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It’s pretty clear that when the President talks about his views on marriage equality as “evolving,” as he has in recent days, he’s not talking about his actual views, but the political climate. Obama supported gay marriage in 1996 when he ran for the Illinois State Senate. He continues to support gay civil unions and protest “discrimination” in policies like California’s Prop 8. But he refuses to come out and say he supports marriage equality at this time. He’s waiting for the political winds to shift.
Today on Good Morning America, Vice President Biden basically confirmed this, by saying that marriage equality in America is inevitable.
I think the country is evolving, and I think there is an inevitability for a national consensus on gay marriage. That is my view — but this is the President’s policy. But it is evolving. I think the country’s evolving.
I remember the first time he met with the Joint Chiefs, I was with him, he met and he said, “Gentlemen, I want you to prepare now. I want to end Don’t Ask Don’t Tell.” And so he prepared the ground so it was so widely accepted as it is today by the military. And I think the same thing is happening across the country with regard to the issue of marriage.
There’s a weather-vane quality to this, but nothing Biden said was really wrong. Throughout history on most civil rights issues, the country leads, not the politicians. We’re seeing gradual leadership on marriage, with the first poll registering opposition below 50% this October. Before long that will translate into plurality and then majority support. A few politicians have taken the leap to support marriage equality, mostly in the states where it’s already legal and along the coasts. But usually on these civil rights matters, the people lead. And they are leading.
Elsewhere, the Vice President said that spending cuts would not fall in 2011, and that the major deficit commissions both said that near-term reductions in government spending would negatively impact the economy. That’s the right plan, but I don’t know if there’s anyone who thinks that unemployment will be at a normal level by 2012, so it’s an odd distinction to make.
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While I might be wrong, to me, when “the President talks about his views on marriage equality as “evolving,””, it tells me he doesn’t view it as a civil rights issue and that maybe deep down inside he thinks being gay is a choice people make, hence making it easy for him to blather while he waits for the political winds to change.
I don’t know much but I do know that I’m glad I don’t live in his head.
I didn’t know Biden was gay, and I thought he was already married?
Whatever that means….
Oh really. Biden flappin’ his lips is really really old. While I happen to agree with him on this particular issue, I think he’s a moron as a general proposition.
Blacks (i.e. ME ME ME) are equal. Time to close the barn door against anyone else, esp those challenging ME ME ME!
I concur with you on the moron part, but his statement on the topic at hand is a step up from the hysterical position of the previous administration.
But he didn’t say anything about marriage equality. He characterized it as “gay” marriage, as if it would separate but equal to hetero marriage. Picking nits maybe but let’s not put words in his mouth.
Oh yeah and that whole thing about Obama setting up conditions to repeal DADT? I call bullshit.
Raising the age-old issue of whether lip service is better than no service at all.
The resolution of that issue is that lip service IS better if it is the prelude to further action. Is worse if it is used to dismiss the issue.
YMMV.
I think O admin is “hoping” for the latter. But must say I am impressed by LBGT activism. MUCH more impressive than anything feminists ever did.
Yeah…I’m not following you there.
Gay rights is NOT a big issue to our economic lords. Just like Obama, they will go where the consensus is going. Which is why Obama’s all over the lot with it, while keeping one eye on how the cottage people feel.
On the other hand, protecting the corporate status quo is what he (unbeknownst to progressives) was hired to DO. And boy is he doing it.
An interesting thought: Was Biden told to step out with this, or is he doing it hisself, to sorta-kinda stake out a position with the progressives that Obama’s been crapping on by the week…with an eye on 2012?
I tend to agree. If that conversation had actually occurred, it seems to me we would’ve heard about it prior to this. I mean come on, all those times he was being heckled about it?? If that were true, it seems to me he would’ve said something like “I told the JCS on my first meeting to prepare for it, and it will happen.” I’m thinking this opportunistic asshole wouldn’t have passed up that opportunity to shut up his santimonious purist critics. After all, getting us to STFU is a real policy goal of his.
Yup.
How did your pocket veto prediction turnout?
Speaking of BS.
While the cat’s away the mouse will play … not that I mean to compare our esteemed VP to a mouse, mind you ………
Heh, told to or not told to, that guy tends to let her rip sometimes no matter what his handlers want or not want.
