Monday, March 23, 2009

Where's the hope and change in Minnesota?

After a two year campaign of style vs substance, old vs new, politics as usual vs post-partisan politics, there is an amazing lack of hope and change among local Minnesota lefty blogs.

Electing Barrack Obama was hailed as a historic event. His Inaugural Address was so inspiring it is already being added to history textbooks. Since taking office, he has reversed US policy on Gitmo, abortion funding, stem cell research, and foreign relations with countries that hate us. He declared victory in Iraq and is withdrawing the troops.

So where is the local left blogosphere on Obama? Cue the crickets.

The Cucking Stool has mentioned Obama once in the last month, and that was a criticism of Obama's green power proposals.

Across the Great Divide doesn't mention Obama in the last month.

MN Progressive Project (formerly MNBlue), a group blog, hasn't posted anything on Obama since March 4th, over 100 posts.

Mercury Rising mentions Obama once in the last two weeks, 'the Administration' once, and Michelle Obama once.

Norwegianity has mentioned Obama several times in the last week, but only in defense of the One from conservative critics.

The Minnesota Independent doesn't have a single story on its front page about Obama.

The Power Liberal hasn't even used the word "Obama" in the last month.

BluestemPrarie has only mentioned Obama once in March-by way of congratulating Rep Walz for opposing Obama on his asinine wounded Vets insurance fiasco.

MNPublius
bucks the trend with 4 positive entries about President Obama in the last month.

MNPost political section gets back to the trend line with 4 posts on Obama-1 that looks at his budget, 1 that blasts his proposal to tax health benefits, and two that strongly oppose his wounded Vets insurance fiasco.

These are blogs who advocated for Obama for President for over a year before the election. He is the champion of all of their far left liberal policies and the man who will overturn 8 years of George Bush. These are blogs that agreed with Obama when he said this, in Minnesota-
"we will be able to look back and tell our children that this was the moment when we began to provide care for the sick and good jobs to the jobless; this was the moment when the rise of the oceans began to slow and our planet began to heal; this was the moment when we ended a war and secured our nation and restored our image as the last, best hope on earth. This was the moment—this was the time—when we came together to remake this great nation so that it may always reflect our very best selves and our highest ideals."
Barack Obama, June 3rd, 2008

The deafening silence of the local liberal bloggers begs the question as to how they can remain silent about the man that healed the planet. Are they swamped in the euphoria of the dawning of socialism in America? Or feeling buyer's remorse?

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

1) If you can't bother to spell the name of my blog correctly, don't expect a polite reply.
2) If you didn't audit every post and link I've done since Obama took office (275 posts, 20,000+ words and thousands of links), please refrain from making sweeping claims about what I am or am not writing.
3) Just because the Right no longer honors the custom of giving the new President 100 days before criticizing them doesn't mean that lefty bloggers are going easy on Obama. We're just holding our fire for the customary 100 days, a tradition the Right honors only when one of their own (like George Bush I or II) is elected.
4) Firedoglake (local blogger Phoenix Woman is a contributor) has been dumping on Obama more often than Fox News. Ditto many national lefty blogs. Local lefty blogs have been distracted by Norm Coleman's feckless challenges that have seriously damaged Minnesota's representation in Congress.
5. Since taking office, President Obama has restored the rule of law by undoing Dick Cheney's unConstitutional policy that created Gitmo. It was Bush-Cheney policy that was out of step with American history and tradition.
6. President Obama has returned the federal government to a neutral position on abortion funding (if the Supreme Court says it's a legit medical procedure, the feds MUST pay for poor women's abortions or stop paying for ALL medical procedures).
7. I guess Nancy Reagan's tearful thank you to Obama regarding the reauthorization of stem cell research meant more to the Left than it did to the Right. Bush's irrational position on stem cells, btw, was out of step with every major religion save Roman Catholicism.
8. President Obama has stopped spitting at countries that don't like us, better aligning us with our own allies, almost none of whom supported the extremist foreign policy positions taken by Bush-Cheney.
9. I guess I missed the declaration of victory in Iraq and have yet to see any significant numbers of troops coming home.

