WHAT TO DO WITH THE GPS THE GOP GAVE YOU.

What was one of the worst features of the Bush Administration? Wow, so many to choose from. But how about the Right Wing Echo Machine which never, regardless of the crap they pulled, criticized Bush when he deserved it?

So now, when we progressive Democrats oppose positions that this White House takes, we’re the ones being criticized! I hear callers to Stephanie Miller’s show complaining about fellow Dems. We “need to get behind this President!” We shouldn’t be a “circular firing squad.” He’s “herding cats.” The President “inherited this mess and he’s only been in office for a year!” He wasn’t given “a magic wand to make it all better.” We’re “childish and immature” because things “aren’t exactly as we wanted them.”

I see. When I was critical of Bush because I thought he was wrong, that was “unpatriotic to do so in wartime” if you listened to Republicans, but it was okay with Democrats. But now when the Republicans criticize every single little thing that Obama does, my objecting to some positions or actions of the White House, I’m siding with the Republicans.

No, I’m not. Republicans criticize the President indiscriminately. There is nothing, I mean nothing, he can do to please them. They have a strategic position: obstruction. Just say no. No to Olympics-getting. No to Nobel honors. No to improving our status in the world. No, no, no.
And so far it’s working far too well. Where’s health care? Mired in the Senate where the White House gave its power to Max Baucus who shared it equally with 3 Republicans (the idiotic Gang of Six) who pretended to negotiate as a stall. And watered down in a snipe hunt for one Republican, resulting in a flaming pile of poo (See earlier posts.) that doesn’t achieve reform and turned off people like me.

We are disappointed and critical because we want the President and the Democrats to be strong the way Bush was with his horrendous, country-killing agenda. Did Bush care he didn’t have a super-majority when he wanted to cut taxes for the super-rich, not once but twice? No! He just got it done.

Did Bush care about lying us into an unnecessary war with a nation that didn’t threaten us? No. He want to invade Iraq and was looking for a pretext. And he didn’t care if he took a surplus and turned it into an enormous deficit.

He got all his crap done. All but privatizing Social Security. That was a bridge too far, thank God. And he didn’t care about Democratic opposition or even the public’s opinion. They just got it done.

So how frustrating is it to us on the Left to have, at long last, both Houses of Congress with bigger majorities, and the White House only to see the Democrats continue to act as if the Republicans are still in charge?

It’s excruciating!

Polls showed that health care reform (that is, real reform with a strong public option) is still popular. The flaming pile of poo the Senate excreted is not. The Right Wing then says “the American public has rejected health care reform” conflating real reform with the imposter.

That’s a lie.

And since SenatorFold got elected up in Massachusetts, the drums have only gotten louder. And what has been the response? “Be bolder! Grow a pair!” is heard from progressives.
So what do the White House, Harry Reid, Chris Dodd and other Dems do? Cry “scale back, slow down, take a breather.”

Wait! Where have I heard that before? Oh, I know! From the GOP! “Let’s have a do-over!” they say.

Well, I’d like a do-over, too, but it’s to start with single-payer. They want a do-over as a further delay to kill it.

One Right Winger with a microphone: “The American public doesn’t want a left wing president.”
The American public doesn’t have a left wing president. Right now we have a Democratic president heading right.

He appears to be listening to the Republicans who WANT HIM TO FAIL rather than listening to voters like me and a gazillion bloggers who WANT HIM TO SUCCEED.

How does that make sense? Take the advice of people who wish you ill rather than your friends? And what about one of the most basic rules of politics: reward your friends, punish your enemies. It’s the opposite with this Administration.

It’s that damn GPS the GOP gave him. It’s wrong all the time. Mr. President, Democrats, either see which way the GOP GPS tells you to go and go in the opposite.

Or else turn the damn thing off.