So, Amanda Terkel over at HuffPo picked up the story of a New Mexico Obama For America official who flagged down this amazing The People’s View post on the post-downgrade Firebaggery which goes on to explain among other things why Paul Krugman should stick to economics and not politics. The HuffPo post is not the point (although for the record, Terkel is the only regular voice I’ll pay attention to over there.)
The larger point is of course that Terkel’s article immediately identifies everyone on Earth who believes themselves to be among the aggrieved Professional Left that Obama apparently hates. For example, Ezra Klein tries to play it Miles Davis cool, but ends up outing himself:
Time and again, however, we see evidence that they have gotten deep inside the White House’s head. In letters, in offhand comments, in outbursts at press conferences, in my personal reporting, members of the Obama administration and members of the Obama reelection campaign will let slip that they are dwelling and worrying over these arguments. They may not agree with them. They may not think they’re fair, or sophisticated, or useful. But they’re thinking about them. And if you’re the “professional left,” that’s exactly what you want.
Yeah see, we call that “Stockholm Syndrome”, Ez. But it gets worse.
Duncan Black thinks the bigger problem is of course That Obama Should Do Something.
But to the extent that something might be in their base bugging their d00dz, I hope it isn’t the armchair punditry or even the policy advice. It’s that we’ve basically had 9.0%+ unemployment for 2.5 years and maybe..somebody should do something.
I mean the Republicans keep blocking the Democrats from doing much of anything. It took all kinds of arm-twisting just to get unemployment benefits extended. A real stimulus wasn’t going to be possible. What we got kept us going up until now, but it’s clear that more help is needed and the GOP will not let anything happen. To the extent that anyone can actually Do Something, President Obama has done it. It hasn’t worked because the GOP set the stage up for failure by giving the President only enough stimulus to hang himself, then they declared the End Of Keynesian Macroeconomics and started in with the demands to shred Social Security and Medicare. President Obama Did Something. Republicans made sure it wasn’t enough. Atrios at least has something of an argument.
Digby on the other hand outright declares herself one of the aggrieved.
What’s the old saying? First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.
It’s getting depressing over there at Hullabaloo. It really, really is. But it’s Greg Sargent that actually understands…up to a point, anyway.
Here’s my take on this. Some folks on the left are pointing to the campaign’s failure to adequately shoot down this story as a sign that the campaign perhaps sees political gain in riling up the left, as part of some kind of triangulation strategy to win independents. I just don’t believe this is the case. It seems far more likely that they see this kind of story as nothing but a headache, and want it to go away. My bet is they worry — rightly or wrongly — that publicly reassuring liberal critics won’t necessarily gain any good will from them, only risks giving the story more oxygen, and gets them involved in a fruitless public dispute about whether they’re triangulating and “hippie punching.”
What Sargent says makes a hell of a lot more sense if you realize that for some on the “left” there’s literally nothing President Obama can do that will not be considered “hippie punching”. Obama getting up in the morning and eating a bowl of cereal or whatever actually causes Hamwaldians physical pain. They’re not interested in the left at all, but they are very interested in grifting their way to a Republican President in 2012, because then people pay attention to them again.
The Professional Left is neither. But you guys knew that.
“My bet is they worry — rightly or wrongly — that publicly reassuring liberal critics won’t necessarily gain any good will from them…”
That worry is, of course as well-confirmed as any prediction made by quantum mechanics.
What I find most telling is that a mere blog post forward has exploded into narcissistic self-congratulation among firebaggers. This proves that everything I have ever said about them is true.
If President Obama announces that he’s going to move his fist in a particular direction, then the PL rushes to stick their faces in its path, is it actually “hippy punching” or is it masochism?
Given that the PL seem to get off on being outraged 24/7, I’m going with the latter. When tell my friends about outrage culture and I need examples the Professional Left has always been a good start for me.
To start, really? I mean, sure some the Professional Left has a tendency to overreact and to take things personally, but at least there’s usually something there with which one might legitimately take issue. On the other hand… WAR ON CHRISTMAS!!!
Brilliant.
The “professional left” does not have the strength: electoral strength ( produce the votes); intellectual strength ( not enough enough people accept their arguments); nor, actually moral strength.
