Paul Waldman

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.”

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):

Washington Monthly Blogger: So-Called Constitutional Conservatives 'Are Implicitly in the One-Party-Authoritarian-State Camp'
By Tom Johnson | May 21, 2014 | 6:33 AM EDT

Piggybacking on Paul Waldman's "Who Do You Hate?" American Prospect post in which Waldman singled out Sarah Palin and Scott Walker for special scorn, another liberal blogger, the Washington Monthly's Ed Kilgore, reflected on the politicians ("usually, though not always, on the right side of the fence") who inspire in him "regular fear and loathing."

One of Kilgore's choices is an entire group, "the self-styled 'constitutional conservatives'...[who] don’t just want to beat progressives (and moderates) politically, they want to define us right out of existence."

Pols Worth Hating: Scott Walker Is 'Really Sinister,' While 'Blithering Fool' Palin 'Luxuriates in Her Nincompoopery'
By Tom Johnson | May 17, 2014 | 9:04 AM EDT

When last seen in these parts, the American Prospect's Paul Waldman was forecasting that if Hillary Clinton runs for president, "[s]ome Tea Party congressman is going to indulge his fantasies about torturing and killing her."

Waldman posted a somewhat more temperate item on Friday (titled Who Do You Hate?) in which he offered a few thoughts about why political activists loathe certain figures from the other side but merely dislike others. His bottom line: a politician's image and persona tend to evoke more intense hatred from opponents than specific things he says or does, though words and deeds are hugely important as well.

Paul Waldman Rant: If Hillary Runs, Can GOP Refrain From 'Fantasies About Torturing and Killing Her'?
By Tom Johnson | May 14, 2014 | 6:55 PM EDT

Republicans, the American Prospect's Paul Waldman suggested Tuesday, are a bit like Spinal Tap's Nigel Tufnel inasmuch as they "can't seem to keep themselves from...turning the accusations up to eleven" on matters involving Hillary Clinton.

Waldman discussed Karl Rove's recent "traumatic brain injury" comments about Hillary and then transitioned to the broader issues of GOPers' "infinite loathing" for HRC and its implications for the 2016 presidential campaign, during which Waldman predicts Hillary will be the target of Republican "outbursts...more shocking" than Rove's.

NYT Prints Op-Ed 'Daring to Complain About Obamacare'; Leftist Wrath Ensues
By Tom Blumer | November 11, 2013 | 5:03 PM EST

UPDATE: James Taranto at the Wall Street Journal "wonder(s) if the Times intended the article's publication as a joke at ObamaCare critics' expense." Seems like it takes too many direct shots at uncompassionate liberals for that to be the case, but readers can decide for themselves.

The guess here is that the folks at the New York Times who screen op-ed submissions for adherence to leftist orthodoxy got caught napping. After all, Lori Gottlieb has written at least one previous column on relationships, where she is described as a "dating coach," and another very long piece for the Times Magazine on patient-therapist relationships.

So when Gottlieb submitted an item entitled "Daring to Complain About Obamacare," the gatekeepers may have let it slide through because of who she is, and fully expected that an op-ed with that title would go after people with the unmitigated gall to complain about President Barack Obama's "signature achievement." Well, guess what? Gottlieb's the one who is unhappy with Obamacare, and is shocked — shocked, I tell you — that her liberal friends have no sympathy for the large sum she'll have to pay next year to stay insured under Obamacare (bolds are mine):