Carney responds to question about Snowden meeting with human rights groups.

[MADem]

36. You can't do shit if you're not allowed on the field.

And no matter what the tee vee tells you, you aren't doing much "leading" if you are An Army Of One.

So make the perfect the enemy of the good, if you'd like.

And characterize those unflatteringly who are pragmatic, if it makes you feel more "moral" than the average slob who will take incremental advances rather than dream about grand sweeping visions that just aren't going to happen because there's not enough people who feel the way you do.


If you're not allowed to play the game, you don't have a hope in hell of changing minds, never mind winning.

I thought Paul Wellstone was a fine man, but he's DEAD. He isn't playing the game, either. Norm Fucking Coleman took his chair, until Al Franken finally took it back.

There's something to be said for doing what you can, and living to fight another day. If you want to fall on your sword and call yourself "better" for so doing, fine. I'd rather get the best President we can get (not a pipe-dreamer who is way out of step with the bulk of the nation, but someone who will do as much good as possible while appealing to better angels and not polarizing too much) and a Congress who will support her or him.

America is not a Sailfish that can turn on a dime. It's an aircraft carrier, and it takes for frickin' ever to turn the thing.

We need three successive Democratic terms to even get the process started.

IMO, what's "creepy" (your word) is that you have such a rigid view about how politics works. You don't understand that it is a game of inches, and compromise, and give-and-take. I do think it's time for the Dems to start pushing, but that's not going to happen even if you elect (name your perfect, stars-in-your-eyes, idealized candidate-who-can-do-no-wrong) as President. It will only happen if a Democratic President has a Democratic Congress--and not before. In fact, the right Congress can "lead" the President, and often does.

Separation of powers, ain't it sumthin....