Never can tell with that guy.
Agree on LGBT activism ~ damn effective! Showing how to NOT STFU. Showing progressives how it’s done.
Didn’t happen. I’m happy to admit it. Feel better now that you said “Told ya so”? I hope so.
Know what else didn’t happen? (At least I haven’t heard about it if it did)
An executive order signed instructing the military to STOP all investigations and discharges related to DADT until the time specified by the legislation it becomes law.
Could’ve been done easily. Like I said, if he did it, I didn’t hear about it. (Which is quite possible, I haven’t paid much attention this week I was so disappointed in the shenanigans from last week)
My point is, I’m as sure as I’m sitting her typing, that Obama is not going to get a second term. Nothing even remotely reality-based points to that happening, whether it’s because the democrats are idjit enough to ask for another ass-whipping, or whether they use their heads for something besides hatracks, and offer him up as a political sacrifice to the voters. Most of the politicians in Washington know this, and the jockeying for position won’t take long to start. This may be one the first small moves.
Biden is not a political dummy. Obama is very vulnerable from the left, and for anyone thinking of challenging Obama, that’s where the room to do it, and peel off disgusted progressives, is.
I’m not saying this not-too-radical statement is to that purpose, but I think Obama is the lamest lame duck in recent political history, and if we see Biden going off the reservation in the near future, I think it’ll mean he’s starting to distance himself from Obama. As someone who fears another electoral debacle in two years, if Obama runs, I’m eagerly awaiting the fleas jumping off this politically deceased “centrist” hound.
“An executive order telling the military to stop…”
Bingo! :o)
Good points.
I’ve said before I don’t even think he’ll run, but not so sure now. The guy has an ego and I think truly believes the progressives will come home when faced with an even bigger evil than McCain on the ballot. And tragically, he may be right.
If progressives did do that, then progressives deserve 4 more years of non-progressive policies. I know that there is no way in hell, short of passing single payer health care, that I would vote for his ass again.
But how could the President do that? (Well..other than that whole “Commander-in-Chief” thing…)
Shit. He doesn’t hesitate to remind us at every turn, “As Commander-in-Chief, I issued an order to (fill in blank).” So what’s wrong with writing up a short, one-sentence memo ordering a suspension of DADT enforcement action until the law repealing the fucking thing goes into effect? And while we’re on the subject, how about making it retro, maybe back as far as when the idiot thing was enacted in the first place? (“But that would require two pieces of paper, and that’s just so difficult…”)
Shit.
The latest polling from Gallup.
http://www.gallup.com/poll/145352/Obama-Overall-Job-Approval-Steady.aspx
‘Guy. Totally agree. If we let him hose us the way he’s done for the past two years, and then we still support him, then we’ll deserve anything that happens to us.
For starters, I’m so pissed that I’ll send a few bucks to just about ANY democrat who bolts and goes after him, whether I stick with them or not.
We gotta start somewhere, right? :o)
I think those numbers are bullshit. Where were the polls taken? Who was asked? What neighborhoods?
Did they define THEMSELVES as “liberals”, and who compiled the data?
Anyone who says that 80 percent of liberals still support Obama is pimping “centrist” nonsense.
He’s in big trouble, and he knows it. And the leaders of the trouble are…US! Let’s get to it. :o)
Bottomline: If 80 percent of liberals still supported him the dem turnout 7 weeks ago would have been much larger, and we wouldn’t have gotten hammered quite as badly as we did.
Barack Obama is political roadkill. The republicans now own his ass, and the democrats are going to have decide if they want to “support the president” and get a pounding in 2012 that will make the mid-terms look like a love-in, or if they have the smarts and the courage to get rid of him and start over. It’s that simple.
Poll after poll shows the about the same thing. This is not an outlier. If you want to learn about polls, I would sugggest you start reading Nate Silver’s 538 blog.
http://fivethirtyeight.blogs.nytimes.com/
I already know about polls. We had one back in the primaries which showed, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that republican women liked Hillary Clinton.
Figures can lie and liars can figure. Since you put up the Gallup poll, I’m asking you for the specifics of when and where it was taken, and who was asked the questions about Obama’s popularity. How did Gallup define and select “liberals”?