Did I miss anything?

Dave Thul said...

1. If you are going to use a made up word for the name of your blog, you probably shouldn't get offended if it is misspelled.
2. "Mentioned Obama several times in the last week' is hardly a sweeping claim.
3.At the rate Obama has spent in the first 65 days, we will be bankrupt by day 100.
4. Firedoglake isn't a local blog
5. Obama has decided to do something about Gitmo sometime in the future but reserves the right to detain and interrogate exactly the same way as 'Dick Cheney'.
6. Calling abortion a 'medical procedure' is all you need to say.
7. If you want stem cell research, pay for it yourself, not with federal tax dollars.
8. When we end up facing down Iran, Russia and Venezuela in a new cold war, you may feel different about President Obama's foreign policy.
9. http://www.zombietime.com/vi_day/

Anonymous said...

LOL.
I am so jealous, you have your own special moonbat!

Anonymous said...

I usually don't, but if you're going to rip on people you don't build up your credibility by misspelling their blog names.

Points 2 and 3 are covered by the normal 100 day amnesty new Presidents get. Your point is that lefty blogs are giving Obama a free ride, my point is that a hundred years of tradition dictates that Obama get the same free ride both Bushs and Reagan got (Clinton of course was systematically attacked on day 1, something the American Left (not liberals) has never gotten over as Clinton was economically a friggin' traditional Republican).

Point 4 is simply your again not addressing the point of giving the new President a honeymoon. The most galling thing about your not engaging on the points is that YOUR team DEMANDED absolute fealty in the wake of 9/11 and got it. Bush-Cheney had to abuse the crap out of comity before Democrats (very few of them) starting standing up to him.

It's being widely speculated that the Right's meltdown over the current financial mess is simply displacement. Like children you refuse to acknowledge that Bush-Cheney made this mess, but you're still mad so you just dump your abuse on Obama. No, that's not a flattering way of putting it, but it certainly makes more sense than taking the homosexual term for sucking on testicles and using it to name the Right's new anti-tax movement (teabagging?!).

I do not know that Obama is doing the correct things but as an AMERICAN I'm giving him 100 days. At City Pages (The Trotsky Times to the Strib's Red Star) we waited until April 2003 to launch our blogs, giving Bush the usual 100 day grace period. It seems that everyone plays by the same rules except Republicans who change the rules whenever it benefits your cause.

Quote me one single religious authority who is not Catholic or a fundamentalist and who objects to stem cell research. Then show me this same person condemning in vitro fertilization, a process that destroys far more embryos than stem cell research. You're welcome to believe whatever you like, but if you don't condemn in vitro fertilization as loudly as you do stem cell research you are a hypocrite, plain and simple. If killing some embryos is bad, killing ALL embryos is bad.

Iran is a former close ally who Truman betrayed out of Cold War pantswetting fear. All Iran ever did was say, "Hey, we live next to the Soviet Union so we'll talk to both sides." We deposed the first democratically elected Muslim leader in the Middle East over his willingness to talk to his next door neighbors. Then we forced the Shah on Iran, and everything else that followed was due to our having unforgivably overthrown a democratically elected government because of the politics of oil companies. (You can look this all up, it's history now.)

The people of Venezuela are much better off than they used to be. Your affluent allies down there whine about what they've lost, but life expectancy is skyrocketing thanks to Chavez' redistribution of wealth from those who inherited land and wealth from Spanish conquistadors. The greed of the Venezuelan right was making life hell for average Venezuelans. Chavez is far from perfect but he is no Castro and his foes are, like Miami Cubans, a bunch of rage-o-holics who cannot accept the fact that what their ancestors took by force could be taken from them by force. Except in Venezuela the only people who ever used force were the CIA-backed military who tried to overthrow Chavez and failed. Hugo was democratically elected.