Few of them have actually done the hard work needed to gain strength in any of those areas. So, these are the straits to which they are reduced.
There is a phrase from another era that seems to apply to them : “speaking the truth to power”.
Power is corrupting; a person in power has to discriminate intelligently; set priorities; make authoritative judgements. Far easier and far more pure: speak the truth to power.
They would be speaking truth to power if they spoke truth.
They do not appear to know truth, let alone speak it. They remain mired in their solipsistic worldviews.
What magical power does Jane Hamsher have that she can appear with Norquista on Fox News yet still maintain her role as being part of the Professional Left?
Second thought I have is that Hamsher/Greenwald exist only as critics. And probably not just as critics, but as opponents of the political class. And, in a two-party system she/they become the other side. What if the ideal dreamboat politician of Hamwald were to be elected? Would they then stop griping? I doubt it.
A) By doing relatively little to actually put candidates in office and alienating a large portion of the electorate, they pretty much guarantee this won’t happen.
B) I imagine we’d be hearing the same screams of betrayal we’ve been hearing now. No matter which candidate they might manage to get into office, there’s always going to be SOMETHING that they didn’t accomplish in exactly the way Hamsher, et al would like.
I very rarely run into Firebaggers in real life, but when I chance upon one, I ask them about what they do on a local level to push their agenda — stuff like attending local Dem meetings and statewide conventions, supporting local labor or economic justice groups, etc. — and the answer is invariably that they sit around bitching on blogs. Honest to dog, I don’t think they’re worth our time except as a form of entertainment. They are a fart in a whirlwind.
I am always amazed that people who would listen raptuously to a two’apenny grafter tart who rolls around in a metaphorical bed with someone like Norquist or some prissy self appointed “scholar” swanning about in South America would have any right to refer to folks who do not see the world in black and white as Obots or cultists. If you spend two seconds on Greenwald’s message board, you would wonder how big his ass is to have such a rabid demand for colon condos. Of course, it is easier now that he limits responses to those who have the vapors just reading his words. I am just gratified that the myth these asshats speak for the base is finally getting some pushback.
Oh, and Greenwald, you and any of your rentboys reading these posts? Fuck you and the horse you rode on…
ahhhh….cleansing breath….
“Rentboys”? Stay classy, LAC!
It’s funny how sometimes I read something and think it’s curious, but no big deal. Yesterday I read that Terkel piece and all I thought was “Hey, The People’s View got a plug from OFA”. I sent out a tweet and went on with my shtuff. I guess I really don’t care that much if Ezra “gets it”, he’s like my “fave nerd” and he does stumble and bumble over the political nuances, but his economics sense is pretty stellar.
To the broader issue, there is division within the Big Tent and this is nothing new. The concern is recent history, of course. The Midterm losses that the PL had projected as a “small price to pay” to garner some imaginary leverage over the President turned out to be not so “small”. Ironically, in their zeal to create their own leverage, they weakened the President’s leverage to the point that all leverage is essentially useless and ineffective. Not a real smart plan. And that’s the real story in all of this. The “Professional Left” just isn’t very smart. The IQ might be high, but the overall strategy could have been generated in a third grade think-tank. Stomp your feet and call the Teacher bad names behind their back, THAT will be sure to get us extra recess after spending a few days in detention. It’s a “small price to pay”, after all.
With all that said, I can’t help but feel I’ve just wasted precious time in bashing the “PL”. Why? Because it is a waste of time and energy. They aren’t going away and I’m not certain they are the real problem. The real problem, as my fave nerd pointed to, is that I am allowing myself to be distracted by the whiners and the pouters. Every group or organization has the “Debbie downers and Negative Neds” so why am I affording them my attention? There are some really exciting ideas we have to share. Our job is to instill confidence in others. Sure, there are times we all need to fight back since that also instills confidence and comradery , but the focus should balance to the positive, in my humble opinion.
Maybe now is a good time to focus on the President’s upcoming jobs plan and building support for the necessary spending?
Blue trooth, you are correct.
But, the PL lacks poitical acumen.
