting to vote for her were destroyed online and in real life - never mind Palin/McCain. (Friendships were ended, publicly denouncements, character assassination.)
The 20 and 30 something guys went full military in his defense against anyone who thought differently. I include one of the guys who was killed in Benghazi, btw, who was an online admin/ mod on a political forum in his spare time and targeted hill supporters.
The older boomer males, meanwhile, saw a chance for their youthful dreams of racial equality to come to fruition and also came down hard for Obama and against anyone else.
The female crush existed, but it was pretty minor comparatively - with the younger ones often translating to a crush on the guys who supported Obama - which was a weak move in itself, not wanting to alienate potential mates, but with real world consequences.
AReasonableMan said...
"As a centrist myself, I..."
A ha ha ha ha! Ha ha ha ha!
"So Tim, in your learned opinion, is there any viable argument that Obama is not a centrist? Both left and right see him as leaning too far the other way. Isn't that by definition the fate of real centrists?"
Being an incompetent while also being a progressive does not qualify as being a centrist except maybe to the self-deluded.
And, as to West whining about Israel and Hamas, I would suggest that he just suck it up. A lot of the power that is being exercised by the left these days was purchased with Jewish money. Not Arab money, Muslim money, or even Black money, but Jewish money. This is one issue that could drive the bulk of the Jewish voters, and their money, into the Republican Party. And that could conceivably counteract giving millions of illegal Hispanics the vote, when it comes to building winning coalitions for the future.
I had high hopes for Obama based on his complete demolition of Hillary in the primaries. But 6 years on, seeing Hillary's terrible run as Secretary of State and thé two years since, I'm not so sure if Hillary actually imploded all on her own.
One of the consistent themes of the Obama administration is hubris. Starting at the top, Obama has surrounded himself with people like himself, people who think they are the smartest and most capable at all they can do. There is no humility in the administration, they cannot ask for help when they need help. They cannot negotiate, they cannot bargain, they cannot say sorry. Anything that shows weakness is simply swept under the carpet and ignored.
All the progressive leaders are frauds. Does the left not realize that?
Robert Cook wrote:
Presumably, somewhere left of center...where Obama assuredly does NOT reside, which is the point of West's completely accurate excoriation of Obama.
Obama is decidedly left of center. Cornel is on a different planet.
"The war crimes in the Middle East, especially now in Gaza, the war criminals go free."
The death toll in Syria is nearing 200,000 and anti-Semitic douchenozzles like West only want to talk about limiting the ability of the Jooz to defend Israel.
Saying Obama isn't sufficiently left is like saying Stalin wasn't communist enough.
Just because they are frauds to their ideology doenst mean they don't have the ideology.
When some religious leader turns out to be a womanizer ("I've sinned against you! booo hooo!")do we say they aren't Christian? NO, we simply say they are hypocrites.
You'll find that most lefty leaders are in fact hypocrites to their own agenda. Because the agenda itself is bogus.
"And, as to West whining about Israel and Hamas, I would suggest that he just suck it up. A lot of the power that is being exercised by the left these days was purchased with Jewish money. Not Arab money, Muslim money, or even Black money, but Jewish money. This is one issue that could drive the bulk of the Jewish voters, and their money, into the Republican Party. And that could conceivably counteract giving millions of illegal Hispanics the vote, when it comes to building winning coalitions for the future."
I wish, but I don't see any evidence of that starting to happen.
AReasonableMan said...
As a centrist myself,
Hilarious.
Oh, and remember, the Left has been informing us for quite sometime that the former Soviet leadership (and Putin now) are all actually "conservatives".
Socialism. If only it were really tried by the right people in the right place!
jr565: "You'll find that most lefty leaders are in fact hypocrites to their own agenda. Because the agenda itself is bogus."
I forget who said that whenever a conservative betrays their principles their lives become worse. Whenever a leftist betrays their principles their lives improve.
arm wrote: "So Tim, in your learned opinion, is there any viable argument that Obama is not a centrist? Both left and right see him as leaning too far the other way. Isn't that by definition the fate of real centrists?"
Obama is a poll pimp, but his agenda of single payer health care, massive welfare payments, expansive national debt, income redistribution, gay privilege, abortion on demand, etc., is hardly centrist.
Xmas: "Starting at the top, Obama has surrounded himself with people like himself, people who think they are the smartest and most capable at all they can do."
Well, in defense of obama and his loonies, when the lefty base is all charged up to embrace the cults of personality then why wouldn't the "personalities" heading up those cults come to see themselves as infallible?
After all, if just a crease in the pants is enough to get our educated elite swooning how could already out of control egotists not get swept further out to sea on the tides of unwarranted "worshipfulness"?
hombre: "Obama is a poll pimp, but his agenda of single payer health care, massive welfare payments, expansive national debt, income redistribution, gay privilege, abortion on demand, etc., is hardly centrist."
Monetizing the debt, weaponizing the federal bureaucracy against opponents, the list is endless.
"Centrist"?
Yeah, if you thought Lenin was a little bit of a leftist slacker.
Obama is a drone president because frankly, that's the minimum of what a president will be required to do when it comes to foreign policy.
He can withdraw all the troops he wants, but he has to then deal with the impact of withdrawing the troops. And no matter how blinded you are by your rhetoric, at a certain point you have to recognize that ISIS chopping off journalists head is unacceptable and letting ISIS grow in power without a sufficient response is not acceptable.
I say this also to my libertarian friends. If Rand Paul gets in there and wins, all his rhetoric is going to go out the window when he realizes it's STUPID,and not sufficient as a response.
