The Winner of the March 26th Daily Snipe is...

pretty much half the people posting on the liberal blogs today, aside from the creators of those blogs.

You heard it, you, too, may already be a winner.

I'm keeping this one short and sweet because many other people have laid this out, including a guy I've been calling out fairly routinely, my old blog crush John at AmericaBlog.

You see, he is a member of the reality-based community on the topic of Obama laughing at a question about legalizing marijuana.

Somehow people seem to think it was mean, against his change motto, and short-sighted to laugh at the fact that in almost every category of question about the economy, there had been some sort of concerted effort to get a question, tangentially related to the economy, about marijuana to the top of every category.

Are people freaking insane? Were you all high today? Even when i'm high, i know the difference between reality and whatever today was.

No President anytime soon is going to advocate, if he wants to get re-elected, the complete legalization of marijuana. You know where a good place to start might have been??? MEDICAL MARIJUANA!

He wasn't being mean, he wasn't being glib, he was laughing at something that was funny. How in the world did so many marijuana questions make it to the top of an online question submission?

The country isn't ready for it, and this isn't a civil rights issue where you can argue that maybe someone needs to move the country forward. We should be talking about De-criminalization, but legalization is about 25 years too early and it isn't gonna start with the President. De-criminalization could save us law enforcement and prison-related money, and help restore some of the community cohesion that mass incarceration has caused. THAT would be a huge step. Let's aim for that first.

So, please. Put the honey bear back in the cabinet and don't distract the President, a man who can do multiple things at one time, with issues that are no-starters and then snipe at him for acknowledging the political silliness of the situation.

The Winner of the March 25th Daily Snipe is...

Bloomberg news, specifically Tim Mullaney.

Now, this isn't a traditional Snipe award. Mr. Mullaney isn't a liberal blogger and Bloomberg isn't a blog. The Snipe was just too good to ignore, mostly because HuffingtonPost decided to use his horrible headline...one of their more annoying habits that seems to annoy everyone on the site but they keep doing.

The title reads, on Bloomberg and HuffingtonPost:

Lobbyists Are First Winners in Obama’s Clean-Technology Push

Now, if that didn't make it seem like Obama had broken another campaign promise about change, I don't know what would, BUT, of course, that title has nothing to do with the reality of the situation (or even the article).

The key paragraph that somehow manages to be misleading while actually spelling out the reality of the situation:

The first jobs of the federal clean-energy stimulus plan are here -- and they’re for lobbyists. SmartSpark is part of a stampede of technology companies hiring insiders in Washington and state capitals to gain influence. They’re vying for a piece of last month’s $787 billion stimulus package.

So, because companies think that lobbyists might help them get some green-energy money, and are therefore hiring some with their own company money, the first "winners" in the technology push are lobbyists.

Yes, I'm sure they didn't mean for that to sound like the Obama administration had given money to lobbyists.

I wonder if his smack down/ignoring of the larger "traditional" media last night will lead to more inanity from the old guard? Answer appears to be...yes.

So, the focus will continue to be on liberals, particularly liberal bloggers, who make completely unhelpful, unoriginal, or just plain uninteresting criticism of policy before it's been fully worked out, but the presser's beatdown of the large-scale press might need to have them included...maybe that's what's Wednesdays will be for.

March 24th's Daliy Snipe Winner is...

One of our usual faves...Mr. Black (Eschaton).

He's always been one of our favorite of the original bloggers, but lately he's devolved into very limited content...and what is there is pretty much completely unhelpful sniping. The primary qualification for the Daily Snipe award.

This is not to suggest that Duncan doesn't add valuable insight 99% of the time...but lately, specifically today, it was just being bitchy to be bitchy.

There are several examples today:

Trojan

Sadly, I agree with Yves that the pleasing sounding noises about getting more authority to deal with too big to fail institutions is at best just a bit of noise to try to soothe critics and at worst just a desire for more authority to bail out the banksters.

Yes, of course. They're not trying to fix things at all...it's just a big trick/game.

OR

Deep Thought

One would've thought that buying 80% of AIG suggests that the federal government had, in some sense, the ability to take over AIG.

