I don't know enough about Kagan to like her or not, but I DO KNOW

[LaydeeBug]

that if you want Obama to be more liberal, you have to *make* him be more liberal. It *IS* our job to hold his feet to the fire. He has made his nomination. The right signaled before that there would be little problem with her. The left said nothing. The time for anyone to hold his feet to the fire was BEFORE the nomination, not after it.

I am cautiously optimistic, but not overly so. I'm willing to wait and see, because right ow, that is our only option.

If we want a more progressive nominee, maybe we should start OUR OWN vetting process now, for next time.

[HughMoran]

1. "The time for anyone to hold his feet to the fire was BEFORE the nomination, not after it."

You said it.

[LaydeeBug]

13. Yep.

All of this hand wringing of late only shows that we weren't as engaged in the process as we should have been if we wanted a more progressive nominee.

[VMI Dem]

2. How do I make him put down his bible and reverse his thinking on the morality of gay marriage?

He himself has stated that he may be on the wrong side of history with respect to the issue. It hasn't changed his mind.

[sui generis]

6. so being wrong won't change his mind

well that's a problem.

The fact is he IS a political animal and he's determined that gay issues are the expendable piece on the chess board, regardless of how historians will review the game.

The problem with that attitude is that he leads out of political expediency, which isn't leadership at all.

[LaydeeBug]

15. When did Obama endorse gay marriage? The time to fight THAT one would have been the primaries,

which are over.

[sui generis]

18. believe me I did 3000 rounds with the shut up and vote crowd here

got tempstoned once or twice and almost walked away from DU after all these years.

And I'll do it again.

But the time is not over. I will vote for a god damn teabagger who claims to be for gay marriage before I vote for an arch liberal democrat who is against gay marriage.

I'll have to shower and disinfect of course, but our party has proven repeatedly that they are willing to take our vote for granted without stepping up or even courting us in any material way.

If our votes matter so little then we might as well spend them on principle and not blind party loyalty.

[LaydeeBug]

21. Respectfully, I disagree...

I think we have to 'be the change' instead of 'enabling the opposition' just to appease some sense of spite.

I believe that gay people should have the same rights as anybody else, which is why I am PRO gay marriage, and ANTI civil unions. But guess what we'll get first?

That's a sad truth from the straight, but not narrow.

[sui generis]

25. Well speaking for us we have to vote for our issues

If our party doesn't support our issues and still expects our vote, while another party does support our issues and courts our vote, that's politics.

I can say that because I know we'll never see a real liberal republican, but to clarify I would not consider the "opposition" to be "the opposition" in that case.

I would NEVER vote for the other guy just because my guy doesn't support my issues. That would be spiteful and ineffective.

It would only happen if the other guy was truly the better choice on the issues that matter to me. At any rate we do have the same rights as everyone else, they're just not recognized by everyone else.

Nonetheless I agree with the premise that the heaviest vetting and pressure on our candidates needs to happen well before the primaries. After the primaries if they still haven't lined up with expectations and yet still expect my vote and money, they definitely aren't smart enough to be in office.

[SusanaMontana41]

26. It would be nice to have the president on the righ- er, correct side.

But his opposition hasn't stopped Massachusetts, Vermont, Connecticut, New Hampshire, Iowa (!) and Maine from legalizing gay marriage.

We've come light-years since 1982, when my hometown voted down an ordinance granting homosexuals protection against discrimination by employers. Not marriage, just equal rights.

We're on the right track. But until gays' and lesbians' rights to marry — and to work and live where they choose — are protected against discrimination by the Constitution, I'm with Brad and Angelina. No marriage for me.

[phleshdef]

19. What measures have the Obama administration taken to prevent legal gay marriages?

[Hippo_Tron]

20. Either convince a majority of Americans to support gay marriage

Or convince enough Democrats to support somebody else if the President doesn't change his mind. Note that I'm not advocating you do the latter because there are consequences to doing that. The President's opposition to gay marriage is entirely political. Only a politician could simultaneously oppose gay marriage but also oppose proposition 8.

