Dear Leader Has No Real Power

I drifted by Lawyers, Guns and Money the other day.   I think and I want to be fair, they were strongly arguing that the presidency is not as powerful as it appears, at least on domestic matters.  Their post was in response to a David Sorita post at Salon and commented on at Slobber and Spittle. 

At any rate the argument being made on moderate liberal blogs, like LG&M, (for want of a better term) seems to be that Obama has done the best he can given the way this country's national political system is structured.  I made the point that in that case we shouldn't fear a Michelle Bachmann presidency. 

It was then pointed out to me that it will be different if Michelle Bachmann is elected, she or I assume whatever republican is elected, will have iron control over congress.  So to.

The point I feel needs to be made is that Obama had a chance to make some real changes upon his election and for a few months there after.  Once he had shown what he really was, which isn't much, then there was not so much of a chance of anything even remotely resembling hope of change coming out of him.

If the argument is that he didn't want or isn't bright enough to do more than he is doing, that seems to me a different argument then that he doesn't (or at least didn't at the beginning) have the intrinsic power to make major changes and yet that seems to be the new defense of Obama from moderate liberals. 

It is I guess possible to think that all his problems come from his desire to appear bipartisan, but if that is the case then his desire for bipartisanship is pathological and nearly certifiable.

Nixon vs. Obama

I was in the comment sections of a couple of blogs today. Digby and Tbogg. Being my usual serious self, but there wasn't a lot of push back, so I suspect that perhaps I am not so out there after all, damn.

Tbogg's original post was an attack on people who vote third parties and who refuse to vote for the democrats because they are not good enough. Essentially beating up a straw man, in my opinion. It might have been a reasonable argument with Humphrey vs. Nixon, but I don't think it flies this year with these democrats. That was the point of a poster, that Humphrey was better than Nixon and those of us who are talking about not voting for the democrats are in the same position as those who refused to vote for Humphrey (who incidentally I did vote for, for the first time ever in a presidential election).

Then it occurred to me it is true that Humphrey was better than Nixon, but then really Nixon was better than Obama. Now, that is a real bitch.

Well, Well, Well

It's just business Mike.

Catholics and Atheists

Well I guess that not eating the wafer of Christ is a pretty big deal. While threatening to do nasty things to it is an even bigger deal.

My wife went to catholic school and tells me that many kids (boys mostly) snuck the wafer out to see if it would bleed when they broke it.

Oh well, its outrage time again by the right. You know this would be funny if it wasn't so effective. A fake outrage over nothing to marginalize yet another progressive. Ask Wes Clark.