Liberals: The candidate promised you he was going to surge in Afghanistan. All you had to do was walk back from that promise to the question of "why lose lives in Afghanistan and not Iraq" and the threadbare tapestry disintegrated. There was no good reason to surge in Afghanistan while drawing down in Iraq except to play politics with the McCain position.
The cynicism and opportunism couldn't have been clearer.
"... you run into the rocks of reality when you take office and have to actually govern."
Or, if you're Barack Obama, you simply... stop governing.
"Black people are the biggest bigots. Ask the gay community about that."
Yes, the way blacks keep gentrifying gays out of their neighborhoods is just awful.
What hombre said. How many dead children in Syria? How many in South Sudan? How many in Congo? How many in Somalia? Do they just not count if they're killed by other Muslims, or what? ISIS/ISIL/Islamic State -- chopped liver? Boko Haram, ditto?
Let's all recall how he suspended his campaign for the Presidency to go back to DC and do ... what, exactly?
Attend a five hour dinner for a staffer, then fly back to the golf course? No, that was the other one.
You can't get everything you want, and you can't know everything about what you are getting.
You can know just a little something about what you're getting, unless you've made up your mind not to.
His campaign mantra is 'No Drama Obama', something that worries even supporters who know winning primaries is often as much about kissing babies as making policy statements...oh, no, that was a worry about a guy who was "effective but not emotional", not a guy who's just not emotional.
he posed as a progressive
It's funny; when some people said Reagan had sold out and become a centrist, it was proof they were nutty fringe cranks who were even further to the right than he was, but when people say Obama sold out and became a centrist it's taken as proof that Obama's a centrist.
I find it curious that educated (and therefore presumed intelligent) people can be very gullible. Interesting also that people on the opposite end of the presumed intelligence spectrum (poor, uneducated, socially disadvantaged) were also taken in.
Personally I never did see or hear evidence of anything more than an empty suit
It is a real tragedy that America's first black President is so hopelessly incompetent.
Regression to the mean suggests that the next Black President will do a better job.
Obama is the 3rd President from Illinois. Lincoln, the first, was apparently great. Grant, the second was okay. Now Obama's tenure ensures a regression to the mean.
I sometimes thought that he looked like he had what this country needed...
Like Lyle Lanley had what Springfield needed.
Behind every great con man stand lots and lots of credulous pigeons.
I find it interesting how it is that educated, intelligent adults were taken in by Obama. What was it that they were unable to see that those who voted against him saw?
But more to the point, why didn't see it? And why did their vaunted intelligence and education fail them on this most important question?
Was it a lack of "street smarts" that made them such easy marks for a con job? If so, this defect is the Achilles heel of today's educated, intelligent adults.
Reagan was from Illinois.
Hildebeast, too! The smartest woman in the world!!!!!
How about this question regarding your own centrism. What arguments to the left of your position do you find unsupportable?
We are arguing about US politics here, where the center is decidedly to the right of a country like Australia.
Decisions decisions, can we afford another 4 years of the Chicago way? Just so shriveled ovaries can sit in the big chair?
Obama is a status quo president running the country as if he were mayor of Chicago.
Policy is payoffs to the special interest groups that support Democratic politicians.
That's all it is.
Two statists (including Thomas Frank, the Linda Lovelace of State-fellators) sad and blue because their standard-bearer hasn't succeeded in turning the USA into Venezuela del Norte. As someone who values liberty, let me comment: Boo @#$%ing hoo.
I swear there was an article on Barry surrounding himself with Oxford graduates. If that isn't a flashing red light, nothing is. Of course the Mao flags and followers....
The president shure talks purdy!
I thought Grant was from Ohio?
" I am perfectly happy, especially after the unhinged radicals that occupied the last administration. No one was ever going to confuse Cheney with a centrist."
O, sweet irony! Based purely on policies retained or expanded, Obama has been Cheney's biggest fan. You just know Cheney's been opening his New York Times every morning for the last six years and laughing his ass off.
"Drago said...
AReasonableMan said...
As a centrist myself,
Hilarious."
I think that's the response he was hoping for.
He knows he's a progressive. He's proud of being a progressive. He reads the NY Times exclusively.
But he still can't finish the sunday crossword.
Deep down, Obama has no deep down.
This is probably the only Cook post with which I agree.
....well, partially agree. Dear Leader has no 'deep down', but he is truly a socialist tyrant at heart. Small r republican government is not his thing.
-Krumhorn
Here's the question though--is Obama's progressivism heartfelt, or is it in itself a manifestation of his own political pragmatism? To lead today's Democratic party you have to at least pay lip service to progressive goals--more labor unions, decreasing "inequality" by raising the minimum wage, slapping another layer of regulation on banks--and more importantly, does it matter?
The real issue for bilious popinjays like Cornel West is that Obama didn't fail to enact a "progressive" agenda because he didn't want to--he failed to do so because he simply couldn't. Between the GOP and red state Democrats (who actually need the votes of people who don't spend their days in drum circles) there's enough opposition to the more extreme leftist initiatives. Even Cap and Trade (which likely was considered a compromise by the far left) couldn't get passed, and that was when Obama had a large majority in both houses of Congress. The ACA had to ditch the public option, and a lot of lefties even considered the public option to be too compromised. Ultimately, the ACA barely passed and Pelosi and Reid had to use all their tricks to do so.
Obama may or may not have wanted to come down harder on the banks, but either way he simply couldn't do so because his party needed bankers' money and he'd had enough advisers telling him it would make things worse. As it was, he settled for Dodd Frank.
