In his impassioned critique of the Obama Presidency, Peter Daou concludes that Obama's lack of a moral compass and his resistance to being seen as "weak" he is undermining the progressive cause, leading to a GOP landslide this fall and the inevitability of these key points: (I'll splice in my thoughts in non-italic red type. NOTE: I could easily just type "it's Bush's fault" after each one, you understand, so you can silently add that line after each of his points if you'd like!)
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Let’s face it, these are dark days for the left. As we barrel toward the November elections and an almost certain triumph for the GOP, we are losing the national debate and making giant strides backward on key issues. It’s the new (un)reality:
1. George W. Bush is steadily and surely being rehabilitated and now the question is how much gratitude we owe him. Wait just a second. Conservatives aren't even buying this. While I refuse to call him BushHitler he ultimately disappointed almost everyone. Oddly not for the reasons you claim, but what difference does it make. All presidents with the exception of Jimmy Carter get rehabilitated.
2. Sarah Palin can move the public discourse with a single tweet, promoting a worldview consisting of unreflective, nationalistic soundbites. Cool, maybe she still believes in constitutional law too.
3. Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh and Fox are dominating the national conversation, feeding a steady stream of propaganda packaged as moral platitudes to tens of millions of true believers. Let's see, I wonder where ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN, MSNBC, NY Times, Washington Post, LA Times, Boston Globe get their propaganda? What is it with progressives, can't they take a little competition in the arena of ideas?
4. In the face of overwhelming evidence, climate deniers are choking the life out of the environmental movement and willfully condemning humanity to a calamitous future. Drama queen! So, your little gambit of Chicken Little - The Sky is Falling! didn't work. Maybe if the greedy pricks weren't so eager to make a buck off carbon credits and grant money by over doing it the natural progress of technical improvements might have satisfactorily saved the planet, it probably still will.
5. From ACORN to Van Jones, liberal scalps are being taken with impunity. But the character assassination of ANY conservative is A-OK, cry me a river.
6. Feminism is being redefined and repossessed by anti-feminists. Feminism is dead. It was a terrible lie to tell women that they don't need men. Nothing hurt women more than this failed anti-men agenda. So horrible that women "might" choose to be stay at home Moms and home school their kids.
7. Women are facing an all-out assault on choice. Cutting off Federal Funding for killing babies is not repealing Roe V Wade. Does any opposition (GOP) politician campaign on overturning a woman's right to choose? I didn't think so...
7.5 Martin Luther King Jr.’s legacy is being co-opted by a radio jock. Not worthy of a comment or an integer of its own.
8. Schoolbooks are being rewritten to reflect the radical right’s anti-science views. See your point # 4 and let's talk about anti-science. History books that spend far more pages on Islam than on Christianity and Jewry put together are not history books they are propaganda. Also, questioning Darwin's theories is permitted, that there is a creator is absolutely possible since it can't be disproven scientifically.
9. The rich-poor divide grows by the minute and teachers and nurses struggle to get by while bankers get massive bonuses. The rich get richer while the poor get poorer is a canard. Plus it is not unique to America, it is unique to humanity.
10. We mark the end of a war based on lies with congratulations to all, and we escalate another war with scarce resources that could save countless lives. Start with point #15 and ask the women of Iraq if they are better off? You talk of a moral compass and yet it was OK to allow a mad man with aspirations of regional and nuclear domination, and actions that led everyone to believe (not just George W. Bush) that he had WMD's to continue to scoff at international law and countless UN sanctions. Maybe the war was a bad idea, we won't really know for a decade or more.
11. An oil spill that should have been a historic inflection point gets excised from public awareness by our own government and disappears down the memory hole (until the next disaster). We need oil, simple as that. It's a reality, live with it. If the "progressives/environmentalists" would work with energy producers in a manner that accepts this reality then we could have our energy, safety and a clean world. But it's all or nothing for you. Nothing actually.
12. Guns abound and the far right’s interpretation of the second amendment (the only one that seems to matter) is now inviolate. I'm still waiting for the wild, wild west and all the other carnage that was supposed to take place by now with all these unrestrained NRA guys running around. The truth is cities like Chicago and Washington DC where guns were banned have been the gun murder capitols of America. But the evidence (from all over the world) doesn't matter to you, crime increases when guns are taken from law abiding citizens.
13. Bigotry and discrimination against immigrants, against Muslims, against gays and lesbians is mainstream and rampant. No, bigotry against Sarah Palin and her family is rampant. Bigotry against business and success is rampant. Bigotry against Christianity is rampant. Indeed, America has been remarkably tolerant of Muslims, insanely tolerant of ILLEGAL immigrants and you can't watch a TV show or see a movie without and adorable gay character who is beyond reproach.
14. The frightening unconstitutional excesses of the Bush administration have been enshrined and reinforced by a Democratic White House, ensuring that they will become precedent and practice. Whether you believe that war related torture, or war related wire tapping is unconstitutional or not President Obama has shredded the constitution and no one batted an eye. With the stroke of the pen he literally stole a private company, robbed its share holders and gave it to the union, blithely throwing out centuries of contract law. All this while completely ignoring a hundred years of bankruptcy law. He nationalized School Loans without any debate whatsoever and has handed over entire slices of our culture to unelected, unconfirmed czars. If anyone has been stomping on the constitution it is Obama.
15. Girls and women across the planet continue to get beaten, raped, ravaged, mutilated, and murdered while sports games induce a more passionate response. Oh for God's sake! I'm sorry, but this can not be blamed on the United States of America, Barack Obama, or dare I say George W. Bush. Just where are the feminists on this issue? Huh? Why they are too busy bashing Sarah Palin because she's Pro-Life and proud to be a mother of 5.
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Why do progressives always have to diminish the people they disagree with by throwing out simple one liners backed up with no real argument? As you can see, two can play that game. For example Just saying: Feminism is being redefined and repossessed by anti-feminists doesn't a argument make. Maybe after so many painfully obvious years that the promise of feminism was a lie to begin with, maybe women are rejecting it. Maybe it is dead. Maybe the progressive movement is dead...
CW
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