Hamwaldian. Teehee. Greenwald is truly the greatest ratfucker in liberal politics. Claiming to be a civil libertarian expert on constitutional law, he’s a regular ‘the government is always evil’ libertarian with a genius for misrepresenting non-issues with just enough facts to make himself sound honest. That way people assume everything he leaves out doesn’t exist, and the lie he’s created becomes common knowledge among real liberals who are concerned about civil liberties. Hamsher I have less personal experience watching.
I get kind of upset about Greenwald sometimes.
They’re equals in the ratfucker dept.. ergo hamwald or greenham as I call ‘em.
Great post, Zandar. Back when Robert Gibbs coined the “Professional Left” I was stunned to see how many people ran to jump in front of the bullet. Olbermann, Hamsher, Greenwald, Michael Moore, shit…they all WANTED to be the Professional Left. Why would that be?
M-O-N-E-Y “Why? Because we’re staking out the professional whiners’ club for stunted growth.”
Too bad about Olbermann and Moore..who knew they would turn out to be craven during the bush years?
Matt Damon for President? Really. And, KO with his stupid analysis of PBO’s Oil Spill speech and everything else Obama he froths about.
They could really make the bucks with a perry pres. They’re losers.
Great points, BlueTrooth. I have a question for anyone with insight into the situation: How big a factor were disgruntled liberals in the midterm losses? I could be wrong, but my sense is disgruntled liberals sitting out the election wasn’t as big a factor as is generally thought.
I think the GOP was energized with their tea party rebranding shtick and regular people who never read a blog and don’t have particularly strong political affiliations were in “mad as hell” mode because the country is in such sorry shape. I doubt very much FireDogLake had fuck-all to do with it.
The midterm, unfortunately, went exactly the way election analysts said it would. The Democrats were in power, so they hardly voted at all. The GOP voted high, and higher still because they know damn well how successful Obama’s first term has been and were desperate to reverse it. This is apparently same-as-it-ever-was. Hardly anybody changed sides, and Dem voting levels were normal for a midterm like this.
Whether or not they were “responsible” for e midterms turning into a shitshow is less important to me than the following:
imagine what might have happened had FDL, Salon, HuffPo, Hullabaloo, Eschaton, and all of those “first responder” blogs actually supportedthe President and helped GOTV efforts? That’s what pisses me off.
Greenwald’s analyses aren’t worth the parchment paper his law school diploma is printed on. As for Jane, I’m fairly certain that she begins each day by shrieking “OBAAAAMMMMMAAAAA!!!!!” and shaking her fist impotently at the sky.
Will someone please get me a goddamned sammich?
It is mind-boggling how self-absorbed these people are. The OFA email links to TPV and the word “firebagger” is mentioned only in passing late in the piece but the citizens of Emopolis have convinced themselves that this piece is overwhelming proof they’ve arrived. Its totally ridiculous.
Hi,
How did the Republicans deny the Prez the stimulus he always wanted? You do remember they didn’t control either house.
And Krugman has stellar credentials for complaining about its size and composition, given his whole argument was that we wouldn’t have the political capital to pass two stimulus bills of any size. On that issue, the President should be out of politics and economics, Krugman having won on both counts.
Finally, you’ve got Ezra frikkin’ Klein as a member of the vast left-wing conspiracy? Maybe, just maybe, it’s more reasonable to accept that there is legitimate beef against this administration’s politics and policies than that Ezra is a deranged Hamsherite. I would slow down on those purity tests.
Super-finally, what’s up with no mods jumping on the rentboy bigotry above? No big deal ’cause Greenwald isn’t your kind of gay?
Ezra Klein made a mistake that doesn’t mean he’s into the whole firebagger trip.
Deaniac calling Paul Krugman a political rookie is being very kind. I tend to think of him as a disingenous, whiny, buttinsky who doesn’t know his ass from a hole in the ground as far as what the President has to go through to accomplish what he has. Can’t do it by himself..and thanks to those staying home instead of voting he and his Team have an even tougher time but they’ve still managed the end of DADT. Oh, and they got our debt ceiling raised so we could honor our debts in spite of the gopricks and the stay at home whiners.
Johnny, can you count to 60?