By Jeff Cohen

November 25, 2009 "Huffington Post" -- With President Obama pushing a huge troop escalation in Afghanistan, history may well repeat itself with a vengeance. And it's not just the apt comparison to LBJ, who destroyed his presidency on the battlefields of Vietnam with an escalation that delivered power to Nixon and the GOP.

There's another frightening parallel: Obama seems to be following in the footsteps of Bill Clinton, who accomplished perhaps his single biggest legislative "triumph" -- NAFTA -- thanks to an alliance with Republicans that overcame strong Democratic and grassroots opposition.

It was 16 years ago this month when Clinton assembled his coalition with the GOP to bulldoze public skepticism about the trade treaty and overpower a stop-NAFTA movement led by unions, environmentalists and consumer rights groups. How did Clinton win his majority in Congress? With the votes of almost 80 percent of GOP senators and nearly 70 percent of House Republicans. Democrats in the House voted against NAFTA by more than 3 to 2, with fierce opponents including the Democratic majority leader and majority whip.

To get a majority today in Congress on Afghanistan, the Obama White House is apparently bent on a strategy replicating the tragic farce that Clinton pulled off: Ignore the informed doubts of your own party while making common cause with extremist Republicans who never accepted your presidency in the first place.

"Deather" conspiracists are not new to the Grand Old Party. Clinton engendered a similar loathing on the right despite his centrist, corporate-friendly policies. When conservative Republican leaders like Newt Gingrich and Dick Armey delivered to Clinton (and corporate elites) the NAFTA victory, it didn't slow down right-wing operatives who circulated wacky videos accusing Clinton death squads of murdering reporters and others.

For those who elected Obama, it's important to remember the downward spiral that was accelerated by Clinton's GOP alliance to pass NAFTA. It should set off alarm bells for us today on Afghanistan.

NAFTA was quickly followed by the debacle of Clinton health care "reform" largely drafted by giant insurance companies, which was followed by a stunning election defeat for Congressional Democrats in November 1994, as progressive and labor activists were lethargic while right-wing activists in overdrive put Gingrich into the Speaker's chair.

A year later, advised by his chief political strategist Dick Morris (yes, the Obama-basher now at Fox), Clinton declared: "The era of big government is over." In the coming years, Clinton proved that the era of big business was far from over -- working with Republican leaders to grant corporate welfare to media conglomerates (1996 Telecom Act) and investment banks (1999 abolition of the Glass-Steagall Act).

Today, it's crucial to ask where Obama is heading. From the stimulus to health care, he's shown a Clinton-like willingness to roll over progressives in Congress on his way to corrupt legislation and frantic efforts to compromise for the votes of corporate Democrats or "moderate" Republicans. Meanwhile, the incredible shrinking "public option" has become a sick joke.

As he glides from retreats on civil liberties to health reform that appeases corporate interests to his Bush-like pledge this week to "finish the job" in Afghanistan, an Obama reliance on Congressional Republicans to fund his troop escalation could be the final straw in disorienting and demobilizing the progressive activists who elected him a year ago.

Throughout the centuries, no foreign power has been able to "finish the job" in Afghanistan, but President Obama thinks he's a tough enough Commander-in-Chief to do it. Too bad he hasn't demonstrated such toughness in the face of obstructionist Republicans and corporate lobbyists. For them, it's been more like "compromiser-in-chief."

When you start in the center (on, say, health care or Afghanistan) and readily move rightward several steps to appease right-wing politicians or lobbyists or generals, by definition you are governing as a conservative.

It's been a gradual descent from the elation and hope for real change many Americans felt on election night, November 2008. For some of us who'd scrutinized the Clinton White House in the early 1990s, the buzz was killed days after Obama's election when he chose his chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, a top Clinton strategist and architect of the alliance that pushed NAFTA through Congress.

If Obama stands tough on more troops to Afghanistan (as Clinton fought ferociously for NAFTA), only an unprecedented mobilization of progressives -- including many who worked tirelessly to elect Obama -- will be able to stop him. Trust me: The Republicans who yell and scream about Obama budget deficits when they're obstructing public health care will become deficit doves in spending the estimated $1 million per year per new soldier (not to mention private contractors) headed off to Asia.

The only good news I can see: Maybe it will take a White House/GOP alliance over Afghanistan to wake up the base of liberal groups (like MoveOn) to take a closer and more critical look at President Obama's policies.

Jeff Cohen is an associate professor of journalism at Ithaca College and former board member of Progressive Democrats of America.

It should read.....

GET READY FOR THE ADAM CUT & PASTE ONSLAUGHT

What do the beigers stand for SadMan? 

Well apparently, THAT was the cro-mag man pinnacle of intelluctual responses.

Like June, this is the BEST your political philosophy has to offer,

quaint little quips from Der Fuhrer...

I TOO can play YOUR game Sad Man!

