Month: August 2009

Clarification

by digby

In response to the newly revealed details of our torture regime, a reader compiled a handy primer for those who will capture American and allied military personnel in the future:

An Open Letter To Our Enemies:

In the international struggle for autonomy, freedom and dominance, there will be warfare. The United States of America is of course a prominent force for change around the globe and from time to time you may have the unlikely fortune of holding an American Soldier in your captivity. Should this unwelcomed day arrive, the Executive Branch of the US government, in conjunction with the CIA and Attorney General, has compiled a list of persuasive activities that you will be allowed to employ that will not be, at some future date, considered torture and subject to prosecution. We refer to this as your Persuasion Permission Slip or PPS. Please reference this list as needed for appropriate treatment of our soldiers should they be under your care.

PERSUASION PERMISSION SLIP (PPS)

· Physical Discomfort that doesn’t leave a scar. This includes the use of forced positions, extreme temperatures, and constant exposure to noxious stimuli. For example, tying a soldier ‘s head to his ankles and leaving him in the desert in the middle of a camel stampede is acceptable provided no organs are damaged. Note that punctures, bruising and blows may be used but must not permanently damage any organ.

· Humiliation that doesn’t leave a scar.This includes the use of nudity, or sexual contact of any kind that is for the purpose of sadism. Please note, if it is for the purpose of sexual gratification without the essential sadistic component, you run the risk of prosecution for War Crimes. Inserting a light stick into a child’s anus, for example, is not considered torture if it was done solely to frighten or humiliate the child or his parent. Allowances will be made for incidental gratification but if its sole purpose was the pleasuring of the guard on duty, that is another story.

· Infliction of Fear that doesn’t leave a scar. Simulated drowning, electrocution, or mock execution are of course acceptable to America, as long as there isn’t a permanent injury or accidental death. Use of power tools such as hand drills to create an impression of immediate threat is permissible and encouraged provided no actual holes are made. (See Bybee v Black & Decker 2004 for details). This would include chainsaws and other time-saving woodshop devices. Remember that irrespective of how much terror or discomfort the soldier or his family members might feel, torture has not occurred until there is permanent damage to an organ. We recommend having a medical team on standby to provide ameliatorive care so that PPS may occur on an ongoing basis.

I hope this letter makes it clear that the United States is prepared to be tolerant in its treatment of our soldiers — up to a point. Any action that leaves a scar is going to be treated as an act of war. (Of course mental scars don’t count, especially if you are able to obtain a memo from a respected legal scholar saying this was not the intent). Sadly there are some bitter leftists in this country that would seek to deprive our soldiers of their right to PPS by persisting in advocating outdated definitions of torture. Those in power understand war changes trivial things like moral values and national character. I am sure this letter and the strict adherence to PPS will guide your treatment of our soldiers for years to come.

Heidi Perryman, Ph.D.

Lafayette CA

What with all the memos floating around and various interpretations of same, I think it’s quite helpful to lay out what is and is not considered torture so that our enemies don’t make the mistake of violating the Bybee Yoo rules which are now deemed to have been perfectly legal by the United States government.

Unless, of course, the US government wants to apply a double standard. It wouldn’t do that, would it?

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Either/Or

by tristero

This is the kind of addle-pated pseudo-reasoning that gives blogging a bad name:

American soldiers are fighting the Taliban, partly to provide time and space while Afghan forces are better trained and partly to persuade some Taliban that resistance does not pay. Call it armed state-building.

But is Afghanistan a war of necessity? And if not — if in fact it is a war of choice — so what?

Wars of necessity must meet two tests. They involve, first, vital national interests and, second, a lack of viable alternatives to the use of military force to protect those interests. World War II was a war of necessity, as were the Korean War and the Persian Gulf war.

In the wake of 9/11, invading Afghanistan was a war of necessity. The United States needed to act in self-defense to oust the Taliban. There was no viable alternative.