Um, the government has preferred, non-voting rights, shares. The government didn't want to get in the business of running an insurance company. Why is this hard to understand. Yes, the original AIG bailout by Bush/Paulson didn't put enough control in...but that's what Obama/Geithner/Summers asked about today.

But the best, most illustrative snipe, the one that got the award, is:

Optimism

Krugman expresses a tiny bit of optimism that they're just pretending to be fools.


I know it's accepted conventional wisdom that Larry Summers is a very smart guy, but that doesn't make it true.

I dunno, but I imagine the same thing applies to Krugman...unless he is, in fact, the second coming. I know, I know...the Krugmaniacs will hate me for daring to question my one-time nerd crush, but I'm actually just questioning their and Duncan's obession with him lately, as if he's ever solved a huge financial crisis. Oh wait, that probably won't make their reaction better.

So, a very good Snipe for early in the week. Can he hold on for the best of the week???

Or, will he go back to adding to the discourse? We can only hope.

Today's Winner Is...

It's a mutual tie:

Americablog (John) and, by his quoting them, Steve Clemons at The Washington Note and Arianna Huffington at her namesake.

Now, I have truly enjoyed John's work. What he's managed to accomplish, several times, in taking on bigoted, homophobic corporations, and making them regret it, is both amazing and needed. However, since the election of President Obama, John has, in what I can only guess is an attempt to not be another voice in the Hallelujah chorus, decided to be much more critical of Obama than he ever was when he was still primary-ing Secretary Clinton. And today, in his pimping of Mr. Clemons, he's no different.

John, and the other contributing bloggers on his site, have been part of the Geithner "doesn't know what he's doing," "doesn't get it," "is part of the problem," crowd. It almost seems like John gets a thrill out of highlighting these attacks (might have something to do with his republican-esque obsession with keeping more of his cash instead of letting it pay for services necessary to live in an urban community). And in Mr. Clemons and Ms. Huffington, he's found new compatriots.

This is what he quotes:

This is from Steve Clemons at the Washington Note:

Regrettably, the Obama administration seems to be fumbling the ball on an economic policy course that restores confidence in the American economy on both the optics level and also on a substantive front that reorganizes the "social contract" and design of the real economy in the U.S. Obama, in his 'loyalty' to his current economic team and the mistakes they are making is the antithesis of Abraham Lincoln. Obama may have tried to mimic Lincoln's "team of rivals" approach to politics -- but he needs to read the chapters on the number of generals Lincoln fired during the Civil War to finally get things moved forward.

This problem isn't going away.

I'm not exactly sure what people like John are proposing. Does anyone really think it's a good idea, when things do seem to be stabilizing, to get rid of the Treasury Secretary? It could be weeks until a new one is sworn in, and there's no acting Deputy to take over.

Here's what he quotes from Arianna:

From Arianna:

"When you run a Fed bank," a senior Democratic operative told Chris Cillizza, "you live deep in a cave. [Geithner] just needs to get used to the sunlight."

But the issue isn't Geithner's delivery, it's what he's delivering: an approach to the crisis that is as toxic as the assets that have hamstrung the economy. Geithner, brilliant and hardworking though he is, is trapped within a Wall Street-centric view of the world and seems incapable of escaping. That's why every proposal he comes up with is déjà vu all over again -- a remixed variation on the same tried-and-failed let-the-bankers-work-it-out approach championed by his predecessor, Hank Paulson.

For Paul Krugman, this "insistence on offering the same plan over and over again, with only cosmetic changes, is itself deeply disturbing. Does Treasury not realize that all these proposals amount to the same thing? Or does it realize that, but hope that the rest of us won't notice? That is, are they stupid, or do they think we're stupid?"

...Geithner's Masters of the Universe, the people he still thinks are the ones we should turn to to save the day, are the same people who brought us here. And that is why Geithner either needs to go or keep his job but have his authority stripped and transferred to someone who does not share his Wall Street DNA. Call him or her the "Recovery Czar."

In other words, use any window dressing you want, just take the steering wheel out of Geithner's hands.

