The Lesser of the Evils: Hindsight is 20/20, but McCain Shudda Won by Steven Jonas, MD, MPH

Image by darthdowney via Flickr

by Steven Jonas, MD, MPH
Featured Writer
Dandelion Salad
Sept. 6, 2011

The Great Debate on the Left about whether to support Barack Obama for re-election had been building already, even before the debt limit debacle. And now it is on in full force and will be with us right up until Election Day, 2012. You can tell from the title of this commentary which side I am on. Except for the election of 1980, when I supported and actually did some work for John Anderson (until for reasons to this day entirely unknown to me he finked out right after Labor Day), I have been a “lesser of the evils” guy. But not this time around.

Obama and the DLC by Steven Jonas, MD, MPH

by Steven Jonas, MD, MPH
Featured Writer
Dandelion Salad
crossposted on Buzzflash.com
December 1, 2010

On the day after the 2010 national elections, Evan Bayh, retiring Senator from Indiana, laid out very clearly the current political and policy program of the dominant power in the Democratic Party, the Democratic Leadership Council. The reasons for the Democratic losses around the country, so Bayh told us (paraphrasing in quotes), were that Obama was “too far left,” that he should have “pushed jobs,” not pushed health care reform so hard, and should have taken it easier on Wall Street and the banks. “Cut taxes, attack the budget, grab the center” was the central headline in the piece. Obama has to “move to the center,” needs to “reach across the aisle,” and “must learn to work with GOP in order to get things done.” Demonstrating all the while just how devoted he is to the future of the Democratic Party, non-candidate Bayh did not mention that he has a $10,000,000 campaign fund of which he apparently did not share a penny with any other politicians.

Ending the Filibuster: Fuhgeddaboudit by Steven Jonas, MD, MPH

by Steven Jonas, MD, MPH
Featured Writer
Dandelion Salad
crossposted on Buzzflash.com
July 15, 2010

For those who might not be familiar with the term, “fuhgeddaboudit” is one of those three-into-one Noo Yawk words that puts the final stamp on the subject with which it is concerned.  Yes, folks, good folks like Sen. Tom Harkin of Iowa can present very logical arguments for getting rid of the most anti-democratic rule crippling the functioning of any legislature in any of the “Western Democracies” (see his “Fixing the Filibuster” of June 30, 2010).  However, as long as the Democratic Losership Council (love that name, applied by a commentator on an earlier commentary of mine) controls the Democratic Party, it ain’t going to happen.