It's category errors all the way down

Offered for your amusement:

For many liberals, this is the summer of their discontent.

Already disappointed with President Barack Obama’s ability to deliver on campaign promises, they now contemplate a slowing economic recovery and a good chance of Republican gains in November — two developments that could make enacting Obama’s agenda even more difficult.

It reminds me of the age-old debate: should we continue our selfless efforts to bring freedom and democracy to the people of Iraq/Afghanistan/Kosovo/Vietnam, or is the cost to ourselves just too high?

It's all that bad—don't make the mistake I did of reading the whole thing.  Let me show you a little more of what you won't be missing:

• "Face it," [Eric Alterman] concludes, "the system is rigged, and it’s rigged against us." His essay is subtitled: "Why a progressive presidency is impossible for now."
• "It simply took too long to pass health care," says Washington Post columnist E.J. Dionne Jr. "What should have been seen as an important progressive victory didn’t feel like it was as much of a victory because it just took so damn long."

Yes, I know if they could only have passed the self-same bill about a week faster I'd be ecstatic about it.  Quite possibly orgasmic.  Blast that discouraging delay!  In fact, now that I think about it I realize that most of my complaints about the Obama administration are scheduling-related.

Trust me, your life will be richer for having missed any more of this world-class rationalization.

Comments

[Jack Crow]

Why do they rationalize?

Do they actually believe that the world can be made better by the right sort of boss?

[Rosemary Molloy]

I sneered at your warning and read the whole thing--how I wish I had listened! The quotes are so unbelievably inane. The instant O. picked Biden, "progressives" should have KNOWN what was coming--specifically about Iraq and by inference the rest of the horrors. And what about Clinton, Gates, and Emanuel? I knew the game was up, so why didn't these high-priced whores? Now they're all "just give him time," and "he'd like to keep his promises, but the people around him...," and "circumstances dictate...," and "he has to wait until the moon is in alignment with Howdy Doody..." and so on and on.

[vastleft]

I've been looking for a good term to describe this phenomenon.

Thanks for the inspiration!

http://www.correntewire.com/category_errors_error_apparent_worm

[DancingOpossum]

That Alterman piece could really be Exhibit A in the "How to be the Best Obamapologist for the best Progressive President Ever, Oh and Be Sure to Vote Dem and Send Them More Money" advanced seminar in political punditry. I read it after Digby (a site I am inexorably drawn to as if it were a bloody car wreck) pronounced it a "must-read." I knew it would be bad, but I had no idea.

And thanks for the new handle on understanding this phenomenon.

[lambert strether]

Rosemary, please don't insult whores. Biden, Obama, and the rest of the courtiers in Versailles do far more evil in an hour's time than a whore could ever do in their whole life.

[bayville]

At least Alterman is expanding his unoriginal prose to more than one word -- NADER.

Now it took him, and his ilk, 17,000 words to explain the new Prog theory: 41% is greater than 59% so we're shit out of luck. It might be me, but it doesn't have the same ring as Hope and Change.

[John Caruso]

I'd say Donald Johnson nailed it here with "theodicy"; that's why it takes 17000 words to explain that all the conscious evil Obama's done since taking office is actually just proof of the impotence of his good intentions. And believe it or not, Alterman deserves credit for brevity, since it took Liebniz many times that number of words to try to explain away his god's atrocities.

[ms_xeno]

DancingOppossum:

Obamapologist...

Beautiful.

Meanwhile, I worry if it's true that Alterman didn't go through his compulsive ritual of Nader-bashing this time around. Maybe he needs a sabbatical, or maybe he's been replaced by a space pod-person. Tsk.

[Jonathan Versen]

I thought Obama's agenda was to do all sorts of republicanish stuff and take credit for it as ersatz progressivism. Yeah, I know, hence your bolded print. (I actually like the fact that so many dems are embarrassed to call themselves liberals, because it becomes easier to explain to people that "progressive" means phoney-baloney liberal who wants to enact business-friendly legislation.)