So, where is the evidence that what Geithner is doing won't work? Some other economists said so? Can someone articulate an argument about why it won't work, without using the words of someone in the current group of economists and talking heads making a name for themselves by attacking Obama? As anyone who works in any sort of soft science will tell you, you can never prove that an approach works, or ultimately, that it will never work. And, economics might be the softest of sciences.

So, what's the point of all this? At its simplest level, it's to point out that some people are criticizing just to make noise, and others are doing so in their own personal reality where they know all and can see all.

I expect this from Faux and conservatives. Heck, I expect it from anyone in the traditional media class who feel they always have to prove they can question a democrat, but then always fail to ever truly question a republican. I don't expect it from the liberal blogosphere. Criticize away when an idea or proposal goes against democratic ideals, not when you don't like the proposal because you personally don't like some detail of it, or based on your all-knowing wisdom think it could never work.

Instead of beating back the traditional media meme last week, questioning whether Obama has what it takes, whether he's an teleprompter in a suit, the liberal community was fanning the flames. We don't have to be like republicans and never question our leaders, but 60 days into one of the most complicated scenarios in history, we shouldn't be the ones asking if he knows what he's doing. We should be offering support, suggesting tweaks in policies based on sound theories not gut anger or knee-jerk ideological responses.

If we undercut him too much now, we will lose the House in 2010, and the White House in 2012. IF President Obama does something completely anathema to core democratic principles...hold his feet to the fire, but don't do it just to make a name for yourself as the democrat who dared question Obama. You aren't the first and you won't be the last, you'll just be the gnat who wanted his 15 minutes.

A Challenge to Dr. Krugman, Mr. Taibbi, etc.

Ok, I'm not an economist. I'm a statistician, who oddly, when you put a $ sign in front of numbers, loses all mathematical ability.

BUT, I do know governmental and political reality. I work in government. I have a Ph.D. in a science. I'm not an idiot.

I have read almost every one of Dr. Krugman's articles. I've used him to rail against conservatives as he explains things clearly.

I've enjoyed Matt's pieces on Real Time, though I will acknowledge I always go the sense he was the type who voted for Nader, so always some sense of annoyance with him.

So, that's setting the context, here's the challenge:

The Challenge is...to all sniping from the sidelines...offer up your plan. Make your plan very perfect. Swear that it would work 100%. It would be cheaper and quicker. No doubt. Obviously, no plan is 100% perfect, but if that is true, you have to acknowledge that no plan would make you 100% happy.

You see, I thought Paul was sniping at Bush because he was an idiot who couldn't explain his way out of a paper bag. Now I see, he just likes to snipe.

"This plan won't work, that plan won't work."

No one knows what will work, but I don't see your plan. Yes, you have a Nobel Prize. That doesn't mean you're the most intelligent economist on the planet...because other people have them too.

So, offer up your plans. Put them on a website and let people model them out and see how they play.

BUT, remember this...your plan has to get votes from both sides of the aisle...there's the kicker. Your perfect plan that is 100% fair and 100% assured to work, has to please at least a couple republicans or it doesn't matter how smart and fancy it is.

I know some people will hate me for questioning Paul. But, even though people used to say i had a nerd crush on him, he's not god. he should be questioned, just like the President, and anyone else.

The easiest thing in the world, and its exacerbated in academia, is to tell others what they did wrong in their work/study, but not offer any suggestion about how they should have done it, given the realities they faced. It's time for academics, and even journalist, to change that paradigm. Don't just have fun telling people they're wrong...tell them why, and how they can make it better. That takes thought and time, especially when it's not in a perfect world vacuum.

What We're All About

The mission of this site is to raise awareness about instances where Democrats, Progressives, and/or Liberals, actively, and needlessly, engage in self-destruction.

This is not to say that criticism is not allowed, or, in fact, needed; rather, the point is that criticism should be constructive, accompanied by suggestions of how to do things better, and not just to keep yourself relevant by questioning people who, on the whole, are working toward the same goals the entire community is.

Initially, we'll try to do at least one highlight a day. The real world -- paying the bills, enjoying the outside world, and cooking -- sometimes get in the way.