Not funny ha-ha

Anyone who's read The Onion for any length of time knows it's written by mainstream liberal Democrats—not exactly a shock given that they're a group of sarcastic, well-educated literary types in SoHo.  Still, it's interesting to me to see just where on the spectrum they fit, and this squib ("Liberals Horrified By Lack Of Inexperience Among Obama Appointees") is highly instructive:

Following Barack Obama's appointment to his cabinet of several veteran Clinton administration officials and a number of others with extensive backgrounds in their respective fields, former left-wing supporters of the new president expressed shock and outrage at the combined experience and competence of his choices.

Get it?  Left-wing supporters of Obama wanted inexperienced ideologues, not seasoned Clinton administration pragmatists.  Oh, my sides!  Feel fine, that is—not sore like they might after, say, a bout of uncontrollable laughter.  Read the rest if you want, but I warn you, the laughs just never start.  Your best chance for amusement here will be the discovery that this Onion writer considers Chris Bowers and DailyKos to be at the outer reaches of the left.

Coincidentally, I happened across this just after I noticed this article by Obama voter David Sirota, in which he comes to a painful realization:

Though Obama won states like Ohio, Pennsylvania and Indiana on promises to challenge Wall Street and reform our trade policies, there has been a deliberate and calculated effort to stack the administration with the very Wall Street Democrats who created the problems he lamented, and shun those who have been fighting the good fight.

Don't get too excited, though, since Sirota's pain stems from Obama passing over venture capitalist Leo Hindery for a high-level administration position.  Still, I do at least give him credit for being willing to draw the right conclusions from Obama's appointments.

Comments

[KDelphi]

Anyone else getting propaganda (Israeli) email from dectiri@earthlink.net or cighe@earthlink.net ie "60 Min"?

[Save the Oocytes]

I'm not, I don't know about John and others. Where do you think it's coming from? Do the Truth Dogs have your email?

[KDelphi]

This is the reply I got when I asked where he got my email, and, I asked if I should publish his email address....Nader?? Shouldnt Nader know about this??? I mean, he dosent say its Nader's opinion, but,.....he says he got it "working on a Nader cqampaign in OHio"! Ralph Nader's campaign didnt give out email addresses of supporters to have them spammed like that.

I've not gotten anymore---I posted the wierd text on the thread about Iran's satellite...I guess its not a biggie--Just thought it was wierd. They prob spammed everyone who signed a petiton or something. I'm not sure my spam/virus scan is the best. He said to post his email address "anywhere I liked"!

So, feel free to "reply", I suppose!

[Save the Oocytes]

Yeah, complaining that the U.S. media is biased against Israel isn't exactly a classic Nader opinion.

John, now that I think about it, this is an argument Arthur Silber has made in all seriousness: based on what "experience" usually means in this context, the less, the better.

You get experience by ordering the bombing of brown people.

[John Caruso]

Yeah, I'm sure it had nothing to do with Nader.

Definitely agreed about experience: in my mind, what's considered "experience" by mainstream liberals (like those who apparently infest the Onion) is precisely what makes me not want someone in a position of power.

[SteveB]

The Sirota story is interesting because there's been a standard narrative among some left bloggers that online libs would just fall into line behind Obama, no matter his policies. The assumption was that liberal bloggers who objected to certain Bush policies would suddenly find those same policies to be perfectly acceptable under Obama. I'm actually starting to get a little hopeful that this isn't playing out as expected. Sirota's criticism is one indication, I think what Greenwald has written since the inauguration is another, even lib sites as low-brow as Sadly No! have been forcefully critical of some Obama policy proposals, like Geithner's proposal of setting up a "bad bank" to take all the toxic Wall Street paper.

Maybe we're not in for four to eight years of, "It must be right because the Democrats are doing it!" At least I hope so.

[Jonathan Versen]

I like the guy from the "FKN Newz", even though he sometimes seems too glib.