Daily Kos: BREAKING: Liberals announce Obama support freeze
This news report was just released by the AP. It sounds big.
WASHINGTON—Speaking for the millions of principled American liberals who believe in the government’s fundamental ability to best address the republic’s ills, left-wing favorite Howard Dean took the podium today in Washington to announce a "freeze" of support for the Obama Administration and its policy agenda.
Howard Dean at today's event, speaking on behalf of liberals everywhere:
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"By cutting all discretionary support for the Obama Administration over the next three years, liberals in America will save up to 250 billion hours of wasted time and energy on mid-term campaigning and voting in 2010 alone. Not to mention the millions of dollars we can save withholding campaign contributions. I know this all sounds radical, even crazy, but I don’t see liberals as having much of a choice. If we continue to let the president think he has our support, there’s no telling which atrocities he may perpetrate to win over independents. It must stop here."
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Dean, the former chairman of the former Democratic party, was joined on stage by illustrious liberals like Paul Krugman, Rachel Maddow, Bernie Sanders, and Markos Moulitsas, as well as many gay rights and anti-war activists, union representatives, and a smattering of nurses and teachers.
(NOTE: Jane Hamsher declined to attend, citing the "too-conservative" makeup of the gathering, while Arianna Huffington was spotted near the event jumping in place, blowing a whistle, and holding a sign with her face on it.)
As shockwaves rippled through the political establishment with news of the freeze, liberals were careful to note that this would not be an "across-the-board" cessation of support.
MSNBC's Ed Scultz on today's Ed Show:
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"Let me tell you something folks: liberals in the heartland—I’m talking Minnesota and North Dakota—they’re still behind fair pay and the stimulus so this isn’t an across-the board freeze. We lefties still consider some areas of our support to be unconditional; no, I’m not talking about defense spending, folks. I’m talking about our support for green job initiatives, not torturing, and strides on gay rights. Well, you know, if the president ever chooses to make strides on gay rights."
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Added Schultz:
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"What’s that Mr. President? You want liberal support for Afghanistan, watered down health care, fake financial reform, and naïve post-partisanship? No sir, no how, not anymore. It bet it’s gettin’ mighty cold in that Oval Office right about now, because liberal support is frozen, partner."
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Critics of the support freeze are already pegging it as a cynical act of political grandstanding, meant to garner little more than headlines. Liberals however, contend that there is a crippling deficit between what they believe and what their elected leaders do in office, a deficit that will continue to grow and threaten the long term prosperity of their ideology if it isn’t confronted now.
Much of this revolutionary sentiment within the Democratic Party seems to derive from a perceived ineffectuality on the part of the administration.
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"It seems like every time Obama gets attacked by the right, he just turns the other cheek," said an anonymous Massachusetts Democrat who voted for Scott Brown last week. "He turned the other cheek on Wall Street, then he turned the other cheek on Afghanistan, giving conservatives everything they wanted. Well, he was all out of cheeks on his face when he got attacked on health care, so he turned the only ones he had left and bent over for the insurance companies. Why would I support that when Scott Brown drives a truck?"
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Members of the Obama Administration have reacted quickly to today’s proposed freeze of support.
WH Press Secretary Robert Gibbs:
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"The president is surprised and frustrated that liberals are so surprised and frustrated with him."
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Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner:
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"This so-called freeze is the last thing Wall Street needs right now. Any slight indication of a change in the political climate one way or the other could be enough to send the financial system into a tailspin the likes of which we haven’t seen in weeks. Stocks could even fall below where they were when Ben Bernanke had a cold last month."
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Meanwhile, White House insiders David Axelrod and Rahm Emmanuel responded to the freeze while sitting in the Oval Office with the curtains drawn. Reports indicate they looked at one another, rolled their eyes in unison, and both derisively uttered "the left" before chuckling slightly and proceeding to a strategy session on how to best win over moderate Republicans in Utah and Wyoming.
Even author and soon-to-be former RNC Chairman Michael Steele weighed in, stating: "Given liberals’ recent unprecedented Obama support binge, this is like announcing you’re going on a diet after winning a pie-eating contest," a vivid analogy that hit home with county fair goers nationwide.
Somewhat ironically, a liberal support freeze of Barack Obama was proposed in all three debates by John McCain in 2008, when he was hoping to extract disillusioned Hillary Clinton supporters from the Obama column. Obama consistently dismissed such a suggestion in the debates, claiming that it was like "using a hatchet when you need a real VP candidate."
Just following this afternoon’s support freeze announcement, a lustrous John Boehner held a press conference declaring the House GOP’s full support of the freeze, a potential indication that widespread bipartisanship may finally be upon the beleaguered Beltway.
Incredulity and frustration contributed to this report.
BREAKING: Liberals announce “Obama support freeze”
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