ProgWorld's Greatest Strategists and Negotiators

I'm being told by countless high aristos of progressive thought emanating from the AM radio and cable television as well as the world wide online political blab-o-sphere that president Obama is a terrible strategist and negotiator.

Laura Flanders, Paul Krugman (and all his little Kroogies), Robert Reich, Bill Press, Bill Maher, Thom Hartmann, Arianna Huffington, Cenk Uygur, Joan Walsh, Glenn Greenwald, Nicole Sandler, Jane Hamsher, Dennis Kucinich, Bernie Sanders, Emanuel Cleaver (the Dem House Rep guy who apparently sees the face of Satan on sandwich bread, or something like that), Peter Daou (whoever he is), and any number of other great thinkers, strategists, negotiators and general all-round swells rising from the progressive political policy and opinion miasma... have all taken special care to clearly emphasize for the public good the terrible shortcomings of president Obama's negotiation and strategy skill-set. And surely these analysts must be supreme master strategists and negotiators themselves - or at least deeply skilled and schooled in such arts - to be able to reach such authoritative conclusions. But of course! Who could question such special correspondence?

Afterall, whenever I need to hear from a maestro of strategy and negotiation I immediately think of someone like Laura Flanders or Dennis Kucinich. Especially Dennis Kucinich; what with the masterful strategic negotiating abilities he deployed while recently visiting Damascus where he masterfully arbitrated a peaceful resolution to imperious Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad's vicious crackdown on the country's dissaffected anti-goverment "saboteurs". Bravo Dennis, bravo! Somewhere in the Bab Tuma borough of Old Damascus a post office is waiting to be renamed in your honor.

Laura Flanders was on the Ed Show last night and she was explaining why the recent debt ceiling bill fiasco didn't secure the needed stimulus money required to help boost economic recovery and create jobs for the American people. She is also a master strategist and negotiator so she has a profound understanding of these kinds of things.

She also said that president Obama needs to understand that Republicans are up to no good - that they don't want to provide any stimulus money for jobs and so forth - and that the president needs to stop rolling over like a campground slattern whenever the dirty bastard Republicans want to have their way with him. Because apparently the president is unaware that the dirty bastard Republicans are trying to keep him from doing things like create jobs and stuff and are trying to force him into lewd compromising positions. Or something like that. I didn't hang on every word because I was busy sweeping up mouse shit from the floor of a kitchen closet where I keep a garbage can and a 35 pound plastic jug of peanut oil. But I caught the general drift. In any case, as I understand it, whatever it is the Republicans do it's pretty much all president Obama's fault anyway for not stopping them from doing it in the first place. And for not being a supreme master strategist and negotiator. I sure hope the president was watching the Ed Show last night so he could hear what Laura Flanders had to say - she is afterall a master negotiator and strategist who would never be caught in a compromising situation.

Unfortunately Laura Flanders - and all the other master strategists and negotiators mentioned above - have yet to tell me what exactly they would have done (had they actually been in a position to do it) to raise the debt ceiling while also securing a trillion dollars or two for economic recovery and job creation while preventing the Republican controlled House of Representatives from obstructing the entire effort.

Surely, Laura and the others could tell us all if they wanted to. But they just don't want to. Clearly, being a master strategist and negotiator requires you to keep such cards close to your vest. You don't want to reveal your master negotiator or strategist trade secrets on cable TV or on the radio or in the blab-o-sphere or else the next thing you know everyone and their twitter followers will be a master strategist and negotiators also too. And what the hell good is that?

I'm confident that if Laura Flanders or Peter Daou or Thom Hartmann or Dennis Kucinich or any other master practioners of strategy and negotiation (including the vast multitude of dirty hippy pulpit bullies and comment thread boo-chorus wheeler-dealers that populate the intertoobs) had been the president negotiating the debt ceiling deal with the Republicans we would not only have ended up with the desired clean as a whistle debt ceiling boost but there would be a brand new shiny billion dollar hemp powered supertrain hurdling its way from Trenton to Staten Island by this time next August.

A brand new supertrain passing right past Paul Krugman's home in Princeton! Because there's nothing like sitting out on your back porch on a warm summer evening in western New Jersey re-reading Essays in Persuasion while enjoying a cold Arnold Palmer with a fresh slice of lemon kush indica and listening to the distant lonely rumble of a brand new shiny supertrain hurdling by at 250 miles per hour only 300 yards from your back porch bully pulpit. Jeepers, I can't forsee any environmental or quality of life issues with something like that. Can you?

But if there are any you can be sure they're president Obama's fault. And if you can't see that by now you probably belong to a cult that thinks that Hillary looks fat in a pantsuit and hates the legacy of FDR and is against Gitmo prison pottery classes and single payer health care and homosexuals serving openly in outlaw motorcycle clubs and dirty hippies and freedom. And other stuff too.

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