So maybe these fawning leftists made the mistake of believing their own press releases, and thought this guy was going to use audacity and hope and come into Washington like a whirlwind and change things because yes we can or something. If so, they're morons, but the same lesson can be learned on the right--no Republican is going to swoop in and pass a flat tax or make Social Security voluntary or shut down a few Cabinet level departments. You can push a bit at the margins, but this country is centrist and even an economic mess like in 2008 won't be enough to change that.
"I thought Grant was from Ohio?"
He was born in Ohio and Lincoln was born in Ky but they both lived their adult lives in Illinois.
tim in vermont said...
How about this question regarding your own centrism. What arguments to the left of your position do you find unsupportable?
You ducked my question.
I am a fully fledged capitalist. I actively support free enterprise and view it as the foundation of the US economy. I am not even vaguely a leftist. I disagree with Robert Cook almost as regularly as I do with many of the doctrinaire wingers here.
I think our current version of the financial industry is an abomination that should be substantially dismantled, which could be interpreted as leftist, but I don't think this makes me anti-capitalist. I would simply prefer to see our energies and money go into productive export oriented industries not being skimmed off by a largely unproductive bunch of government subsidized crooks. If you wanted any evidence that Obama is not a left winger his failure to take a chainsaw to the financial industry is that evidence. It was not a failure on his part,since he didn't even try;. He clearly doesn't see the current makeup of the financial industry as a problem. If anything, it has been strengthened during his term.
Rusty said...
He reads the NY Times exclusively.
I actually read the WSJ, except on Sundays, when it is not available.
I don't think a lot of you guys realize how far out of the main stream you really are.
Amazing that America didn't pick John McCain and Sarah Palin. What was it?
"Cooke and West are doing what all progressives do when progressive policy fails; they say they just need the right leader and it isn't Obama."
Wrong. I never believed in Obama and I never voted for him. It was because I could see he was without convictions and could not be trusted to do as he promised or even to tell the truth: he's nothing, a cipher, empty. He has not made any attempts at progressive policy.
Bruce Hayden said...
And, as to West whining about Israel and Hamas, I would suggest that he just suck it up. A lot of the power that is being exercised by the left these days was purchased with Jewish money. Not Arab money, Muslim money, or even Black money, but Jewish money. This is one issue that could drive the bulk of the Jewish voters, and their money, into the Republican Party
No, Jews are idiots on many issues.
Tank (a Jew)
"Saying Obama isn't sufficiently left is like saying Stalin wasn't communist enough. Just because they are frauds to their ideology doenst mean they don't have the ideology."
Sure it does. That's exactly what it means. That's why so many here choose to insist--lacking a scintilla of evidence--that Obama is a progressive, a leftist, even more ludicrously, a socialist. In this way, Obama's failure proves the inevitable failure of the bugaboo ideology du jour.
I never could have voted for Obama after he threw his grandma under the bus. But then McCain wasn't up to the job either--he never saw a war he didn't like. As usual, I voted for Ron Paul.
Reagan was the only President born in Illinois. The other three were adults in Illinois.
Its really having to apologize to the families of all those dead Iraquis and Kurds, and Syrians, and Libyans and Ukranians and .....To be continued.
I watched some speeches and interviews by and with Obama 15 months before the 2008 election. It was blindingly obvious that he was a remarkably unintelligent, narcissist poser who was what his sycophants projected on him. I knew then and told everyone who would listen that if elected he would be among the worse US presidents, but never guessed he would be this bad.
Yes, the way blacks keep gentrifying gays out of their neighborhoods is just awful.
This is one of the race issue tropes that just kills me. Why is it "their" neighborhood? Did they build the buildings from nothing and then live there since?
There are entire swaths of St Louis that were once predominantly, if not overwhelmingly white. Ferguson, so much in the news lately, used to be 99% white along with the rest of north county.
Why would Ferguson be considered "theirs" if teh gheys decided they wanted to start sprucing (Brucing?) up the place?
Postscript/addendum to my previous post: garage mahal, another State-fellator who wishes "Il Dufe" had turned the USA into Venezuela del Norte.
I used to live in Jennings. My aunt used to live in Spanish lake. Both are within ten miles of Ferguson and both were once predominantly white, middle-class/trade skill neighborhoods.
They started block-busting in the sixties and seventies. Crime rates went up, housing values went down. Somewhere along the way the schools started sucking as well.
I suppose though, that to the white residents, it wasn't "their" neighborhood because #privilege or something.
"This is one of the race issue tropes that just kills me. Why is it "their" neighborhood? Did they build the buildings from nothing and then live there since?"
Clearly you don't get how it works. I'll explain it:
Exhibit A: A white guy says he doesn't like how the neighborhood is changing with black or hispanic families moving in. He tries to convince his neighbors not to sell to such people, claims it's going to change the character of the neighborhood and affect him and other white people who remain in a negative way. This white guy is clearly a racist. And when he leaves that neighborhood, it's race-driven "white flight" and we should all agree that this is a lousy human being who deserves nothing but scorn.
Exhibit B: A black guy sees gay people moving into his neighborhood, and he doesn't like this. It'll change the character of the neighborhood, and affect him and other blacks who remain in negative ways. He tries to keep these people out of the neighborhood, by convincing his neighbors not to sell to the newcomers, or using local government to help (say, by imposing a zoning restriction that would prevent the newcomers from rehabbing abandoned units). This black guy is a local hero, not a bigot.
Make sense?
