Last night should be a great source of embarrasment personally for the President. He had no business being publicly seen next to such an imcompetent candidate. Which, by the way, brings me to the question: How the hell did Coakley get on the ticket!? Such an uninspired and uninspiring candidate to suceed Ted Kennedy? What a disgrace. Is this the value the Democratic Party gives to his legacy? A useless candidate?

Honestly, I think people need to be more forthcoming about the real number of "Democrats" in Congress. People respect activity and vigor so long as it accomplishes something, not a log-jam.

The Professor is right about the spineless-ness on the FP front, but the Dems have pretty much been in lock-step in that area.

He's also spot-on about the domestic front. Why propose such an ambitious hyper-active agenda when you know that the "super-majority" is a completely phony conception? There is no super-majority. De facto what we have is a coalition majority of extremely vulnerable Southern and Midwest Blue Dog Democrats and largely spineless coastal Progressives who've shamed their constituencies.

People ask "Why doesn't Obama just operate under Bush's 51% doctrine?" Well, quite simply, if you do the math and take out all of the vulnerable 'fiscally conservative' Democratic parliamentarians, you fall short of the 51%. This in an environment where a shrunken Republican Senate has grown increasingly uniform in their views. So they can leverage every vote on major bills, while the Dems waste half their time just keeping their own guys own board.

Effective PR has been non-existent and hence a complete disaster. MSNBC can only do so much. People get frustrated when they hear that four times as many people watch FOX daily. And somehow the argument that progressive-minded audiences get their information from more 'sophisticated' sources just isn't that satisfying.

This White House needs to be more honest about their perdicament going forward. Either severely water down your legislative agenda (I don't think anything short of becoming Republicans is going to satisfy the current 'Tea Party' phenomenon), or run to the left and atleast do right by the Progressives who put you in office. Whatever you do, give up this illusion that both of these sides are able to compromise. It's a pipe-dream.

Reading over the reactions to yesterday, people's reactions are strongly correlated to their politicial ideology.

Liberal/Democrat - can't read too much into it.
Conservative/Republican - a strong message to Obama.

Obviously Walt, a big Lefty, is no exception. He even goes the extra mile - faulting Obama for being too substantive ("turned from politics to policy") and, conversely, giving the Republicans a backhanded compliment for doing the reverse. Perhaps Walt is talking about Obama's "policy" of attacking media and polling outlets that give him less than fawning coverage or polling organizations that return numbers he doesn't like?

The fact that it "could have easily gone the other way" is an easy way to wave away the fundamental reasons why Brown ever got that close. Yes, many incremental things could have tipped this election either way...once it got tight. However, a 30 point lead wasn't erased in a matter of months and Ted Kennedy's seat lost to the Republicans over a matter of framing policy.

I entirely agree with you!

On the politicking side, Axelrod and Emanuel are are fault, on national issues, Summers and Geithner. If the former could arguably be credited with Obama's victory, the latter are just an aggravation. And this is to say little of Obama's foreign policy, for there is little to say other than the point you made on doubling down in Afghanistan.

It's time indeed change worked its magic at the White House, as a precondition for its sweeping the land.

In my heart of hearts, I want to believe that Obama has an almighty ace-up-his-sleeve to fix our economy, and simply doesn't want to show his hand. Unfortunately, its becoming more and more clear that this brilliant professor is a political neophyte in wayyy too deep. All signs are pointing to the need to change his agenda, and in doing so, he must relegate his awful advisers to the dustbin. If Obama is not truly to blame, than he needs some heads on a platter to prove it, even if they are only scapegoats.

Obama has two choices, inter alia:
1) Run a laughably and politically insipid progressive agenda to appease his grassroots base and perhaps win over disenchanted liberals and left-leaning independents

2) Throw caution to the wind and shift even further to the center, while alienating his base and concomitantly placating those further to the right in the hopes that they will come under his wing.

*** Frankly, both options are terrible, and involve cleaning house in terms of whoever has given him such horrendous advice thus far. I hate to say it, but Brown was onto something. In today's Washington Post opinion column, a writer aptly states that while the democrats are claiming the Republicans are saying No to change, while Brown is saying "Yes, just not that way."

So, the polls show that the voters are angry because they want Obama to stand up to the financial lobby and the health insurance lobby. But then, I see that Brown got a ton of money and other support from Wall Street. I assume that nobody seized upon that.

Also, I saw him say this morning that massichusetts already has a health care program better than the current legislation, so why would he or anyone want to weaken that with the current federal legislation that will cost the voters more? The democrats were in a tough spot there.

Will the wh see that it's got a problem? I doubt it, bring back Howard Dean and try to talk to progressive and Idy. Stop bailing out the rich.

I suppose to the extent that one considers Obama to have received bad advice over the past year - perhaps as evidenced by the MA election - then yes, Obama ought to fire people. But shouldn't the person doing the firing, or accusatory recriminations, be Coakley?

Saw Dr. Walt on AlJazeera yesterday. He made a good point that Obama inherited a mess from his predecessor and we expect too much in just a year. His analysis on Iran was on point and his two co-panelists agreed that they had nothing more to add, the analysis being that we should move slowly with Iran and not just grab for the baseball bat.

AlJazeera lets their panelists finish their thoughts, and the moderator seldom interrupts. Its a pleasure to see substantive discussion and not just people yelling soundbites, as so often happens on US TV programs. This site also got a mention from the moderator.

I know there are tons of these things, but this one TOTALLY sums up how I kinda feel.

Enjoy!!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c4aQCiRjvZY