Nobody Cares About Process – NYTimes.com

I honestly thought that Barack Obama was going to say that he worried so much about civility and making sure that Republicans were included on everything, that he forgot about getting the things done that matter, specifically, jobs, jobs, and more jobs. Instead, Obama doubled-down on his politeness and civility agenda. He actually said that people were concerned with “how” things were done, more than “what” was done.

I hate to admit that this President is dense, politically-tone deaf, and inept as a politician, but there you have it.  It’s the sad truth.  The only way he will win a second term is if the GOP nominates someone so toxic, that Obama will seem like the better choice.  The GOP has done it before, so it’s possible that Obama will still appear as the least frightening candidate in 2012.

But to the people that made sure he was elected, all we have is a benevolent Republican in the White House.  No, he is not like Bush, Cheney, and the rest of neocon crowd, but there is nothing that the Republican party endorses that he doesn’t like.  Today, he is offering to extend the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy.  What about the deficit everyone was so concerned with?

Obama has a deficit-reduction commission that is studying cuts in Social Security and Medicare in order to reduce the deficit.  Imagine now that he extends the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy, and then pays for them by cutting Social Security.  If we Progressives are “f—-ing retarded”, what is a President called that totally alienates his base?  The answer is a one-term President, and a disgrace to everyone that supported him with all of their time, money, and belief.

Paul Krugman said it well in the New York Times:

Urk. I just gave up on the presidential press conference. When Obama declared that Americans rejected Democrats in part because “We were in such a hurry to get things done that we didn’t change how things got done,” I checked out.

Nobody cares about this stuff — they care about results. Nobody really cares about earmarks; they’re just code for spending less (less on somebody else, of course, not me). Nobody cares about civility and bipartisanship, which in practice are code for Democrats giving in to Republican demands. Nobody cares about parliamentary maneuvers: we can argue about the role of health reform in the election, but I bet not one voter in 50 knows or cares that it was passed using reconciliation (as were the sacred Bush tax cuts we must, must retain).

If Obama had used fancy footwork and 2 AM sessions to pass a big public works program, and this program had brought unemployment down, Republicans would be screaming about the process — and Democrats would have comfortably held control of Congress. Remember the voter backlash against the way Medicare drug benefits were passed? Neither do I.

Oh, by the way — nobody cares about the deficit, either.

Nobody Cares About Process – NYTimes.com.