I don't even know what I am doing here today, Barth. I just have no place else to go. I am so sad that this is my America. That this is what my fellow citizens want. I watched very little of the returns - it just hurt too bad to see the smirks on their faces. There were a few bright spots. They didn't win it all. But they won enough. I wonder if those who stayed home realize what they've done. Or maybe they just think it doesn't matter who is in power, we're screwed no matter what. Maybe they are right.

Speaker Boehner. That says it all. Welcome to America, home of the not-so-free and the selfish. Yay for us!

1. A "movement" built on the votes of young people will never succeed, as long as total morons follow up a successful Presidential win by eliminating the primary organizational apparatus used to mobilize young people. And after that, work as hard as possible to turn "change" into something we could pretend red-meat Republicans might believe in, rather than work to fulfil the actual desires of actual young people who turned out to vote for us.

2. The President was right to get what he could. He seemed to forget there's an enormous political value in fighting for something and not getting it, and let the other guys show they're on the side of the rich and powerful and politically unpopular.

3. Maybe next time we could be a bit more tolerant of dissenting views. Because it's important to have "Democrats" who vote against us, issue after issue, and then run attack ads against us. Sweet.

4.  On the other hand, Democrats who tried to pretend they were Republicans were beaten by real Republicans.

5.  The majority of voters - in the face of Democratic compromise and half-heartedness, and Republican foaming-at-the-mouth-fervour - failed to vote. Jeeez. I wonder what else we could try?

6. The President is a black man. He also is - without question - the best president since, ahhhhh, Bill Clinton. Beyond that, it's still all to be debated. We're only 2 years in. 

Counterpoint:

1. Exactly. That's why the decision to focus on these voters during the midterms - when a personality that may motivate them wasn't even on the ballot - was an exercise in vanity bitterly protested by many of the most experienced members of the Democratic caucus. Actually, that's being too kind. It was really an exercise in burnishing Obama for 2012 at the expense of winning in 2010. Obama's team dominated the strategy and used the resources to cultivate voters that help him in 2012 instead of the voters that help embattled congresspeople in an off year.

2. I agree the president was right on timing. He was wrong to cut a bunch of back-room deals. He was EXTRA wrong to make public statements after the deals were cut pretending as if the policy he had traded away might still be possible .... if only it weren't for this garsh-darned Senate. He cut the deals - he should have taken the lumps, gotten it done quickly and moved to working on the economy. Instead he spent month after month trying to hide his involvement and launder his deals through the Senate, again to burnish his own prospects at the expense of the party ... many of those who were forced to carry his water are not in congress today as a result of him passing the buck.

3. False frame. Indeed the Blue Dogs were hung on their own petard. But it was the independents who hung them, not those wanting a "purer" Democratic party. The numbers don't support your assertion here unless you are just criticizing people who overwhelmingly voted yesterday *and* stuck with Democrats for expressing frustration. For an explanation of what really happened, see #1 and #2.

4. Exactly right. Screw Republicans running as Democrats. If they don't want to be Democrats, at least we can elect Republicans who's policy is the same but they embrace it with honesty instead of advancing it through deceit. Those urging a move even farther right in the name of "centrism" would do well to get this reality through their cro-magnon skills. Problem is that they know it full well and are getting paid, paid, paid to sell their nonsense to those who stroke their own egos with the belief that embracing a carefully nuanced relativist argument for the least-worst is a sign of intellect that mere rubes could never understand.

5. I don't know who this "we" you refer to is. A majority of voters in America are against gutting social security, supported both the public option and national exchanges ... and medicare buy in! The majority of voters don't like NAFTA. Don't want corporatist Wall Street to run roughshod over our economy and support annual audits of the Federal Reserve. In short. The majority of Americans support progressive policy. The only way you are a "we" that is not in tune with the majority of voters is if you promote politicians who actively undermine these things. Barack Obama is one such politician and if you look where he poured his energy ... especially in the primaries ... it was to promote other politicians who also undermine these things. This created the impression that as a group Democrats couldn't be trusted. After that threshold was passed nuance became irrelevant. Even those who have honestly fought for these things their whole careers were painted with the brush of broader Democratic weakness and dishonesty, typically personified in Obama. Those who hate were completely empowered this cycle, but it took a LOT of work on the part of some Democrats (and a lot of money invested by corporate interests fully ensconced in both parties) to empower them. And please spare me the "Then HOW could they vote for republicans who are even WORSE on these things?!?!" canard of idiocy and see #4.

6. Indeed the President is a black man. To me, what that represents in light of our national struggle with race is a wonderful symbol for America and for the rest of the world. But the color of a man's skin doesn't make the man. Obama is a terrible, terrible president.

As you may have guessed. I pretty much disagree completely with this entire post. You guys need to stop pretending your shit don't stink and start cleaning your outhouse. You aren't powerless, you are paralyzed. And while you are at it, hose down your damn president ... he reeks of swimming in the cesspool.

If nothing else Barth, you consistently reflect the common wisdom in the Washington you inhabit and which the nation, on a birpartisan basis, loathes.

I recognize your well meaning intent, but your viewpoint is a perfect recitiation of the viewpoint of the Washington common wisdom. Following that line of reasoning has only led to one disaster after another for Democrats and each worse than the last.

Nothing personal, but if we lost every single Washington staffer, consultant, politico, lobbyist, elected official and power broker the nation would be better off.  Our capitol city stinks to high heaven all the way out here in flyover country because it is a festering cesspool of corruption and the Democrats stink every bit as bad as the Republicans do.  Nothing anyone (with a very few exceptions) inside the beltway says is worth listening to.   Inasmuch as the ruling elite have completely discredited themselves over the past decade at every level it is a wonder that anyone who lives and works in Washington has the gall to show their face in public. 

This nation has suffered what may prove to be a fatal economic blow and the fat, happy courtiers of both parties and those who make their living servicing them proceed along their merry way as though they have any insight into what is happening in our country, care that the nation is falling to pieces or have any intention of doing anything to relieve the suffering of tens of millions who have lost their jobs, their homes, their communities and any hope for a prosperous stable future.

The self righteous Democrats of DC who have, for decades now, whored themselves to the rich every bit as much as their Republican playmates have no more in common with regular Americans than the man in the moon.  That you would continue to imply the laughable lie that those on the left who dared criticize the foolish and self defeating actions of the naive, weak Corporate Democratic President are responsible for the flight of independents from his side demonstrates pretty conclusively how out of touch with reality you and the others who push this fantasy really are.

If it weren't for the left, you who live inside the beltway would have gotten no support at all... anywhere.

It was the President's lies and his failure to deliver on any of his main campaign promises that led the independents to abandon Democrats up and down the line (not just on the federal level) in frustration at Obama.  The falsehood that criticism from the left caused the problem is so absurd it's beyond belief.  If a person really believed that crap they'd also have to believe that if only everyone had just not said anything negative then the independents wouldn't have noticed that Obama double crossed them on any number of things and refused to even attempt to deliver on many others.

The real problem we have to address here is the fifith column in the Democratic Party that neither believes in Democratic solutions to our problems nor is willing to support those policies when it matters.  I am delighted to see the blue dogs taken out and I pray that the House Democrats at least light a fire under their asses and actually start being more partisan and ideological.  It's about friggin time our side joined the fight instead of passively standing by and being the punching bags of the right wing extremeists.

That you think Obama is the best President since LBJ is just amazing.  Wow! Whatever is in the kool aid must be good stuff.