What is it about democracy that you hate so much Dave? The elections in 1952 Iran and more recently in Venezuela were more honest and fair than any Floridian has experienced in twenty years!

I thought Bush looked into Putin's eyes and judged his soul to be worthy. Don't you accept Bush's words as gospel anymore?

Dave, back when I did resume work I collaborated with a lot of Guardsmen on their applications for promotions. I understand and respect what you guys do. Some day I wish you would explain to me how George Bush wa right about EVERYTHING for eight years, but now that he's gone every Bush policy perpetuated by Obama is a bad thing (except Gitmo which I don't think Obama is approving, simply putting off until his plate is a little less full.

And your comments pals can call me a moonbat all they like but I was the one who took your side at CS regarding Sarah Jane Olson (you can't keep her out of the state but I have no trouble with letting her know she's not welcome). You seem to be a traditional conservative in many regards, but what you're tripping over here is the fact that Rush and Jason and Fox News are not conservative, they're Republican. The difference is that conservatives do not do deficit spending, start wars of aggression, or go around stirring up sh*t with other countries just so they can strut around the White House. But Republicans do exactly that because Nixon merged your cause with that of the Southern Democrats, and ever since you let those rancidly racist turds into your party (my former party), Republicans haven't made a lick of sense.

As for our victory in Iraq? History will judge that, not you. And if we leave anytime soon and the country does NOT blow up, I'll be very surprised. If women have ANY rights in Iraq after we leave, I will be shocked.

Anonymous said...

Brain fart. Disregard about CP and the 100 days as I somehow was thinking 2001 while writing about 2003.

Dave Thul said...

Mark-
I don't seem to remember this 100 day rosy glow honeymoon for W that you seem to remember. 9/11 was about 210 days into his term, and no one demanded fealty-we all did the right thing because we were waiting for the next attack. In any case, my point is that if conservatives were to be gloves off Pres Obama for the first 100 days, we would be truly and literally bankrupt.

I'm surprised to see you defending a country that sees you as a member of the Great Satan, believes the Holocaust was a PR coup for Israel, and is spending a good chink of their GDP to get nukes. I fought in one war in the sands of the Mid East-I'm in no hurry to fight another. So I'd rather not kowtow to a country that would be just as happy to see America destroyed.

Speaking of sweeping statements, I am not 'the Right'. I did not agree with Pres Bush 100% of the time. I think he stuck with Rumsfeld too long, he botched immigration, and he turned on the spigot of government spending to 'rescue' the economy. When I have disagreed with him, I've said so. Please stop stereotyping me.

And lastly, I'm not accusing MN lefty bloggers of 'going easy' on Pres Obama. I am not too subtly implying that some on the left may in fact feel that this is not what you voted for in November, and that is why there is a lack of blog posts about him and his agenda.

I do appreciate your candor on Soliah at Spot's Stool, which is why we are responding to each other now. If I had thought you were a moonbat I would have deleted or ignored your comment.

Mark Gisleson said...

Dave, we'd have more to agree on if you recognized that Amadinejad only speaks for some Iranians. I'd also recommend that you read this story:

http://tinyurl.com/cjz6la

While I'm a big fan of Jimmy's ex-Presidency, back in the day my opinion of him was probably pretty close to yours. Still, Reagan's feckless foreign policy advisers deserve more credit for pushing our client Saddam into a bloody war of attrition with Iran. If you really read ALL the history of our relations with Iran since 1950 you'd end up wondering why they haven't nuked us yet. (you'd also wonder why you love Reagan) But still most Iranians, like most people around the world, forgive us even though they have no reason to.

I'm glad you didn't agree with Bush 100% of the time but in all candor I couldn't agree with him on anything. I cannot think of one thing he did right, even in response to the things he did wrong.