"I suppose though, that to the white residents, it wasn't "their" neighborhood because #privilege or something."
Crack doesn't seem to be here yet, so I'll fill in for him:
Something something slavery racism. Something something.
Thank you for filling in for Crack (Lord of the Syllogism), Brando. Your explanation of the difference between animosity toward Gays moving into a neighborhood and animosity toward African-Americans moving into the neighborhood is just about as rational as one of Crack's posts.
"Thank you for filling in for Crack (Lord of the Syllogism), Brando. Your explanation of the difference between animosity toward Gays moving into a neighborhood and animosity toward African-Americans moving into the neighborhood is just about as rational as one of Crack's posts."
Happy to do so--it wasn't too difficult. I started with an opinion, then removed all reason and sense.
So Tim, in your learned opinion, is there any viable argument that Obama is not a centrist? Both left and right see him as leaning too far the other way. Isn't that by definition the fate of real centrists?
Was Bush a centrist?
Are educated, intelligent adults allowed to complain that they didn't get what Obama's smiling 2008 campaign persona made them feel they could get?
Sure.
And I'm allowed to make fun of them for being suckers, falling for a "campaign persona" and a great speaking voice.
What failure?
"Was Bush a centrist?"
I think Bush certainly governed like a centrist. On domestic policy, his record wasn't really very "conservative"--he did cut taxes, but that was popular across the aisle at the time, with the only debate being on the nature of the cuts. NCLB was supported by a not insignificant number of Democrats (didn't Ted Kennedy back that?). His Justice Dept. even defended affirmative action at the Supreme Court.
For foreign policy, where his term was most controversial, he also had a lot of backing from the Democrats (at first). And considering Obama has largely continued that legacy--expanding the mission in Afghanistan, trying to extend the deadline in Iraq but ultimiately getting out on Bush's original timetable, drone attacks increasing, Gitmo still opened--it's hard to really call his foreign policy "right wing."
Which goes to show that no matter what they try to do, presidents always govern to the center.
damikesc said...
Was Bush a centrist?
Bush I was a centrist. Bush II in his second term came back towards the center, after Cheney's hold loosened, but the immoderate policies of his first term remove him from contention as a centrist. I should point out that the right loved Bush II during his first term.
You guys make it too complicated..its Reparations, nothing more. $$$$
>>Obama is a progressive, a leftist, even more ludicrously, a socialist
You might want to look through this. Proof positive, no, but it suggests early on he wanted to be seen as at least an ally of socialists, if not one himself.
http://ridgeliner7.wordpress.com/2008/10/24/newspapers-shows-obama-lied-he-did-belong-to-socialist-party/
Postscript/addendum to my previous post: garage mahal, another State-fellator who wishes "Il Dufe" had turned the USA into Venezuela del Norte.
Anyone with a brain outside the fever swamps knew that wasn't ever going to happen. It's been a real treat watching the right lose its damn mind under Obama.
Obama looked to Joe Lieberman as his mentor entering the Senate. That should have been a clue.
Amazing that America didn't pick John McCain and Sarah Palin. What was it?
Yeah, we could have had a VP who everyone saw as a clown. RIght?
It really is amazing America didn't pick MItt Romney. We missed a great opportunity.
"It really is amazing America didn't pick MItt Romney. We missed a great opportunity."
I genuinely liked Romney and thought he'd be a good president--and not just because the alternative was four more years of pretty much what we've been getting (though I didn't think Obama would "check himself out" the way he did). McCain on the other hand struck me as a bit of a statist himself, and as he has favored every foreign military adventure he was asked about, I figured he'd be running the treasury dry by now.
But, we don't select these guys in a vacuum--they're always an alternative to someone else. I just can't figure out who (even on the left) would hold up the last six years as good ones.
Mccain lost you. I can't get why Obama didn't lost you. You got bamboozled.
"Obama looked to Joe Lieberman as his mentor entering the Senate."
Boy, it sure didn't take, did it?
AReasonable man wrote:
I should point out that the right loved Bush II during his first term.
Sure. I may be opposed to nation building JUST BECAUSE. But I'm not opposed to it when it serves our national interest, as nation building in both Iraq and Afghanistan did.
As it will again if we seriously want to deal with ISIS. It wont be as hard in Iraq this time since we already took the steps to build up the govt, and now nearly need to reinforce it so that ISIS doesn't keep coming in and mucking the place up.
Bush I, unlike Obama took it to terrorists, and honored the red lines he put down.
"You might want to look through this. Proof positive, no, but it suggests early on he wanted to be seen as at least an ally of socialists, if not one himself."
It doesn't matter how Obama has sold himself, either now or in the past. It doesn't even matter if he ever really was a socialist or some sort of hard core leftist, (though I remain skeptical that he ever really was anything, that he ever really had any convictions). (Look how quickly he threw Rev. Wright under the bus when Wright's rhetoric drew a little heat. This was a pastor whose church Obama attended for years.)
What matters is Obama's record as a Senator and as President. Has he ever advocated any progressive policies, (beyond mere feel-good rhetoric, let us stipulate)? Has he ever pushed for any strong (or even weak tea) progressive policies? What, exactly, has Obama done in office but continue to serve, as did his predecessors in the White House going back decades, as a lackey for the financial elites?
MayBee said...
It really is amazing America didn't pick MItt Romney.
After the financial collapse America just wasn't ready to pick a vulture capitalist as president. I'm shocked. Shocked.
After the McCain and Romney selections it is clear that the Republican primary voting public has no idea where the country is headed. A war-monger and financier, what's next, a member of an odd religious cult?
