C'mon, Liberals spotted Obama as slick huckster and not ready for Prime Time weakling all along and said so, even before his fans got repetitive motion wrist stress from playing the race card. (But ... but ... how can he possibly be a pushover for the RW?!?! He's black!)

The sad truth is that much of what used to be the reliably left blogosphere has spent the last ten years jockeying for relevance and access, with a concurrent goal of plumbing the unhappy (god, I hate this word) progressives for as much money as could be begged, shamed and guilted from them.  They pushed to elect as many Democrats as possible, not looking too far ahead to appreciate what it would mean to increase the ranks of the Blue Dogs.  There were rewards for their hard work, though: high traffic, interview gigs, book deals, talk-shows, transitioning over to the mainstream, and all that ooey-gooey access, complete with cocktail weenies and pats on the head from the president.  They had arrived, were being taken seriously...and then they forgot whose voices they created their blogs for, forgot principle in favor of pocketbook, believed themselves to be important at a new and intoxicating level.  Believed their own hype.

Meanwhile, back at the Congressional Ranch, Democrats failed, over and over again, to put together the kind of leadership that would consolidate whatever power the Democrats had that would maximize their leverage, instead of accommodating the many factions of the party AND the corporate lobbyists who had their own agenda; they talked a good story, but failed to deliver, over and over and over again.

So, here we are, with a Democratic president who brags to Fox about all the ideas from the left that he refuses to accommodate, and Congressional leadership that is still flailing.  I cannot think of a single occasion when Pelosi or Reid have not simply and sadly shrugged as they erased the many lines in the sand they have drawn since the 2007 Congress.  That doesn't even rise to "pathetic," and as near as I can tell, they stand for absolutely nothing - which has rendered them little more than useful idiots in enacting a Reagan-esque agenda and allowing Bush-era policies to continue unabated.

I used to think it could be fixed, that at some point they would listen to us, hear our voices, care about our votes - but they don't.  The lasting image of Dennis Kucinich frantically whipping the rest of the recalcitrant Dems to vote for a bill that he finds abhorrent - without getting anything in exchange from Don Obama - is the one that will ensure a compliant and submissive caucus going forward, with lots of ring-kissing, and that's why Obama gave him the horse's head treatment.

Chicago-style writ large, baby!  

It all stinks - stinks like a mouse that died in the wall; the choice is to rip out the wall to get rid of the mouse, or just wait for the decomp to be complete for the stink to go away.  

It's not just progressive failure in the ideological sense, it's failure to progress in the sense of advancing that ideology; it's impossible to go anywhere when you're running in circles at the end of a short leash - which, between the corporate masters and Obama's Chicago Way, is all these so-called progressives seem to be capable of.

It's tired. It's stupid. It's not even good for a refreshing eye-roll anymore.

Apropos of nothing, my first "real" job out of college was working for a hard-@ssed labor negotiator and unionizer. He always made me learn stuff cold before we began a negotiation because he'd never decide until, as he put it, "the danishes are on the table."

Sometimes I'd introduce our agenda (minus 15-30% of the demands) and he'd clean the bases when a certain threshold was met.

Sometimes he'd bat leadoff and I'd more "softly" pull them over. However, if I was the one who had his back, I always knew that we weren't far from walking away from the table.

Mr. Drama would interrupt me at some point and abruptly announce, "I think we've had enough for one day," and motion for me to pack up -- including the danishes.

Then very formally, he'd say, "Thanks for the meeting gentlemen ... and Ms. Woman and Ms. Other Woman. And thank you for the lovely pastries."

And as for you, Armando, what's up with linking to a piece that showers you in glory.

According to Greenwald, you're the only genius on the block. I mean, you're more right than Markos, but that's not saying much.

Either way, kudos. You need some self-depreciating caveat.

Talk about a candidate with principles, guts, intelligence, experience.