American Prospect

Paul Waldman: Obama Takes ‘The Long View’ on ISIS, Avoids 'Anger and Fear'
By Tom Johnson | September 4, 2014 | 9:04 PM EDT

On Wednesday, American Prospect blogger Paul Waldman noted the rhetorical contrast between President Obama and Vice President Biden regarding ISIS. Essentially, Obama has sounded cool and detached, a la Miles Davis, whereas a revved-up Biden, in a Portsmouth, N.H. speech, worked up a sweat and fed off the energy of the audience in the manner of Bruce Springsteen.

“You get a sense now,” wrote Waldman, “that not only is [Obama] being cautious about what actions the United States should take with regard to ISIS, he's also being cautious in how he talks about it. He doesn't want to raise expectations of a quick and glorious victory.”

Paul Waldman: GOP Can’t Close Gender Gap As Long As Conservatives Call Liberal Women ‘Sluts and Whores’
By Tom Johnson | August 28, 2014 | 5:17 PM EDT

The Trotskyist-turned-conservative writer James Burnham said that where there’s no solution, there’s no problem. In a Thursday post, American Prospect blogger Paul Waldman analyzed what he considers one such situation: the Republican party’s ongoing shortfall with female voters.

Waldman doesn’t see how the GOP can overcome both its ideas and its tone on women’s issues. He asserted that when Republicans discuss their opposition to abortion and the contraceptive mandate, many of them “can't keep themselves from doing so in the most hostile, contemptuous ways imaginable.”

Lefty Bloggers: Gripes About Presidential Vacations Are ‘Stupid’ and ‘Ridiculous’ and Should Stop
By Tom Johnson | August 16, 2014 | 7:01 AM EDT

This week, three of the most prominent liberal bloggers agreed that when it comes to criticizing presidents of either party about their vacations, people really need to, as one of the bloggers put it, “STFU.”

Do they have a point, or should the appropriateness of presidential vacations be evaluated on a POTUS-by-POTUS basis? Check out their thoughts and comment if you’d like.

Lefty Blogger: GOP Opposition to Obama Isn’t Influenced By Anything Obama Does
By Tom Johnson | August 11, 2014 | 2:39 PM EDT

Give American Prospect blogger Paul Waldman credit for recognizing that not every congressional Republican has the same chief reason to obstruct President Obama’s agenda. Some of the GOPers, Waldman noted in a Wednesday post, are politically motivated, while others “genuinely believe that Obama is an evil Kenyan Marxist tyrant trying to destroy America.”

Nonetheless, Waldman stated, both groups “arrive at the same place, whether through clear-eyed political calculation or wild-eyed hatred. And nothing—nothing—President Obama does or doesn't do makes a bit of difference,” given that “opposition is a Republican action, not a Republican reaction.” From Waldman’s post (emphasis added):

Blogger Paul Waldman: You Can’t Send In the Republican Clowns, Since They’re Already Here
By Tom Johnson | July 28, 2014 | 6:29 AM EDT

Conservatives, contended the American Prospect’s Paul Waldman on Thursday, can be highly entertaining, though usually not because they try to be. They’re more like Sideshow Bob repeatedly whacking himself in the face by stepping on one rake after another.

In a post titled “How Did the GOP Turn Into Such a Bunch of Clowns?” Waldman wrote that Republicans’ central problem is that “they're deluded into thinking that the country shares their particular collection of peeves and biases,” which means that they often take positions they don’t realize are unpopular and then are “shocked to find out that Americans aren't on the same page with them…Again and again, they think the American public is going to see things their way, and when the public doesn't, they never seem to learn anything from it.”

Paul Waldman: ‘Cruel and Uncaring’ Right-Wingers Rejoiced as Appeals Court Jeopardized Health Coverage For Millions
By Tom Johnson | July 23, 2014 | 10:22 PM EDT

What did conservative leaders and activists feel when they learned of the D.C. Circuit Court decision on Obamacare subsidies? Happiness? Relief? American Prospect blogger Paul Waldman seemed to have another word in mind: schadenfreude -- “satisfaction or pleasure felt at someone else's misfortune.”

In a Tuesday post, Waldman opined that, sure, righties were “excited” that the ruling was a setback for President Obama and the ACA, but “what actually had them so pleased is the possibility that millions of Americans will lose their health insurance.” Republicans, he added, “will gladly crush the lives of ordinary people if it means gaining some momentary partisan advantage.”

