No Associated Press content was harmed in the writing of this post
On Tuesday lambert pointed out something I had not noticed: Talking Points Memo had not covered Matt Taibbi's Rolling Stone article on Goldman Sachs, and its coverage of them has been very light in recent months. Caveats: TPM advertises itself as "Breaking News and Analysis" and it gets to decide what is news and what merits analysis; Taibbi's article was a lengthy narrative in a magazine and not breaking news, similar to Todd Purdum's profile of Sarah Palin in Vanity Fair this month; while a web site has nearly unlimited space to devote to news there are only so many hours in the day end workers to publish during it. There are any number of good reasons why a site like TPM would not have covered it.
It still seems a curious omission though. After all, Purdum's article got a brief mention and link on the front page. Financial scandals are covered there, and a search on Bernie Madoff brings up three pages of results. Like Martha Stewart before him Madoff seems to have become a synecdoche for the entire financial industry. Now, Stewart's crime was a half million dollar stock scam whereas Madoff's was a $50 billion Ponzi scheme, so the latter had a much larger impact. Still, it A) only affected private investors and B) is relatively small when compared to bailout, son of bailout and who knows what other giveaways we are only vaguely aware of at the moment. It seems that an article like Taibbi's would serve an important reminder as to what the stakes and who the biggest players really are.
Maybe some of the president's supporters prefer to turn a blind eye towards a scathing indictment of a company whose employees have lavishly funded the president and with whom he appears to enjoy a warm relationship. If so it is troubling. I am somewhat sympathetic to the view of politics as team sport. We have a long tradition of a two party system and it is easy to see them as opponents on a playing field. You don't harshly criticize your captain any more than you would take a shot at your own goal. That is what the opposition is for, and if it is not willing or able to do so then you are under no obligation to help them out. As Bobby Bowden once told Lou Holtz after a lopsided win, "it's your job to keep the score down, not mine."
Taking that approach may not be in the left's ultimate interest though. For one, it moves the dialog closer to the whole "who won the week?" mentality - where policy is trumped by process - that progressives found so objectionable during the Bush years. If they embrace it now that Democrats are in control they will lose the chance to distinguish themselves from conservatives in any substantial way. That not only opens the door for Republicans to come back once the political winds shift but it sets liberals up to be regarded with the same deep distrust that has put the GOP in such a hole at the moment.
Strict obedience to the president did not serve conservatives well in another way: Because they never allowed a vibrant opposition from the right to develop they became hitched to Bush and had no ideas to offer once he left. When you tie your fate so closely to a leader and the leader becomes deeply unpopular you become, well, the Republican party circa 2009. Instead of simple triumphalism liberals should see the current disarray on the right as a cautionary tale. George Bush looked unassailably popular not too long ago and supporting him without reservation seemed to be the surest bet in politics; couldn't that apply to Barack Obama too?
As a liberal, what bothers me most about what looks like an unseemly deference towards the president from the left is my belief that we are (or should be) more adversarial towards those in power. The idea of nearly automatic reverence for those in authority - what Taibbi called the peasant mentality - is an inheritance from conservatives. Seeing the press corps stand at attention (via) when the president walks in, or military trappings attending him (as Avedon points out - and we can never be told often enough - "The President of the United States is a civilian. You don't salute him. Ever. Even if you are in the military."), or what Glenn Greenwald rightly called creepy assertions that we are obligated to fall in line behind the president simply because he is the president: all of that should rouse the authority-hating impulse of the left.
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The Simple Questions Hall of Fame.
No, I've learned that we should all be like Britney:
To act in any other way is to be a traitor, racist, purist, and someone who doesn't know who the president is.
Why do you hate Obama?
You forgot that one.
"First they ignore you, then they ridicule you, then they fight you, then you win." -- Mahatma Gandhi
What Left?
