When President Obama’s fiscal commission offers its proposals on Wednesday, after the release by several liberal groups of their own debt-busting plans this week, the essential decision facing Mr. Obama in these last two years of his term will have been neatly framed. He can side either with centrist reformers in both parties, who would overhaul both cherished entitlements and the tax system, or with traditional liberals, who prefer new levies on the wealthy and substantial cuts in military spending.



In other words, the suddenly pressing issue of the debt will force Mr. Obama to choose, at last, between the dueling, ill-defined promises of his presidential campaign-- between a “postpartisan” vision of government on one hand and a liberal renaissance on the other.



...Republicans depict the president as having governed just to the left of Hugo Chávez, nationalizing companies while centralizing power in the hands of the federal bureaucracy. Liberals complain that Mr. Obama has time and again abandoned his party’s principles in search of some centrist consensus that doesn’t exist, and they point to his creating a bipartisan fiscal commission as a case in point.



In truth, though, Mr. Obama has almost invariably sought to position himself halfway between traditionalism and reform, just as his vague notions of “hope” and “change” during the 2008 campaign were meant to appeal simultaneously to both disaffected independent voters and core progressives. And in virtually every case, he has satisfied pretty much no one.



...Part of the contrast Mr. Obama sought to draw with Hillary Rodham Clinton during the 2008 campaign was that you would never catch him triangulating against his friends for political gain. It was a point of pride for Mr. Obama that he would have no so-called Sister Souljah moments, even when he vehemently disagreed with liberals.



The problem with this stance, two years into his presidency, is that it seems to have put Mr. Obama in something of a box. Since he isn’t willing to break publicly with liberals, independent and conservative voters tend to see him as a tool of the left. And since he generally won’t do exactly what the left wants him to do, he ends up with very little gratitude from his own party.



This political no-man’s land, however, is about to become uninhabitable. The national debt is near the top of any list of voter concerns at the moment, and when his commission votes Friday on its final recommendations, Mr. Obama will be handed concrete and contrasting options for addressing it.

