What she said

Joe Biden Motivates The Base: 'Quit Whining' | Crooks and Liars

Joe Biden tells the base to "quit whining" and get out there and "look at the alternatives. This president has done an incredible job. He's kept his promises."

And last night on Lawrence O'Donnell's new show, he said: "Those who didn't get everything they wanted, it's time to just buck up."

Biden is, apparently, just following the script. This from the AP:

"People need to shake off this lethargy. People need to buck up," Obama told Rolling Stone in an interview to be published Friday. The president told Democrats that making change happen is hard and "if people now want to take their ball and go home, that tells me folks weren't serious in the first place."

Susie Madrak, who blogs at Crooks and Liars (the top link) and also at Suburban Guerrilla and famously (I'm a fan) queried David Axelrod the other day on "hippie punching" is all over this one - and she's right. Click the link and go read her whole post.

I know, I know, the official line is Obama has done great things. But he hasn't. Listen to his debates with Clinton during the primary. Vote for him, not her, he says because with his plan you'll be able to sign up for health care just like he has (he was a Senator, remember?). Well, that idea got downgraded to a "public option," which has itself in turn been downgraded, now, to "quit your bitchin'." The Democrats' health care plan doesn't even kick in fully for another four years and already the health care industry is figuring out how to get around it.

The stimulus - it actually stimulated a few things here. We're fixing some of the streets. But there's a whole lot of people still out of work. And I don't see anything in the Democrats' "financial reform" that prevents those too-big-to-fail financial institutions from being too big to fail again.

And don't even get me started about the wars, Gitmo, and the excesses of the security state.

The D's came into the White House in 2009 with majorities in both houses of Congress and huge public support for their promise of hope and change. Turns out hope was the operative word. Change, not so much. 

"Fool me twice," his predecessor famously said, "well, you can't fool me again." 

I'm not feeling much like bucking up.