Meet the Losertarians!
The American Enterprise ^ | November 14, 2002 | Michael Medved

Posted on Thursday, November 14, 2002 11:23:51 AM by arual

America's Libertarian Party services only one purpose: Distracting and confusing the determined combatants in all our critical national struggles. Consider the preposterous Libertarian role in the just concluded midterm elections. South Dakota represented ground zero in the struggle for control of the Senate, and Republican John Thune and incumbent Democrat Tim Johnson fought to a virtual tie--with only 527 votes (less than 0.2 percent of the vote) dividing them. Meanwhile, 3,071 votes went to Libertarian Kurt Evans, a 32-year-old teacher who listed as one of his prime preparations for the Senate that his father is a known Country & Western musician.

Not all the purists and odd balls who vote Libertarian are actually conservative, but polls show that most of them are--and that most such voters would, if pressed, prefer Republicans over Democrats. Imagine if a third--only one third!--of Kurt Evans' voters had thought seriously enough about the importance of the election to cast their votes for Republican Thune. Would the fact that the Libertarian received 2,000 votes instead of 3,000 have detracted in any way from the "success" or impact of his campaign--or somehow compromised its metaphysical meaning? Yet the shift of that thousand votes to a real, grown-up, candidate could have altered U.S. political history.

Unfortunately, South Dakota wasn't the only state where the self-indulgent madness of Libertarian jokesters interfered with the serious business of politics. In the Alabama governor's race, another virtual tie between Republicans and Democrats, the Libertarian nominee drew 23,242 lost souls (2 percent) to his campaign--more than seven times the margin between the two serious candidates. In Oregon's contest for governor, the gap between the Democrat and Republican stood at 33,437 votes (2.73 percent) in unofficial counts, while the Libertarian jester, Thomas B. Cox, drew 56,141 votes (almost 5 percent). Mr. Cox, by the way, listed among his spotty qualifications for the governorship his "five years on the Math Team in grades 8-12."

This might all be amusing were it not so irresponsible. Libertarians win no races of any significance anywhere in the United States. The Pathetic Party's press release acknowledged that they "emerged from Election 2002 with decidedly mixed results," boasting that "Bob Dempsey was re-elected as San Miguel County coroner" (in Colorado) and "in California, Eric Lund was elected to the Cordova Recreation and Park Board."

Despite such glittering triumphs, the party's national standing continues its relentless (and richly deserved) decline. The Libertarians reached their feeble high water mark more than 20 years ago, when Ed Clark won 1.06 percent of the vote in his race for the Presidency (against Ronald Reagan). More recently, Harry Browne scored less than half that percentage (0.5 percent) in 1996, and then fared even worse (0.37 percent) in 2000. The Libertarians claim they are influencing the debate, but how can you honestly believe you are succeeding in your cause when you win no important victories and your vote totals only decline?

Harry Clowne and other Losertarian ideologues insist that their ceaseless, useless campaigning will magically, miraculously push Republicans (and/or Democrats) in the direction of libertarian ideas, but this forlorn hope rests on shakier evidence than faith in the Tooth Fairy. It ought to be obvious that you can only change a major party by participating in it and joining its internal struggles, and that you can't influence a political organization by walking away from it. There is simply no historical evidence to support the idiotic cliché claiming that third parties influence the nation by forcing the major parties to adopt their ideas. Populists only managed to take over the Democratic Party when they dropped their independent campaigning and decided to hitch a ride on the donkey; Socialists remained a suspect fringe operation until they, too, made common cause with the Democrats during the crisis of the Great Depression.

The appalling record of Libertarian electoral rejection doesn't mean that libertarian ideas are worthless--in fact, those values and innovations significantly can enrich our political dialogue if promoted in the appropriate manner. Ron Paul a one-time Republican representative from Texas, Libertarian presidential candidate in 1988, got the right idea after his frustrating race (0.47 percent of the vote) when he re-joined the Republicans, ran for Congress, and won his seat back--playing a courageous and constructive role representing his Texas district.

The refusal by other Libertarians to follow this successful example represents a demented eccentricity that condemns them to life on the political fringe. Isn't it obvious that, in today's political world, an outsider candidate stands a better chance of capturing a major party nomination through the primary process, than building a third party movement from scratch to beat the two established parties? Obviously, challenging the establishment in a primary requires less money, and a smaller base of support, than building a new political apparatus to win a general election. Insurgents and outsiders win party primaries all the time--as Bill Simon proved in California, defeating the anointed gubernatorial candidate of the GOP establishment.

And even when they don't win, primary challengers often play a significant role. When Pat Buchanan ran for the Republican Presidential nomination (twice), he made some serious noise and exerted a powerful influence on his party; when, on the other hand, he abandoned the GOP and sought the White House as the nominee of the Reform Party he became a painful (and ultimately irrelevant) embarrassment. Libertarians who seek to advance their challenging agenda will meet with far greater success within the two party system than they have achieved in all their weary decades of wandering in the fringe faction wilderness.

Dante is generally credited with the statement that "the hottest circles in hell are reserved for those who in times of moral crisis maintain their neutrality." In the wake of the recent elections, we should reserve some space in those inflammatory precincts for those who in time of moral crisis--and hand-to-hand political combat--cast meaningless votes for Losertarians.