I wish I could say, "Bernie Sanders and I went to high school together and I always knew he should be President of the United States." And we did both go to James Madison High School in Brooklyn... only a decade apart. As for me always knowing Bernie would make a great president... that's taken some time for me to figure out. Let me get back to that in a minute-- although if you already agree and need no convincing, Blue America is asking progressives to contribute to Bernie's campaign fund. If he runs for reelection as a Senator, it will help him reach Vermont voters. If he decides to challenge the conservative establishment and run a primary campaign against President Obama... all federal contributions are fungible and he can use donations for that. You can contribute directly to Bernie's campaign fund here . (We just reached the $100 mark!)Tuesday President Obama, whose entire administration has been based on an attempt at bipartisanship in the face of reactionary politicians responding to the innate racism of riled up Know Nothings back in their home districts-- thanks Fox, thanks Hate Talk Radio-- insisting on Waterloos and obstruction. Obama practically offered the GOP half the Oval Office if they would just get serious about addressing the nation's most pressing problems. Instead he got a slap in the face (again) when not 12 hours later the Republicans issued their latest fatwah against him , this one in the form of a declaration from all 42 Republican senators that they would block everything short of giving tax cuts to millionaires and billionaires.Obama means well. He really just does want to get the job done for the country. Seeking common ground with and cooperating-- bending over for-- with narrow partisan hacks who have been rewarded electorally by publicly stating that their #1 priority is to undermine you and make sure you lose the next election, is just not going to work. Obama doesn't seem to want to recognize that. Rachel Maddow keeps trying to explain it to him-- Tuesday night with some help from Bernie . Obama isn't listening."What these Republicans want, is very clear-- and it's not just tax breaks today. What they want to do... is to move this country back into the 1920s. They really want to privatize and eliminate Social Security. They really are not staying up nights worrying about what happens when elderly people become sick and have no place to go. They want to cut back on Pell Grants. They certainly want to eliminate the authority of the EPA so that the coal companies and the oil companies can do whatever they want. The Republicans have an agenda. They're pretty open and honest about it. They've rallied their troops. What the president and the Democratic leadership and all of us have got to do is rallytroops, We need a tea party of progressives who are going to demand that the Democratic leadership and the President fight for the middle class and for working families."That was Bernie with Rachel Tuesday night. You can watch their whole dialogue in the link above. I don't know how good a president JFK would have been. He was assassinated to early in his term to know. But what I do know is that we've had a series of flawed, mediocre to terrible presidents for my whole lifetime. To say that golfing fanatic Dwight Eisenhower was the best president in living memory for most of us is a sad commentary on what came after him. And Obama, who appeared so ready to break that mold or mediocrity... now appears to want nothing more than to just fit right in. Before I die I would like America to have one great president, one president like FDR who will not bow to the demands of the millionaires and billionaires and to the ruling elites. Bernie Sanders has a long voting record-- first as a House Member and, more recently, as a Senator. It's a principled and independent record guided by one thing: working in the interests of ordinary working families. After 8 years as mayor of Burlington, Bernie was elected-- as an Independent-- to the House in 1990. In 2006 he was elected to the Senate. So he's been in federal office 20 years, about the same as John Boehner. In that period the Financial Sector has financed Boehner's career to the tune of $3,822,315. That's an awful lot of investment in Boehner-- and they have every reason in the world that that is an investment that will continue to pay them gigantic dividends. They now own the Speaker-designate. In the same period, 2 decades, Bernie has gotten $181,095 from people who work in the Financial Sector. Much of that has actually come from low wage employees of banking and real estate and insurance companies, not from the magnates who have showered millions on the Members who they have bought out, like Eric Cantor ($4,458,585), Spencer Bachus ($4,450,324), Mark Kirk ($4,153,094), and Roy Blunt ($3,922,453). Horrible Republican scum, huh? Well, fact of that matter is that although the Financial Sector's $1,442,282,374 in direct payoffs to federal officials has gone more to Republicans ($775,150,202) than to Democrats ($656,026,035), Democrats have gotten plenty-- and not just the wholly owned subsidies known as the Blue Dog Caucus and the New Dems. Charlie Rangel has never had a tough reelection fight but the banksters have given him $4,826,590, mostly while he was the Chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee. Not including presidential candidates, no one has gotten more for the banksters than another graduate of James Madison High School, Chuck Schumer ($17,720,436). And, yes, it's horrifying that the banksters have shoved over $5 million dollars each up the asses of Phil Gramm, Mitch McConnell, Rick Santorum and Richard Shelby, but they gave more than double that total to... Barack Obama ($42,285,749), even more than the $34,036,462 they gave John McCain who was already old and decrepit and corrupt beyond reason when Obama was still in high school!Don't we owe it to ourselves, even if just once, to elect a president who really is the best? The symbolism of Obama is amazing. And he used to give good speeches, like Clinton and Reagan, two other crap presidents who hoodwinked the country on behalf of the ruling elite. Bernie won't be a Ronald Reagan or a Bill Clinton or a George Bush-- regardless of middle initials-- nor a Barack Obama. he really would be a president for the people-- just the way he's been a congressman and a senator for the people. There's no one better "Privately, Mr. Obama has described himself, at times, as essentially a Blue Dog Democrat, referring to the shrinking caucus of fiscally conservative members of the party."First Obama's favorite Republican, Wall Street shill Paul Ryan:In today'sthat paper's junior league version of David Broder uncovered what any poli sci major could have told you 3 years ago: President Obama is a Blue Dog . Actually, he isn't. To be a Blue Dog you have to join a House caucus and pay dues and elect officers and give the secret handshake. And Obama was a senator, not ever a House Member, So he never became anBlue Dog. He just voted like one. Throughout his Senate career he wasn't-- as the GOP propaganda machine lamely tagged him, "the most liberal senator in the history of the universe since Kerry." His ProgressivePunch score was always among the half dozen most conservative Democrats'-- right down there with Lieberman, Baucus, Blanche Lincoln, Pryor and Landrieu. To a Republican, that's liberal. To anyone whose head isn't up their own ass, it's the definition of conservatism.

Labels: banksters, Bernie Sanders, obstructionist Republicans, progressives vs reactionaries