Bill Moyer's Journal talks about Obama. Do you understand what Obama stands for?

[Democrats_win]

If you saw the recent "debate" between Eric Alterman and a Princeton scholar, Melissa Harris-Lacewell, you can't help but have a greater understanding of our progressive views on Obama's presidency.

Please consider this quote by Melissa Harris-Lacewell:

...I keep having to remind myself that I'm committed to the particular social contract that is democracy with a little "d" in the U.S. And so, what that means is the messy hard work of recognizing that winning an election is not the same thing as staging a coup. And that even if the other side does it ugly and bad and mean and dishonestly, that the rules of the game are at least as important as the overall outcomes. And so, the plodding, difficult, bureaucratic, listening to people who you disagree with and who you think have ill will, is part of the democratic process. But it is that difficulty of governing together in a country where we don't agree with each other that is the work of democracy.

http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/01222010/transcript1.html
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I'm sure that most DUers would agree that she has a point. If America doesn't unite, we will not be able to meet the competition and demands of the rest of the world. (This is what Obama seems to stand for.)

Eric Alterman, in many ways mirrored the views of many of us on DU that Obama should act to address the many problems left from the Bush presidency. He should do this unilaterally, without Republican support.

[grasswire]

1. dear Ms. Harris-Lacewell

From what I'm reading elsewhere this morning, yours is a plan for suckers. It makes me sick.

[NYC_SKP]

2. But for some, the "no compromise", "March on DC, "if you're not with us you're against us" approach

is the ONLY way.

And that way is full of FAIL.

[robcon]

3. I think democrats who don't face elections can be cavalier.

The best way to describe these Democratic pundits is that they are willing to sacrifice others (Dems who actually have to run for offices) for the sake of their policies.

We are not a suicidal party. We try to win elections. That is the purpose of our party.

[ourbluenation]

5. yep. n/t

[Marr]

7. Did you watch this interview?

Alterman followed up her statement with, "how's that working out?". And she didn't have anything to say.

[NYC_SKP]

10. No, but I will try. Meantime, I would recommend this Washington Post editorial

In Obama's decision-making, a wide range of influences

During one of his Afghan review meetings last year, President Obama surprised senior advisers by jumping into a discussion between two military officials about a new study of post-traumatic stress disorder.

The flow of information to the president is usually carefully managed, and no one in the room had briefed Obama on the data. "It's not like we'd sent him the study, but he'd clearly seen it," one adviser said. "It was telling."

What it told of was a president who persists in seeking his own information, beyond what is offered to him. His lawyerly and orderly reliance on facts and data often has created an impression that Obama is cool and detached.

It is an image his advisers and friends reject. Instead, they paint a more nuanced and at times blurred portrait of a president who is deeply moved by the struggles of average citizens who stand up at town hall meetings or write thousands of letters to the White House -- 10 of which he reads each day.

more at link: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/01/24/AR2010012403014.html?hpid=topnews

Thanks to elleng- http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=103x513146

[WCGreen]

4. All I believe is that Obama made some tactical errors and really misjudged

his former colleagues in the Senate. It think he truly believed that coming from that "August Body" he would be given at least the benefit of the doubt...

But membership in the worlds most exclusive club does not guarantee you any consideration when your wishes in dreams come in conflict with how the other 99 folks view the world.

President Obama gave them an opening as wide as the Grand Canyon to walk right in and hijack the whole process.

President Obama was playing by what he believed was the right way but the GOP and many of those in his own party had a different way of looking at the world.

The Senate has been likened to democracy's governor switch, that it stops the mood of the day from becoming law.

Well, I see it differently. From the way Civil Rights were denied for decades to the way the Senate stooped Wilson's plan for the post world War I world, the Senate has always stood in the way of progress.

The original intent of the Senate was to quell the will of the masses. Which is both good and bad. But the archaic Senate rules need to be relaxed in order to address not the needs of the day but the needs of the country.

We have to remember that the two major party's really represent two conflicting currents in the United States. One is basically open to change and the other is willing to go balls to the wall in order to stop the, for lack of a better word, order from changing.

It makes for an interesting political situation but is proving to be not all that adapt and handling the 21st century wants and needs of the country.

[Marr]

6. Ivory tower bullshit.

I watched that interview, and that passage was used to defend Obama's supposed "bipartisanship". His love of bipartisanship is nothing more than a fig leaf for pushing corporate policy, and that ought to be obvious.

Politics is not about a social contract or giving everyone their say. It's a way of conducting society's conflicts in a bloodless setting, that's all. We've just sat through 30 years of vicious class warfare waged by the wealthy on the poor and the middle class, and these kinds of admonishments to 'listen to both sides' and politely follow rules and decorum frankly make me ill.

You take every inch you can, period. This is serious stuff-- it's not a fucking college course.

[izquierdista]

8. Bipartisanship = corporatism

Since the corporations have bought the Democrats as well as the Republicans, there is going to have to be a third party to represent the people.

[whattheidonot]

11. new majority.

obama had a new majority. Instead of pushing and leading that new majority he did some backsliding. he did things that went against that new majority . he did not push the majority to the forefront. he stayed with wall street too long, he caved on health care, he intensified the wars. The country was ready for a move or the majority was and the move did not come so the majority broke up. it would have been better had a good fight been put up. The new dems don't care and the independents are getting no pressure. Obama also has not come clean on the wars and unemployment. Too much goes to wars and not enough to stimulate job markets. Private capital is scarce. Wars, a housing bubble, people broke, communities not coming back, foreign ownership of US companies. too much crap man.

[omega minimo]

9. If "the rules of the game" were important, Bush/Cheney would have been investigated/impeached

"...that the rules of the game are at least as important as the overall outcomes."

[Armstead]

12. It was an ingteresting discussion -- Worth catching if it's online

I tend to agree with Alterman more, but both were interesting