Howard Dean Is Right: Obama Isn't Tough Enough-- Democrats Need A Spine Transplant

Doomed from the first day-- Emanuel only knows how to be tough with liberals

This morning I read a sad editorial by Michael Payne at OpEd News, Barack Obama has severely crippled his presidency and the Democrat Party. I get a sense that Michael is expressing what millions of Americans-- primarily, though not exclusively, the ones that voted for Senator Obama in 2008-- are thinking or will soon be thinking.

The stage was set, the expectations high; he entered office with a clear mandate from the people of America who also gave him control of both houses of the U.S. Congress. Millions of Americans were in a state of euphoria, eagerly awaiting the birth of a new era in this nation; anticipating the start of a massive cleansing process that would erase the previous eight years of deceit and lies.

America eagerly waited for that cleansing process to begin and then nothing happened, there has been no cleansing process, and the dark days that this nation had experienced during the years when Bush/Cheney ruled were not swept away by a creative, visionary agenda that would begin the transformation of America.

Instead we got notorious Wall Street shills like Rahm Emanuel and Lawrence Summers put in charge of economic and domestic policy and a continuation of the discredited Bush foreign policies wrapped in snazzier paper... and what looks more and more like incompetence in everything the administration attempts. Bush had no mandate whatsoever and was probably not even legally elected. Obama had a virtual landslide with a huge mandate. Bush ran the country as though the whole nation was behind him; Obama seems scared of his own shadow, as though, down deep in the depths of his soul, he's internalized the Republican talking points that he isn't a legitimate president regardless of what the voters said in 2008. He wants to govern by consensus, although the opposition has clearly stated their only goal is to make sure he fails at everything he tries.

When is he going to tough up and be the leader we thought we were electing. Apparently, not soon. When even the mainstream media started realizing GOP mass and mindless blocking of all of his nominations was looking a little over the top, Obama meekly threatened to use the recess appointment powers presidents have-- and which Bush used liberally-- to overcome the latest spate of pork-hungry filibusterers from the Old Confederacy. The result-- Miss McConnell deigning to allow a few of the nominees he judged to be uncontroversial pass-- was celebrated by the White House as a success... instead of like the disgrace it was. Richard Trumka, President of the AFL-CIO, saw exactly what it was-- and he explained it at Huffington Post yesterday:

Senate Republican obstructionists are working overtime to block the interests of working people. Today we hear the White House and Senate have cut a deal with Republicans that will keep President Obama's nominees off the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) for even longer.

The NLRB's job is to protect workers' rights-- but for more than two years it has been functioning with only two members instead of the five it should have. Working people need an NLRB that can enforce the National Labor Relations Act-- not one hobbled by vacancies.

President Obama's nominees-- Craig Becker and Mark Pearce-- are highly qualified, well-respected labor lawyers who were nominated seven months ago, in July.

But Senate Republicans have ignored the working people they represent and blocked the appointments.
Yesterday, in a deal with the Republican minority, the Senate confirmed 27 non-controversial Obama appointees. The White House apparently has agreed not to make Presidents Day recess appointments-- a process that allows the president to temporarily appoint his own nominee while Congress is out of session. That means NLRB nominees-- and working people-- are out in the cold.

A big win for the Republicans. A big win for corporations that want to file down the teeth of the NLRB. A big loss for working people... President Obama has to end this farce... [and g]ive recess appointments to Craig Becker and Mark Pearce during the Presidents Day recess so the NLRB can do its job.

Trumka is being very respectful of the president and the presidency. Most progressives are. But that could start changing very soon. In fact, I think it probably will. Beyond the apparent symbolism-- perhaps the best we can hope for anymore-- Obama was the wrong man at the wrong time. Obviously a better choice than John McCain but I don't know a single person who isn't wondering how Hillary Clinton would have done as president. And imagine if we had had it together to elect a proven friend of working families... like Howard Dean:

The Republicans Didn't Need Scott Brown For Their Obstructionism After All-- They Already Had Blanche Lincoln And Ben Nelson

Last week, I mentioned that the 60-vote cloture vote to override the Republican filibuster of President Obama's nomination of Patricia Smith would probably be the last time that would ever happen, at least in the current conservative-dominated Senate. I warned, at the time, that the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the National Association of Manufacturers and other far right special interest groups were gunning for another Obama nominee, Craig Becker, slated to become a member of the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) which is charged (since it was created by FDR in 1934) with overseeing elections for labor unions and with investigating and remedying unfair labor practices. Conservatives-- basically all Republicans plus a handful of reactionary Democrats-- are hostile to working people organizing to protect their interests and object when any advocates for working people are appointed to the board that was set up to protect them! Beck, a distinguished Yale graduate and an educator, has been practicing labor law and advocating for low wage workers for almost three decades. He is an associate general counsel for the AFL-CIO and the Service Employees International Union.

