If Obama succeeds, as is now expected, in getting the New START treaty ratified, he’ll put a beautiful cap on a stunningly effective and productive Congress. It all started with the Lily Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, and the bills just kept coming. One of the best was certainly the Credit CARD Act of 2009. Where is the love for this awesome piece of legislation?
We are still celebrating the repeal of the Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell policy, but don’t forget that last year we were celebrating passage of the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd, Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act.
Too many people overlook the Student Aid and Fiscal Responsibility Act, which was an outstanding piece of progressive legislation that was tucked into the health care reconciliation bill.
Health care and Wall Street reform were far from the only shows in town. People will remember the 111th Congress as the best and most consequential of most of our lifetimes. And for those of us that had a front row seat? It was appalling, depressing, spirit-deadening, and completely sub-optimal. Go figure. I think it is best not to watch too closely.
I am pleased, for environmental reasons, instead of throwing out a half a dozen or more separate bumper stickers, and having to clean the adhesive off with ozone-destroying chemicals in the process, I was able to get so many different uses out of my one “Kill the Bill!” bumper sticker,
I don’t think the internet gets the credit it deserves.
I’m certainly not overlooking student aid reform. I’m applying for grad school next year. On a personal level, my donations to Obama and the Democrats have already paid for themselves.
I’m not sure if Obama knew this was how it was going to play out, but the tax deal he struck isn’t looking so bad. It still sucks big time, but if as a consequence we get extension of unemployment benefits, repeal of Don’t Ask Don’t Tell, a food safety bill, and ratification of the START treaty, I can live with the bargain.
Like the Stones concert at Altamont. For most of the attendees who were away from the stage, it was quite an enjoyable and worthwhile experience.
You state:
So, true. In my 64 years, with the exceptions of the Civil Rights Act, the Voting Rights Act, the shear audacity of vision of JFK, no President comes anywhere near to what President Obama has accomplished in less than 24 months.
And, I’d venture to say that of all the many unexpected consequences of his Presidency, this far, the following video is evidence of just how audacious, courageous, and effectual he is in delivering ‘change’:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iL2Ed_iKiG4
Thank you.
that’s a cool video.
And a courageous one for the White House to present.
My God. That’s lovely.
Is the Obama WH, the most diversely staffed of any other, especially if you include the Prez himseld
When I was a kid (elementary school) we lived outside Detroit. During my recent work-travel thoughts about Obama and the auto industry fleetngly came to mind. It probably will take some years to really sink in – awesome!!!
Sadly, much of this is lost upon/unknown to many citizens. Democrats are terrible about making known their successes.
President Obama is governing in a fact-free media environment and progressive blogs are in reaction to that as much as to what he hasn’t done — change the media environment by showing the Republicans for who they are.
That is the core reality, and if history judges based on the information in the media and the take on it in the media and on the blogs, the Republicans not the President will write history. “Greatest expansion of government intrusion into the economy and our lives since FDR…” Can’t you see this slipping into speeches for the next two six years?
What Haley Barbour has done with his intemperate statements about the White Citizens Council is show the Republican media blitz for what it is–a real high-tech lynch mob. Justice Thomas is going to wish that he had not invented that phrase in order to hide the truth about his character. His action was just the sucker punch for white racism–or haven’t J. C. Watts, Alan Keyes, and Michael Steele found that out yet?
Clinton had to be brought down because someone referred to him at the time, favorably, as the “first black President”.
Well those folks whose anxieties run to “the Negroes are taking over” are becoming more and more unhinged, especially in Alabama and Mississippi. The rest of the country has made them feel safe to express their bigotry again. Daily folks are checking each other’s opinions through racist jokes and slams against “that socialist Obama”. My daughter and son-in-law in Alabama have to put up with this stuff from his family, their co-workers, their neighbors. Finding honest-to-goodness friends they can level with has been very difficult. And they report that the climate has been getting worse since the November elections.
The time has come to put an end to this sort of bigotry in our public life. And we need to figure the tactics about how to do that quickly and stop being so complacent, or we will have one hell of a mess within two years. And unfortunately it is eating into the intellectuals in the progressive movement, a white progressive movement that almost 50 years ago stood side by side, provided visibility, and some degree of protection to the civil rights movement that brought about the end of Jim Crow laws in the South. And some paid for that with their lives.