And whether or not you’ll put that up, I’ll just point out that a “poll” was taken about 7 weeks ago…in which Barack Obama and the democratic party got the living shit kicked out of them. If he had the popularity levels among democrats that you’re saying he has, our losses would have been much less severe.
And if you think that he’s going to be able to run again, you’re saying that he’s going to be able to convince the republicans to let him recoup one hell of a lot of political capital.
Forget the polls; I’d like to see your logic for that.
K. Here you go.
http://www.gallup.com/poll/145352/Obama-Overall-Job-Approval-Steady.aspx
I think you may be experiencing the echo chamber effect a bit. Liberals really do support Obama, even if none of the ones you know do.
I do think FDL has become an echo chamber when it comes to Obama (and I’m as disgusted with him as anyone else). We have convinced ourselves by talking to ourselves that Obama is a one-termer. I think the reality may be otherwise, and I suggest you all take a somewhat broader view.
No good. Was the “random” dialing for rural areas or urban areas?
Since the specific number was 3650, what cities in what states were called? Were the same number of calls made in each state?
And the time of day (not given) will affect who’s questioned, too.
I’d like to see the phrasing of the question as to who did or didn’t define themselves as “liberal”.
Lastly, you ignored that the dems got their asses handed to them 7 weeks ago. If Obama’s numbers were as high as that poll says they are, then for some reason, the democratic voters who didn’t turn out, suddenly got all fired up when they got their butts kicked.
Can you explain that?
And I ask you, up front, if you think he’s going to get a second term.
And if so, how?
“I do think FDL has become an echo chamber when it comes to Obama…”
Well, if we are, we’re echoing the voters who decided a few weeks ago that he’s done a lousy job of making the changes that we so desperately need.
Which is what that reality-poll that OldGold doesn’t want to discuss, was all about.
Sorry, but with due respect for your opinion, I think that is simplistic. There were a LOT of things that went into the results of the midterms, not only that he’s done a lousy job (in OUR opinion) of making the changes WE so desperately need. Yes, we do need those changes, but WE may be a small but vocal minority often preaching to the choir here.
And don’t misunderstand, IMHO Obama HAS been a disappointment in many ways. But when I venture to some other progressive blogs, the tone isn’t nearly as vituperative and negative as it is here. Someone earlier today (or maybe yesterday) was consigning Rachel Maddow to the dustbin because she was more enthusiastic about the DADT repeal than WE thought she should be. WE can be pretty purist around here. Just sayin’ ….
The ABC, NBC, CBS, CNN and Pew polls all have results similar to the Gallup Poll. These polls when taken in the aggregate reflect broad support for Obama among liberals.
Can Obama will win in 2012? Yes. Will he? I don’t know. How? The economy picks up steam or the GOP nominates a nut or bit of both.
I think it’s real. A lot more real that some poll that can be skewed by all kinds of things, none of which specifics do we know.
With respect for your opinion, I think you’re are wrong as can be. The republicans were successful (with Obama’s “bipartisanship”, it wasn’t hard) at making the midterms a referendum on Barack Obama. And it was a referendum that transcends any poll that posits that 80% of “liberals” still support him.
If you’d like, you can go over to Hullaballoo, where, about three months ago, it was rare to hear much criticism of Obama. Now, I’d say at least half of the posts about him are negative, maybe more.
Even at Kos you’re seeing threads and posters starting to give him holy hell, as well they should.
There is nothing “purist” about getting pissed about a president who, after caving so much to republicans, is using the progressives who put him on track for the White House to beat on, to suck up to the right wing. We are some of the most loyal people in the democratic party; for him to start bashing us is past being “disappointing”; it’s infuriating and it’s outrageous.
I didn’t see the clip of Maddow, but if she’s frabjous-daying about the repeal of DADT, I would just repeat what I said in another thread:
The only republicans who are genuinely angry about that are the dingbats like Palin. The smart goopers; the wealthy and most influential ones, are laughing and saying: “Yeah, Mr. President, you really kicked our butts on that one. Now, shit here. Good dog. Now shit over there, and let’s talk about turning the SS lockbox over to Wall Street.”
The democratic party is aligning itself along two faultlines:
Those people like Maddow who are still so emotionally attached to the idea of Barack Obama as an agent of change, that they want us to keep rewarding him for re-arranging the deck chairs on the Titanic…
And those of us who’ve had enough, and have no patience with democrats who keep telling us to clap louder. We aint buying it.
