Hold Fast

Originally posted at AMERICAblog Though it sounded like spin to keep liberals quiet at the time, there was a lot of talk prior to this deficit deal that once it was passed, the administration and Democrats on the Hill would shift towards job creation efforts and a jobs narrative. To the extent that Politico’s Mike [...]

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Writing about specific proposals being floated about how to get Congress to address the looming debt ceiling is a bit crazy. There’s a new band of pols, a new gang or a new Grand Bargain (none of which are ever grand or bargains) every 36 hours. But the latest one is pretty remarkable, in that [...]

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Drew Westen pulls no punches in describing what he sees as one of the three major factors in the Republican Party. The whole piece is worth a read, but this passage is important: And that brings us to the third wing of the Republican Party, the Democrats. Their standard-bearer, President Obama, has proven himself perhaps [...]

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Digby responds to a long, interesting piece on the differences between how Republicans and Democrats maintain their political coalitions across time and legislative battles by Robert Cruickshank. Digby writes: Cruikshank is making an appeal to progressives to apply the GOP coalition rules to themselves and stick together, even if the centrists continue to play their [...]

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Greg Sargent quotes Nancy Pelosi: “It is a flag we’ve planted that we will protect and defend. We have a plan. It’s called Medicare.” I agree with Atrios, “the only one who understands how this game is played is Nancy Pelosi.”

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Smart & hilarious.

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Glenn Greenwald: I once believed that the greatest myth in American political discourse was “The Liberal Media.”  I’ve realized I was wrong.  ”The Liberal Media” is indeed an absurd, self-evident myth, but the greatest myth is that there is too little bipartisanship in Washington.  There is very little but that. This is exactly right.

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When it comes to hippy punching, the Washington Post’s in-house “liberal,” Dana Milbank, is one of the Beltway press corps’ most accomplished pugilists. His career can be easily defined by his use of his platform as a nominal liberal to say how silly and out of touch liberals are. Milbank’s latest involves mocking the Congressional [...]

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Today we are getting more details about President Obama’s planned speech Wednesday night on deficit reduction. The Washington Post is reporting that the President will use the Bowles-Simpson plan, which failed to be passed by the bipartisan Catfood Commission, as his template for deficit reduction. Throw in a Wall Street Journal article on the administration’s [...]

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Kevin Drum: Looking at American politics from a 100,000-foot level, conservatives have won. Programmatic liberalism is essentially dead for a good long time, and small bore stuff is probably the best we can hope for over the next 10-20 years — though social liberalism will continue to make steady advances. I reserve judgment on whose [...]

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