The cluelessness of the last two Repub nominations makes me pessimistic about Rand Paul's chances. Republicans need Rand Paul like a drowning man needs a life jacket.
Brando wrote:
McCain on the other hand struck me as a bit of a statist himself, and as he has favored every foreign military adventure he was asked about, I figured he'd be running the treasury dry by now.
And some of those foreign militaries would be required. we are in foreign adventures now because Obama took a hands off approach and let ISIS get a foothold.
"A war-monger and financier, what's next, a member of an odd religious cult?"
Obama isn't called president Goldman Sachs for nothing. And he did escalate in Libya AND Afghanistan. And Cornel West is calling him the drone president. Meaning, the only difference is in the labeling. Oh, and the competency.
AReasonableMan wrote:
The cluelessness of the last two Repub nominations makes me pessimistic about Rand Paul's chances. Republicans need Rand Paul like a drowning man needs a life jacket.
Don't really care what the leftist wants by way of Republicans. And the fact that you find him tolerable makes me suspect him more.
"Yeah, we could have had a VP who everyone saw as a clown. RIght?"
Yeah, I bet she would have done things like flub the Oath of Office, pronounce the 'p' in corpsman, give the Queen of England an iPod with her speeches on it, asserted "red lines" that were no such thing. That kind of stuff.
I stopped taking Cookie seriously when he made that comment, I am still laughing about it, about only presenting one side of an issue.
After the financial collapse America just wasn't ready to pick a vulture capitalist as president. I'm shocked. Shocked.
And yet America was more than happy to invite the fox into the hen house. Americans have yet to grasp the truth that the financial crisis was conceived, born and nurtured by the libruls when they armed community organizers as private attorneys general to attack the banks and forced Fannie Freddie to buy up dicey mortgages, package them up and then sell them into the private markets. They then flooded the markets with moral hazard and, not surprisingly, people behaved stupidly as they will do when you relieve them of the consequences of risk.
This was a purposeful and manipulative Cloward-Piven strategy to create the ensuing chaos and bring the lefties to power. This is what lefties do.
And we are living with the unhappy results.
-Krumhorn
Krumhorn said...
they armed community organizers as private attorneys general to attack the banks and forced Fannie Freddie to buy up dicey mortgages, package them up and then sell them into the private markets.
This is such complete nonsense that I am guessing you still believe that there were WMD in Iraq before the start of the war.
One hint, Fannie and Freddie didn't buy the subprime mortgages whose default precipitated the financial collapse.
The main problem with our system is that people need to be decent judges of a candidates character based on that candidates statements, history and record.
In 2008 statements, history and record were meaningless in the rush to "be cool" and the gullibility of being promised unicorns and rainbows by a man who had accomplished nothing but self-promotion his entire life.
In other words, we got Barack Obama as President because people deliberately avoided judgment, and those who DID use judgment were judged themselves as racists or worse.
Riddle me this ARM, if Obama is such a centrist, right in the middle of public opinion, why don't candidates want to appear with him?
Why is it that as soon as he rammed through his "centrist agenda" he got slapped down by the American people in the mid terms?
Why are his policies, his "centrist" policies so unpopular?
Why did he have to sneak the abortion language into the ACA through extra democratic means and not just clearly come out with his "centrist" position and write it into the law?
Is his position on immigration widely approved by, you know, the "center" of the American public?
Oh yeah, his position on Voter ID is only opposed by something like 70% of the American people, maybe more, does that put him in the "center"?
Why does he have to do so much stuff by executive order? Why can't he just go to Congress and threaten them with the wrath of the "center" of the American people?
Does any of this stuff make you wonder if maybe he is not really a "centrist"?
Does the fact that the press is shown in study after study to be to the left of the American people as a whole give you any pause in using the press as a measure of the "center"? Even the WSJ, outside of the Opinion page, is left of center. This is widely known and accepted.
Naah! I am sure you have some reason or other, or are ready to pose some rhetorical question that makes all of these questions go away.
ARM said, "This is such complete nonsense that I am guessing you still believe that there were WMD in Iraq before the start of the war."
You might read the dissenting statement (Jan. 2011) by Peter Wallison for the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission to become more informed as to the causes of the financial crisis. I saved a pdf copy, so I don't have a cite as to where it is on the Internet.
One hint, Fannie and Freddie didn't buy the subprime mortgages whose default precipitated the financial collapse.
You are uninformed.
Fannie Mae's loan acquisitions were:
62% negative amortization
84% interest only
58% subprime
62% required less than 10% downpayment.
Freddie Mac's loans were even more risky, consisting of:
72% negative amortization
97% interest only
67% subprime
68% required less than 10% downpayment.
It was the preponderance of exotic loans in addition to subprime borrowers that made Fannie and Freddie's loan acquisitions so toxic.
http://useconomy.about.com/od/criticalssues/a/Fannie_Cause.htm
Once the Democrats required Fannie and Freddie to package and sell their loans to the private markets, the banks started following suit and a tsunami of stupid behavior followed in the wake of the realization that the federal government would stand behind the Fannie/Freddie collateralized debt obligations and everyone else's too.
You need to grasp the reality that bankers, nor anyone else, will take stupid risks unless those risks have been socialized or insured. And that's precisely what happened.
-Krumhorn
Tank, et al - about Obama and the Jews - I think that he and his Administration moderated their stand after the spot light came off the Gaza episode, and the US seems to be supporting Israel more now than initially. Not officially, but practically. And I attribute that to Jewish pressure, esp at all those fund raisers he has been attending. I think that, being raised for a bit as a Muslim, Obama's natural instincts are to back Muslims over Jews, which I think we saw initially.