—Michael Medved hosts a nationally syndicated, daily radio talk show focusing on the intersection of politics and pop culture. He is also a well-known film critic.

Yep, ol' A-Dam can sit up there never having to take a side, or put his skin in the game, and just lob bombs on everyone else all day.

I for one won't debate a coward any longer.

Gee, nic,

I take a side....
And YOU take a side....

My side OPPOSES corrupt government selling out to Corporatists....
YOUR SIDE SUPPORTS and REWARDS those selling out to Corporatists with cushy jobs in the White House.....

My side OPPOSES INVASIONS and OCCUPATIONS and supports cutting funding
YOUR SIDE SUPPORTS INVASIONS and OCCUPATIONS and keeps funding them like the Energizer Rabbit...

My side OPPOSES Trickdown Economics....
YOUR SIDES not only SUPPORTS Trickle Down, YOUR SIDES REWARDS the crooks who gamed the system in the first place...

My side SUPPORTS a SUSTAINABLE Health Care System and REDUCES the CAUSES of Health Care problems.

YOUR side SUPPORTS giving more power to the same people who CAUSED the problems..

My side supports equal opportunity under the law for ALL....
YOUR SIDE supports special powers and favors it for the wealthy donors of the PARTY...

My side support standing UP with intellectual debate on our PROBLEMS and SOLUTIONS...
YOUR SIDE throws sands, calls names, and runs and hides when the causes of our problems is exposed....

My side SUPPORTS real Change...
YOUR SIDE supports taking my money and LEAVING me coin change....

So nic,

I have choosen MY SIDE and you YOURS.....

It is just that YOUR side is the EVIL one,
And the ONLY way you can support and justify YOUR SIDE is with LIES, DECEPTION and 5 year old sandbox FASCISM.....

My side  supports CHANGE.....
YOUR SIDE supports MORE OF THE SAME OLD s***....

Ditto cro-mag.....

We are NOT the PROBLESM with your PARTY, mindless, ignorant WHORES like you are...
Mindless ID10T's like YOU who keep supporting a PARTY that WORKS AGAINST the best interest of YOU and its Citizenry....

The REAL pathetic part is that both of you, are EXACTLY like June.....
After putting in your heart and soul to the Devil, all you have is the ability to BLAME OTHERS for PROBLEMS that YOU INDUCE and act like 5 year old bullies in a sandbox on the PLAYGROUND....

But perhaps that is where children like YOU belong, OBVIOUSLY you dont have the adults skills of RATIONAL THOUGHT to deal with REALITY....

The problem with YOU Sad Man is that YOU are a TOOL. YOU follow an ideology that WHINES and MOANS yet brings NOTHING to the table.

YOUR clowns like Nader choose to be ANKLE-BITERS rather thatn get INVOLVED to change the parties from WITHIN.

In fact I dont think YOU would want to have a party in charge. YOU would rather sit on your ASS and SCREAM that every one else is STUPID.

Yes YOU have all the answers. So much so that NO ONE ever listens.

So WHO are the stupid ones again?

And what CHANGE does your rabid support of the PARTY bring cro-mag?

Acting like a 5 year old child in a sandbox?

Unable to deal with even the MORE fundamental HYPOCRISY of YOU and your Red TEAM....

EXACTLY like nic, TRYING to blame OTHERS for the problems in YOUR PARTY....

YOU, nic, June and OTHERS are NOT interested in CHANGING the PARTY, by your own words and actions here, ALL YOU SUPPORT is a mindless GAME in which you snip at the ankles of the OTHER side of the PARTY.....NEVER holding YOUR OWN TEAM accountable and RESPONSIBLE....

ALWAYS reverting back to that insecure, hatefilled 5 year old sandbox bully

You know it would be different IF either one of your TEAMS was actually what you WANT to claim it to be....you know DIFFERENT than the other TEAM.....

We just had 8 years of Red TEAM....

Where was the fiscal CONSERVATISM?   You spent MORE than Clinton and his Blue TEAM...
Where is the Pro Life moral CONSERVATISM?  Oh yeah, instead of Bu$h going on the telly and talking about saving aborted babies, he and his crew went on daily to muster and justify mass murder in Oilraq for Bu$h's oil buddies.....and Cheny's no bid Halliburton....

The Red TEAM could have made a Conservative difference, but just like Blue TEAMers they kowtow to their CORPORATE sponsors and THEN BLAME the Blue TEAM for all thier FAILURES to be CONSERVATIVE....

The difference between YOU and ME cro-mag is your rabid HYPOCRISY....

You have NO PROBLEM whining and moaning about non Red TEAMers..
You have NO PROBLEM sitting on your ass and calling all non Red TEAMers stupid...

YOUR PARTY has BEEN IN CHARGE and f***ed everything up....
And yet IDIOTS like YOU, still support them unwavering and unconditionally like mindless drones...

The fact that 'no one' listens to the answers shows how mindless and ignorant people like you REALLY are.....

but then AGAIN, YOU and people like YOU are not here for ANSWERS you have here to further perpetrate the PROBLEMS.....

That is just what fascists do.....