Marco.org

I’ll say this for George Bush: you’d never have caught him frantically negotiating against himself to take the meat out of a signature legislative initiative just because his approval ratings had a bad summer. Can you imagine Bush and Karl Rove allowing themselves to be paraded through Washington on a leash by some dimwit Republican Senator of a state with six people in it the way the Obama White House this summer is allowing Max Baucus (favorite son of the mighty state of Montana) to frog-march them to a one-term presidency?

— Matt Taibbi on the likely demise of the public option from the health-care reform bill (via AZspot).

The Democrats, and the Obama administration, do not have a mandate to pander to the crazy, screaming, ignorant wingnuts and their death-squad propaganda. We elected them to run this place and get things done after a decade of damage and neglect.

The Democrats proved during W.’s term that they had absolutely no balls and no ability to get anything done whatsoever. The Democrats would compromise, the Republicans wouldn’t, so the passed legislation was lopsided, ineffective, and often very harmful. I assumed it was because the Democrats just didn’t have enough power.

Now they have a lot more power, and should be able to pass nearly any policy initiative with broad support. And what’s happening? The Democrats are compromising and the Republicans aren’t. The resulting bill will be lopsided, ineffective, and harmful.

It’s the same old shit.

I expect as much from Congress, but I’m extremely disappointed in the ineffectiveness and lack of balls shown by the Obama presidency so far.