Real Time New Rules June 12, 2009
By Heather Saturday Jun 13, 2009 7:30am
Real Time's New Rules for June 12, 2009. While I agree with Bill's general sentiment here that it would be nice to see the President push for a more progressive agenda and not worry so much about playing nice with the Republicans, I've got quite a few problems with this segment.
One, regardless of what the media and the right wing noise machine say about the President, he is and has always been a pragmatist. If anyone didn't realize that before they voted for him, they were fooling themselves.
And second, Bill needs to do a better job getting his facts straight...again. Bob Cesca has more on that here: Fact Check.
Third, I'm not upset that the President is on television all the time. When he's dealing with the likes of Fox News and the trash that is cable "news" in general, right wing talk radio and the crap that gets spread all over the Internet about him, how else is he supposed to counter that? When the President goes on television and goes out and does these press conferences and town halls, he's taking control of the narrative and grabbing it back from the media.
I think Bill needs to chill out a little bit. I know he wants to prove he's not in the tank for Obama. I think there are better ways to do that than trashing him for not being some kind of miracle worker that could fix George Bush's mess in four months while misstating what he has done since being elected.
And thanks so much Bill for giving the media a reason to repeat the McCain "celebrity" meme B.S. and comparing him to Lindsay Lohan. They're already all over that today. Bravo. He's not Lindsay Lohan. He's the President and he's trying to do his job. Take him on over policy all you want, but that was really a cheap shot.
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I agree that the celebrity stuff was cheap, yet, it would be nice if he used all of his TV time to actually educate the American people on why/how we need to fix health care, Wall Street and energy policies. And his lack of backbone on Guantanamo, Wall Street, Iraq, health care, energy/environment; his escalation of executive secrecy and powers, Afghanistan policies (especially Bahgram), private contractors and corporate welfare are the change we don't need.
It's about time Obama gets called out on the stuff he needs to be called out on. I don't care to hear another thing about his taste for mustard, his dog, his dates, his smoking, his basketball skills, his religion, his "coolness" or any of that crap. I want to hear about him fighting for the change our country needs.
I want to see him actually take charge and make progress. I didn't vote for Obama because I didn't think he had what it takes to stand up against the right-wing, big business or their compliant Democratic Party. (I voted for Kucinich in the primaries and Cynthia McKinney in the general election because she could have done what was needed). I want to regret not voting for him and all my Obama voter friends to say "I told you so." Sadly, it looks like I'll be the one with those honors.
pragmatic is a cute word for 'sell out'.
you're right, the people fooled themselves by voting for him...i guess they were being pragmatic, right?
and i also guess your perspective on obama's celebrity treatment is pretty pragmatic too.
political correctness: 1
reality: 0
"cute" about it. And yes, a lot of people who voted for him were being pragmatic...as in not wanting to see John McCain and Sarah Palin elected.
The reason I think the "celebrity" stuff is stupid is because he's the president of the United States. Of course he's a celebrity. Calling someone who campaigns for two years so that everyone in the country knows who he is a celebrity as a slur is stupid. Especially when he was slurred as a celebrity by someone who also spent years campaigning so that everyone knows who he is (McCain). So, harping on the president for being a celebrity is stupid. That is reality.
Bill Maher taking a cheap shot? Surely not!
You're right, Heather. Obama is a pragmatist and it was probably conservative pragmatists who swung it for him. It's not selling out to govern for the whole country. Just because Bush pandered to an ideological base doesn't mean Obama should do the same thing just so progressives can get their own back.
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