In article ,
Fa-groon wrote:

On Fri, 25 Dec 2009 13:32:18 -0800, Justin wrote
(in article ):

On 12/25/09 8:35 AM, News wrote:

[snip]

Take a double dose. You and Rush Limpdick.

Would it surprise you I voted for Obama?

Ah, our great Marxist hope! I voted for him too, a decision that I am
starting to regret. He is nowhere near as left-wing as he seemed before the
election, and he also seems to be fairly incompetent, and in spite of his
Democratic Congress, almost totally ineffectual.

I think you might be paying a little too much attention to the 24 hour
news media, which tends not to understand how things get done in DC or
the pace at which actual politics works. They became a little too used
to how things worked under Bush, where everything was very top down, was
oversimplified, and Congress was, for the most part, just a rubber stamp.

If things unfold the way it looks like they will, in a couple of months
Obama can claim credit for bringing the economy back from the brink of
disaster, creating a new regulatory regime for the financial industry to
help prevent future shenanigans, and signing the most sweeping health
care legislation in 40 years into law. That set of accomplishments alone
would be enough to declare his first term a success, but he's also going
to go on to try for an extremely ambitious climate change bill as well.

It is true that some of this legislation has required serious
compromises. In particular, the health care bill Obama eventually signs
is unlikely to contain a public option. But remember, a public option
passed in the House, and Obama would have been more than willing to sign
that bill. The public option died in the Senate, where anti-majoritarian
internal rules have allowed a handful of conservative Democrats (the
mainstream media calls them "centrists" or "moderates", but issue polls
put them to the right of the American public on health care) to wield
far too much control over the process.

The White House could have tried to push back in the Senate, but this
likely would have involved expending substantial political capital to no
benefit. It might have even been counterproductive. Joe Lieberman, for
instance, currently has a very contentious relationship with actual
Democrats generally and with Obama specifically (Lieberman supported
McCain and has basically announced he'll support a Republican in 2012)
and might have simply dug in in opposition if too much pressure had been
applied -- and that alone could have killed reform dead in the Senate.

Of course the way our political system works, when conservative
Democrats work together with Republicans to prevent popular progressive
legislation, instead of voting out conservative Democrats, people
perceive the Democrats for being ineffective and vote for more
Republicans, who make everything even worse. Neat, huh?

--
"The game of professional investment is intolerably boring and over-exacting to
anyone who is entirely exempt from the gambling instinct; whilst he who has it
must pay to this propensity the appropriate toll." -- John Maynard Keynes