Wednesday, July 06, 2011
What's David Frum up to?In a column at CNN, he write that Obama has done a poor job of handling the debt ceiling issue. He reviews the history and the potential events going forward. It's quite dispiriting. Excerpt: Some may say: What could a president do faced with such implacable opponents? But the opponents didn't start implacable. Back in January, Speaker John Boehner said the possibility of a government default was "not even on the table."
The president's weakness, however, empowered the most radical Republicans. Would one more hard push extract one more big concession? The answer was always, "yes." So the radicals pushed -- and pushed again -- and incidentally pushed would-be dealmakers to the side.
Through it all, Obama has played nice, again and again entreating his Republican opponents to emulate his example and play nice too. It's not what Lyndon Johnson would have done. It's not what Franklin Roosevelt would have done. I doubt it's what Hillary Clinton would have done.
Which brings me back to my starting question: Why don't the Democrats rebel? Presumably, they elected Obama to stand up for their shared principles. But he's not standing up. He's rolling over. Or being rolled. Frum has written similar pieces at his website, FrumForum, and they aren't much different in outlook - at least from a tactical analysis standpoint - from what you'd read on liberal blogs. Sometime earlier, Frum stated his approval of stimulus spending, bank rescues, and a decent social safety net, which is anathema for Republicans these days. Maybe Frum is still influenced by his Canadian roots, where political extremism is less pronounced. In any event, it's odd to find cautionary warnings about American politics from this guy.
posted by Quiddity at 7/06/2011 08:33:00 AM
5 comments
David Frum is a contradiction. Like a black Republican or a gay Republican, David Frum is an intellectual Republican. If anything describes the new Republican Party, it is anti-intellectual, anti-reason, and anti-rational. He didn't leave the party, the party left him.
Well, this Democrat is rebelling. I will not be voting for President Obama nor for any of his Democratic enablers in 2012, barring a significant course change on their part.
"Well, this Democrat is rebelling. I will not be voting for President Obama..."
Well then sit your petulant ass down on a comfy couch on Election Day 2012 and prepare to welcome your new Republican overlords. Prepare to see the Affordable Care Act repealed. Prepare to see a return of DADT, and a campaign to repeal same-sex marriage nationwide. Prepare to watch the GOP finish the job of decimating the economy that began under Bush. Prepare for at least two new extreme right-wing Supreme Court justices.
Stay home and bask in smug self-satisfaction, patting yourself on the back in praise for not compromising your principles. Your failure to act will only further empower the powerful and marginalize the powerless out of existence.
Prepare to get the president you deserve.
What pisses me off is, I will also get the president you deserve.
Death Panel Truck, we have the President we deserve and he turns out to be, at best, a Reagan Democrat.
FDR had 80% majorites in both houses.
LBJ had something similar, even if many were southern s-heads.
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