Question for you, now: Do you think at this point that Obama deserves a second term? And, how do you think he’s going to get it?
This is just more of the same. You keep quoting these MSM sources as they if they were graven in stone, and not to be questioned. You’re wrong.
I didn’t ask you for more of what you’ve you’ve already posted; I asked you to tell me what time of day the calls were made; how many of the calls were made in rural areas and how many of them were made in urban areas; what was the phrasing of the question about “liberal” support for Obama?
All of these things can be used to skew the results of a poll, and until you can come up with some answers, I’m going to question your (and Gallup’s) statements that Barack Obama still enjoys 80% approval from liberals.
In the meantime, you only answered one question I had. You said you think he can win. I ask again, how?
Specifically:
What legislation will the republicans allow him to pass, that will result in anything like normal numbers for unemployment by the time of the 2012 election? I believe he’ll need to do that to recoup a minumum of the political capital that he’ll need, to run in 2012. You?
He’s promised to get us completly out of Iraq by the end of 2011. Do you think the republicans will let him do that?
Do you think that we’re winning in Afghanistan? More of our troops have died there in nearly two years of Barack Obama’s presidency than died in the nearly 7 years of George Bush’s invasion and occupation of the country. Is that going to get better, and if it doesn’t, is he going to be able to escape some political punishment for sustaining it?
The notion that we here are FDL, and the other progressives turning away from Obama, are just a bunch of fuzzy-thinking “purists”, is nonsense. It’s especially ridiculous to pimp that idea given the fact that 7 weeks ago, Obama “led” the democratic party into a political debacle. Were those high poll numbers that you’re quoting, a reward from grateful democrats?
There is just no logic to the theme that liberals, as well as other democrats (his support among “non-liberals”, to me, was also ridiculously high) are still happy with him. I think if he’d been carrying those numbers into the mid-terms, we might still be in control of both houses…and I don’t think his numbers spiked with democrats, after we got hammered.
Again the naysayers.
The left is upset, are 100% of the left upset? No, of course not. The number one self-identified liberal base in the Democratic Party is AA, and they continue to support the President at a HIGH rate.
But don’t let those numbers fool you. Election day numbers were REAL. The left stayed home. The Republicans did NOT pick up numbers, the Democrats lost numbers. If you don’t believe me, compare totals at cnn.com (no link sorry, but they do have 08 and 10 congressional numbers to compare). I went through roughly 150 congressional districts and didn’t find a single one where the Republican got more votes in 10 than in 08. The democratic numbers just PLUMMETED.
Also, with AA support still so high, and self-identified liberals approving at 80% means that a large chunk of non-AA liberals are NOT approving. A poll (no link again, sorry, my memory is bad and I can’t remember where it was from, only remember the significance of it) around the election (it may even have been an exit poll) found nearly HALF of Democrats wanted Obama primaried. Now “Democrats” is a broader pool than “liberal” because folks just don’t like to self identify as liberal. And when half of Democrats want a Democratic President primaried after only 2 years in, that’s a HUGE statement.
You combine the very real election results, the very real estrangement among non-AA Democrats, and the fact that EVEN THE POLS are admitting they’ve got a serious problem (Grayson was particularly candid about that), then IMO we’re not in an echo chamber, but those naysayers that think all is well are whistling past the graveyard.
As always, YMMV.
I agree that Obama never said the words, “Gentlemen, I want you to prepare now. I want to end Don’t Ask Don’t Tell.”
Obama never uses the word gentlemen when he’s speaking off the cuff. Whereas Biden is legendary for using the words “Ladies,” “Gentlemen,” and “Ladies and Gentlemen.” See here for example:
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-502443_162-4476057-502443.html
This whole recollection is made up by Biden. I read somewhere (was it Woodward’s book?) that the first time Obama met the Joint Chiefs he was really intimidated.
I’m undecided about whether he deserves a second term. I think he was totally unprepared for the Presidency, and how he approaches governing and who he chooses for his advisers in the next year or so will convince me one way or the other. I don’t agree with some who say he is evil. But if he keeps folding and compromising and moving right and kowtowing to Wall Street and the Republicans, if he doesn’t veto some bills and stand up to pressure from the nutwits, he doesn’t deserve a second term and I won’t vote for him. But despite all of the rhetoric around here about primarying him or voting for some third party candidate, I simply don’t think that is realistic.
