Sirota: Blacklisting progressives: the untold story beneath the Daschle headlines

[antigop]

http://www.openleft.com/showDiary.do?diaryId=11343

Amid the swirling headlines about Tom Daschle withdrawing his nomination for Health and Human Service Secretary is a very dark, very foreboding story that tells us a lot more about what to expect from the Obama administration than a single nomination fight. It is a story that every single voter who supported Barack Obama because of his progressive economic platform should know about - and worry about.

As every newspaper in America has been happy to report, Daschle worked with venture capitalist Leo Hindery after he left the Senate. Hindery was a top economic adviser to John Edwards and later to Barack Obama, and many had floated his name for U.S. Trade Representative or Commerce Secretary. Now, though, that won't be happening, as anyone mentioned near the Daschle flap is being shunned by the Obama administration.

But is that really why someone as accomplished as Hindery was never seriously considered for a top economic post in the administration? The media and the Obama administration would like us to believe yes - but the answer is no. It has far less to do with the Daschle situation and far more to do with Hindery's progressive economic ideology.

[xchrom]

1. recommend

[roguevalley]

15. seconded

[Wetzelbill]

2. People who are progressive are considered too partisan

because they don't accept dull-minded conventional wisdom and failed right-wing ideology. The Beltway status quo is obsessed with "bipartisanship" which consists almost exclusively of Dems caving in to Republicans on issue after issue. Those who don't want to acquiesce or genuflect to what amounts to a failed ideology are somehow considered problematic in upside down stupid world.

[Zodiak]

10. The beltway status quo is obsessed with corporatism

"Bipartisanship" is only the new package that they wrapped corporatism into. They floated the same meme a couple of years ago, but everyone seems to have forgotten that.

Before the packages were the "ownership society", "personal responsibility", and "helping small businesses".

And how can progressives be partisan?...one has to have a political party to be partisan, and ours doesn't represent us very well.

[texastoast]

3. News to everyone: Progress will be made

And progressives will make it. We never give up.

[annabanana]

4. progressives. .

go help B Boxer take a headcount
http://www.barbaraboxer.com/news/bulletins?id=0059

(let her let him know that we're still out here)

[FrenchieCat]

5. And we are supposed to do what with this "rumor"?

and does a rumor from the Left means more than one from the Right?

[Metta]

6. Thanks for the really good link. It's looking more and more like progressives are being shut out of

this administration. Uh, how well has business as usual been working?

[Uzybone]

7. Empty rubbish

not a single fact in those 3 paragraphs, just innuendo. i guess if you already believe the premise then this is a good story. But for everyone else this is fluff.

[snot]

8. What appointments have been made that most DU'er's agree count as progressives?

I don't mean that in a negative way; I'm just asking to be educated.

[ananda]

18. All in all, Obama has made hardly any liberal, or progressive, appointments.

Obama is basically center right.

[leftstreet]

19. I'd be interested in an answer, too

:shrug:

[Zodiak]

20. There have been a couple that progressives supported.

Melody Barnes was widely hailed by progressives, but she occupies a rather invisible position (albeit rather high-up).

There was the nobel prize winner for the EPA, I think. Also not an up-front position.

But there have been few. Read around...there are a lot of hypotheses why. Some say because the left sucks, we do not know how to govern, and our ideas are from the failed era of 60's politics. Others say because he is being shrewd and bringing in the establishment to put them under his thumb and make it politically hard to oppose him...and he will be the driver of progressive policy.

We honestly do not know the answer to that question. We shall see. But it is clear that any "fix" to our current situation had better being far from the "beltway wisdom" in order to work.

[leftupnorth]

9. Daschle is a progressive???

Who knew?

:shrug:

[Zodiak]

12. Good point

If he is a progressive, I must be a communist.

Funny....I never changed ideology my whole life. The corporate world we live in sure did, though.

[Uzybone]

13. To the idiotic blogger left he is ..at least today

because he was "pushed out" by Obama. If he had been confirmed the same dumbassess would be calling Obama a sell out for appointing the lobbyist Daschle.

[KittyWampus]

11. this is a silly attempt by Sirota to make something out of information he has that he thinks

will make him look "in the know".

He isn't a journalist except by Rick Sanchez's standards.

[TheWraith]

14. Yet again, the left is more interested in killing its own than in getting anything done.

Daschle was an evil corporatist Nazi sympathizer right up until he withdrew, at which point he became the unfair victim of an evil plot to make sure nobody who meets the Holy Purity Test gets near power. :eyes:

Honestly, I regret wasting my time with this six-degrees-of-nonsense rant.

[rapturedbyrobots]

16. funny thing...

i don't remember obama running as a progressive...or even making any nods to progressives other than co-opting their rhetoric. i seem to remember him proudly touting his neoliberal market-based solutions (see healthcare, education, and the economy) as an example of his bi-partisan, pragmatic (aka center-right) approach. this didn't stop anyone from assuming that 'change' meant something more than a return to clinton-style neoliberalism...'capitalism with a human face'. so now here we are with ex-clintonites and dlc types running the show and shutting out progressives and somehow people are shocked. you get what you paid for. and its not obama's fault you projected your desires onto him...well...maybe it is...that was a damned good marketing campaign.

[Still Sensible]

17. Nope, not a single thing of value in that OP

wasted a good two minutes

[OhioChick]

21. Wow....

Not all that surprised, though.

K&R