We shall see.
Krumhorn said...
You are uninformed.
And you didn't read what I wrote, which remains true.
The crappy loans that precipitated the crisis were failing months (months!) after initiation and were held by private banks or at least repackaged by them into mortgage backed securities. Greedy unprincipled lenders drove the collapse. You should read 'House of Debt' to get an understanding of what drove the collapse. No one comes off well but the private banks least of all.
Back in the mid-1990s when I lived outside DC there was a big push by Democrats and the DC government to do away with Fannie Mae's local tax exemption. FANNIE MAE MUST PAY!! was a big battle cry. Then it all stopped. Very suddenly.
I have always wondered if there was a bargain with the Democrats that they would stop the campaign in return for Fannie Mae loosening loan underwriting standards.
"If Cornell West views the current president as not progressive enough, where, oh where on the political spectrum, does West reside?"
West wants the next Democrat to come of the closet and declare himself a Communist.
But...but...doesn't he exude..a rock-god swagger....in a Washington...full of middle-aged white lawyers?
The exuder exudes.
ARM
Freddie and Fannie most assuredly invested in sub prime mortgages.
Well, we're getting pretty short on this thread, but AReasonableMan said, "The crappy loans that precipitated the crisis were failing months (months!) after initiation and were held by private banks or at least repackaged by them into mortgage backed securities. Greedy unprincipled lenders drove the collapse. You should read 'House of Debt' to get an understanding of what drove the collapse. No one comes off well but the private banks least of all."
So. I have to go read some book this schmuck says I have to read to understand what happened, because otherwise I will not understand what "greedy unprincipled lenders" did.
There must be a principle for this somewhere, a principle that says that someone who says people who don't follow principles are unprincipled.
Hey, ARM, it's a tough world. You seem like a good guy. You want things to be correct. Let's join arms in the interest of the rule of law, eh? for starters?
It is axiomatic that had borrowers lived up to their agreement to pay debt service in a timely manner there would have been no collapse. Greedy unprincipled borrowers.
ARM
By the way, what is a private bank? Name one or two if you would. Generally believed that publicly owned banks were culprits but perhaps the general beliefs are wrong.
Bob Ellison said...
So. I have to go read some book this schmuck says I have to read to understand what happened
This is as true of economics as it is of electromagnetism. If it makes you feel any better the authors are quite critical of the administrations response to the second phase of the Financial Crisis.
Michael said...
It is axiomatic that had borrowers lived up to their agreement to pay debt service in a timely manner there would have been no collapse. Greedy unprincipled borrowers.
Would you have bought the mortgage backed securities the banks were selling during 2006? And if not why not?
I'm not good at sarcasm. ARM, you are peddling conspiracy crap.
My Kindle wants to change "crap" to "carp". It's quite insistent about that. Seems like a tort.
Bob Ellison said...
you are peddling conspiracy crap.
No. It seems fairly clear that the unprecedented credit expansion from 2000 to 2005 was the underlying cause of the property bubble and ultimately the Great Recession. And, during that period the banks were selling a product that they would not themselves buy or hold. Leave aside the bullshit triple A ratings that this financial shit received.
The linked article is a conversation between Thomas Franks and Cornel West.
Given that, I'd say the title of the post assumes facts not in evidence.
SOME of us recognized what Obama was even before the Wright revelations; that he was a communist who would try his very hardest to destroy the United States of America.
Yes, I knew EXACTLY what was coming. I knew, because Jimmy Carter SAID that. Not in so many words, you understand, but Jimmy himself knew that he had been the worst President ever in history, and was hoping that somebody who was enough worse would take the heat off of him. Jimmy's previous hope had been John Kerry, the Navy traitor that Carter had pardoned.
Re: Ken Mitchell:
SOME of us recognized what Obama was even before the Wright revelations; that he was a communist who would try his very hardest to destroy the United States of America.
But that's kind of the point -- maybe he has an unthinking instinct towards Communism somewhere in the remote depths of his consciousness, but if you were an actual Communist, how could you possibly be pleased to have this puffed-up doltish buffoon as your standard-bearer? Whatever else he is -- for good more than ill, mind -- he is no Stalin. Not even a lathe painted to look like iron (or steel as the case may be) -- his resolution is only petulance at a world mere words cannot control.
Hmm. Sorry, the quote is usually given with "lathe," but clearly it should be "lath," a word no one ever uses.
The war crimes in the Middle East, especially now in Gaza, the war criminals go free. .
And to think the Jews have hope for you as a person with moral sensibility. What a balance of perceptive incongruity?
ARM, the NYT was sending out warnings about the whole mess/property bubble, in 1998.
Bush and McCain made some noise about reigning in Fannie/Freddie but the democrats, under Barney Frank, called them racist.
Great gobs of people admire and listen to TV preachers, who provide their own glib versions of supposedly serious matters. Our dear leader is of the same type, all engaged in narrative spinning
ARM
Stupid question
It is genius to make investments in the rear view mirror. Only the simple minded make mistakes in stupid world.
The better question for you is whether you shorted that market in 2006.
By the way, you had better bone up on the terminology if you are going to discuss this topic. "Private" banks does not mean what you think it means. I believe you should have used the term "private label" for the tranched pools built and sold by publicly owned investment banks.
And yes, I did invest in the A piece of more than one pool. As did most people with fixed rate mutual funds. As likely did you.