Now, however, with a friendly government in Kabul, is our military presence still a necessity?

Such blatantly unsophisticated reasoning really is laughable; anyone remotely familiar with the real world in which wars occur recognizes that “choice/necessity” is not only an obviously false dichotomy but also a crudely misleading framework to discuss the numerous events, both within and out of control, that swirl around the beginnings and the wagings of a war. It is a hopelessly inadequate starting point for a meaningful discussion of what the real issues were on Sept 12, 2001 – for one thing, the Taliban didn’t attack us, bin Laden did, and it is the height of foolishness to conflate the two, no matter how deep the ties – to assert that the bombing of Afghanistan and the subsequent war was in any sense necessary or that there were no viable options to war, or that if the kind of military action engaged in was besides the point.*

Yet this drivel was written by no obscure blogger, typing in his underwear in some filthy hovel. The author is none other than the president of the Council on Foreign Relations and it was published in the New York Times. In other words, lots of folks take this intellectually childish argument as a deeply thoughtful rumination on the policies of war in modern America.

No wonder the neocons got as far as they did. If this is the level of discourse amongst establishment liberals and moderates, the neocons’ psychotic delusions must have seemed not merely bold and audacious, but plausible.

Bob Somerby, the Daily Howler, often gets a lot of heat from fellow liberals who have been the victims of his ire as often as conservatives.** But his basic point is absolutely spot on and we should never forget it: The problem with our discourse is not merely the madness of the right and the corruption of an elite corporate press. It goes much farther and deeper and that. It is a problem that afflicts even (and especially) the so-called “responsible” voices.

Unlike Bob, I don’t think it is mere careerism that permits ludicrously inane notions like the “war of choice/war of necessity” dichotomy or “The End of History” (remember that one?) to become topics of serious conversation, although blind ambition surely plays a role. I think the influence of sheer stupidity on the part of the political establishment should never be misunderestimated. The truth is that the heads of our pointiest intellectuals are often really quite dull.

Back in October, 2003, regarding the absence of serious ideas in discussions of foreign policy, someone wrote that:

It is an intellectual crisis that gives credence to obviously terrible and self-destructive ideas. It makes them seem fit not only for academic debate, and not only for public discussion, but – incredibly -also fit for adoption as policy by the most militarily powerful country the world has ever known. It is an intellectual crisis that permits such long-discredited siren calls as America’s ‘manifest destiny’ to sing out once again and seduce nearly every class in this country into believing the clearly delusional notion that by prosecuting a clearly unnecessary war we could ensure peace.

That wasn’t the president of the Council on Foreign Relations speaking, or even someone from the Center on American Progress. Nor was it published in the New York Times.

That was just a blogger.

*Note: Obviously, I am not addressing whether military action against bin Laden was or was not necessary (nor am I in any way defending the Taliban, of course). I am simply posing the question of whether the framework of a dichotomy which pits “necessity” against “choice” is any sense a useful one in analyzing the situation that faced the US on 9/12. I think it is a ludicrously inadequate way to begin a helpful discussion of that era.

Obviously, something had to be done, there had to be some response because even doing nothing was a response. The question then, as it is now – and as it is for all foreign policy, war-related or otherwise – was what kind of action would be most effective in achieving US goals (duh; that’s what happens when foolish ideas gain traction: to rebut them, you end up all but forced to re-state the perfectly obvious, wasting time no one intelligent has to waste). Perhaps some kind of military action would be the most effective on 9/12, but clearly, the specific actions undertaken by Bush were not only ineffective, but downright incompetent – bin Laden is still on the lam – and, in the long run, completely counterproductive. Necessity has little or nothing to do with it.

**I, too, have been howled at by Bob on several occasions, but for some reason or another, it doesn’t bother me, and sometimes I even agree that I earned the howl.