Lefty Blogger: IRS Scandal Exists ‘Only in the Fevered Imaginations’ of Propagandized Right-Wingers
By Tom Johnson | July 17, 2014 | 10:23 PM EDT

According to American Prospect blogger Paul Waldman, movement conservatives live in a bubble, but in this case none of the cards therein say “Moops.” Rather, each carries the name of what righties (though usually not Waldman himself) consider one or another of the Obama administration’s scandals.

In a Wednesday post, Waldman wrote that what he called “the IRS scandalette” is “an almost perfect expression of contemporary congressional Republicanism” since it features qualities such as “the obsession with conservative victimhood” as well as the GOPers’ “utter disinterest in governing” and their “obliviousness to facts.”

For American Prospect’s Waldman, Conservatives’ Anti-Obamacare Beliefs Are ‘Immune to Factual Refutation’
By Tom Johnson | July 12, 2014 | 6:55 AM EDT

Obamacare is succeeding, declared American Prospect blogger Paul Waldman on Thursday, and he predicts that ongoing development will bifurcate Republicans’ approaches to their 2014 congressional campaigns. Waldman thinks that purple-state GOP candidates will refrain from bashing the Affordable Care Act, but red-state candidates will discuss it in “apocalyptic terms” in order to agitate “voters [who] will still get angry every time the word [‘Obamacare’] is spoken.”

Waldman sees that split as part of a “larger Republican dilemma” caused by “the interests of the national GOP [being] at odds with the interests of the bulk of the party's officeholders,” who have to answer to the base. One result of this dilemma, he added, will be that in 2016, the eventual Republican presidential nominee “will face two dramatically different electorates; [i]t's as though they'll be running in Mississippi in the primaries, then in Ohio in the general election.”

Blogger: Liberals Dominate the Culture Because They Put Entertainment Before Politics
By Tom Johnson | July 6, 2014 | 10:14 PM EDT

Would right-wingers like a larger presence in mainstream news and entertainment media, or would they rather grumble about the MSM’s liberal bias while patronizing conservative media outlets? To American Prospect blogger Paul Waldman, it’s clear that the second is correct.

Waldman’s peg for his Wednesday post was a National Review piece by editor and publisher Adam Bellow on the need for a conservative counterculture that would produce novels, movies, music, and so on. Apropos of Bellow’s comment that it’s too bad righties have “hived ourselves off into our own politicized media bubble,” Waldman snipes that conservatives want very much to stay inside said bubble, even though it leaves them prone to “all kinds of pathological beliefs and behaviors.”

Robert Kuttner: ‘Decades of Conservative Obstruction’ Have Weakened Liberals’ ‘Power to Inspire’
By Tom Johnson | June 20, 2014 | 8:25 AM EDT

Democrats control the White House and Senate and won a clear majority of the vote in 2012 House elections, but American Prospect co-editor Robert Kuttner thinks that Republicans might be even less popular if Dems weren’t so shy about advocating economic policies markedly to the left of the ones they now support.

In a Monday post, Kuttner argued that only the rich have benefited from thirty-plus years of “tax cuts, limited social spending, deregulation, and privatization,” which caused him to wonder, “If conservatives offer little that’s credible to the anxious middle class, why aren’t liberals just trouncing them?” His three-part answer:

Paul Waldman: GOP Base’s Anger, Perpetual Dissatisfaction Are ‘Incompatible With Governing’
By Tom Johnson | June 14, 2014 | 4:01 PM EDT

The term “permanent revolution” is usually associated with Marxism, but American Prospect blogger Paul Waldman believes that these days, it’s movement conservatives who are talkin’ about a permanent revolution, and that their ideal Republican pol is an “agent of chaos and destruction, or at least pretend[s] that's who he is.”

In a Thursday post, Waldman quoted RealClearPolitics analyst Sean Trende’s explanation, in the wake of Eric Cantor’s loss, for why, in Trende’s words, “the Republican base is furious with the Republican establishment, especially over the Bush years.” Waldman’s reaction:

Paul Waldman: Right-Wingers Would Rather Whine Than Win
By Tom Johnson | May 25, 2014 | 7:41 AM EDT

According to American Prospect blogger Paul Waldman, the typical conservative is a frustrated grouch for two reasons: 1) most Americans will never want a government as small as conservatives would prefer, and 2) since hyperideological righties refuse to settle for half a loaf, they've "resigned [themselves] to a lifetime of outright defeats, unsatisfying half-victories, and betrayals."

From Waldman's Monday post (emphasis added):