One hint, Fannie and Freddie didn't buy the subprime mortgages whose default precipitated the financial collapse.
No. They forced banks to do it. Banks wouldn't get preferential treatment in federal loans unless they accepted the sub-prime loans-building loans. Hence the bundling of loans by the mortgage brokers in order to dilute the risk. When they ran out of people to underwrite the loans-accept the risk on zero interest paper-the scheme collapsed.
The bush people warned the banking committee-barney frank- that this type of loan activity ran counter to good business practices.
He was a politician. FROM CHICAGO. What the hell else did you need to know?
All you had to do is look at how Chicago, Cook County and Springfield are run.
Illinois politics is patronage, crony capitalism, and clout.
Washington DC politics are now patronage, crony capitalism and clout.
But apparently, "Oh Look! A black man. Lets give HIM a chance." was all 53% of you shitheads needed.
Suckers.
In 2006 and 2007 freddie and Fannie actively participated in the subprime market by buying up the paper. This is not a matter of dispute.
"Why did lenders suddenly shower less-creditworthy borrowers with trillions of dollars of credit? Mian and Sufi demonstrate this was enabled by the securitization of home mortgages by investment banks that did not seek federal guarantees from Fannie and Freddie—so called private-label securities, made possible by financial deregulation and the glut of cash in world markets in the wake of the Asian financial crisis of the late 1990s. That private-label mortgage-backed securities were at the core of the housing meltdown is no longer in doubt,"
"In 2006 and 2007 freddie and Fannie actively participated in the subprime market by buying up the paper. This is not a matter of dispute."
Fannie and Freddie certainly played their role in inflating the market and making the eventual bursting of the bubble worse than it had to be. But there were a lot of different actors who share blame--both big and small banks that extended credit all too easily (because they knew they were going to be quickly selling the loans into securitizations, so their exposure would be more limited), borrowers who assumed that because they could get credit that they should and also that house values wouldn't fall so there'd be little risk of ending up underwater, and an appraisal system so clearly compromised that everything became appraised magically for what the sale price was.
Ultimately, it was a widely held mania in this belief of ever-rising home prices and a spreading of risk that enabled it. Government thought it was good because it increased homeownership, homeowners thought it was good because they saw their net worths go up, and the construction, real estate and lending industries loved it because they all benefitted.
I don't think the financial collapse can be blamed on "leftist economics" or "rightist economics"--like most bubbles the causes are more diffuse and took on a life of their own, abetted by government and private forces that sought to ride the tiger and everyone got burned. The politics comes into play in the aftermath--bailing out the big banks and spending trillions on pork stimulus are why we have the Tea Party and OWS taking to the streets and raging against their respective parties.
I'm torn about the bank bailouts--it would have been nice to see the lenders reap what they sowed, but the effects likely would have hit a lot of people who had nothing to do with the bad decisions that led to the crisis, and bailouts may have been the ugly but least worst option.
"In an ill-fated effort to win back market share, Fannie and Freddie made a few tragic mistakes. Starting in 2006 and 2007—just as the housing bubble was reaching its peak—Fannie and Freddie increased their leverage and began investing in certain subprime securities that credit agencies incorrectly deemed low-risk. Fannie and Freddie also lowered the underwriting standards in their securitization business, purchasing and securitizing so-called Alt-A loans. While Alt-A loans typically went to borrowers with good credit and relatively high income, they required little or no income documentation, opening the door to fraud (which was often perpetrated by the mortgage broker rather than the homebuyer)."
American Progress. Sept.6 2012
Brando
I generally agree, but would point out that Lehman was destroyed (wrongly in my view), Bear sold for a pittance, and Bank Of America this week paying, again, for the sins of companies they were urged, coerced, to buy. The populist move against the banks has led to extraordinary capital requirements which contine to act as a drag on the economy. Dodd Frank only beginning to have its harsher elements implemented which is another reason the rich will get richer. More difficult access to capital is making it very hard on the small businesses that should be leading this very tepid recovery.
Michael, your efforts to pin the blame on Fannie/Freddie are becoming a little sad. This is from the same article you quoted:
"2. What role did Fannie and Freddie play in inflating the housing bubble of the mid- to late-2000s?
Contrary to conservative talking points, the answer is very little. "
"4. Did affordable housing goals for Fannie and Freddie play any role in the subprime crisis?
No."
Michael, the treatment of the banks post-2008 has been a classic case of not just closing the barn door after the horses got out, but burning the barn down afterwards and then salting the earth so nothing can ever grow there. Between revised lending standards, new layers of regulation that even the regulators don't understand, and DOJ shaking down more banks than ever (and BOA is an egregious example, because BOA even cooperated with the Feds by buying Merril during the crisis)--all of this has hobbled the recovery and will do about as much to prevent the next financial crisis as making people put shampoo in plastic bags before getting on airplanes will prevent the next 9/11.
Which is actually an apt analogy, because 9/11 could never happen again in the same way--no one can hijack a plane with knives because after 9/11 every passenger knows there's a good chance they won't be kept hostage but used as human sacrifice, and likewise, the housing bubble cannot happen again in quite the same way because so many got burned last time. Obviously we can suffer another, different type of terrorist attack, just as we can suffer another, different type of financial disaster, but attempting to prevent such things by reacting so specifically to the last time is foolish.
But this administration has been performing a balancing act--trying to please their Wall Street support (and make no mistake, they counted on such donors big time in '08 and '12) while at the same time throwing bones to their most stridently populist wing of their party. That's how you get a bailout followed by Dodd-Frank.