Glenn Greenwald Is Evil

by digby

Aimai at No More Mr Nice Blog went to a cook out and lo and behold:

I was standing at the cookout minding my own business when Klein started pontificating for the rubes on how “surprising” and “shocking” it was that Grassley, of all people, should have come out and endorsed the “death panels” lie. I walked up and said “why are your surprised?” to which he, in best pundit debater fashion (never allow yourself to admit you were just posing!), shot back “who says I’m surprised?” I said “well, you did. You just started your lecture saying “Its surprising.”” Its not surprising, the republicans have nothing left to lose and nothing left to gain at this point outside of pleasing the crazy base and attacking Obama and the dems.”

We were off and running. He then said that its true the fringe republicans were “crazy” but perhaps no crazier than the “crazy left” under Bush. I thought he meant the “truthers” so I said “name me one person in congress or the Senate who was as crazy on any topic as these Republican senators and Congressmen who sign on to the birther and deather stuff are now?” Evading this question he said “well, Glenn Greenwald is crazy—he’s a civil liberties absolutist.” Now, me, I come from a long line of civil liberties absolutists so I said “I admire Glenn Greenwald’s work immensley but it must be very embarrassing for you, of course, because he’s been eating your lunch for years.” (!) I think this must be something of a sore point for him. He began shrieking “Glenn Greenwald is EVIL! EVILl!..do you know what he did? He “sicced” his blog readers on my EDITOR and she was going through a DIVORCE at the time.” Really? I said, politely, that was very wrong, if it happened. “We kept it very quiet” he said, backing off the claim of any real harm and, as a twofer, managing to imply that only those “in the know” had been kept informed.

People around us were clamoring to know what the debate was about so I laid it out, chapter and verse…

Read on. It’s so wonderful I can’t adequately describe it. I particularly like the part where Klein screams hysterically that Greenwald is a “civil liberties absolutist!” It’s just too good.

Aimai is my hero — actually has been for a long time, but this seals it.

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Getting To Baucus And Grassley

by dday

The only way you can really get to a Max Baucus or a Charles Grassley is by threatening their job security. In particular, Grassley is up for re-election next year, in a state that went for Barack Obama by a fairly hefty margin. If I didn’t know better, I’d say that Rep. Bruce Braley, chair of the Populist Caucus in the House, is setting himself up for a challenge to him.

Grassley used scare tactics last week at a town hall meeting in Iowa to convince voters that optional coverage for end-of-life counseling in the House health care reform bill would force people to “pull the plug on grandma” (even though he supported a nearly identical end-of-life counseling provision in a 2003). Earlier this week, Grassley told reporters that even if a health care plan included the changes he’s been pushing for, he likely wouldn’t support it if it didn’t attract the support of more than a few of his GOP colleagues. Today, the Washington Post reported that Senator Grassley has begun calling for “scaled back” health care reform.

For someone who claims he wants to help forge a bipartisan health care plan, Senator Grassley sure isn’t acting very bipartisan. In fact, he’s been behaving like someone who wants to see meaningful health care reform defeated […]

Senator Grassley is in a stronger position than just about anyone to bring Republicans on board with Democrats to achieve the health care reform we need. But when he uses the same rhetoric as pundits advising Republicans to “just kill it” and a Republican Senator who wants to make health care President Obama’s “Waterloo,” why would the President or Senator Baucus think he is their ally in achieving meaningful health care reform?

Sadly, it appears that Senator Grassley has decided to put his party before what’s best for the people of this country.

The Des Moines Register has already floated the rumor about a “mystery” Democratic candidate willing to take on Grassley. Braley has certainly become more vocal in his criticisms. And the fact that Grassley immediately released a statement attacking Braley shows that he is sensitive to this rumor. I don’t know if an announced challenge would put Grassley on the defensive, but it sure couldn’t hurt.

As for Baucus, he doesn’t come back up for re-election until 2014. But Montanans are split on his actions on health care to this point. 42% approve and 44% disapprove. Baucus has previously been fairly popular in the state, now a public option is more popular than he is, and if he helps to kill a health care reform bill, his numbers will plummet. The Montana Democratic Party is trying to cover for Baucus by sending around the Paul Begala article telling Democrats to accept half a loaf, but based on the polling, that’s not working.

