I fully understand that – in the most progressive major city with the most progressive governing body in the country – it is impossible to resist the temptation to occasionally legislate based on their core belief that no citizen can make a decision for themselves or their family without the Supervisors benevolent dictates guiding forcing them to “do the right thing”. But – when even the Daily Show is pointing and laughing – you’d think our Supes might get a clue.

Featured in the clip is SF Supervisor Eric Mar as he is made to look particularly stupid by Daily Show comedian Asaif Mandvi. It’s not like that is a difficult thing to do with our Board of Supes, but Asaif dishes it out with an extra helping of much deserved derision. I can only hope that Mar’s decision to appear on The Daily Show was a career limiting move.

Our local fishwrap transcribes the funniest bit:

“But the most brutal part comes when Mar explains that his 10-year-old daughter, Jade, doesn’t like fast food anymore after watching the documentary “Super Size Me” with him. Those opposed to the to ban maintain it’s up to parents, not McDonalds, to ensure their kids learn healthy habits.

Mandvi: “So she learned from her parents?”
Mar: “That’s a large part of it.”
Mandvi: (staring in wide-eyed disbelief) “Would it be hard to pass a law to force Netflix to send ‘Super Size Me’ to every parent in San Francisco?”
Mar: “We can’t force Netflix, a private company, to do something like that.”
Mandvi: “Are you serious right now?”
Mar:“We have no power to force Netflix or a private company like that to change a business practice.”
Mandvi: “So on one hand, you’re like, ‘We can’t do that’ but on the other hand, you are doing that.”

Mar, looking very tired, shakes his head, stumbles over one of the progressive supervisor’s favorite words, equitability, and mercifully the interview ends. Oy.”

The good news is that four of our Supes have termed out and will be leaving office this week. The bad news is that Eric Mar is not among them.

Reason TV also took note of SF Local Accomplishments in 2010:

Cross posted from Divided We Stand United We Fall.

Source: Resurgent Republic

Buried under the mountain of navel gazing, finger-pointing, self-serving spin, and bitter invective in the left-o-sphere, we can still find a few gems of sparkling analysis, insight and useful advice. We’ll mine two examples of Progressive postmortems. One is a rich vein of solid gold analysis, but to get to it we must first separate and dispose of the slag.

Jonathan Chait of The New Republic cannot hide his bitterness and anger in this devastating dismantling of the straw man he props up for that very purpose:

Split Ends – The myth of divided government
(full text at The Cagle Post)

It apparently makes Chait feel good to monotonously apply the pejorative of a “fetish” to the divided government voting heuristic, but it does exactly nothing to further his argument (as I’ve noted before).

This might be a reasonable argument, if the reason that independents voted for divided government was with the express hope of ushering in an era of bipartisan cooperation, moderation and compromise. It wasn’t. Bipartisan cooperation may or may not happen in the next two years, but it has nothing to do with the reason why many independents voted as they did. They voted to restrain the excesses of this latest edition of One Party Rule (Democratic version). They voted in reflexive horror after witnessing two examples of mind-numbingly bad and jaw-droppingly expensive legislation – ARRA (Stimulus) and PPACA (Obamacare) – that were both made possible and steamrolled by One Party Democratic Rule.

Whether our impending divided government produces bipartisan cooperation or not, it remains a fact that true bipartisan cooperation is impossible when one party holds all the cards. For the last two years the Democrats held all the cards. If the divided government of the next two years does nothing else but prevent or moderate legislation like ARRA and PPACA, then it will meet the objectives of many independents that voted for it.

For an antidote to Chait’s toxic mix of bluster, logical fallacy, and dismissive ad hominem offered up as an explanation of the election, electorate and governance, consider Lee Durham of the Progressive Policy Institute. Durham presents some real data-centric analysis, offers real insight, and comes up with some good suggestions for Democrats and President Obama in:

“How to Understand the Independents (and how to win them Back)“:

I’ll leave it to the reader to compare and contrast these two very different progressive perspectives of the election, electorate, and, most importantly, the way forward. Consider which of the two is informed by common sense, logic and data and which is informed by rhetoric, sophistry and rage. I submit they are representative of two significant and incompatible constituencies within the Democratic Party. The schism has been there all along, but was papered over in 2006 and 2008 by the unifying principle of Bush Hate. Regardless of how skilled Axelrod, Gibbs, and Plouffe may be at “triangulation”, the Obama administration cannot simultaneously turn left and turn toward the center. I hope Democrats choose wisely, as I really don’t want to see us return to one party Republican rule in 2013. If they rely on Palin and Tea Party to hand the 2012 election to the Democrats, they just may be disappointed…

Again.

