Rahm Emanuel: Don’t Worry About the Left
By Jonathan Weisman
http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2009/12/18/rahm-emanuel-dont-worry-about-the-left/
Turn off MSNBC. Tune out Howard Dean and Keith Olbermann. The White House has its liberal wing in hand on health care, says White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel.
“There are no liberals left to get” in the Senate, Emanuel said in an interview, shrugging off some noise from the likes of Sen. Bernie Sanders (I., Vt.) that a few liberals might bolt over the compromises made with conservative Democrats.
As the White House leans on conservative Democrat Sen. Ben Nelson of Nebraska for the 60th health care vote, Emanuel has made the case that this generation of liberal political figures will not make the mistake of their predecessors. The late Sen. Edward M. Kennedy’s greatest regret was not cutting a deal with Richard Nixon on universal health care. Former PresidentBill Clinton has forever rued the day he did not take moderate Republican Sen. John Chafeeup on a compromise that could have secured a health care bill early in his presidency.
Liberal senators nearly scuttled the creation of the State Children’s Health Insurance Program -– S-CHIP –- because Clinton compromised with Republicans and agreed to take the program out of Medicaid and involve private insurers.
“Every time they’ve gotten close to the deal, they’ve passed up the opportunity and chosen to walk away from a particular where they’ve lost the forest for the trees,” Emanuel said.
The comments may not endear the powerful White House chief of staff to liberal activists, furious that Senate Democratic leaders, at Emanuel’s urging, cut a deal with Sen. Joe Lieberman to drop a federally run insurance policy option, then eliminate a Medicare buy-in proposal.
“I don’t think the White House recognizes how much trouble they’re in,” said one former Democratic official this morning. “I think they’re miscalaculating what’s happening with progressives and the left. They feel like they’re being taken for granted.”
But Emanuel pointed to a New York Times column by economist Paul Krugman and another coming from National Journal writer Ronald Brownstein pressing for passage of the Senate health bill. “What you’re seeing is the progressive backlash against the progressive backlash,” he said.
Editorial: Why Keith Olberman’s Ouster is Good for Progressives
Keith Olberman‘s ouster is Good for Progressives… This is what author Hadji Williams aka Black Cansenco notes in this editorial as he brings to
light a stewing concern amongst many people of Color and their relationship with the Progressive Left. Are they really listening and should we continue to go along to get along?…This essay brings some heat and will make many feel angry or uncomfortable, but will be cheered and embraced by many more. -Davey D-
WHY KEITH OLBERMAN’S OUSTER IS GOOD FOR PROGRESSIVES
by Black Canseco
http://www.hustleknockin.com/hustleknockin/2011/01/down-for-the-count-olbermann-meant-so-much-to-progressives-and-thats-the-problem-blackcanseco-ive-seen-probabl.html
I’ve seen probably a terabyte’s worth of corporate layoffs and firings in my time—including a couple of my own. And the only time somebody gets shown the door in under a couple hours’ notice Keith Olbermann was is when it’s part of massive layoffs, outright firings due to insubordination, or to distance the company from impending illegal action or perceived emerging PR nightmare.
Now at this point, I’m not accusing Comcast or @KeithOlbermann of any of the above. In fact, I’m content to take the word of all involved that this is nothing more than a straightforward business decision—a numbers’ game (salary + ratings not adding up) and a mutual parting of the ways.
My real concern is the pitchforks ‘n’ torches mentality that mushroomed seconds after Olbermann’s final sign-off. Within hours, Twitter, Facebook and every left-wing online community was filled with OMGs , SMDH, *facepalms*, WTFs and F**k Comcast!… Online petitions to boycott Comcast and MSNBC and get Olbermann back on the air had hit my in-box by dinnertime Friday. Online groups and pages were formed to @draftOlbermann to run for US Senate out of Conneticut. (I’m sure the boys at Bristol would be his biggest campaign donors.) Folks are even being asked to pressure our congress reps to launch an investigation and to determine if Olbermann’s ouster is related to media monopolies or Net Neutrality. Folks are even wondering if Rupert Murdoch somehow cut a backroom deal with Comcast to get Olbermann canned. (Why else would Comcast merge with NBC Universal but to fire Olbermann?)
