President Obama's seeming inability to recognize that Congressional Republicans are not interested in cooperating with him has been the source of much consternation for many Obama supporters and liberals. Rachel's comparison of the divergence in perspective to The Twilight Zone's "To Serve Man" episode struck many viewers as resoundingly apt.
In the #Maddow Twitter channel, @Mr_Electrico was inspired to snark a metaphor of his own:
#Maddow Dateline 1861: President Obama today hailed the shelling of Fort Sumter as a "new era" in North/South cooperation & bipartisanship.
After Tuesday's show I met up with TRMS rose-colored correspondent Kent Jones in the TRMS History Library where we sat in giant leather arm chairs, swirling snifters of brandy, and pondered key moments in history from a more harmonious perspective...
Dateline Long Time Ago: Lauding what President Obama characterized as "heavenly hospitality" the White House today announced the scheduling of a series of "dinners with Lando."
Dateline 410 A.D.: Rome is sacked by barbarians. President Obama offers to have "beer summit" with King Alaric I, ruler of the Visigoths.
Dateline 1814: President Obama sends King George III a check for demolition and landscaping following the British burning of the White House. .
Dateline 1912: President Obama noted the meeting today between The Titanic and an iceberg as a positive step in ship/iceberg relations and offerd a generous aid package to the iceberg.
Dateline 1965: President Obama today praised Sonny Liston's "horizontal compromise" as a milestone in sportsmanship.
Dateline 1968: Upon the Soviet Union's invasion of Czechoslovakia today, President Obama hailed the move as "a long overdue coming together among brothers" and that "their similarities far outweighed their differences."
Dateline 1987: President Obama today held out Sylvester Stallone's "handshaking movie" as a sign of America's cultural embrace of bipartisanship.
Dateline: 2008: President Obama praises 0-16 Detroit Lions for "reaching across the aisle."
Any other examples of history reconsidered? The comments are open.
Leave a Comment:
All of the above is empty and destructive rhetoric IMHO. President Obama should continue to try reaching across the aisle since it isn't causing any harm and could ultimately point out to Americans the vast differences between him and the outrageous Republican politicians.
With all due respect, how's the weather there in lala land?
Is there a Serenity Prayer for the historically-challenged?
"... the COURAGE to change what I can and the WISDOM to know the difference.."
imho joan he reaches to much and gop did show that it is not INTERESTED in bipartisanship .... to all he ever proposed their answer was NO ... NO STRATEGY ... so SCREW GOP and GROW A PAIR is all i have to say
Thanks Joan, for repeating my thoughts, even though I wish he would just get down right open and cut them to the quick! Are they there to represent their constituents or their 'financial supporters'!!??!!
I'm with you Joan. He's fighting for change in the way things are done. If the GOP wont meet him half way, it's not for lack of him trying. It's terrific that he got them to sit down together to talk, whatever the outcome. I fully expected they would be turning on their heels and walking out if he didn't just cave in right then and there.
Add to that his setting up the committee for dealing with the National deficit. When was the last time America had a full blown business plan? A master plan for where we are going and how to get there preceded by a preamble of basic principles? Now it will be up to all of US to use the power of the internet (media and press being pretty useless) to keep Congress on task.
Seriously, we're talking about his public statements here. What's he supposed to say? One of his stated goals is working to bridge the partisan divide. Washington is becoming more and more polarized, and thereby more and more broken. Something has to turn the tide.
He gets up in front of all the news cameras, in front of the whole country, and he talks about the meeting. He can say that it was a good start and he hopes that things will move along in a better direction. Or he can... what?
Say that they said some nice things, but really it's obvious they don't mean any of it? What's that supposed to accomplish? It undermines any actual progress made, makes him look like a jerk, turns the entire meeting into an exercise in hypocrisy, and gives the Right a substantive sound byte to prove that the administration is working against them and only giving lip service to bipartisanship.
What could he possibly say other than the usual trite and meaningless diplomatic phrases? Good meeting, some agreement, better path, blah blah.
Now, if Wikileaks could get a hold of what's been said in private White House staff meetings, that would be a different story.
Sorry, but as a fervent Obama supporter, I'd have to disagree. At this point, he's received nothing for all of his bipartisan efforts other than a kick in the teeth. The American public has shown that it's ready to believe the worst of him - look how much traction the 'he's a foreign-born Muslim' meme has gotten, or how many Republicans believe that Acorn helped him steal the 2008 election (40%).
At this point, I don't care how he wins, just that he wins. If he would have gotten on the phone and started button-holing some Senators, we could have passed the middle class tax cuts, approved START, and repealed DADT.