AReasonableMan said...
"Why did lenders suddenly shower less-creditworthy borrowers with trillions of dollars of credit? Mian and Sufi demonstrate this was enabled by the securitization of home mortgages by investment banks that did not seek federal guarantees from Fannie and Freddie—so called private-label securities, made possible by financial deregulation and the glut of cash in world markets in the wake of the Asian financial crisis of the late 1990s. That private-label mortgage-backed securities were at the core of the housing meltdown is no longer in doubt,"
Motivation to do so.
See my statement above.
Dear Professor Althouse;
Of course, almost any Cornel West interview serves primarily as an occasion to laugh at Cornel West.
But much more interesting to me is your own notion that Presidential candidate Barack Obama was set up as a pragmatic moderate in your mind while John McCain was... not.
By any sensible, rational measure of their respective records in the U.S. Senate, John McCain has been one of the most notorious cross-party centrists of his generation. McCain went against much of his party on campaign finance, immigration, "torture," the creation of the Department of Homeland Security, and far too many other issues to list.
Senator Barack Obama, on the other hand, did nothing in the Senate apart from hanging back and quietly voting with the Schumer-Leahy-Boxer wing of his party.
Only in the leafy precincts of West Madison would Obama be thought of as any kind of a centrist. Mostly for the same reasons that Cornel West might think Obama is an intolerable centrist.
I recognize, professor, that you've been a thoughtful defender of Scott Walker. And for that I am very grateful. And I think that among a plurality of holders of graduate degrees from elite universities, your view of Obama as a 'moderate' might be representative. But it just goes to show how wrong a lot of people can be.
I don't think the financial collapse can be blamed on "leftist economics" or "rightist economics"-
It can be lain directly on the Affordable Housing Act and the Clinton administration for lowering standards for borrowing and then pressuring banks to make the loans or else get audited. A bank audit can be devastating for a bank so the banks complied and laid their loans off on mortgage investors to minimize their risk. Everyone down the line tried to minimize their risk until the bill came due.
Of all the risk averse businesses out there banks are the most risk averse. There is no incentive for a bank to make a low interest loan to people they know are financially incapable of ever repaying the loan. The banking committee pressured banks to make the loans under the AHA and under the threat of audit.
See; Liberty Savings and Loan
Chuck said, "...your view of Obama as a 'moderate' might be representative. But it just goes to show how wrong a lot of people can be."
I agree with this, and my thinking and voting have probably been pretty similar to the Professor's. I voted for Obama in 2008. That's the only Dem POTUS candidate I've voted for.
I made a mistake, like lots of other people. I do wish more prominent writers and pundits would speak out publicly about their own, similar mistakes.
Well, the good thing about a representative democracy is that we can all correct each others' mistakes, if we pay attention. Let's go to the polls in November and do some correcting.
Rusty, do you really think it was only the AHA and the Clinton policies that caused the bubble? I agree that these were all part of a government-wide encouragement to extend credit and homeownership--Bush himself, far from fighting that trend, did a great deal to try and expand homeownership. The Fed also kept interest rates as low as possible during this period, which made the loans even cheaper.
But even with government incentives like that, this never could have happened if borrowers didn't buy into the idea that they should borrow as much as possible. This wasn't unlike the craze in the late '90s where everyone thought the stock market was the best place to put your money (and of course it was--for a while). And while government certainly encouraged the banks, it is also understandable that banks would continue to make these questionable loans when they can be taken off the books within a month or two by selling them off, and keeping a nice origination fee.
Perhaps in a way the government was more at fault than any private actor, because private actors should be acting in their own self interest and government should not be encouraging risky behavior that could blow up on everyone who had nothing to do with it in the first place. But I suspect policymakers in government were so proud that more people than ever were able to own homes--and voters loved their increased net worth--that their action was inevitable, if not responsible.
ARM
Never tied to blame the crisis on freddie and fannie. Get a friend to read you what i wrote: i refuted your stupid assertion of 4:23 pm that they did not buy subprime loans.
Get that friend to find where I tried to "pin the blame" on them
You are a frightful dunce at times. Smug fogs up the brain.
Brando
Borrowers shoulder much of the blame, assuming we assign human agency to them and don't consider them as gulls as do the lefties. They wanted those houses and they wanted those money out loans for bass boats and bullshit.
Michael said...
Never tied to blame the crisis on freddie and fannie.
Then there is no point whatsoever to your posts and you are just making yourself look foolish for no good reason.
"Postscript/addendum to my previous post: garage mahal, another State-fellator who wishes "Il Dufe" had turned the USA into Venezuela del Norte."
Says garage mahal:
"Anyone with a brain outside the fever swamps knew that wasn't ever going to happen." But you wish it had, right?
ARM
Look, asshole, at your post where you assert, wrongly, that Freddie and Fannie did not invest in sub-prime mortgages.
Your inability to concentrate and to read are impaired. There is medication for it.
As to looking foolish you supplied enough humor in your "private banks" comment for us all, and enough evidence that the one book you have read on the topic was not enough
Michael said...
ARM
Look, asshole, at your post where you assert, wrongly, that Freddie and Fannie did not invest in sub-prime mortgages.
No it didn't you fool. Here is the post in question:
AReasonableMan said...
One hint, Fannie and Freddie didn't buy the subprime mortgages whose default precipitated the financial collapse.
As anyone can see, except you apparently, the issue was what precipitated the financial crisis.
You have now completely beclowned yourself. I hope you are happy.
Post a Comment