Farewell. The Flying Pig Has Left The Building.

Steve Hynd, August 16, 2012

After four years on the Typepad site, eight years total blogging, Newshoggers is closing it's doors today. We've been coasting the last year or so, with many of us moving on to bigger projects (Hey, Eric!) or simply running out of blogging enthusiasm, and it's time to give the old flying pig a rest.

We've done okay over those eight years, although never being quite PC enough to gain wider acceptance from the partisan "party right or wrong" crowds. We like to think we moved political conversations a little, on the ever-present wish to rush to war with Iran, on the need for a real Left that isn't licking corporatist Dem boots every cycle, on America's foreign misadventures in Afghanistan and Iraq. We like to think we made a small difference while writing under that flying pig banner. We did pretty good for a bunch with no ties to big-party apparatuses or think tanks.

Those eight years of blogging will still exist. Because we're ending this typepad account, we've been archiving the typepad blog here. And the original blogger archive is still here. There will still be new content from the old 'hoggers crew too. Ron writes for The Moderate Voice, I post at The Agonist and Eric Martin's lucid foreign policy thoughts can be read at Democracy Arsenal.

I'd like to thank all our regular commenters, readers and the other bloggers who regularly linked to our posts over the years to agree or disagree. You all made writing for 'hoggers an amazingly fun and stimulating experience.

Thank you very much.

Note: This is an archive copy of Newshoggers. Most of the pictures are gone but the words are all here. There may be some occasional new content, John may do some posts and Ron will cross post some of his contributions to The Moderate Voice so check back.


----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Tuesday, May 25, 2010

We Needed A Leader And We Got Obama

Commentary By Ron Beasley



At a time when the United States and the World needed a leader we got Obama. He has demonstrated few if any leadership qualities because he can't or won't. While he talks the talk he can't be confrontational - at a time when there are many great challenges a leader needs to be confrontational. While it was the status quo that got us into the mess we are in now those who benefit from the status quo obviously want to maintain it. Obama promised change but any real changes will require confrontation.


The catastrophe in the Gulf is the latest example of a lack of leadership but the list is long. Greg Sargent:

As I noted this morning, there's been a palpable shift in the tone of media coverage of Obama's handling of the Gulf spill, with newly-aggressive news orgs raising more questions about whether the admistration has ceded too much control to BP.



The White House is very sensitive about this line of criticism, which is why Obama advisers release a daily fusillade of fact cheets, photos of Obama in action, and other such materials designed to show that he's on top of the crisis.



But it seems to me there's another solution to this perception problem. Maybe Obama should take an additional path of decisive action that clearly is an option right now, which is to use the crisis to rally the public towards real energy reform.



It has already been pointed out a million times that he's failed to use the spill to meaningfully rally the public behind the Senate's climate change efforts. What needs to be added is that doing this -- in addition to helping the planet -- could help solve his current political problem, which is that questions are mounting about his response to this crisis in particular.




And then there was Obama's alleged victory - the HCR bill. This was a Republican bill that no Republicans voted for because they didn't want Obama to have what was perceived to be a victory. With a little leadership from Obama it could have been so much more. Congressional Democrats won't go out on a limb unless they know the Democratic President has their back. A complete failure of leadership.


And then we have Wall Street and the pathetic financial reform bill that didn't address the very issues that resulted in the recession that may yet turn into a depression. There should be no surprise here - Obama's economic team is made up of Wall Street insiders - the very same people who have their fingerprints all over the economic crisis.


We needed a leader and we got Obama.  He may win a second term but only because the Republicans are likely to nominate someone who is bat shit crazy.

Cross Posted at The Moderate Voice



Posted by at
Labels: , , , ,

2 comments:

  1. geoffMay 25, 2010 at 2:51 PM

    I'm not sure the US federal gov't can actually do anything about the leak but that aside this incident seems to me to have highlighted 2 points. One, it's the impression of ordinary people, likely via science programs on TV, that, even though operating a mile below sea level is difficult, the technology is available to cap the damn thing - gads people did fly to the moon at one point. Two, the Obama campaign magic has been replaced by administration befuddlement which they hide behind excuse making.

    ReplyDelete
  2. geoffMay 25, 2010 at 3:06 PM

    Ron another sign of the seemingly befuddled POTUS (via tweet from @ggreenald) :
    http://bit.ly/9IgoHX

    ReplyDelete

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)