Matt Taibbi reports from Wonderland, his favorite beat

I get a kick out of Taibbi's writing, but for the most part he's full of shit.

Make no mistake, this has nothing to do with Max Baucus, Bill Nelson, or anyone else. If the Obama administration wanted to pass a real health care bill, they would do what George Bush and Tom DeLay did in the first six-odd years of this decade whenever they wanted to pass some nightmare piece of legislation (ie the Prescription Drug Bill or CAFTA): they would take the recalcitrant legislators blocking their path into a back room at the Capitol, and beat them with rubber hoses until they changed their minds...

Sounds like a plan, right?  If only Obama and Harry Reid would follow Bush and DeLay's example?  Easy enough to do.  So if they're not doing it, must be because they don't want to do it, right?

Except those recalcitrant GOP legislators?  The so-called moderates.  DeLay's rubber hose?  Primary challenges from the Right and money.

The Blue Dogs aren't afraid of primary challenges from the Left.  I wish they could be made to be, but they're not.  And they don't have to worry about money because their rich corporate donors, like the banks and the insurance companies, are taking care of them.

Add to this the fact that when the GOP was in control of the Senate they didn't have to worry about filibusters because they could count on the Blue Dogs to vote for Cloture.

Oh, and Tom DeLay was the House Majority Leader, not Majority Leader of the Senate, and last I checked Nancy Pelosi and her crew were doing an ok job of moving things along in the House.  Maybe she's got hold of a good brand of rubber hose.

Or maybe she's got an actual majority to work with.

The fucking Senate is the fucking problem and it's because of the fucking Blue Dogs like fucking Max Baucus!

Taibbi's an insult artist before he's a reporter, and he doesn't let his reporting, which is minimal, get in the way of a good insult.  Read his book?  It's fun.  Lots of great stories.  But they're just stories.  Stories about Matt Tiabbi's adventures in whatever Wonderland he's wandered into.  He's got one source.  Himself.  All his work has one source.  Matt Taibbi.  Doesn't mean he's not right, sometimes.  Means, though, he's writing off the top of his head.  A lot.

So, frankly, I'm not impressed by anything Matt Taibbi thinks is going on in Washington or anywhere, even when I agree with him.

Taibbi blends opinion-mongering with insult comedy.  That's his schtik.  It works for him.  I can do it too.  I think a lot of people on the Left side of the Bandwidth want a good reason to hate Barack Obama as much as they hated George Bush.

Why?

Because they're psychologically more comfortable being on the outside and in the opposition.  Makes them feel like saints and martyrs.

Well, that wasn't all that funny, was it?  What I think though, and I'm just telling you what I think.  Which is all Taibbi does, says what he thinks.  Good for him.

If he can tell me what he thinks the President could do in the back room to put the fear of God into Max Baucus and what he can use for a rubber hose to beat him with, I'd appreciate it.

Probably so would the President.

Comments

[Ian Welsh]

Obama can dry up more money than you think. Baucus is a tough nut, but a lot of the actual blue dogs (Blue Dogs are in the House) are in swing districts. If Obama and the House leadership decide to dry up their funds by making it clear to outside donors not to donate, and by punishing them by witholding earmarks, and making it clear to special interests that any special interest that gives to them is on the shit-list, well, it would have an effect. There are also thing that can be done like removing them from committees and so on.

Pelosi is the Speaker for one main reason, btw, she is the best fundraiser in the House.

This is a lot harder in the Senate, mind you, but there are ways to push this through with 51 votes, and in that case, screw Max Baucus.

[Ian Welsh]

Oh, and the reason some on the left dislike Obama is because he has escalated the war in Afghanistan, wants to keep gutting habeas corpus, isn't getting out of Iraq any faster than George Bush already negotiated, thinks warrantless wiretapping is wonderful, is continuing Bush and Paulson's financial policies, and so on.

In other words, some people on the left have some integrity of belief and don't excuse someone for doing things they blamed Bush for just because Obama has a (D) after his name. They didn't work their asses off to get Obama elected so he could be Bush-lite who speaks in coherent sentences.

[Victoria]

Oh, beeeeea-uuuuuuutiful!: "Taibbi's an insult artist before he's a reporter, and he doesn't let his reporting, which is minimal, get in the way of a good insult." -- You nailed it, Mister. When I observe Taibbi's face on Bill Maher's show, I always think, "Wow. Contempt must be quite the drug for Matt."

[Apostate]

I don't take any pleasure in America's self-destruction, currently being helped along by Democrats.

I mostly think, "Don't make me feel like a chump for voting for you." Not, "I told you so." Even though I did.

[Victoria]

I saw Howard Dean at a book store talk recently. He was intellectually impressive and personally likable. Talk about Happy Warrior. He made the gracious point that, absent any meaningful input from Republicans, the Blue Dogs are playing a useful role in creating a certain kind of counterbalance in the overall funding debate, which is needed. That said, Dean insists there must be a public option and actually considers it the smart (only) way to move to single payer in the long run. He praised Pelosi, saying he admires her herding instincts tremendously. This - her ability to let the debates run their whacky and maddening course before starting to yank things into workable form - is what he gave as the reason she is Speaker. FWIW.

[Susie from Philly]

I see Taibbi's writing mostly as a course correction to the corporate media bullshit. It's pretty invigorating to read someone who's clearly on the side of working people, and frankly, I don't care all that much about the details anymore. It slows down the momentum.

And besides, every reporter has stories they know are true, but can't prove. It's one of the most frustrating things about the job.

I've had reporters like him working for me, and I had to go over everything they wrote because they were too lazy to do real footwork - they just wanted to hang out in bars and pretend to be Hunter Thompson.

But at least he's relentless in attacking people the Villagers revere.

[Dan Coyle]

And now he's yapping today, "Bush would have never done something like [take the public option off the table] just because his approval ratings had a bad summer."

Oh, fuck off, Taibbi. I can't stand it when hard lefties like you, Cockburn, Perrin et al start jerkin' it to the supposed manliness of right wing leaders, even though they support things that disgust you, they GET THINGS DONE, and that should be admired? They buck the will of the state?

Oh, go write for Nick Gillespie already, you dweebs. You're libertarians in all but name.

[Lance]

Dan, I saw that and almost wrote another post. I enjoy Taibbi's writing but this stuff about what BUSH would have done strikes me as it strikes you, macho posturing to no purpose. When Taibbi can tell us what to do about Max Baucus---that is, how to take away his chairmanship---then I'll start taking his rants against the Democrats and Obama more seriously.