Thursday, January 29, 2009

Poli-Rant lll, The Democrats Turn

Guess I need a third day here to release the pressure in the political boiler of my brain.

Pre-Post Note ~> When I first wrote this and saved it for later, I checked my emails. There were more than a few new comments on either yesterday's post or the day before's. I had no time to check them or address anything in them. I had to get to town and the rest of my day. So this post is written before I read yesterdays comments. It will be interesting to see if today's post covers anything commented in a previous post. Anyway, on with the show...............

It has been about 5 months now since everyone, not just a select few really knew what we all know now about the economy. When this all broke in late August/early September I expected things to get worse and still expect them to continue to deteriorate. I do not expect that positive changes should have had some effect by this time. You do not fix this mess that took years of inattention to reach this point overnight. But I would have expected our leadership in DC to have discarded the petty bullshit of partisan bickering and begun to find common ground from which to mount a united attack to resolve this fundamental economic flaw that affects all of us no matter which side of the fence we find ourselves on.

Since I have already taken the Republicans apart, I won't tear into them today. It is the Democrats turn.

The Democrats have the House. They have the Senate. And based on party affiliation, they have the White House. They have the hat trick of politics. And what are they doing now? Rubbing the Republicans face in this reality entirely too much. Language is everything inside the beltway. Political statements are more than the stands they support or oppose. It is often more about how they are handled than anything else.

When I hear Democratic leaders saying things to the effect of,"It really does not matter if you(Republicans) agree or not, we won and we will do what we(Democrats) think is best. Because well....nyah, nyah...nyah, we won, you losers."

OK fine. At least there is movement to do something. But in this early phase of our mutual crisis, instead of strutting, the Democrats should be seriously seeking Republican input and do it publicly. Including the Republicans and their take would go a long way in building a wider grassroots base of support. We all know you have the majority. Start using it wisely instead of baiting and wasting time putting the Republicans in their place. We may not need everyone on board to fix what is wrong, but I am sure the more who come on board, the faster the positive result. And in the long run a much better image of the Democratic leadership will emerge. From where I sit now, while the Republicans sit and pout, you Democratic flounders are not helping by rubbing it in. Wise leaders do not denigrate, they integrate.

I honestly think Barack gets this. Contrary to some contending his approaching the Republican leadership as just a political ploy of devious political desires, I firmly believe he wants as large a consensus as possible as we move forward and face what is here now and what is coming. Look at his history starting back when he was at Harvard. When he became head honcho of the Harvard Law Review, who did he court? Not the liberals on campus, but the conservative side. He became a facilitator who was able to bring out the best of both sides ending up with what both sides contend was one of the best periods of the Law Review in general. His overriding concern being a top quality publication that represented the diverse views of the law students attending Harvard. I believe he intends the same type of leadership for the Presidency even though he is in a much tougher neighborhood now.

If I have one major bitch about Obama now, it is his not slapping his own party around some to try and lower the level of animosity that simmers throughout DC right now. It takes two to tango. It could be argued the Republicans deserve the treatment they are getting. For years they dished it out in what some would say were worse ways. But now is not the time for payback. In my opinion the best payback would be to do a better job than the Republicans. And so far, the Democrats have gotten off to a poor start.

Extending a hand does not mean capitulation. Remember who the Hell you work for.

After note and admission of a personal defeat - Dimitri still did not win. But I did call in some outside muscle to fix my XP machine. Paid the computing merc to scrub it clean and then reinstall a new operating system. I just could not handle the old win98 computer one minute longer. I was making some headway on my own, but I think it would be Christmas 2010 before I finally got it straightened out. That was some bad ass virus. I have learned quite a bit and will now use the win98 computer as my tear it apart and see what makes it tick machine.

7 comments:

Dawn Fortune said...

You nailed it. Right on the money. The Democrats need to be mindful not to become the bullies that we endured for the last 10 years in Congress. All that did for us was get us angry enough to get organized and make a comeback. If the Dems don't want to be in the minority again soon, they would do well to heed that lesson.

Demeur said...

