Rich Cleland is political malaise.

Rich Cleland is political malaise.
7 hours ago via Facebook for iPhone · Comment · Like

Kathryn Palmer: Lieberman inspired? Nice of him to change his position now when it's been the opposite since the 2000 election up until just three months ago, don't you think? He's like an evil Aaron Sorkin character.
7 hours ago · Delete

Rich Cleland: Partially, but he's a duche so my perpetual low expectations pretty much protect me from him. I think the malaise has settled in as I've realized that Obama is never going to try and convince people that the health care debate is about our obligations to each other not about what we can get for ourselves.

What good is rhetoric if you don't try to use it to persuade people who don't already believe.
6 hours ago · Delete

Kathryn Palmer: Some people cannot be persuaded because they cannot listen to reason. Obama attempts to persuade through logic; the opposition persuades through irrational emotional appeals to breed fear, hysteria, and hate. There's a large part of the populace that falls prey to the latter and cannot be convinced by the former, unfortunately. Obama's difficulty raises the question as to whether it is ethical to employ manipulative rhetoric for an honorable end or to endanger attaining that goal by attempting to use rhetoric honorably.
6 hours ago · Delete

Rich Cleland: I think you are correct that Obama is an intellectual; therefore, logic is persuasive to him. I disagree, however, that he can not make be emotionally appealing. That was a major difference between his victory and Kerry's defeat.

Additionally, i think there is an emotional argument to be made without resorting to sophistry. Republicans talk about Americans' rights. Obama should have made the case for Americans' responsibilities, in particular, to each other. We are our brother's keeper in that when he fails, it spreads to us. That was Kennedy's message to America in the 60s.

I think this "honor" shield is BS. He has not engaged even intellectually on this topic. He learned the wrong lesson from Clinton's failed health care initiative. Rahm told him it was, the president should not get mired in a fight on health care. The real message was, you can have your ass handed to you on health care and still do a ton of stuff, including get elected for a second term.
5 hours ago · Delete

Rich Cleland: The president should have been out front on the moral necessity of real health insurance reform. I thought he was going there with this speech to the joint session (which was a great boost) but he let that harvest whither on the vine.

He didn't want to take ownership of health care because he didn't want to be associated with its potential failure. The irony is that, of course, it will be seen as his failure regardless. what's more, it will also be his failure when the dems get slaughtered in 2010 because the base isn't going to show up.

It's a failure of leadership.
5 hours ago · Delete

Stacy VanDeveer: if there was an 'agree' tab I'd click that...
4 hours ago · Delete

Kathryn Palmer: You're harder on Obama than I am, and I think that's good. I probably could be more critical in some circumstances. But we have to remain supportive to an extent, too (though not blindly so). He's taking fire from all sides and when the left joins in it just emboldens and validates the illogical clams made by the right.

As for rhetoric, it IS frustrating that he's not amping it up (defining rhetoric a positive persuasive force and not "mere"). The emotional appeals he made during the election were made to rally a base beaten down by the Bush years. To bring over wavering conservatives, he wisely lowered the emotion and focused on evidence of McCain's "more of the same" connection to Bush. Different methods for different audiences for different purposes in different contexts.

I don't get his strategy right now, but I suppose it is largely informed by the rules of the political game he has to play by necessity if anything is to get done. We need to keep him honest, yes, but when it comes to political posturing, blame the game, not the player--provided that player is intelligent and has our best interests in mind. And how many viable alternatives do we have that fit that bill *other* than Obama?

Good debate.
4 hours ago · Delete

Michelle LaVigne: I was going to chime in, but you all seem to have done a pretty good job. I only wanted to add that Obama is too careful. He made a great health care speech in September, but didn't follow it up with any meaningful leadership.
4 hours ago · Delete

Hans WegmuellerNoticed Lieberman came up - a co-worker of mine recently blogged some thoughts about him: http://www.livinglakecountry.com/blogs/communityblogs/lake_country_liberal.html
3 hours ago · Delete

Rich Cleland: Things like the "rules of the game" and "conventional wisdom" are the problem. Sacrificing principles to "get something done" is the cover that perpetuates the corrupt system.

If you want to break the mafia's hold on a community, you can start by convincing everyone to stop paying for "protection." This might weaken the mafia, but it will definitely gets some heads cracked among the shopkeepers. So they don't buck the system and the mafia takes their share.

It's the problem of Havel's green grocer and the success of King's freedom walkers. If you really want to change something fundamental, you have to be willing to fail spectacularly and uncompromisingly on principle...and then do it again...and again if necessary.

It is a much longer, harder road, but in the end, the goal isn't to get something called reform passed, the goal should be to convince citizens that they need to contemplate something larger than themselves because that's the only quality that engenders success for a whole society.

Every day for a president who wants to "fix" washington, should be an opportunity to make that statement, no matter what the issue. Accomplish that to the extent that others with their agendas have created the American individualist, and the rest will follow naturally.
3 hours ago · Delete

Rich Cleland: i agree, good debate.
3 hours ago · Delete

Rich Cleland: (or deliberation)
3 hours ago · Delete

Kathryn Palmer: The idealist in me totally agrees with everything you said. The realist in me, however, admits that some things are important and some things are immediate and prioritizing sometimes involves undesirable decisions to be made.

All this fixing the system at large that needs to happen is slow, painful, and incremental--as all meaningful change is. Problem is, we have too many immediate problems under the current system to practically begin the important task of reforming it. If we're putting our house in order, it's rather pointless unless we put out the fires first.

Once the economy, foreign policy, and health care brouhahas even out a bit, I'll adopt your stance more strongly. But not now.

I must go do my work now. This debate is important, but writing my dissertation is a more immediate task. ;)
2 hours ago · Delete

Rich Cleland: The pesky thing about principles is that they are at their most important when they are at their least convenient.

For the record, I don't believe that everything in politics involves a principle that needs to either be held or compromised. And their needs to be room for give and take when determining what the actual civil policies are going to be. And also, it is a serious challenge to figure out how to walk that line.

However, the realists are telling me that they know the car has a flat, but we should drive it just a little bit further and hope there's someplace open down the line where we can fix it. Of course, if we do find this unknown place where that can happen, we'll also need to pony up for a rim by then.

The mechanism of government in this country has more than just a flat tire, it has major systemic failures. Whatever we make with it will only compound our problems further because the ends are preexistent in the means. For example, we tried to use it to fix health care and we ended up giving away billions to insurance companies.

You tell me that we have too much important stuff to stop now? I say the stuff we have to do is too important not to stop now and fix the machine before we move forward.
2 hours ago · Delete

Michelle LaVigne: revolution anyone?
54 minutes ago · Delete

Rich Cleland: nah, I'm malaise.
2 seconds ago · Delete