IOZ:

I like that The Obama's "four options" for Afghanistan are all the same option. I like the fact that he has bravely rejected any of the final four options in favor of finding a "compromise," a "hybrid." A fifth option? Barack Obama is calling audibles, yo. He's runnin' the wildcat offense! He's in the empty set. It's a reverse double onside punt fake kick passing lateral play....

I like that this man was the putative peace candidate.

Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose...

[I thought I'd update and re-post this, since with HR3962 our GENIUS Dems have really outdone themselves their indefatigable efforts to preserve the two-party system by giving the Republicans ever better odds in 2010 and 2012. Not that it matters to them; they're all made in Versailles by now anyhow. --lambert]

Obviously, I'm not a member of that curious breed, the "Democratic Strategist," nor do I play one on the teebee, nor do I have an interest in joining the League of Triple-A Democratic Strategists as a way to make it into The Show; and anyhow, if I were any good at strategerizing, somebody would be paying me to do it (Inside Rotisserie Baseball commenters take note).

Then again, because I'm not paid [except for your donations!], I can't ignore the obvious on health care insurance reform, and it seems to me that the "some bill, any bill" that the current Congress is going to emit will have some problems down the line. Among them:

1. Pffft. That deflated feeling, as of air escaping from a tire, will come when people compare the promise of "hope" and "change" to what is actually delivered -- and when (2013). As far at the [a|the] [strong|robust]? public [health insurance]? [option|plan], I still think my "baseline scenario" -- the mandate will force millions to buy junk insurance, bailing out the insurance companies -- is the most likely outcome, and it's not going to play well over time, especially with Obama's youthful base [UPDATE See Ian Welsh]. Then again, we might think that the electoral process has become a stepping stone to lucrative jobs on K Street or on the teebee, and so what we think of as the politics or optics of it all is just not relevant to insiders and wannabe insiders.

No Associated Press content was harmed in the writing of this post

Here:

Al Gore has sought to inject fresh momentum into the Copenhagen build-up, saying he is certain Barack Obama will attend and predicting a rise in civil disobedience against fossil-fuel polluters unless drastic action is taken over global warming.

Amid increasing incidents of climate protesters disrupting the operations of fossil-fuel industries and airports in Britain and elsewhere, Gore suggests the scale of the emergency means non-violent lawbreaking is justified. "Civil disobedience has an honourable history, and when the urgency and moral clarity cross a certain threshold, then I think that civil disobedience is quite understandable, and it has a role to play," he says. "And I expect that it will increase, no question about it."

It seems clear to me that if our system can't succeed in even giving a relatively minor tweak like single payer a hearing, that it's irretrievably broken. How, then, will our rulers deal with climate change?

I saw this entry posted over at Docudharma and thought I'd share the link to it. I'll post as much as I can, but really, it's worth checking out the entire entry. It's by the user known as FreeSociety.

The total vacuum of any principled leadership from President Obama, has inevitably produced the most directionless, anti-consumer, Insurance Monopoly boondoggle fraud imaginable -- which is now masquerading before Congress as "reform".

What Ian Welsh said:

Too many folks are dancing with the Devil, because he or she is a Democrat. Let me repeat one more time, Barack Obama and this Democratic Congress have given the richest people and corporations in America trillions of dollars, have packed the administration with neo-liberals and Goldman Sachs cronies, and are on track to pass a health care bill, which, whether it has a “public option” in it or not, is a regressive tax on the middle class, which will directly be handed over to the health industry.

Knock me over with a feather! Of course, the stenographer is Ceci Connolly, but presumably the administration took that into account when preparing its script:

President Obama's team, preparing for an intense round of private negotiations on Capitol Hill, used public appearances to set the parameters for the negotiations.

Obama continues to support the concept of a government-sponsored insurance option, but "he is not demanding that it is in" the final legislation, Valerie Jarrett, a senior White House adviser, said on NBC's "Meet the Press." "He thinks it's the best possible choice."

White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel, in two television appearances, noted that the public option could provide much-needed competition, but that "it's not the defining piece of health care."

Nor could it ever have been!