Instead, we're looking at adding 70 billion to the deficit by not sunsetting the tax cuts above $250K, losing the opportunity to reduce our nuclear stockpile, and keeping the abomination that is DADT.
I elected someone who would fight for the dwindling middle-class, not someone who's going to hold the door open for those who will rob us blind.
As crude as it is, Obama needs 250cc of Man-the-F***-up - STAT!
@Joan: Isn't causing any harm? Are we looking at the same country?
I was initially all for his efforts of "reaching across the aisle" if only for the fact that I actually sorta believed that the Repubs rebuffing him for it would cause a problem for THEM. But it seems that no one actually seems to have noticed the havoc they are willing to cause, and THEY certainly have no shame about it.
If he is operating under the assumption that their arrogance and meanness will be a source of shame, he needs to get with the program. That train never even made it to the station. The country is pretty battered right now, and he is LOSING that political strategy and making only the smallest of gains (if at all) for those of us suffering the effects of that battering.
There is a point where trying to play the nice guy becomes not only a losing strategy, but a signal to continue walking all over him (and by extension, us). It's time to break out the big stick, Barack. The time for niceties is over.
If only he had a big stick! The far left just don't get it and democrats paid the price during the middterms. Continuing will be a bloodshed in 2012.
Everyone knows the tax cut legislation passed by the House today was just "chicken crap"! More game playing by the dems. Doesn't matter, whatever happens now, the Republicans will just put the bill back on the table and then the democrats will have to decide whether they are going to support the package with all the tax cuts (including those 250K). You see, Democrats will not win this one. And Rachel calling it "bonuses to the wealthy" just irritates those on the middle and the right. WE UNDERSTAND THE TWISTING OF WORDS!
So, go through the motions and get ready for the house takeover in January. In a bad economy, it will be risky for Obama to stand too strong in his own ideaology. He will have to cut deals to get any legislation passes.
The Harm. What is the harm?
Well, for one thing, Obama has negotiated away everything he can-right out from underneath our feet. In fact, I was generous using the word "negotiated". He just gave it away. In fact, before any negotiating even started.
You don't negotiate and find the middle by running across the line and saying "I'm going to give you what you want". "What every you want, here it is". I really don't care how full the glass is. I think he's the one person standing in between a successful set of progressive policies and the half arsed compromised bills he's passed.
Here's just one example: I don't want a health care bill without a public option. The public option was going to be the only real referee to make sure the insurance companies live up to the law. As you can see, they are already going around the law-no competition-no compliance. Ruined the bill-end of story. And now we know that he negotiated that away before the sausage making ever started.
He's a loser for the party and I for one, would like to see someone different run in 2012.
Gigi Jacobs, Santa Monica, CA.
Well it doesn't take a rocket scientist to see that he could not have got the public option. He nearly lost the entire Congress for pushing through what he did get. And as more than half of the American people already knew, this just got the country a lot of money and very few real changes. A failure, total failure, and it cost the democrats big time.
If any other far left legislation is going to pass, it will be with compromise and fortunately for the conservatives, the democrats aren't in the strongest negotioning position.
The antics of the last 2 years have been devastating for the democrats. Those on the FAR left are going to have to accept that their agenda does not resonate with the majority of the country and just like you wouldn't want a FAR right agenda supported others don't want a far left.
You at this point DO have a chance at DADT, but if the Pelosi's and Reids continue with their "chicken crap", you might just lose it all.
Unfortunate
Katy, as much as you may want this country to be a far right corporatocracy, the fact is that if you get your way, you will become even poorer and more irrelevant than you are today. Can you influence what your representatives vote for? Not unless you have a few million to toss toward the candidates of your choice, and I'm betting you're just not in that tax bracket. Your repub representative looks at you as a piece of dirt, a useful tool when elections come around. They lie to you, use wedge issues like gay marriage and death panels to distract you from the very obvious fact that everything they want to do will help only the rich and big corporations. You aren't even an afterthought, because that would imply they even think about you and people like you in the first place, which they don't.
You don't like healthcare reform? Fine, let's go ahead and repeal it, even though the CBO says it will save over $1.1 trillion over the next 10 years. We can certainly afford to add that to the deficit because we're going to add an extra $700 billion to the debt in the same time period by extending tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans, and repubs say we don't have to pay for that. Besides, I'm sure the insurance companies can afford to lose the 30 million new customers they would get under the healthcare law, as well as the millions more that they are losing as unemployment continues at this rate. And if they haven't lost enough already, they can go back to cancelling the policies of customers who get sick and deny coverage to anyone that has any kind of pre-existing condition.