I’m not certain either of these two arrogant members of the House of Lords are reachable, but the road to reaching them runs through their home states.

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Siding With Their Ideals

by digby

Jeffrey Feldman notices Obama rather oddly characterizing the public option as being the source of people’s confusion in his weekly radio address. I noticed it too, and thought it was a little awkward, but I didn’t really take it quite the same way as Jeffrey, but I certainly take his greater point about the administration’s general approach:

Obama’s decision to fend off the cries for a robust public option, rather than join them, suggests that the White House is reluctant to embrace the political risk of treating healthcare reform as a popular movement, choosing instead to approach it as an exercise in legislative negotiation.

For many Obama supporters who supported President Obama’s candidacy because they believed he would rally the public to pass a reform agenda, the White House focus on legislative chess in the healthcare debate has resulting in grumbling about whether or not President Obama is the President they voted for. Fairly or unfairly, Obama now faces a rising tide of doubt in his administration from the very supporters who have backed him most steadfastly since the election.

Many of these supporters are now using internet tools and small donations to signal that their support of healthcare reform anchored in a robust public option would be stronger than their support for an Obama administration willing to negotiate away or weaken a public option.

Thus, weeks before any final bill has actually been written, the healthcare debate has already brought about the most significant change in the American political landscape since Obama won the Iowa caucus to become the leading contender for the Democratic nomination.

The idealists who elected the President are siding with their ideals rather than their candidate.

I would guess that the administration thinks that liberals will forget all about this public option business in four years and have nowhere to go anyway, so there’s no need to worry about them. And they might even be right except, as I’ve noted before, the list of “hedges,” “compromises” and betrayals” is getting quite long. And it’s only in the first year, the time when the president has the most political capital and doesn’t have to obsess over what every ignorant swing voter thinks about everything.

And there are some big fights to come — one big one especially, called “war funding” that could make health care look like a kindergarten cat fight. And I have absolutely zero reason at this point to think that one’s going to come out any better than health care.

I don’t think Obama can count on all of his base sticking with him through thick and thin. Watching a Democratic president and a large Democratic majority unwilling to pass decent legislation in the face of the dysfunctional, impotent clownshow that currently calls itself the Republican Party is about the most depressing thing I’ve seen in all my years observing politics. I can’t even imagine how I would feel if I were 20 years younger and a lot less cynical.

Update: Joan Walsh has a nice piece on this subject today.

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Drills

by digby

Recall that president Bush and president Obama have both repeatedly declared “the United States does not torture:”

CIA interrogators used a handgun and an electric drill to try to frighten a captured al-Qaeda commander into giving up information, according to a long-concealed agency report due to be made public next week, former and current U.S. officials who have read the document said Friday.

The tactics — which one official described Friday as a threatened execution — were used on Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, according to the CIA’s inspector general’s report on the agency’s interrogation program. Nashiri, who was captured in November 2002 and held for four years in one of the CIA’s “black site” prisons, ultimately became one of three al-Qaeda chieftains subjected to a form of simulated drowning known as waterboarding.

The report also says that a mock execution was staged in a room next to one terrorism suspect, according to Newsweek magazine, citing two sources for its information. The magazine was the first to publish details from the report, which it did on its Web site late Friday.

A federal judge in New York has ordered a redacted version of the classified IG report to be publicly released Monday, in response to a lawsuit by the American Civil Liberties Union. Since June, lawyers for the Justice Department and the CIA have been scrutinizing the document to determine how much of it can be made public. Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. has been weighing the report’s findings as part of a broader probe into the CIA’s use of harsh interrogation methods.

