John Amato has blogged about this and this clip from this week's The Chris Matthews Show is proof positive that the progressive blogosphere must be smart about picking battles in pushing a liberal agenda for America. Let's face it, you and I and the rest of the liberal blogosphere have been right more often than not and certainly exponentially over the Villagers that populate The Chris Matthews Show. But they're not ready to give up their coveted place at the table, and certainly not to upstart bloggers who don't have the decency to take them at their word any longer.
So to those oh-so-wise Beltway bobbleheads, we will be the "angry left" that Obama must marginalize in order to have a successful presidency. It won't be the Republicans with their bag of obstructionist tricks, ones of which WaPo's Ceci Connolly doesn't even have memory, that give Obama a hard time, it will be us, the "angry left." We are the ones to not give Obama a "honeymoon period" and we will be the ones fighting him as he attempts to execute his agenda.
Sigh. Do anyone of these chuckleheads ever consider that the reason the left has been so "angry" for the last eight plus years is that what we've said and what we've valued has been criticized, dismissed, sneered, condemned, denounced and our characters attacked? Of course not. And when the nation shows that they have awakened to what we've been saying all along and announced with their vote that they want to give the left a shot, we're still criticized, dismissed, sneered, condemned, denounced and our characters attacked because we might like to see some people actually reflective of our values in office.
Good to see the open minds of the Very Serious Villagers remain. Would that they would be so condemning of those who have been so very wrong all this time.
Transcripts (courtesy of Heather) below the fold
MATTHEWS: But those kinds of issues that brought really bad news to a lot of, we had the Clinton administration with all the brain power they had and they had a lot of brain power, they were stymied. Right, David? All of the sudden they got the gays in the military hit them right between the eyes. They didn't want to bring it up and it came up as the first issue.
IGNATIUS: They ran into the wall of cultural politics, wedge issues right in the beginning. You want to think, I want to think that one of the lessons of this election season is that the politics of division don't work. That one of the things that hurt McCain and Palin was that they were just too divisive and the country's sick of that. And so you'd think, you'd want to think the Republicans would get that message and they’ll be more careful on these wedge issues that that's going to be less important going forward for the Republicans than it's been.
KAY: It's very hard in this climate to see people getting as exorcised about gays in the military as they did in 1992. I just can't...
CONNOLLY: Well it may not be gays in the military but I guarantee you there are going to be hot button issues that are going to come up. You're already seeing some of that agitated.
[crosstalk]
MATTHEWS: If we try to put up the trade walls, are we going to have a fight on labor issues like this card check thing, about being able to organize individual decision making rather than a big voting election kind of thing. Those kind of issues can really, as you say, could divide the Democrats, right?
CONNOLLY: Absolutely but here's the key to this: Rahm Emanuel, Chief of Staff. What did he do when he was in the House Democratic Caucus? He often was the person who had to break it to the liberals in that caucuses that things were not going to go their way.
MATTHEWS: Who's going to break it to the blogosphere? They don't like anything that looks like a give to the right. Where are they doing to be on this thing? Are they going to give him a break if he doesn't go hard left and doesn't do what they want?
WHITAKER: I think that Obama has to worry as much about the far left as he does about the far right. But look, you know I think that it could be a plus for him in some ways because I think they are going to give him what you might call a “Sista Soulja moment” when he can stand up to them.
MATTHEWS: Right.
WHITAKER: And talking to some veterans in those early Clinton wars who think that particularly this issue of the card check push by the labor unions to change the rules on organizing could be a moment for him either by delaying that, standing up to the unions, of positioning himself more in the middle and making it harder for the far right to position him the way they tried to during the campaign.
MATTHEWS: You see that, David?
IGNATIUS: This is where the economic crisis, you know, ends up being crucial because people are angry. The country's furious and a lot of these really divisive issues I think will come from the left, not from the right and they'll come from unions, from working people who are enraged at bailouts for big banks and wealthy executives and the pressure on Obama to check some what he'd like to do on the economy I think is going to be very strong from angry people.
MATTHEWS: And you say the left is going to fight anything that looks too conciliatory?
IGNATIUS: You can, it's been obvious now for the past few weeks that the anger in the country is working its way through Congress and it's, the bailouts might make sense in a macro-economic sense but they're increasingly tough politics.
MATTHEWS: Bottom line, we asked the Matthews Meter, twelve of our regulars given the mountain of problems he faces will the right give Obama a longer than usual honeymoon. Our panel is always filled with cockeyed optimists. Eight say yes he gets a longer honeymoon from the right. Four say no, Katy you're with the optimists.
KAY: I am. I'm not sure I'm cockeyed but I am probably an optimist. I think for all the reasons that we've been saying about the mood in the country and the desire to get things done I just don't think that the right at this particular juncture can be seen to stymie an economic agenda in particular. I think that they have to give him the benefit of the doubt for a period of time.
MATTHEWS: Okay big time. Will the Republicans get out of his way and not use any obstructions to stop from getting through a big economic package once he gets in office.
KAY: I think they'll give him...
MATTHEWS: No procedural tricks.
KAY: I think they'll give him three months.
MATTHEWS: Three months.
WHITAKER: Six months.
CONNOLLY : I don't think they've figured out that kind of procedural trick.
MATTHEWS: [laughs] You know what I mean. Filibuster, all kinds of ways to slow the…will they use those tools to slow him down?
CONNOLLY: Doubt it.
IGNATIUS: No ,the Republicans will help him out on the package. His problem is going to be with the left, not the Republicans.
