Tuesday News: Voices Crying in the Wilderness

Good Morning Conflucians!!!!! Is anyone else getting the feeling that all hell is breaking loose in the U.S. political sphere? Maybe it’s just my usual apocalyptic viewpoint on events, but I’m getting a sense of time speeding up as we approach the midterm elections and a feeling that just about anything can happen.

Back in early 2008, Riverdaughter was banned from the orange place for calling out the mindless bands of Obots who were trying to shut down supporters of any other candidate than their messiah. Yes, she used the word “Jihad.” Here’s a sample of the diary that got her thrown out of the giant blog that had been taken over by Obama astroturfers:

They are zealous, our Movement Obamaphiles. We’re not quite sure what the Movement is all about except it has something to do with Unity. I thought we already had a Unity movement with Mike Bloomberg whose goal it is to “teach the world to sing in perfect harmony” and let uber rich middle aged white guys tell us how to sit nicely and lower our voices when we talk to Republicans.

Maybe the Movement is about getting people to sit around the table and come to some consensus, complete with trained negotiator and meeting facilitator. Wow! That sounds cool….

Obamaphiles have it made. They can pour their whole heart into their Movement. And they can look down on we poor Kossacks who don’t have anything to believe in. If only we would accept the Movement, our troubles would “melt like lemon drops a-way above the chimney tops”. We could stop worrying about people who have lost their jobs and their health insurance and their houses. We could give them hope! And states that are deep in debt and can’t cough up the money for SCHIP can use the power of their words to make it happen. And soldiers in Iraq who are on their third rotation can focus on the Change! that will come, just as soon as the embodiment of our Movement learns to do his job!

Bad, bad Goldberry was cast out of the Cheeto into the internet wilderness. Instead of just feeling sorry for herself, she established The Confluence. Other former orange place denizens found her new blog and joined her, and as more of the “progressive” blogs were taken over by the Koolaid drinkers, so did refugees from places like Firedoglake, Democratic Underground, and Talk Left.

In those days we were truly voice crying in the wilderness, trying all through the 2008 primaries to warn other liberals of the bad ending we saw coming for the Democratic Party if they nominated a guy with almost no experience and who thought Ronald Reagan was a “transformational” figure and that New Deal programs like Social Security should be cut and/or privatized.

Now, more than two years later, most of the “progressive” blogosphere is in an uproar, running around with their hair on fire, trying to stop the Obama Party (formerly the Democratic Party) from handing over the reins of government to the far right wing of the Republican Party. Sorry folks, when you nominate and elect a Republican in Democratic clothing that’s what happens.

So with that as background, let’s take a look at the latest political news from around the ‘net. Who knows how much longer we’ll be able to do that now that the Obama administration and Congress plan to start wiretapping every single form of electronic communication we have? See Wonk the Vote’s latest post for more on that.

Peter Daou, who was an adviser to Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign wrote snarkily yesterday about “How a handful of liberal bloggers are bringing down the Obama presidency.”

With each passing day, I’m beginning to realize that the crux of the problem for Obama is a handful of prominent progressive bloggers, among them Glenn Greenwald, John Aravosis, Digby, Marcy Wheeler and Jane Hamsher*.

Virtually all the liberal bloggers who have taken a critical stance toward the administration have one thing in common: they place principle above party. Their complaints are exactly the same complaints they lodged against the Bush administration. Contrary to the straw man posed by Obama supporters, they aren’t complaining about pie in the sky wishes but about tangible acts and omissions, from Gitmo to Afghanistan to the environment to gay rights to secrecy and executive power.

The essence of their critique is that the White House lacks a moral compass. The instances where Obama displays a flash of moral authority – the mosque speech comes to mind – these bloggers cheer him with the same fervor as his most ardent fans.

Of course *we* aren’t included in the list of liberal bloggers who “put principle before party” (even though that has been our battle cry since May 31, 2008). But that’s OK, we’re used to being dismissed at this point. Most of us are Independents now, we’ve given up on the Democratic Party. Perhaps the progbloggers that Daou praises will eventually follow us, but we don’t expect them to ever acknowledge that we were right.

As Daou argues, the Obama administration is frustrated by the pushback they are getting from the progbloggers. They apparently believed they could pull the wool over the eyes of every “progressive” and that none of them would ever notice the lies, the broken promises, the fact that the Democratic Party had duped them into working their asses off to elect a Republican President. Well some of them have waked up, and they sound just like we Conflucians did back in the spring of 2008. Unfortunately, it’s a bit late now to prevent the deluge.

It looks like Rahm Emanual is leaving the sinking ship this Friday and heading back to Chicago in hopes of becoming king mayor of the windy city.

Although no final decision has been made because of family considerations, ABC News has learned that White House officials are preparing for Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel to announce on Friday — as Congress adjourns for recess — that he is leaving his post to explore a run for mayor of Chicago.

White House officials expect that President Obama will also name an interim chief of staff, perhaps senior adviser Pete Rouse, at the announcement.

Sources close to Emanuel cautioned that he has yet to pull that last trigger on the decision.

Two of Obama top economic advisers, Christine Romer and Larry Summers are leaving, and David Axelrod and David Plouffe will be leaving to work on President Obama’s doomed endangered 2012 reelection campaign.

Vice President Joe Biden has emerged from obscurity to tell uppity liberals to quit “whining.”

Campaigning for Democratic candidates in New Hampshire, Vice President Joe Biden said Monday the party’s base should “stop whining.”

Biden attended a fundraiser for Rep. Paul Hodes, who is running for the Senate; Rep. Carol Shea-Porter, who is seeking re-election to a third term; and the state Democratic Party.

Biden said Democrats can win both races if they draw clear distinctions between themselves and their Republican opponents, and he urged Democrats to “remind our base constituency to stop whining and get out there and look at the alternatives. This president has done an incredible job. He’s kept his promises.”

[….]

Biden said Democrats will lose if the November election is a referendum on how people feel about the economy, but they’ll win if they emphasize the progress they’ve made and plans to build on it. He said he understands that someone looking for a job doesn’t have time to track the details of the new health care law or stimulus program, but he said Democrats should remind those voters that many of the benefits haven’t kicked in yet.

“We’ve made great progress, but to the guy or the woman sitting at their kitchen table without a job it doesn’t matter – they’re in trouble. We owe them an answer as to how we’re going to … now that the economy’s been stabilized, build it again,” Biden said.

Yeah, yeah, we know. More tax cuts for business and nothing that creates jobs or consumers. If all you’re offering is Republican solutions, why on earth do you expect liberals to support you?

President Obama himself has joined the chorus of administration figures chiding liberals:

Admonishing his own party, President Barack Obama says it would be “inexcusable” and “irresponsible” for unenthusiastic Democratic voters to sit out the midterm elections, warning that the consequences could be a squandered agenda for years.

“People need to shake off this lethargy. People need to buck up,” Obama told Rolling Stone in an interview to be published Friday. The president told Democrats that making change happen is hard and “if people now want to take their ball and go home, that tells me folks weren’t serious in the first place.”

The midterm elections are in five weeks and polling shows that Republicans, out of power at the White House and on Capitol Hill, have a much more excited base of supporters than Democrats. Obama, campaigning this week in four states, is in a sprint to restore the voter passion that helped him win office.

Bwaaaaahahahahahahah! He wants us to “buck up?” Good luck with that, Mr. President.

What are you seeing out there in the internet wilderness today fellow Conflucians? Please share your links in the comments, and remember “buck up” and “quit whining,” or you might have to be “drug tested.”

Have a terrific Tuesday!!!!