The IG’s report, written in 2004, offers new details about Nashiri’s interrogation, including the incidents in which the detainee reportedly was threatened with death or grave injury if he refused to cooperate, one current and one former U.S. official told The Post. Both officials have seen classified versions of the report.
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In one instance, an interrogator showed Nashiri a gun and sought to frighten the detainee into thinking he would be shot, the sources said. In a separate encounter, a power drill was held near Nashiri’s body and repeatedly turned on and off, said the officials, who spoke about the report on the condition of anonymity because it remains classified.

The article goes on to say that Jay Bybee ok’d these tactics so long as they weren’t intended to cause lasting mental harm, so Holder’s (potential) inquiry will necessarily skip looking at these events. If someone is going to be prosecuted for torture, it has to be for something other than threatening to use an electric drill on someone or partially drowning them. That would only be considered torture if some faceless bureaucrat hadn’t written a memo authorizing them. Oh well.

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Irrelevant

by digby

Last year at the Democratic convention, I was on a panel with Jonathan Alter in which he oddly asserted that people don’t pay attention to what’s said in the media. I asked him where he thought they got their information and he said “from each other.” I found that somewhat interesting coming from a journalist, needless to say.

There’s a weird propensity among villagers to think that they don’t affect public opinion, that it just exists out there in a vacuum and can be gauged separate and apart from what’s being reported. Ruth Marcus was on MSNBC earlier and she said this:

I think any time a politician is complaining about the media it means they have a bigger problem. [smirking] And certainly when Barack Obama starts complaining about his media coverage, you might have a little question about that, since he’s actually gotten fairly good media coverage throughout his rather meteoric career.

Look, I would not look at the media coverage and I would also not look at the town hall meetings as a gauge of the public mood, but I would look at the polls …

Now, I happen to think looking at the polls is probably a good thing in this case (see below) because they are actually showing that there is a decline in base support, which is important to acknowledge (although I won’t hold my breath for Marcus to do so.) But that is likely happening because by all appearances, Obama looks to be willing to cave to the teabaggers — and the media are kvelling about the good news.

The idea that the media and the teabaggers have nothing to do with the poll results is just cracked. Are people making their judgments based on some dream they had? Some conversation with a stranger? They are getting their information somewhere, and call me nuts, but I would guess it’s mostly from newspapers and television (and to a small extent blogs.)

The teabaggers have been dramatically in the news for the past few weeks and Obama’s poll numbers have taken a hit. I certainly don’t believe that it’s because everyone agrees with the teabaggers, but it’s insane to think that the news coverage of it, and the health care debate in the media, hasn’t had an effect.

I guess this is the MSM’s way of avoiding responsibility, but what it really shows is that they don’t take their jobs seriously and, therefore, they shouldn’t be surprised to be losing market share to those who do. They certainly shouldn’t be angry when they are declared to be irrelevant, since they themselves are the ones who say it the most.

Update: Here’s Jamison Foser with the facts on this. read ’em and weep.

Take It From Him

by dday

I have started working with Brave New Films on their Sick For Profit campaign, which exposes the giant salaries, stock options, and general high-livin’ of our nation’s insurance company executives, all of whom profit from denying care rather than offering anything of value to the system. My latest post shows that everyone understands the failure of the current for-profit system, even a certain excitable lad who goes by the name “Glenn Beck.” Have a look.

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Leadership

by digby

Howie sez:

… we have a few leaders who are the powerful advocates behind closed doors, moving the process along, steeling the backbones of the tepid and nervous, when they need steeling, and providing the intellectual firepower when people lose their way from time to time. No one– two simple words that I chose with care– has been a better advocate for working families inside progressive circles than Maryland Congresswoman Donna Edwards.

Blue America was the original online home-away-from-home for Donna Edwards when she first ran for Congress in 2006 against corrupt and reactionary Democratic hack (now a K Street lobbyist), Al Wynn. Our PAC raised more money and more love for her than for anyone else running for the House. And since becoming a member she’s had the best– meaning most progressive– voting record of any member of the House. She has been more than an ally; she has been an advocate, not because someone pressures her or bullies her but because she is a leader and has been for many, many years. Her beliefs are the beliefs many of us share, beliefs that are the glue that holds us together. If no one is perfect, there is no one as close to that as Donna Edwards.