Portions excerpted and cross posted from Divided We Stand United We Fall

… by cleverly adopting a circular firing squad formation.

READY…

Press Secretary Robert Gibbs raises his sights and gets a bead on the target:

AIM….

Glenn Greenwald takes it personally, almost as if Gibbs is aiming directly at him:

FIRE!

Nate Silver takes a shot at understanding the exercise:

“…the White House has had two incredibly cynical moments in the past several weeks — Gibbs’ rant today and the premature firing of Shirly Sherrod three weeks ago. Both reflected politics at its worst, the clumsiest possible efforts at “triangulation”.

I am taking it for granted, of course, that Gibbs’s comments today will prove not to be a cagey political strategy: they were so naked and inartful, such a Velveeta attempt at Sister Souljah moment, that I don’t see how they possibly could be. They will annoy the left but do nothing to placate Obama’s critics on the right or persuade those in the center.”

The full gun battle can be watched here.

From the sidelines, Matt Welch comments on the poor marksmanship:

Well Matt – I’m doing my part.

Although – strictly speaking – I guess I am not a lefty now.

But I was in 2006, and hope to be again in 2012. Does that count?

UPDATE:
Mister Gibbs sheepishly “walked back” his earlier statement, describing it as “inartful”.

My question is not why his liberal base is frustrated, that is pretty obvious. My question is what exactly was Gibbs trying to do? The initial rant was not “off the cuff”. Let’s get real. Gibbs serves up exactly nothing that is not first chewed up, digested and excreted by Axelrod and Rahm.

Then I read this in his artful walk back from the interview:

“In November, America will get to choose between going back to the failed policies that got us into this mess, or moving forward with the policies that are leading us out.”

Now I get it. They want to run against GWB again in 2010 because – you know – it worked last time. I mean – Bush was not running then… Bush is not running now… What’s the difference?

But they really can’t run against Bush if the best and brightest in their base keep saying that Obama is acting just like Bush.

This was all about getting them to stop making that comparison – at least until after the election.

^{x-posted from Divided We Stand United We Fall”}

Not a whole lot of good has come the way to the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) these days. The only organization I can think of that gets more right wing scorn has been ACORN, who I think mostly get picked on because they don’t fight back. Another ally, Health Care for America Now (HCAN), is seeing similar problems getting its legislative priorities passed.

While you could point out any number of mistakes these organizations have made in the last few months, perhaps the most glaring is their belief that they could use the momentum from the 2008 election to push their dream bills through to passage. Their sometimes misplaced tactics haven’t helped their cause either, pulling silly publicity stunts and waging a terribly mismanaged media push. The real meat of it was their misconstrued overall strategy of shoving this legislation through, over the opposition of nearly all republicans and a good chunk of moderate Democrats.

This was just plain foolish. They had to know that they would have a hard time getting moderate Dems to vote their way on the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA, or card check if you prefer). They couldn’t have been so blind as to think the Blue Dogs would just roll over on their health care plan, with it costing so much… right?

Some polling has shown a bit of a shift, but numbers have been relatively steady on the issue of the secret ballot being favored over card check, and how wary the public is when it comes to expansion of government into health care. With the debt rocketing into the sky at an historic pace, and promised cost savings being debunked by the CBO, rather than work with the swing votes in the Senate to find a compromise these groups, and liberal organizations like them, have chosen perhaps the most ineffective strategy they could take.

Demonize the moderates.

There is a reason why politicians tone down the partisan their rhetoric after winning primaries, and why many are now saying that 2010 might not be so bad for Republicans after all. Attacking representatives who speak for those of us who worry about liberal overreach and a need for fiscal sanity helps nobody but the Republican party. Democrats may have the majority, and 60 votes in the Senate, but liberals do not… and this will not change any time soon.

Realizing this and working with the center, rather than attacking us, will allow these organizations to make progress on their legislative goals, keep their solid majority and stem the tide of independents that are now beginning to peel their support off. The silver lining of all of this, from my more centrist perspective, is this is leading to even more people leaving both parties. With over 40% of the population now identifying as independents, it is just a matter of time before something happens that turns the independent groundswell into a movement.

