sec. napolitano declares that the system worked...by failing

[papalovesmambo]

Posted: 12/28/09 at 9:29am

or it failed by working or some combination of the two. or possibly she meant, "i really hope you didn't watch the new yesterday when i said this: http://bit.ly/6CKktL . and instead only watch the news today when i say this: http://bit.ly/7KQe0u ."

heckuva job there, janet.

Updated On: 12/28/09 at 09:29 AM

[Bluemoon]

Posted: 12/28/09 at 9:33am

The eggnog must have worn off overnight.

[tazber]

Posted: 12/28/09 at 9:43am

She needs to reform Concrete Blonde and get out of politics.

[YouWantitWhen????]

Posted: 12/28/09 at 10:06am

Not a shining moment there Janet. I get what she tried to say, but she sure messed up the message. The system failed, but the response was appropriate - not exactly comforting when most people care about the initial blunder of letting the guy on the plane, and not the response to the blunder.

FWIW, she is getting called out by numerous left-leaning blogs (and some very left blogs) for her blunder. Updated On: 12/28/09 at 10:06 AM

[wonkit]

Posted: 12/28/09 at 11:49am

She not only reads Orwell; she practices it!

[papalovesmambo]

Posted: 12/28/09 at 11:57am

hell, ywiw, there's a real storm brewing in the lefty blogs right now and this is just part of it.

jane hamsher is being villified for daring to question this administration as are a lot of true-believer progressives and eventually the tracks will lead back to the west wing. the same administration that threw howard dean under the bus over his comments about hcr after walking on tiptoes around lieberman and buy-my-vote-ben nelson.

i see a very, very ugly period coming on the left because this bill is so very flawed that it is going to be an albatross that even 24/7 spin is not going to salvage. when leading elements of the progressive movement join with their polar opposites, it ought to make folks stop and think for a sec. but it won't.

none of that changes the fact that the gop is in disarray and is poised to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory in '10 and '12 by running no one with any ideas other than the symbol-minded parroting of talk show points.

it really is a fertile field for a third party with moderate ideas. a common-sense party, if you will that offers reasonable solutions based on facts not partisanship. it could win a lot of seats in the mid-terms.

[Q]

Posted: 12/28/09 at 12:13pm

papa - are you implying that there might be enough voters out there with common sense to recognize common sense?

That's awfully . . . optimistic, especially for you

[YouWantitWhen????]

Posted: 12/28/09 at 12:15pm

I said the same thing a few days ago.

The sad thing is that Obama is doing about what I expected. He was not as progressive as the far left hoped, and now they act surprised with him. It is ironic that those who blasted Bush for an imperial presidency are blasting Obama for not being enough like Bush and dictating law from above. I told a friend that progressives would be disappointed with him and conservatives would generally be surprised. So far (she is relatively conservative) she has agreed, and said given the options so far presented, she would vote for him in 2012 (and she did not in 200.

I think the bill is a start, but not the end, to trying to fix our health care system. More than anything, it shows with glaring honesty how broken our system really is.

A viable third party of moderate Repubs (which is getting smaller and smaller - maybe Snowe, Collins, Graham, Nelson and Dems (Nelson, Bacchas) and a couple of others could end up pretty interesting. This issue really will be can the develop the financial infrastructure to support and maintain a third party. I don't know if they can.

FWIW, Obama has done it is just about right on Iran so far. If the regime falls, it will be in part because Obama did not give them a straw man to use as a rallying point.

I hope you and yours had a great holiday.

[PalJoey]

Posted: 12/28/09 at 12:28pm

Don't count Obama out yet. History belongs not to the smart or the skilled but to those lucky enough to be in the right place at the right time.

If the Iranian regime falls and health care passes (in any form) and the economy (magically) turns around, Obama's 1st 4 years will be spun as a stunning success.

And if those things happen, they will have been.

[papalovesmambo]

Posted: 12/28/09 at 12:33pm

oh, i think any third party should avoid like the plague anyone currently in office and anyone who has served in the last decade. if i had anything to say in such a party i would demand that no one meeting either of the above conditions be considered for any position above blowjobs and coffee.

if the regime in iran falls it will have had nothing whatsoever to do with obama. his silence on the issue was more indicative of his inability to find an angle in which he could help himself in the tragedy unfolding there on a daily basis. especially after iran became the latest in a series of foreign nations to basically tell him to f*** off.

[YouWantitWhen????]

Posted: 12/28/09 at 12:35pm

PJ, I think Obama will get re-elected in 2012, with lesser majorities in both houses.