Are you effin’ kidding me?
I swear haven’t seen White Liberals this wound up since Conan left NBC. (Word to #teamcoco.)
Lookit: I’m an independent; but on most issues, I’m probably about as left as it gets. But now way in hell am I strapping on sandwich boards and cocking back my bullhorn just because a loud snarky white guy with a guaranteed $14 million salary for 2011 and more job offers than all the unemployed folk I know combined just lost his op-ed show.
And it’s not that I don’t care; it’s that I don’t care enough about one guy to canonize him as our Obi Wan Keith-nobi. (And for a guy not shy about his atheist leanings, Olbermann probably finds all this secular sainthooding thing we’re doing a little childish.) And this is a major problem with Dems and so-called Progressive Liberals. For all our self-sanctimony about big tents, inclusion, coalitions and dialogue, we actually idolize and demagogue way more than we educate and engage.
In the last five years, the Left’s increasingly myopic pedestal-erecting, starfucker mentality has reduced most discourse on our own side to only what the current holy trinity of Olbermann, Maddow and Jon Stewart acknowledge. And now that “they” “got” Olbermann, we’re in mourning like he caught a couple rounds while on the balcony of the Lorraine Motel. (I guess you could sub Bill Maher for Keith, and add Stephen Colbert and Arianna Huffington or Joan Walsh to round out a Prog Fab Five.)
As someone whose family descends from slavery and knows the civil rights struggle fairly intimately, I (along with most African Americans) have long accepted something that very few White Liberals understand: “Never hitch everything you ride for on one horse—because sooner or later, they’ll (figuratively or literally) shoot that horse.”
Again, I’m not saying that anyone was out to get Olbermann. Not at all. What I am saying is this is a great opportunity for the Left to learn from the right and broaden the number and range of voices and views that we cleave to.
For example: when it comes to news sources, the Left is still way to myopic and homogenized—both ideologically and culturally. Short of Tamron Hall, MSNBC’s formula seems to be “White, snarky Liberal host + Favored Person Of Color Of The Moment as guest sidekick.”
Just because Obama’s in office and Oprah started a network doesn’t mean Black, Hispanics, Asian, and other People of Color should be relegated to playing rotating Robin’s to whichever White Liberal Batman (or Batgirl) the networks prop up.
But it’s not just MSNBC that’s guilty of this. All the major channels operate this way, with nary a peep of objection from the masses of White Liberal/Progessive Democrats.. And this blind spot extends online.
The great irony of social media’s explosion is how anti-social and homogenized the Left’s presence is. If your information or perspective isn’t co-signed by the likes of DaliyKos, HuffPo and Salon or even TPM, you have little or no voice among Progs/Democrats. And if you run a blog that seems to highlight issues disproportionately affecting Liberals of color—gentrification, inner city education, crime, prison reform, jobs, discrimination, lack of representation in Congress, etc.—White liberals tune you out. (It’s no secret that one of Obama’s biggest hurdles in a probably re-election bid his long-dwindling support among White self-identified Liberals and Independents.)
And before anyone pulls the “I Voted 4 Obama!” card, Obama is just one guy. That you helped elect him doesn’t mean you get to ignore the voices and issues relevant to over 100 million Americans of African-, Hispanic-, Asian-, Native-, and Middle Eastern descent. But with very few exceptions, this is exactly what the Left is doing and has been doing for a quite while now.
Until so-called Progressive and Liberal Democrats diversify our own range of voices, discussions, influencers and leadership at every level—politically, economically, digitally and journalistically, we’ll never be mobile enough, flexible enough, resilient enough to be effective in 2012, 2014 or any year any time soon.
Then again we could ignore all this and just focus on important questions like “How long before Maddow and Stewart get canned?” and “When will Obama get mad at the right instead of his base?”