The Fierce Whininess Of Now

Can't we all just get along?

I listened to the President's presser this morning.  It was reasonable, moderate Republican stuff about sharing the pain and balancing the books.  Predictably, the response from Manic Progressives has been intensely negative and frankly there is a lot to recommend in their criticisms.

Social Security is not in a crisis.  It needs minor revenue tweaks to stay solvent beyond the fiscal horizon.

Medicare should not be "means tested" into a poverty program like Medicaid that will allow future politicians to kill it.

The middle of a terrible jobs recession is not the time to be cutting spending.

The President's plan - according to a neat graphic whipped up by Nate Silver - is actually slightly to the right of most Republicans (who aren't Teatards or Congressmen).

It has been easy to see Obama is either a feckless negotiator or a traitor to the Democratic party for those inclined to do so.  I certainly have criticized Obama's negotiating skills in the past.

But why is it so easy to label him a traitor to Democratic ideals?

I think we have entered a period where feedback is both immediate and insular.  The internet has - mercifully - punctured some of the sanctimony of "conventional wisdom" by bringing facts and different viewpoints to the fore.  But it has allowed for groups to talk to themselves and no others.  FDL and DailyKos are pretty good examples of this.  So are Red State and Fox News.

But the immediate passions are not new.  I'm wrapping up a book on the election of 1912, and it was striking to me how fervently Teddy Roosevelt believed that Woodrow Wilson would be a disaster for the country.  Actually, Wilson passed some critical legislation that had eluded Teddy when he was in the White House.  Similarly, Roosevelt advocated in his Nobel Speech for an "international police force", yet he roundly derided the League of Nations.  The two ideas were very different in philosophy and approach, but they were largely similar in intent.

And yet this drove TR and his supporters bonkers.

We tend to take up inflexible positions and then fight to the death to defend them.  The GOP has certainly done that with their stance on the debt ceiling.  But I fear that we in the reality based community are also too quick to defend our positions with absolutist positions.

It's absolutely not frakking fair that Obama has to try and balance the budget.  George Bush passed those reckless, irresponsible, incredibly damaging tax cuts.  George Bush passed Medicare Plan B without paying for it.  George Bush launched two wars without paying for them.  George Bush oversaw the emasculation of the regulatory system that led to a collapse of the global economy.

And if we elect Mitt Romney president, Boehner or Cantor Speaker and McConnell Majority Leader, we will see the same damned reckless, feckless budgetary evil all over again.

It's not fair that Obama has to clean this up.

But he's trying to do it.  And he's trying to do it in ways that make me angry.

But not nearly as angry as I am at the other side for threatening to crash the global economy to preserve the carried interest tax cheat.