Yes, our old favorite Boohooman has followed up on his venting with a thumbsucker on his deep spiritual dilemma: Whether to keep on being a fan, or try to figure out how to become an engaged citizen. I wish him well, and hope he feels free to take all the time he needs working things out.

Matt Taibbi:

This is what Barack Obama did to “earn” the Nobel Prize. He put the benevolent face back on things. He is a good-looking black law professor with an obvious bent for dialogue and discussion and inclusion. That he hasn’t actually reversed any of Bush’s more notorious policies — hasn’t closed Guantanamo Bay, hasn’t ended secret detentions, hasn’t amped down Iraq or Afghanistan — is another matter. What he has done is remove the stink of unilateralism from those policies.

They’re not crazy-ass, blatantly illegal, lunatic rampages anymore, but carefully-considered, collectively-run peacekeeping actions, prosecuted with meaningful input from our allies.

Via Glenn Greenwald, Matt Taibbi explains Obama's Nobel Peace Prize by providing some very insightful commentary about who is - and isn't - eligible for Nobel Peace Prizes and why:

Historic legislation to expand U.S. health care and control costs won its first Republican supporter Tuesday and cleared a key Senate hurdle, a double-barreled triumph that propelled President Barack Obama’s signature issue toward votes this fall in both houses of Congress.

"When history calls, history calls," said Maine Republican Olympia Snowe, whose declaration of support ended weeks of suspense and provided the only drama of a 14-9 vote in the Senate Finance Committee. ...

That's the front page of the Bangor Daily News today.

If you read down a ways, you'll find some discussion about what is actually in the damn bill, all couched in the politics.

Via McClatchy, this story on surface coal mining. The Feds (more power to them) are considering rescinding the regulation that lets the companies bury streams and valleys under the dirt and rock produced by "mountaintop removal". If you've never seen the aftermath of one of these mining operations, you may have a hard time imagining the terrifying scale of the destruction.

Go read Glenn.

Times Online:

Via the great Field Negro, this from Naomi Klein:

In the late 50s and early 60s, angry white mobs were reacting to life-changing victories won by the civil rights movement. Today's mobs, on the other hand, are reacting to the symbolic victory of an African American winning the presidency. Yet they are rising up at a time when non-elite blacks and Latinos are losing significant ground, with their homes and jobs slipping away from them at a much higher rate than from whites. So far, Obama has been unwilling to adopt policies specifically geared towards closing this ever-widening divide. The result may well leave minorities with the worst of all worlds: the pain of a full-scale racist backlash without the benefits of policies that alleviate daily hardships. Meanwhile, with Obama constantly painted by the radical right as a cross between Malcolm X and Karl Marx, most progressives feel it is their job to defend him – not to point out that, when it comes to tackling the economic crisis ravaging minority communities, the president is not doing nearly enough.

That's how the Overton Window works, kidz!*

Now, Klein being Klein, she ties together (a) the reparations movement, (b) the "crisis in African-American wealth, (c) the bailouts (in which Obama played such a prominent role), and (d) the transfer of wealth to banksters:

I mentioned earlier that many schools had decided not to show, live, the President's address to school children on the first day of his daughters' new school year. Now we're finding out that at least a few of those schools' claims they had no room in the curriculum or the class day for the address were (gasp) truthiness in service of obfuscation. Hat tip to the Lone Star bloggers at WhosPlayin.com who earlier broke the news that Lewisville ISD (outside Dallas) had forbidden teachers to show the speech even if parents could opt out.

Oh, and another Metroplex school that refused to show the speech bused kids to an appearance at Cowboys Stadium -- to see w, naturally. Nothing about this

I've been noticing two distinct camps over at dKos and I've been struggling to come up with what to call them. The only thing I could think of is "Liberal Elitists" vs "The Rabble". I hate to use a term culled from Republican Propaganda but it fits like a glove. If anyone can come up with something better let me know.

The recent discussions about Senator Obama's post about John Roberts and debate over the Anti-War Protests brought this into focus for me. RenaRF's post today in response to Obama was brilliant and passionate. But she's catching some flak from the Liberal Elitists.

The Beltway Democrats

In his post, Barack Obama made obvious he has internalized many of the principles espoused by Beltway Democrats:

Elect Us Now, We'll Stand up for You Later