Obama nominated him on July 9 (along with two others, one of whom is a Senate Republican staffer, Brian Hayes) and all three were given the thumbs up by the Senate Health Education, Labor and Pensions Committee 3 months later. Although the 3 nominees were part of a bipartisan package, McCain, who is bending over backwards to placate fringe extremists in Arizona who are determined to deny him re-election, put a hold on Becker. The GOP decided to give their newest member, Scott Brown (R-MA) and opportunity to show his disdain for working families by joining his first ritual filibuster yesterday. Late in the afternoon, Reid called for a cloture vote to shut down the filibuster. Brown joined the rest of the obstructions in his party-- all of them-- to vote no. And every Democrat present voted yes-- except two anti-union, anti-working family shills of Big Business, Blanche Lincoln of Arkansas and Ben Nelson of Nebraska. The Senate failed to break the filibuster 52-33, 15 members away because of the inclement weather. It was very odd today that Harold Meyerson blames the loss of the imaginary 60 vote filibuster-proof majority for the death of EFCA and the defeat of Craig Becker and doesn't even mention Blanche or Ben's perfidy!

I wonder what unions think, especially the ones that have contributed $800,000 to Nelson's senator career and the ones who have given Blanche Lincoln $580,000 since she was first elected to Congress. I wonder what it will take for unions to start learning their lesson about donating their members' dues to anti-worker Blue Dogs and ConservaDems like Lincoln and Nelson. Lincoln had already rewarded Labor for their support over the years by effectively killing Employee Free Choice when she publicly declared last year-- at a Chamber of Commerce meeting-- that she would join the Republican Party filibuster of EFCA. That's part of the reason Lincoln's approval ratings have dipped to the lowest of any member of the Senate and why it is considered virtually impossible for her to be re-elected to any statewide office in Arkansas, where she is absolutely reviled by all sides. This most recent vote is viewed as a naked play for her post-Senate career as a lobbyist for Big Business. Nelson isn't up for re-election in 2010 and he feels safe to anger Democrats whenever he likes-- which is almost always. He votes with the GOP on close substantive issues more frequently than he votes with Democrats and he's universally considered the worst Democrat in the Senate. This is how the AFL-CIO characterized Nelson's decision Monday night when he had announced that he would join the Republicans in not allowing Becker to have a straight up-or-down vote:

Senator Ben Nelson’s decision to join a Republican filibuster against President Obama’s nomination of Craig Becker to the NLRB is a shame and disappointment. Should he follow through with this decision, Senator Nelson will be leaving working families at a major disadvantage for fair justice in the workplace without a fully staffed NLRB. Furthermore, he will be defying the same principles he adhered to while facing President Bush appointees.
 
Senator Nelson’s decision to put politics over the needs of working families is exactly the Washington politics as usual the American public is tired of. Our country needs leaders who are willing to put the interests of working families over politics and corporate influence.
 
The Republicans accusing Democrats of trying to rush Becker’s nomination through are the same Republicans who have stalled his nomination for over five months. It’s time to give working families the support they need and deserve.

Facing President Bush’s nominations to the Supreme Court in 2005, Nelson authored an OpEd in the Omaha World-Herald where he stated, “The president's nominees…deserve an up-or-down vote, even if the nominee isn't popular with the special-interest groups in Washington.” Nelson also stated that “[Nebraskans] want the president to appoint and the Senate to confirm a ‘good judge’ and, in the process, to avoid labels and resist litmus tests.”