The right still doesn't get it. They seem to be so out of touch with what America is all about and what we the people want. I guess they deserve to get their noses rubbed in it a bit longer because they don't stand for the average American. They continue to tout their failed policies as is by some magic formula it's going to work. If they were a football team they'd be in last place for sure. They continue to block legislation that would actually help us all but if they don't get more tax cuts for corporations they stomp their feet like a spoiled child.

El Cerdo Ignatius said...

Wow, Crum. This one came out of left field (heh! Er, sorry). Seriously, your point is very well argued. Clearly you don't consider the issue of bipartisanship to be just lip service.

I honestly think Barack gets this. Contrary to some contending his approaching the Republican leadership as just a political ploy of devious political desires, I firmly believe he wants as large a consensus as possible as we move forward and face what is here now and what is coming.

Hopefully I didn't make my contention sound quite as evil as this. :-)

Two points:
1) After considering this a little more, I would say at this point that you're probably right. The president probably wanted a wide, bipartisan consensus on his plan.
BUT: 2) Even if the president was using this meeting with the Republicans as political cover only, it still doesn't offend me one bit. I have absolutely no problem with the president looking for political cover while trying to get his bill passed.

Carlita said...

I agree. The democrats are pulling the same old republican crap. One of the reasons I was (am!) so excited about Obama is his community organizing background, which tells me that he has experience bringing together people with diverse self-interests. His reaching out to republican leadership is great, but you're absolutely right that he needs to whip his own party into shape as well. The democrats are missing the point right now.

MRMacrum said...

Dawn on MDI - Should they fall into the classic payback trap, the elections of 2010 might not be what they are looking for.

Demeur - Yes, the Right doesn't get it. They are still reeling from a very severe beating. But I firmly think that the Democrats are not helping at the moment. Payback's a bitch, but we cannot afford pettiness right now. One of them needs to become the class act. At this point neither one is.

El Cerdo Ignatius - Once again, your reasonable style has broken through the angry fog in my brain. It was something you said that slapped me into realizing that everything is not one side's fault completely. Both have had their hand in screwing things up. It really should be both that fix things up. I want, no, I demand better leadership from both sides of the aisle. And thus far, the only one I feel is attempting to live up to his promise, is Obama. It is early yet and he could fall into the same trap both parties seem locked into, but so far so good.

No, it was not you alone who contends his drive to Congress to meet with Republican Leadership as just a political ploy to secure cover. Look on almost any conservative blog, site, etc and pretty much all the opinions echo what you wrote. Many not as reasoned and civil as you did.

I agree that his move may have had political cover as part of his plan. He is a master politician after all. The man seems able to see all the angles at the same time and then pick just the right approach to push his agenda without exposing all of his intentions. My admiration for him grows every day.

Carlita - When the Republicans denigrated and demeaned Obama's community organizing background as not the right kind of experience, I could not believe it. I feel it was about the dumbest thing to focus on. Just what is a president? What qualities are the most important? Expertise in economics? Defense guru? Technology wizard? No. The best presidents in my opinion were the ones who could herd the cats and get them going in the same direction. In my mind, that is what a community organizer does. If anything prepared him for his role as president, I believe his time oraginizing at the local level was key.

Randal Graves said...

Three posts worth of ranting! Good to see, think of it as taking your fibre.

I'm with you and Demeur on this, but the problem the Dems have of simply going "we've tried your way since 80 and look where we ended up? You failed, it's our turn" is that they went along with so much of it; that's the reason why they were such cowards on even mentioning the word impeachment for war crimes. No one votes to hang themselves.

Whether Obama is or isn't being altruistic or old school backroom politics with meeting with Republicans, I don't care. Just get shit done.

amidnightrider said...

I find it frustrating that the right still manages to set the tone of Washington. We are parroting thier talking points much too often. For instance

The right is saying they lost thier way and need to get back to thier root. Actually they got thier way for ten years and we are now suffering for that.

The right still insists on tax cuts that twice have made things worse.

The right has set themselves up as the victims of the vengefull left, when actually this government is trying hard to fix the devistation of conservatism.

My only concern is that the conservatives may have inflicted a fatal wound on America, and my hope is that they will soon get out of the way.

America is and has always been a left leaning mildly socialist country, in spite of what the five remaining red states profess.