President-elect Obama and McCain meet in Chicago

Wth his Inauguration three days away, Barack Obama continues to talk, plan and act as if he’s every one’s President and intends to govern from the center — with respect to both domestic and foreign affairs.  He has been aggressively courting Republicans and conservatives, inviting their input and working hard to gain their support.  As Politico sums it up, Obama is not only “trying to seduce Republicans these days,” but also courting conservatives in an effort that “runs much deeper and wider than is publicly known:”

Obama has had meetings with his former opponent John McCain, GOP congressional leaders and some of the country’s leading conservative commentators. He’s also honoring McCain and Colin Powell in high-profile pre-inaugural dinners, where Obama is expected to toast the Republicans.

Behind the scenes, Obama and his team are working just as hard, courting prominent Republicans and conservatives through frequent phone calls, e-mails and private sit-downs.

The selection of evangelical pastor Rick Warren for the inaugural invocation and Obama’s dinner with right-of-center writers at George F. Will’s home drew significant buzz. But the transition also has quietly reached out to other prominent figures atop the Southern Baptist Church, Charles Colson’s Prison Fellowship Ministry and the Jewish Orthodox Union.

What’s more, Obama and Chief of Staff Rahm Emmanuel have been reaching out to and meeting with House Minority Whip Eric Cantor and other key Republicans, including the Senate GOP leaders, Mitch McConnell and Jon Kyl, McCain pal Lindsey Graham, key committee ranking members Charles Grassley and Judd Gregg, and such moderates as Olympia Snowe.

Obama knows the country faces huge problems that can only be addressed, much less solved, if we genuinely “turn the page” on the often vicious and paralyzing partisan battles of the past 30 years. Most Democratic leaders — and surely most Democratic voters — understand this and are on board with it.

Unfortunately, though, there are still those in the left wing of the party who would rather score points with their narrow constituencies, throw a few more shoes at Bush, or even try to criminalize politics and policy differences than join with Obama to govern the nation effectively. And it’s not just DailyKos and a few other lefty bloggers.

Leading the way down this bitter path, veteran Michigan Representative John Conyers, Jr., Chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, released a 486-page report entitled “Reining in the Imperial Presidency” and wrote an op-ed about it in the Washington Post in which he took issue with the inclination of many (including Obama) to “move on” and called for various investigations and possible prosecutions, not only about the Bush Administration’s war policies but the supposed “politicization of the Justice Department,” “the ravaging of our regulatory system and the use of signing statements to override the laws of the land,” among other things.

Conspicuously, however, Conyers did not call for an inquiry into how or why the most sweeping act of financial deregulation in recent history and a powerful contributor to the present financial crisis, repeal of the 1933 Glass-Steagall Act, passed the House by huge bi-partisan majorities of 343-86 and 362-57 and was signed into law by President Clinton in November 1999.

Over at The New York Times, columnist Paul Krugman urged Obama not to “forgive and forget” and to “reconsider his apparent decision to let the previous administration get away with crime.” What crime? Going beyond even Conyers, Krugman wants probes into “abuses [that] extended from environmental policy to voting rights” and “involved using the power of government to reward political friends and punish political enemies.” Krugman cites, among other things, the alleged “political” hiring at Justice and the award of “no-bid contracts to politically connected companies” in connection with reconstruction in Iraq.

I’m equally offended by purely political hiring and hanky panky in government contracting, and there are ways to control or eliminate perennial abuses of this kind. Still, I’ll be surprised if the Obama Justice Department hires many lawyers who belong to the Federalist Society. And we’ll see whether government contracting — in Iraq or Afghanistan, all those “shovel ready” public works to be funded by the stimulus plan, or anywhere else suddenly becomes above board because a Democrat is in the White House.

Beginning in three days, President Obama will need to focus all of his, the Congress’s and the nation’s energies on surmounting tough challenges at home and abroad. He’ll need the help and support of Republicans, as well as Democrats, and the sustained good will of moderate and conservative voters, as well as liberals, to get anything much done. A renewed descent into constant quarrel and division could be a disaster. He knows that. It’s a pity that people like Conyers and Krugman remain oblivious to it.

(Visit me at The Purple Center)