Sure there are liberals in the country, but I'm not sure there's any organized movement anymore. The liberal movement was at one time organized (going back to its most recent heyday the 1960s) with unions, civil rights groups, women's organizations, antiwar groups, etc.
In the last 40 years it's been decimated. Membership and power are down. And what did exist seems incapable of taking on Obama. The antiwar movement that existed in the last few years has all but disappeared. African American organizations seem paralyzed to challenge him. Women's groups have been struggling with membership issues for some time and have splintered badly in the last couple of decades.
In the place of that we have the blogosphere, but that seems dominated by people who were more anti-Bush than true liberals and/or folks who care more about replacing the Village
than changing it. That's not universally true, of course, but there is no organization. No movement.
It's funny because I hear criticism of Obama all the time. It's all around me at work, including from Democrats and supporters. The anger about the bank bailouts runs very deep in my off-line experience. Deeper than anything else. Yet, I read very little about it on a lot of the bigger blogs - run by people who want to be seen as leading the left.
It seems to me the disconnect between the elites and the people doesn't stop at the blogosphere's border.
Thanks for another thoughtful, compelling post, Dan.
"Do what you feel in your heart to be right -- for you'll be criticized anyway. You'll be damned if you do, and damned if you don't. " - Eleanor Roosevelt
A subtle distinction..
BDBlue, you write:
which is not the same as:
and begs the question (whose answer is obvious...) "Seen by whom?"
Now the idea of whipping the public option before there was anything really to whip falls into place for me. I thought it was a tactical error at best, but in fact is the strategy: To "be seen as" is more important than "to be," at least for career liberals. Classic Versailles
thinking. Thanks for this.
NOTE You do read Glen Ford, right?
"First they ignore you, then they ridicule you, then they fight you, then you win." -- Mahatma Gandhi
Thanks BDBlue
I cross post ot several sites and this one is going over about like I expected at Kos. Although to be fair I've always gotten the most responses there when criticizing from the left and that predates even the primaries. Going against the political grain is probably a recipie for lots of comments on ANY site.
BTW I picked up a copy of Valkyria Chronicles in the half price bin at Best Buy a couple weeks ago. I'm on chapter 10 now and enjoying it, but that desert tank battle with Maximilian was bullshit. It was a classic from the "you have to do it MY way" school of bad video game design. Also, the game takes a lot longer to get into than most others I've played. I'm not surprised it didn't take off - I think it might have lost folks who didn't have the patience. Those caveats aside, I'm enjoying it quite a bit - thanks much for the tip!
Had a chance to track down BioShock?
No Chance Yet on Bioshock, I'm stuck back in Oblivion
After our last chat, I fired Oblivion back up and am stuck back in that world. Plus, we're in a kind of/sort of austerity mode because we're buying a house. So I've actively avoided video game stores. Once we close on the house though, I plan on looking for Bioshock. I read more about it after you mentioned it and it looks awesome.
And one of these days I'm going to master Metal Gear Sold 4. I've never played any of the Metal Gear series and get frustrated by it. It looks wonderful and it's one of those games you can tell is great if you can just figure out how to play it.
I agree that Valkyria Chronicals' weakness is that it does force you into a "do it MY way" type of play from time to time. What I found compelling about it was the characters. It's amazing to me how you can become attached to characters who say only a few words. But from those lines, you can project an entire person. Funny how the mind works that way.
BTW, did you play Baldur's Gate? I haven't but Dragon Age: Origins comes out later this year and it looks interesting.
On to more (or possibly less) serious matters, I think the problem liberals have is that so much of what is needed and wanted goes against the system. And that's hard. Nobody likes to be on the outside and yet, almost by definition, liberals are destined to be there. At least in this country. The tug of your culture and institutions can be strong. And, of course, it's so much easier to just go along, especially if you're one of the lucky ones who have remained relatively unaffected by the economic meltdown.