No doubt you’ve noticed that Blue America is hosting a netroots-wide campaign, Standing Up For The Public Option which has raised around $350,000 from more than 5,500 donors so far for the 65 Congressmembers who are vowing to stick with the public option even after the House of Lords tries to sell American families out to the insurance business at the inevitable conference committee meeting this fall. Donna has among the top dozen number of donors and was one of the first members to cross the $5,000 mark in contributions. Last night I asked her how this battle is looking from her perspective inside the halls of Congress. She was happy to craft something for me to share:

“The stakes for comprehensive health care reform are high. It’s time for our rhetoric to match our policy. That means that we must be clear about what constitutes comprehensive reform.

Over the past several weeks, I have held numerous interviews, (print, radio, television, internet), town hall meetings and other public fora discussing health care reform. I am excited that real people actually want bold, comprehensive reform and they want to understand the details. This response has invigorated me as never before.

I just want to be absolutely clear–comprehensive reform must include a robust public health insurance option. Otherwise, we’re just tinkering around the edges and run the risk of giving even more power to the already too powerful insurance and pharmaceutical industries and their overpaid CEO’s. I am unequivocal, unwavering, and unapologetic about my support of a robust public option — in and outside of the Congress. Indeed I appeared on the CBS Evening News just this week urging Democrats to move forward on healthcare reform, including a robust public option, with or without Republican support since they seem more interested in the politics of taking down Presidnt Obama than healthcare for millions of Americans.

It is important that we stay focused on getting a robust public option included in the House version of the bill — nothing watered down. As a progressive member of the House of Representatives, I can’t spend time guessing or speculating about what the Senate will do. I do know that if we don’t do our work to get a strong bill out of the House, we won’t be able to beg, borrow or steal a robust public option from the Senate. And, the naysayers and opponents of reform know this — they know what’s at stake. That’s why they’ve tried to use August to kill reform. With your help, it hasn’t worked and it won’t work.

To accomplish our goal, we must be vigorous advocates for a public option that uses the Medicare provider network, starts immediately without triggers, and has a payment system that encourages quality patient care. We’re almost there, and that’s why it will take your voices outside of Congress and those of us inside to encourage our colleagues and our President to be courageous to the end. I hope you will continue to join me in this fight for comprehensive health care reform.

No more tinkering.

No more dictates by the big insurers and pharmaceutical companies.

No more deceptions and distractions.

Let’s fight for a robust public option to ensure quality, affordable healthcare and lower costs for everyone and provide transparency and accountability. I know we can do this. I will keep fighting, but I need you to keep fighting with me.

Thank you.

Rep. Donna F. Edwards (MD-4)

One of the most important, and underappreciated, dynamics in this whole sausage making process is that the Senate is allowing the Gang Of Six to pretend that they have the last word in this process. And it’s mighty irritating to those in People’s House who somehow got the idea that they have an equal say in legislation. (Maybe they read it in The Constitution.) Even Blue Dogs like Steny get their backs up when the House of Lords decides to turn up its blue noses at the other House and pretend they are irrelevant. Institutional pride plays a part in all congressional negotiations and should be taken into account as we analyze what’s going on here.

Edwards and others who are standing up for the public option are not just standing up for the progressive caucus agenda, they are putting the spine back into the House of Representatives. It’s called leadership and they continue to deserve our thanks for doing it.

You can still contribute here, if you haven’t done so. At the time of this writing, we are at a staggering $337,000.