Like I said, he has done about what I expected. He seems more of an instrumentalist than someone who pushes radical change. I think the far left, looking at the alternatives, will vote for him.

I also think he will work on DOMA and DADT once he stabilizes the economy, which will placate (if not satisfy) some on the left.

And papa, I do not agree with you on your assessment of Iran. I think the general silence has been strategic.
Updated On: 12/28/09 at 12:35 PM

[papalovesmambo]

Posted: 12/28/09 at 12:46pm

ok, the economy would have recovered by next year at the latest with or without the stimulus according to the cbo ( http://bit.ly/13z1Y ). in fact it would have been better off without the stimulus, actually. so he didn't save a f****** thing and forestalled the recovery, particularly in the form of jobs with his naive meddling in the markets.

not that he will be blamed for his stupidity and his naked tranfer of wealth to his supporters in the single greatest payoff in history, only to be rivalled by his next feat: a payoff to his health-care corporatists in this bill that makes the stimulus look like chicken feed...

but yeah, there will probably be enough people put there willing to blatantly lie about his accomplishments and enough people stupid enough to believe them to possibly elect this corrupt, arrogant, naive, thin-skinned, vindictive crook again.

[Unknown User]

Posted: 12/28/09 at 1:04pm

Spoken like a true republican.

[YouWantitWhen????]

Posted: 12/28/09 at 1:11pm

I found the transfer of wealth under Bush to the wealthiest Americans and the Military Industrial Complex via tax cuts during war time and an unnecessary war in Iraq much more offensive then trying to get people back to work or keeping them working, but that's just me.

And, I am not going to get into a citation war with papa since he is citing projections from the CBO from January, as opposed to findings that are more recent. Except perhaps for this one - from December of this year, which indicates that the stimulus saved or created up to 1.6 million jobs. So, papa, go preach what you preach, and I will just have to agree to disagree.
Stimulus and Jobs

[PalJoey]

Posted: 12/28/09 at 1:31pm

there will probably be enough people put there willing to blatantly lie about his accomplishments and enough people stupid enough to believe them to possibly elect this corrupt, arrogant, naive, thin-skinned, vindictive crook again...

That's exactly how Bush got re-elected.

[javero]

Posted: 12/29/09 at 7:01pm

"there will probably be enough people put there willing to blatantly lie about his accomplishments and enough people stupid enough to believe them to possibly elect this corrupt, arrogant, naive, thin-skinned, vindictive crook again..."

PLM-- lemme say this much about that. Your team should have picked him first. Just think of what Cheney could have pulled off had he the luxury of manipulating Obama's strings. Today, just substitute Big Banks & Corporate Drug Dealers for Big Oil & Mercenaries; the net effect's the same. Same soup, different spoon.

[papalovesmambo]

Posted: 12/29/09 at 9:20pm

eh, our side coulda run mother theresa and lost that election.

[Phyllis Rogers Stone]

Posted: 12/29/09 at 9:48pm

You gotta be relieved McCain and Palin didn't actually win, though, right?

And I'm all for a real third party, but only if it didn't allow itself to be hijacked by judeo-christian voodoo.

[papalovesmambo]

Posted: 12/29/09 at 10:03pm

i maintain that sarah palin is no worse that joe biden.

she's poison though and needs to go away. but i honestly find her no dumber than the current idiot veep.

that said, i do worry about the president's grasp on reality when he declares that the criticism of janet was unfair. me and aravosis. when we agree, there's a problem!

[PalJoey]

Posted: 12/29/09 at 11:30pm

Aravosis thrives on hate. Once upon a time he hated Dr. Laura, and he started STOPDRLAURA.com, which did.

Then during the primaries, he hated Hillary. Now he hates Obama.

He thrives on hating.

Palin is a nidiot, a complete nidiot. Worse, she's a dangerous nidiot.

[YouWantitWhen????]

Posted: 12/30/09 at 1:16am

It appears the real screw ups may have been the CIA. And, the apparent institutional inability to play well together with sensitive info.

[PalJoey]

Posted: 12/30/09 at 10:29am

Maureen Dowd:

"If we can’t catch a Nigerian with a powerful explosive powder in his oddly feminine-looking underpants and a syringe full of acid, a man whose own father had alerted the U.S. Embassy in Nigeria, a traveler whose ticket was paid for in cash and who didn’t check bags, whose visa renewal had been denied by the British, who had studied Arabic in Al Qaeda sanctuary Yemen, whose name was on a counterterrorism watch list, who can we catch?"