"Do what you feel in your heart to be right -- for you'll be criticized anyway. You'll be damned if you do, and damned if you don't. " - Eleanor Roosevelt
Haven't played Baldur's Gate
I played Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake about 10 years ago and absolutely loved it. I snapped up the next Metal Gear a few years later and wanted to LOSE MY FREAKING MIND. One of the worst sequels ever - it forces you to sit through interminable cut scenes and was unbelievably convoluted. So when MGS4 came out I read the reviews carefully and it looks like more loooooong cut scenes. Unless I get a rave review from a trusted source I plan to give it a miss.
You're right about the characters in VC, and that's one of the reasons it starts so slow. There's lots of exposition before you get into combat, training, configuring stuff, etc. And since it's all introductory it feels very long since you aren't yet absorbed in the story. But like I said, I'm glad I stuck with it. I think it's a sleeper for PS3 and a nice win for Sega.
Why isn't impeachment of Obama on the table?
I feel that 5 months of war crimes is plenty. Joe is all right by me.
For reasons that positively escape me,
there seems to be this belief among a certain crowd that just having a president with (D) after his name, and having more (D)'s than (R)'s in Congress means that all is well and we now have the keys to the kingdom; clearly, this is far from being the reality of where we are - at least it seems clear to me.
I would like to say that having that majority is the beginning, but I'm not sure it's even at the beginning, since too many of those (D)'s - including the president - are people who, in another time, would have been running with (R)'s after their names.
If the president, at least, were a "real" Democrat, and had actual leadership qualities, and a penchant for hard work, and a desire to be a wonk's wonk on all the issues, it might be possbile to corral these marginal Democrats to a place where we needed them to be in order to make the kind of progress we've waited years for. But that kind of leader was not elected. That kind of Democrat was not elected.
The real left know this, but it isn't the real left that are engaging in the daily exercise of excusing Obama's failure to produce - that group is the fan club, who still have some stars in their eyes and are protecting the image of Obama with the kind of ferocity that ought to go toward issues, and not hero-worship.
Before the left - the real left - can be harder on Obama, they have to be harder on the fan club and hero-worshippers. But, when the president himself has bought into himself as hero-figure, and is now resisting efforts by interest groups that challenge that image, and issuing not-so-veiled threats against them, I would say we are in much deeper shit than even we thought possible.
Gonna be a long, stinky slog through piles of crap; better get your boots on.
Once upon a time, D's in power did mean a clear difference....
But that was awhile ago. Clinton believed he had to prove that government could govern effectively and well, so spent time and great effort to make sure things worked for the public, so he spent great political capital on balancing the budget. Perot's campaign had something to do with that. ( Did Perot ever say anything about Bush's profligacy? If so, did the MCM cover it?) Clinton also made sure expperienced, competent people ran veterans affairs, FEMA. His work did lead to more jobs for everyone and a slight increase in earnings for the poor and lower middle classes, iirc, for the first times since St. Ronnie.. He also really tried to get health care reform.
All the good work was somewhat obscured by the stupid scandals, most not of his making, one of his doing somewhat. He also faced never ending attacks from the right and Repubs.
But, indeed, once upon a time, having a D prez who could work a D Congress meant real changes.
It does almost seem like a fairy tale, doesn't it?
I went to TPM to look for analysis of the HELP healthcare reform
bill and CBO scoring: I found one small mention of the release of CBO, no analysis. Granted, it's difficult to really analyze what is only a part of the overall legislation, but still it's a major step forward. Lack of mention of the Taibbi article hardly surprising.
Wall to wall Palin, however.
Some leftover Sanford.
I checked front page, the DC section, some of the diaries (right term?).
One would hardly know there's a great debate on in some parts of the country over health care reform (well, to be fair, it's Big Insurers' Resuscitation).
I mean, even Atrios has been taking a look at health care.
Look! Over there!
Of course, sports coverage is very profitable for WKJM
...
"First they ignore you, then they ridicule you, then they fight you, then you win." -- Mahatma Gandhi