Your "concern" about the fates of dems is touching, but about as fake as Boehner's tan. If you want to know what this country will look like in 10 years if repubs get all they want, look no further than Mexico, a nation with few laws, where a very few rich and powerful people live in gated communities, while the majority of the population lives on starvation wages and works long, hard hours in dangerous working conditions. The repub utopia is just south of the border and is on its way here.
Katy, I thought you would have been horrified at the idea of Death Panels. So does the idea of denying people organ transplants as a cost saving measure strike you as reasonable? Wouldn't that have fallen into the definition of a Death Panel decision, especially when it imperils the lives of over 90 people?
Or is it okay only when Gov. Jan Brewer does it?
Katy doesn't mind death panels as long as it's insurance companies or repub governments that run them. It's only a problem when a mythical death panel from a mythical government healthcare plan does it. No matter that there never were any death panels to begin with. Facts are an annoyance to repubs.
Yeah, state funded death panels formed at the instigation of the governor are fine. Just so long its not Federally mandated. State rights and all that.
Don't you understand that your state knows best who to kill? They know you far better than the distant federal government. And of course, a republican is much more qualified to kill citizens than a democrat!
Dateline September 17, 1862: President Obama praises generals George McClellan and Robert "Bob" Lee for taking an important first step towards North/South diplomacy on the banks of Antietam Creek.
Circa 1184 BC, President Obama stood at the gates of Troy, claiming "This majestic and beautiful wooden horse the Greeks have given us clearly indicates a new era of bipartisan cooperation, and an end to this interminable 10 year siege. Come, let us move it inside the gates!"
If Obama is our boyfriend, the fact is that he just isn't that into us - being far more concerned about his relationship with our ex (Bush/Cheney Admin.) If he was a boxer he'd be disqualified for throwing his matches. If he was Julius Caesar he'd be trying to reach a bi-partisan agreement with Brutus. The only liberal cachet he has is how reviled he is by the conservatives he keeps trying to reach out to.
That's not to say he hasn't done alot for us, he has. But how much better would it have been if he hadn't handicapped his initiatives by discarding key pieces for which he, and we as a nation, never received Republican support. Whatever his virtues, he lacks the courage of his convictions to the point that he he could just as well be a Republican plant for all his effectiveness in how he represents we who brung him.
So far as I'm concerned, his stuff is thrown out in the yard and I'm in the market for a new boyfriend.
Obama is using bipartisanship as a cover for what he is really doing. He is claiming that he is "bargaining" with the Republicans in a show of bipartisanship while he is actually making back room deals with big business to "eat the lunch" of the American middle class. The giving away of the public option in the negotiation of health care reform is a good example of this.
Date Line 23rd and a half century: President Obama returns the P32 Space Modulator to Marvin the Martian in a bipartisan move.
and befriends Bugs Bunny to prove his allegiance...
In 1721, President Obama shipped 25 prostitutes to the Louisiana territory due to the lack of women.
get progressively smarter obama...or get a primary challenger.
Dateline 1705: President Obama discovered three new laws of political motion.
1. A party of no tends to stay at no.
2. The greater the soundbite (by the noise machine) the greater the amount of knee jerk is needed to quiet the constituents.
3. For every agenda there is an equal and oppose agenda by the opposing party.
Brilliantly appropos.
Stardate 0471337: President Borgbama welcomes a new paradigm of human-borg relations.
Stardate0471337: President BorgObama sees borg assimilation as a step in the right direction for borg relations and that quote "resistance is futile"
Dateline 348 BC: "Courage is knowing what not to fear."
--Plato
A newly elected President Obama was sitting in the crowd. He thought Plato said.
"Courage is rowing without a beer."
Some time in the 1950's:
Although it might be rabbit season, President Obama has asked Bugs Bunny to find common ground with Mr. Fudd in an effort to usher in a new era of cooperation
Python were on them years ago!!!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kQFKtI6gn9Y
So, Mother Jones just e-mailed me an ad titled :
interesting marketing ploy. I had to laugh.
Dateline about 60 CE: King Obama thanks Queen Boudicca for showing London residents a "new way forward" in cooperation with their Roman friends.
This is quite fun!
Dateline November 19, 1863:
Four score and seven years ago the voters brought forth, upon this nation, a new GOP, conceived in hate, and dedication to make Obama a one term President.
Now we are engaged in a great civil debate, testing whether this nation, or any nation so conceived, and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met here today on this great internets of partisan politics. We have come to dedicate a portion of it as a final resting place for those with progressive ideologies. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should just lie down and play dead until 2012 comes around.
