It's "stunning that he would ignore the wishes not just of his president, but of his constituents and the country,” said an administration official.

That's not tribalism anymore. That's religion. It's a cult.

I'm just shocked to see it coming from the supposed "left."

I've had a feeling since the before the current crash that the Fed's next bubble (after housing crashed and burn) will be Green.

So let me get this straight. President lobbies Congressman hard to vote for a signature piece of legislatation. President and his staff point out that Congressman's constituients support bill. Congressman very publically and loudly votes against bill. This pisses off the President and some of his staffers grouse about in in an off the record comment.

As far as I know, and I'm doing this from memory so I might have some details missing, that's not an accurate picture. More like, President demands of Democratic leadership that they make the bill bipartisan and supported by all. Democratic leadership negotiates to bring the Republicans and Blue Dogs on board. Many Republicans remain intransigent so the leadership concentrates on Blue Dogs. Blue Dogs get virtually every concession they want, as well as quite a few the Republicans have been demanding, promised into the bill. These are introduced, along with padding, at 3 AM the day before the vote. Republicans and Blue Dogs, knowing the leadership won't let the bill fail with all this riding on it, make speeches and vow to vote against it to please the folks back home that they haven't caved to the environmentalists. Leadership, seeing that the broad based constituency doesn't exist, pressure the environmentalists and liberals to vote for the now screwed up bill, and the President weighs in to twist more liberal arm. Bill passes but some environmentalists and liberals decry it.

Net result, Blue Dogs and Republicans get every change they demanded without having to vote for the bill, liberals and environmentalists get their prize legislation gutted and get accused of disloyalty for opposing it, if they did.

The people winning the 11 dimensional chess game, as always, are the rabid right, but Obama supporters continue their diatribe against liberals making more such victories possible in the future. Republicans get the added advantage that not only do they still control the political process, but President Obama's liberal base may, in fact, not vote for him in 2012 because he's been such a loser on the chessboard and a turncoat to his base, and generally abrogated all the base's principles.

There is another national leader who did the same thing trying to build a consensus with people who only looked out for themselves. His name is Hamid Karzai. It ain't working out for his country, either. The banality of cowardice.

The Energy Climate Bill: The Art Of The Possible (see sig)

http://www.solarfeeds.com/nen/7754-the-energyclimate-bill-the-art-of-the-possible.html

" . . . but President Obama's liberal base may, in fact, not vote for him in 2012."

Don't know that I'm part of his "base" liberal or otherwise, but there is no may about whether or not I will vote for him in 2012. I won't. I've yet to see any change whatsoever that isn't illusory. So back to the drawing board I guess.

BTW I say you over at Balkinization a week or so ago trying to do battle with the resident troll Bart dePalma. Why did you let him off the hook so easy?

Thanks for trying to get a recess appointment done earlier than now. I understand you weren't successful back at Easter on this. I appreciate the frustration. But:

Why is it that, even here on Glenn Greenwald's blog, any time there is a suggestion of actually trying to accomplish something that pretty much everyone would agree is a better result than the status quo, there seems to always be a rush of posters eager to articulate the futility of trying? I'm really not sure I understand why this happens so often. Take a look at the comments to Robert Reich's suggestion in Salon yesterday, or the comments that seem to appear with regularity any time Obama does (or fails to do) something a lot of people who voted for him thought he had said he was interested in doing...

I'm real clear on my belief that we're better off with Obama as President than we would have been with McCain. But that's just not enough and so I'd like to see Obama do what he was sent to Washington to do: namely, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States of America and keep that obligation in mind as he does the other things on his plate. I offer no apology to anyone for wanting that to happen or for suggesting people should try to make it happen.

And it boggles my mind that every person apparently deemed goofy enough to believe that's worth pursuing finds such a willing cross-section of ostensible liberals anxious to put them in their place as hopeless dreamers of futile dreams -- even people who have already made one effort to accomplish the same goal but have decided that trying again, or even continually, is hopeless now.

Sorry, nothing all that personal. It just happens so often and certainly not just from you. It seems to me that "good idea" might have not been out of the question, albeit more benign than interesting, and that "no way that will ever happen" doesn't really advance the ball much. But it's not a frivolous view and, the more it is articulated, the more it may become [may have become?] conventional wisdom. Conventional wisdom, however, is too often neither conventional nor wise -- we have a Constitution for a reason and we're supposed to have to be vigilant to protect the liberties it preserves, aren't we?

Hard disk crash, two communicable diseases and a pulse in the 40's.

Will we hear condemnations from Rahm Emanuel's underlings about how stunning and outrageous it is that conservative Democrats are "ignoring the wishes of the President?" 

Not only won't we hear about these same aggressive tactics being used against any moderate blue dog Dems but Team Obama will work to help elect them again against and all more progressive candidates who might chose to run against them in 2010. He already promised this to Arlen Specter who I believe is now not supporting any public option for health care.