And once that battle was done, Cicero and Southie and a host of other non-Southern white communities made sure there would be a backlash. Well, here we are.
“And we need to figure the tactics about how to do that quickly and stop being so complacent, or we will have one hell of a mess within two years.” Unfortunately, until we change the fact-free media environment culture we can’t succeed, because the RW bullhorn is larger and louder than anything we have now, or will have in the future. It was the MSM that fought the tea party as racists storyline, fought it with all they had. It was the MSM that fought the Fox is a republican political operation storyline, preferring to call them their sister organization. The MSM stuck to their narratives no matter how much pressure was brought to bear to get them to tell the truth. I’m willing to bet that the Haley Barbour flap is going to stick to the liberal blogosphere (and Rachel’s show too), because it is just rude to call racists racist.
Hold the phone. No Employment Non-Discrimination Act. No end to the Defense of Marriage Act.
Glad you’re partying, BooMan. But my rights have been short-changed by this president.
Would you feel this celebratory if you could not marry your wife? if you could be denied employment because of who you are?
And how about if you had a president who lied to you about it?????
Your rights have been short-changed by YOU. Get out there and keep working on this issue that means so much to you. There have been great strides on gay equality, though never so much as you may want. Wouldn’t you say the same about Black equality? Stonewall was 1959 and in 41 years this is where the gay movement is. It’s really remarkable in a way. And marriage equality isn’t far away, probably a year or two, by court order. So keep working and stop blaming someone else. (And remember that Obama made a promise about DADT and kept it, that the hate crimes bill passed, that he overturned the ban on HIV-AIDS folks coming into the country, has openly gay appointees in the White House. Keep working!
Stonewall: 1969, I thought.
“People will remember the 111th Congress as the best and most consequential of most of our lifetimes.”
Some will remember it as a time of the Party of No when nothing got done.
Some will remember it as a time of a seemingly unstoppable march towards Socialism.
Some will remember it as a time of debt exploding beyond the bounds of imagination.
Some will remember it as a time when, faced with the greatest challenges in several generations, Congress, and Americans acted like complete asses.
And some will remember it a time when remarkable legislation was passed, flaws and all.
And almost no one will be completely wrong.
let’s be hopeful about START
those are indeed successes to be grateful for, tho the credit card act is not all that it is touted to be, the health care act has serious flaws, and the tax bill just passed does extend unemployment benefits, but NOT for the 99ers.
now if we can get Obama to get out of Afghanistan, and push for real net neutrality, instead of this corporate thing he seems to be pushing, things will be looking even better.
You’re right – best not to watch too closely. Today I plan to relax about the nukes and let my representatives handle it. But where vigilance is needed, I’ll be watching the FCC hearing on net neutrality at 10:30 this morning. Very soon.
I agree on every single achievement: all remarkable successes – if this were the 80’s or 90’s.
Unfortunately, Obama is President and the 111th occurred after the US had implemented torture and detention without trial as policy; after it was amply demonstrated that “the banks … frankly own the place,” and are immune from the sanction of the law; among many other symptoms of unfolding disasters.
So, those ARE great achievements – in another age. In the age in which we live – utterly insufficient and largely irrelevant.
CrapIsKing, I can understand your frustration, but one of the great weapons used by those who don’t want change is to argue that any change that occurs “doesn’t really matter”.
With all due respect to them and to you, I disagree. It does matter. A win is a win. Some are prettier than others, but they all count and they all matter.
What are you saying? Continue what Bush did? Give up and wallow in the mire?
Should post WWII Germany have just ceased to exsist?
The wins are valid for today and into the future.
He’s just saying the truth Obama is guilty of covering up war crimes and harboring war criminals. In fact he might still be guilty of war crimes himself but we don’t know.
The two examples I gave – torture as policy and bank supremacy – are phenomena which required remediation through education, legislation and prosecution, or they would gain permanence with a bipartisan stamp of approval – which they now have.
It is good that gays will be able to serve in the military without hiding, for example. But it loses a lot of its goodness if gay soldiers are required to torture prisoners like other soldiers as a matter of policy; and if the military is the only job available to you because banks don’t feel like lending to get the economy moving again, and the government which lent them money to do so can’t do anything to force them to lend.
See what happens when you actually push to make something happen and actually negotiate instead of just wanton capitulation?
If only Obama had done it more often.