But in a larger sense Democrats can't agree on anything - we can not just stick together - we can not move the polls in our favor. The brave liberals like Maddow and Olberman, living and suspended, who struggled here, have consecrated it far above our poor power to quiet Fake News. The world will little note, nor long remember, what they said here, but can never forget what they did here.
It is for us, the remaining progressives, rather to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they have, thus far, so nobly carried on. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us - that from these honored commentators we take increased devotion to that cause for which they here gave the last full measure of devotion - that we here highly resolve that these commentators shall not have been made fun of on SNL or suspended in vain; that this nation shall have a new birth certificate of freedom (not a birth record); and that the GOP of the top 2%, by the top 2%, for the top 2%, shall perish from the earth.
President Obama
Gettysburg Address
Hear hear!
Don't you mean "Now we are engaged in a great uncivil debate..."? I see very little civil about it at the moment.
Sam, you am!
Datelines are all wrong for expenditure-related entries because they do not account for filibusters.
Dateline 1765: In response to Parliment's "stamp act" Colonial Governor Obama says "Okay, we can do that.."
Dateline 1763, the French and Indian Wars; Upon receiving two handkerchiefs and a pile of blankets as a "gift" from the British during the Siege of Fort Pitt, President Obama proclaimed "this act of generosity and good will a testament to the openness and civility that can exist across the aisle." (historical footnote, everybody probably contracted smallpox.)
Dateline 2010, President Obama introduced truculent billionaire C. Montgomery Burns of Springfield Nuclear Power as the recipient of this year's Medal of Freedom, praising his initiatives in providing sufficient exercise to members of the canine population (aka releasing the hounds), his groundbreaking experiments in fighting global warming (by blocking out the sun), and his innovations in storing nuclear waste (by placing it inside trees). Mr. Burns was quoted as saying "Excellent."
Obama is the kind of guy that would stand with Pinochet and celebrate the good job he's done....
Obama, would be the kind of guy that would stand with Pinochet and think he did a great job! Then turn around and say... "we must look forward, not backwards."
Dateline 79 A.D. - President Barakitus congratulates residents of Pompeii for agreeing to a whole new era of infrastructure development, vows to emulate their spirit of cooperation.
Dateline April 25, 1846.
President Obama would like to thank Mexico for re-opening dialogue along the US-Mexican border in robust and passionate fashion. He would also like to extend his deepest apologies to all bullets fired by Mexican forces which were not in some way impeded by the flesh and bone of American soldiers. As a way of rectifying this injustice to Mexican firearms, President Obama is planning a $200 million per day convoy to go down the Fort Brown so that he may be shot once in the backside by a yet-to-be-determined Mexican leader.
Date Line London 1666
Prime Minister Obama today praised the major conflagration that swept thru central areas of the city as the first step towards much needed urban renewal and expressed hope that it will bring badly needed jobs to the area as we, like a metaphorical phoenix, rise anew from the ashes.
I'm amazed at how many posters here are apologizing for Obama. This guy sold us a fancy package that when opened revealed a box of nothing. He's no liberal. I'm not sure what this guy is, but I am sure he's weak, cowardly, gullible, indecisive, and a Pollyanna at best. Compromise. I voted for a man who said the Bush tax cuts would end. I voted for a guy who was gonna get us out of Iraq and Afghanistan. He's ramped it up. The public option on his health care bill? He let it go without even giving it a good fight. Now he's proposing a wage freeze for 2 years for federal employees. Can't this guy learn to negotiate? I mean if you want to compromise, both sides have to give. Obama just gives. And he gave up this crucial bargaining chip getting nothing in return. Nothing. The unemployment extension will go unpassed until Obama caves in and gives the rich 2% all our money.
Obama is in way over his head. He might even be more naive than George W. He somehow thinks if he talks quietly and calmly this adversaries will like him and follow him. Fools like him are used and abused every day. This guy is not qualified to be president. I'm gonna hold my breath for the next 2 years, then work my butt off to make sure Barak Oblablabla never sits in the Oval Office again. He's an embarrassment to the himself, the office, and the country.
Just out of curiosity....what would McCain have done by now? It's a serious question. Tell us what his first move would have been during an economic armageddon?
Started a war with Iran in hopes that it would boost up the economy they way it did WW2. Too bad the same problems would persist that have for our enterprises in Iraq and Afghanistan. Massive deficits run up by the Fed creating a giant demand filled by Rosie the Riveter here in America making war materiale, lifting us out of the Great Depression.
Why can't we do that now? Rosie the Riveter now lives in India, China, Tiawan, Indonesia and she does not pay American taxes.
Enjoy the view on the way to the cliff 'cause this ain't gettin' fixed anytime soon.