My opinion only, you may feel free to disagree. I am just becoming increasingly weary of the constant negative rhetoric and Obama bashing, much as I love this community.
I did not call anyone a purist or fuzzy headed. Someone else did.
I accurately reported the findings of recent scientific polls. If you don’t believe them, that is fine with me.
You ask me to predict political events and economic conditions almost two years in the future. I can’t.
I am one (maybe not the only one) who said that some in the FDL community are purists, and if an individual deviates from “our” collective norm on even a single issue, or a bill is passed that is less than 110% of what “we” want, the knives come out.
I cited the recent trashing of Rachel Maddow apparently because she is so enthusiastic about the DADT repeal (quite understandable to me) — I recall several commenters “just had to turn her off, couldn’t stand to watch” because DADT was not repealed soon enough, contained some compromises, etc. so Rachel shouldn’t have praised it effusively. I remember Jane commenting incredulously that some of us like Bernie Sanders, because apparently he voted the “wrong” way on an issue. To me, that’s being a purist. I never, however, said anything about fuzzy thinking.
Let us review. I didn’t say you called anyone fuzzy-headed or a “purist”. But there is a generic quality to the idea that some people are putting about that we’re being too hard on Obama.
And let me deal with another straw dog: I didn’t question your accuracy in reporting the polls; I questioned the accuracy of the polls, themselves, by asking very relevant questions about how they were conducted.
Which questions you are either unable or unwilling to answer.
Since you believe that the polls are accurate, it’s fair to say that you believe that Obama’s support among liberals is, in fact, at or very near, that 80%, and that his support among “moderate” democrats is at 78% and that his support among “conservative” democrats is at 69%. (Probably, the most ridiculous number of all…)
I feel that is nonsense. And my feeling about it is supported by the fact that the democrats just suffered one of the quickest and most pointed reversals of power, since FDR. The Gallup poll was taken over the week Dec. 13-19, which means that 6 weeks after the shellacking (as Obama, himself called it) his support among democrats overall, is still VERY high, and in fact, is as high as some of Bill Clinton’s ratings (for example) ever got. And that, I believe, is political garbage, and I don’t care how many polls are saying differently.
As for Molly’s contention that some of us are purists and that if a bill is passed that is less than 110% of what we want, “the knives come out”, I would just ask her if she thought that we were asking for 110% of a healthcare reform bill when we wanted a public option, and instead, we got a mandate for 30 million new customers for the robber barons like Humana, Wellpoint, United Healthcare, etc. Whatever “benefits” (how not to use quotes for this trojan horse of a sellout…) there are, they don’t kick in until 2014, as I read it.
Is Molly happy that Barack Obama has so diligently pursued George Bush’s policies in Afghanistan?
Does she think that Obama is going to stand by his promise to get all of our troops out of Iraq by the end of 2011?
Does she think that the progressive knives will come out if, by mid-2012, unemployment is still so high that it’s going to mean that democrats are in for another flaying? I sure HOPE those knives come out, and in fact, I will help sharpen them, starting yesterday, since I believe that the republicans who now own Obama’s butt, have no intention of letting him off the floor, and that if he DID want to make the changes that we elected him to make (and I’ve seen no evidence of that…) that now, it’s too late.
Anyone who complains about harsh treatment for Obama, must be at ease with his regularly throwing progressives under the bus. I am not.
Likewise, anyone who believes that Obama’s popularity among democrats is still somewhere in the mid-70′s, is, I feel, flacking for him in the face of the reality of the recent political woodshed job that democrats got, and is ignoring the reality of a resurgent republican party…which resurgence, no one but Barack Obama could have accomplished.
is either biden’s sexuality or marital status at all relevant?
Your analysis is flawed. The November election was not per se a referendum on Obama. Although, of course, to some degree it was.
The polls show Obama to be much more popular than the Democratic Congress.
Its favorability rating has been mired in the teens. Obama’s has had favorability ratings in the high forties.
http://www.gallup.com/poll/145238/congress-job-approval-rating-worst-gallup-history.aspx