As you may have noticed from some of the political posts I’ve written, I consider myself to be a fairly progressive liberal Democrat. That’s why it pains me to be forced to admit that, sometimes, I fucking hate my fellow travelers on the Left. Why is that? Simply put, I despise the propensity of some liberals to eat their own at the ultimate expense of the Progressive movement as a whole.
Case in point: the the breathless panic induced in some progressive liberals by the news that President Elect Obama has named Rahm Emanuel as his Chief of Staff. You can read a fairly balanced piece on this from The Nation here that lays out the issues nicely.
Let it be said, I am in no way a fan of Rahm Emanuel. He’s a Democratic Leadership Council Clintonite; and I think he represents everything that is wrong with the Democratic party. But one thing that no one can deny is that he can beat people into doing what he wants. And, as Chief of Staff, that’s exactly what his job will be; to browbeat various parties into going along with President Obama’s agenda. In that way he’s a great pick for the job.
There is a bigger point that I’m trying to make here though. Here’s the deal people: at the time I’m writing this, President Elect Obama has had that title for three fucking days. For Cthulu’s sake, if this was most of us we’d still be holed up on a desert island for the next few weeks. Look, we didn’t elect some sort of mystical hobo who can wave a magic wand and undo the depredations of the last twenty eight years with a puff of magic dust. Moving this country in a more progressive direction will take years of work. But we’re damn sure in a better position to do it than if McBlinky and the Dolt had been elected.
Hear! Hear! Nicely (and of course crudely) put.
Yeh. I know just what you mean. My fellow conservative travelers are no better. Within minutes of McCain’s concession speech, the carrion eaters in his campaign staff had a Palin feeding frenzy that would make a school of great whites go, “Damn.”
That’s the problem with calling yourself liberal or conservative; people expect you to wear the whole frigging uniform and sing the fight song, but it’s okay to be a disloyal, maleficent, back-stabbing piece of shit.
Some days it doesn’t seem worth bribing the charge nurse for a hall pass.
I can’t be bothered with that; I’m enjoying the meltdown on the right too much. The black muslim terrorist who’s going to impose shari’a law on the country and fly al-Quaeda’s black flag over the White House: his first appointment is…wait for it…a Jew with dual US/Israeli citizenship who volunteered for the IDF in Gulf War I (got stuck in the motor pool, but still…) and whose father actually WAS a terrorist (in the Irgun.)
I know that cognitive dissonance is the wingnuts’ Core Value™ and their whole platform, but how do their heads not explode?
The meltdown on the right happened twenty years ago when we elected Bush the Elder to the White House. There hasn’t been a real conservative in any office with the balls to be true to his core beliefs since Reagan left office.
Whatever else I might say about our President-Elect, he does seem to believe what he says. We shall see.
Great post. People keep mistaking Obama’s style (No Drama Obama, etc.) for weakness. I love that he’s brought a hardass in. Spine of steel indeed!
My fellow conservative travelers are no better.