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Not Far Enough

by digby

Don’t say I didn’t warn you:

The conventional wisdom, however, has been that the Democrats are suffering from some sort of political Icarus syndrome. They are flying too high and too soon, and the public disapproval will send them crashing back to earth. The problem with that rationale, at least in our numbers this week, is that it doesn’t match with the data. Across the board, the drops among Obama and the Democratic Party have come not from the loyal opposition, nor have they come from dismayed Independents. They have come from Democrats…Anyone who thinks the protracted arguments over health care aren’t frustrating the Democratic base need look no further. A ten-point dip in net favorability, in a single week, is a pretty solid statement. A quick look at the generic Congressional ballot confirms that the Democrats have shed a great deal of soft supporters over the last few weeks. The margin between the Democrats and Republicans now rests at six points (35-29), the closest we have seen on that question since the item was inserted into the poll a couple of months back. Interestingly, the Republicans have gained virtually nothing over that time. The steady stream of voters no longer willing to commit to the Democrats on the ballot test have almost uniformly gone into the ranks of the undecided.

One of the most common errors in mainstream reporting is the default assumption that when a politician suffers in the polls it’s because they are going “too far,” whatever that means. They never consider whether it might be because he isn’t going far enough.

There are other stupid assumptions as well, such as the silly contention that George W. Bush won the 2004 election on the basis of “moral values,” — meaning conservative moral values. (Had I been exit polled, I would have told the pollster that I voted on the basis of moral values too — those values telling me that the immoral illegal war in Iraq meant that George W. Bush should be tried as a war criminal.) The biases of the village narrative drive the interpretation of polls in such a way that they actually end up changing public opinion.

This poll shows that Obama is losing altitude alarmingly fast and he’s losing it mostly among his own followers. Why? Well, nobody who reads this blog needs to ask that question. (And if you do, just read Paul Krugman and Glenn Greenwald this morning.) There have been a series of issues, one on top of the other and each one more distressing, in which the fundamental principles on which Obama ran have been either betrayed or compromised. It’s been too much, too many, in too short a time, from civil liberties to secrecy to cozying up with industry behind closed doors. These aren’t minor issues — they go directly to values and principles.

He’s losing trust among the base because he appears to believe that those constituents have no serious claim on his agenda. Even the appointment of Sotomayor did not reflect a liberal commitment beyond the breaking of ethnic barriers, which is wonderful, but cannot be seen as a substitute for progressive principle. Bargaining away the one substantial progressive demand in health care reform is seen as simple bad faith.

I’m not one to trust politicians, but I recognize that most people do, even ardent partisans. They are busy, they don’t want to have to follow every detail of the political sturm and drang or try to read between the lines of the NY Times every day to try to figure out what’s going on. They more or less inform themselves before an election about what their representatives say they believe in, they assess their sincerity and commitment to certain broad principles and values, and then they leave the governing in their hands, trusting them to do what they said they would do to the best of their ability. Obama promised a lot. A whole lot. And he garnered the trust of many millions of liberal minded folks. When that kind of trust is betrayed, it’s very hard to get it back.

I certainly hope they are not fighting the last war. Bill Clinton did not suffer a backlash in his base because he was operating in an environment of conservative dominance and a very weak left flank. The base was desperate and demoralized. But it’s not 1996 anymore and that strategy just won’t work this time. The conservatives are a clownish group of know-nothings whose approval ratings are in the single digits. They should not, in a democratic society, have the power to shape strategy to the extent they are and the president should not be empowering them. Big business and finance is even more discredited and has no trust among the poeple whatsoever. Openly catering to them in this environment is nothing short of defiant (and politically suicidal.)

Nobody expects that the left will get everything it wants. But they do expect to be treated with respect as a vital constituency in the Democratic Party that has to answer to its voters just as the Blue Dogs do. And those voters are making some demands that must be taken as seriously as those minority conservatives who believe that they are in charge no matter who winselectkions in this country.

Obviously, Obama has to reach out to more than his base as all presidents do, but he also has to recognize that he can’t treat them like a bargaining chip. These polls prove that to some extent this is a zero sum game and therefore, he can’t be all things to all people. His political capital is dwindling significantly from all directions and he’s going to have make some choices.

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