[polichick]

3. I agree that it's our job to hold his feet to the fire...

In some instances pressure from the left has helped - though this prez seems intent on being Republican-lite.

[LaydeeBug]

10. I think he capitulates so much because we are silent.

HCR was DOA until Al Franken started screaming bloody murder, and anyone paying attention knows it. Obama would have compromised to the repigs. He was on the verge of it until the left came roaring back.

This is what we need to do. I'm loyal, and I was born during the day, but it wasn't yesterday. Like it or not, Obama was always a pretty conservative Democrat, and if we want different, as his collective Boss, we will have to do our part and DEMAND different.

So who would be our pick next time? We should focus on that instead of 'coulda, shoulda, woulda'.

[Clio the Leo]

4. We have to hold Congress' feet to the fire...

... because THEY are the ones who ultimately decide.

Part of me thinks he chose her because, as he said, she's a consensus builder.

But part of me wonders if he chose her because he couldn't get a more progressive candidate through.

[sui generis]

5. I'm just really tired of appeasement politics.

Barack Obama and Bill Clinton both have a tendency to head to the center on social issues and be anti-populist on corporate issues.

When I hear a politician say they nominate someone because they are a "moderate" on the issues I hear a nonsense excuse. If you were moderate between okaying torture and upholding human rights you'd be applesauce.

We need nominations that are going to do the RIGHT thing for Americans, not the moderate thing, whatever the hell that is.

[LaydeeBug]

11. I am too, but that is the hand we are dealt, and the squeaky wheel gets the oil, so... nt

[katandmoon]

7. So now it's our fault that Obama is a moderate Republican? Please. Unrec.

[LaydeeBug]

12. Jeeez, put words in anybody's mouth much? Un-real. nt

[Jefferson23]

8. I never saw Obama as progressive, and I do not agree with all

his policies. My hope is that his presidency will lead to a progressive president. He has done a lot of good
on many levels, could there have been better policy choices? Absolutely, but I still find the one major obstacle
that progressives have going against them is the lobby money.

Sometimes I think that centrists sprouted out of necessity vs ideology due to lobby money. I want to see public funded elections, that
is the true change we need.

[ShortnFiery]

9. No, Obama played a ROLE but, in essence, he serves the OWNERS of the USA..

President Obama serves the Ruling Political Elites of both parties. These elites serve the super-rich owners of multi-national corporations of the MIC and the Energy Industry.

The WORLD Community has OWNERS and we must stop them from consolidating their VILE power base.

[LaydeeBug]

14. Amen to that, ShortnFiery, with ONE exception:

*WE* the PEOPLE own the USA, and it is time to take ours back from these corporate overlords.

[ShortnFiery]

17. You got that right! We are at the border of enforcement of a Police State?

Are we going to cross over into that abyss?

http://yorick.infinitejest.org:81/1/img/card-bill_of_rights.jpg

[LaydeeBug]

22. Methinks the opposition has shown their ass, and they can't spin this anymore.

it's just a whirlwind of shit, plain and simple.

[dflprincess]

16. Yeah, that worked so well with health care

Our opinion means so much to him that he ignored us when we told him what we want and need is access to care. Instead he signed us over to the insurance companies so we're still locked into the system we have now - paying for "coverage" with no guaranteee of care.

[LaydeeBug]

23. We got more done with HCR in the last two weeks than in two years of speculating, and you're right,

it's not NEARLY where it should be, but with Mrs. Obama on the board of a hospital, I never really held out much hope that they'd do the right thing. HillaryCare was, and still is a better model... but he took a lot of Clintonistas to the House with him, so maybe...

[dflprincess]

24. Anything that left the insurance companies as a major part of the equation

with out any kind of a public option was bad news and nothing but a scam - including Hillarycare. She was all for mandates as well (something he was against until he was safely in the White House).

The bill that passed is going to land us right back in the situation we're in now as premiums continue to go up and fewer people are able to afford "coverage" or care. But at least the health insurers and the campaign donations they make are safe.