Next week the Senate will be in recess and President Obama will have an opportunity to make recess appointments to the positions clowns like McCain and Shelby (not to mention Nelson and Lincoln) have been blocking. I can't image he'll follow through on his recent threats to do it though. I doubt it because he's still looking for a kind of "bipartisanship" that clueless independent voters say they want, bipartisanship that, as Rachel Maddow put it last night, would be harder to attain with the Republican obstructionists than teaching a dog to drive a car. I hope someone gives Obama this tape of Rachel from last night's show so he can watch what Republicans are worth in terms of his increasingly absurd efforts to bring them into governance. If you missed it, it's worth sticking with it to the very end:

Monday The Senate Broke A Lockstep GOP Filibuster To Block Patricia Smith As Labor Dept. Solicitor-- Last Time?

The Democrats didn't pass much of anything with the big scary 60-vote supermajority. That's because the Senate is a conservative place-- and, modeled after Britain's House of Lords, was always meant to be-- and it is well-controlled by a bipartisan, effectively conservative majority. That would be all the Republicans plus some combination of conservatives Ben Nelson, Blanche Lincoln, Mary Landrieu, Joe Lieberman, Tom Carper, Evan Bayh, Arlen Specter, Mark Pryor, Kay Hagan, Claire McCaskill and Max Baucus. Supermajority? In your dreams!

But it was on Monday, when cloture passed 60-32, every Democrat voting to shut down the filibuster and every Republican-- minus the 8 absentees-- sticking to the party's obstructionist mania (yes, and that includes Snowe and Collins). The Democrats want to assure that President Obama's nomination of Patricia Smith as Solicitor of the Labor Dept. is confirmed. Republicans, of course, want to block it-- and everything else, probably because most of their crazed and delusional base is now persuaded that Obama is not a legitimate president.

Smith has been demonized by Big Business' GOP darlings as being too pro-working people. They are also trying to stall the confirmation of Craig Becker, nemesis of the Chamber of Commerce's lobbyist shop, to the National Labor Relations Board. He's also too pro-working people for their elitist tastes. What could be more outrageous than pro-labor people at the Dept. of Labor? They yearn for the good old days when worker-hater Elaine Chao (Miss McConnell's "wife") was in charge of turning the Bush Labor Dept. into an anti-union bastion. After all, Smith was the New York Labor Commissioner, and that must prove something they don't like. Why can't Obama just keep appointing more Wall Street hacks like Summers and Geithner and Emanuel who speak the Chamber's lingo?

Saying Smith ”may well be the most qualified person ever to hold the position of Solicitor,” AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka noted that under the leadership of Secretary Hilda Solis, "the Department of Labor is returning to its historical and proper role-- protecting the health, safety and welfare of working families. America’s workers are proud that Solicitor Smith will be joining this excellent team and continuing her years of public service on behalf of working men and women." In a letter last week to Senate members urging Smith’s confirmation, AFL-CIO Government Affairs Director William Samuel cited her “commitment to strong, fair, and effective enforcement of our workplace laws.”

Probably the main reason the Chamber has been so hysterical was summed up in the NY Times last year when they pointed out that her campaign against wage theft helped win more than $20 million in back pay for thousands of low-wage workers and that she has "developed a reputation as one of the nation’s foremost labor commissioners because of her vigorous efforts to crack down on minimum wage and overtime violations at businesses including restaurants, supermarkets, car washes and racetracks."

As for poor Becker, the far right is waging a vicious, typically anti-worker campaign against him. The Republican filibuster will probably be voted on tomorrow. [UPDATE: Democrats, as usually, caved.] The Chamber of Commerce and the National Association of Manufacturers are both lobbying furiously and have some of their most ridiculous shills in the Senate, like Johnny Isakson and John McCain, both catering to the right-wing base in their home states, reading their talking points.

Becker saw tough questioning from Sen. John McCain (R. Ariz.) over whether he would recuse himself from cases before the NLRB involving the Service Employees International Union, where Becker most recently worked. Becker said he would recuse himself from cases involving the Service Employees International Union for two years but stopped short of saying what he would do so in a case mentioned by McCain involving a local chapter of the union.

"If any other matter arises in which any questions can be raised or might be raised about my impartiality, I will take that very seriously," Becker said.

McCain told Becker "that's not good enough."

While Becker was approved by the committee last year in a 15-8 vote, McCain placed a hold on his nomination, keeping a Senate vote from taking place.

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce in a statement Tuesday suggested that Senate Democrats are now trying to "push this nomination through" before Republican Scott Brown of Massachusetts is seated in the Senate. Once Brown is seated, Democrats will lose their 60-40 majority in the Senate, which allows them to turn back Republican filibusters.