Former US President Obama warns of 'circular firing squads' by progressives to Democrats

Politicus USA

Popular former President Barack Obama openly expressed his concerns on Saturday about progressives hurting liberal causes by shooting at their own Democratic allies.

At a town hall event in Germany, Obama said the overall progressive movement weakens when liberals set up purity tests and tear down Democrats who may not align with them on 100 percent of the issues.

“One of the things I do worry about sometimes among progressives in the United States, maybe it’s true here as well, is a certain kind of rigidity where we say, ‘Uh, I’m sorry, this is how it’s going to be’ and then we start sometimes creating what’s called a ‘circular firing squad’ where you start shooting at your allies because one of them has strayed from purity on the issues,” Obama said, according to The Hill.

“When that happens, typically the overall effort and movement weakens,” he added.

Obama continued, “So I think whether you are speaking as a citizen or as a political leader or as an organizer … you have to recognize that the way we structure democracy requires you to take into account people who don’t agree with you, and that by definition means you’re not going to get 100 percent of what you want.”

The former president pointed to the Affordable Care Act, which has provided health care coverage to millions of Americans, as evidence that his approach to politics has had success, even if he did have to make concessions to get it done.

“You can’t set up a system in which you don’t compromise on anything,” he said. “But you also can’t operate in a system where you compromise on everything.”

Progressives should heed Obama’s advice ahead of 2020

Liberals purists and media outlets would be smart to heed Barack Obama’s advice heading into 2020.

Already, we’ve seen far too many progressives take their eye off the ball and attack potential or declared Democratic presidential candidates for positions that may not fully pass their purity test.

This same approach hurt Democrats in 2016 when many disappointed supporters of Bernie Sanders continued to attack Hillary Clinton long after she secured the nomination, claiming there was no difference between her and Donald Trump.

After two years of this president, progressives should have learned their lesson: When you wage war on your Democratic allies for *only* agreeing with you 80 to 90 percent of the time, you do nothing to advance your causes, and you only help people like Donald Trump consolidate their power.

Healthy debate is one thing, but a circular firing squad isn’t helping the progressive movement.

I admit sound like a hypocrite on this, especially since there is one 2020 presidential candidate on the Democratic side I abhor for having WAY too much in common with our current president, current first lady, and a Republican congressman (much to the point where I'm hoping she's out sooner than later), but... he does have a point.

While it can be appreciated that those on the left hold those on their side more accountable, it's also up to a fault. You do not see THIS much dissent towards one another with conservatives and Republicans (though even they appear to have their dissenters now, it's still not as bad), and several Republicans that were formerly anti-Trump now ardently support him, which itself has severe flaws.

Even Bill Maher has similar points Obama does:

Unfortunately, there are left-wing pundits (and I'm not talking "classicals" like Dave Rubin and Carl Benjamin) that STILL advocate for such dissent. TYT, Jimmy Dore, and Kyle Kulinski being the most infamous for this.

You are preaching to the choir. Pick the best candidate. Not someone who appeals to such a niche group of people. We can not survive another 4 years of drumpster fire.

Well it's the new religion to replace Christianity as it withers and dies.

To the truly woke, there are heretics and blasphemers everywhere that have to pay for their sins.

As long as people vote in 2020 who cares? The problem last time was that people stayed home.

When there's only two parties to choose from, conflict within your own party is inevitable because a bunch of different types of people are going to be bunched in there with you.

You're the party of victims and will eat each other alive. Look at the #metoo movement in Hollywood. Vultures.

Obama is spot on

Democrats have a problem moving so far left that there is no more left to move to. And by doing it they are alienating the moderate voters that will secure them a win in 2020.

Which is also why if you listen to the state elections and the individual candidates most are not really as radical as AOC, Pelosi or Omar, they are actually much more in line with their voting base and also deal with the actual policies at hand.

The Left's a cancer. Perhaps they'll listen to Obama.....but will instead probably label him the alt-Right.

Who cares what Obama thinks? He was a willing bitch of the reps for 8 years and did jack shit them dems had the majority because he was too afraid of what the reps will say about him on Fox news.

Democratic establishment mad that they don't get an auto-win without having to actually respect current sentiments of the public.

@sonicare: What dumpster fire? How has Trump’s presidency made your life worse - or anyone else’s for that matter?

@nintendoboy16: This is just showcasing one of the bigger differences between right and left in politics.

So, Obama thinks you should vote for a Democrat even if you don’t agree with a candidate’s platforms? Need I remind you Mr Obama, Democrats are supposed to be centrists, not far leftists - that’s another political affiliation altogether.

This man was a PotUS at one point? How?

I think the Democrats need to come up with a moderate candidate. The country would respond better.

Most Democrats are not far leftists.

Why not? Happens with Republicans, because again, a good chunk of them used to hate Donald.

Um, the Democrats have a rep of not being left enough. Why do you think there are left pundits like Jimmy Dore and Kyle Kulinski that bank on it, to the point where they'll attack other liberals that vote Dem?

He's got a point. It boils down to seating arrangements or something. :P

Bonus (completely unrelated) video for the very bored:

I agree with President Obama on almost everything, but I think he is dead wrong on this one. You would think that after six years of bending over backwards trying to placate intransigent Republicans he would've learned his lesson, but no. Apparently being the first president denied a rightful Supreme Court appointment, having a record number of judicial nominees stalled or blocked, having the government shut down in order to try and repeal his signature piece of legislation even though it came from a conservative think tank, and getting absolutely no bipartisan support on legislation even though many congressmen supported his proposals didn't teach him. Oh, and there's the all the years of Democratic politicians from Carter to Clinton to him adopting conservative policy positions and still getting called socialists. Clinton only passed legislation that contributed to mass incarceration and reduced welfare benefits, but he's still a soft-on-crime spend-happy liberal to conservatives. Oh, but wait, it's those Democratic firing squads we've gotta worry about, right?

@nintendoboy16:

We've definitely seen Republicans and Conservatives do this. They've done it to people like John McCain, who they call Rino's. A term made up by the purists in the party. Sure Democrats are quick to leave people behind but we don't "turn against" them like Republicans have been doing.

He cared about his image WAY too much. He really wanted to be seen as someone who united the country. Look how that turned out.

Leftist fever dreams and white guilt.

If you make everyone into the enemy, soon you'll have nobody left who wants to listen to you, nobody to support. With the witch hunts going on against anything leftist/centrist/rightist, the democrats will lose again. And the rich will get richer and the poor will get poorer because **** real issues, we're going to focus on what color their skin is or their upbringing or their visits or their whatever and now they're all undercover conservatives who you cannot, must not vote for. Lies and deceit = winning votes for someone else. That happened with Brexit, that happened with Wilders, that happened with Trump, that happened with the AKP, that happened with FvD and it'll likely keep happening and they'll act all surprised on TV about it after counting the votes because didn't we smear them enough? Yes, yes we did. And it does not work. The only clear effect the media seems to be having in modern elections is to acquire an amount of support we've never seen before for the people they hit with their targeted harassment.

Well, Obama is wrong. The platform that the so called far leftists support are aligned very well with what majority of Americans want. Universal health care, livable wage, etc etc. The thing is, Obama supports a different group, a smaller group and his goal is to brainwash the masses into thinking their interests are aligned with his when obviously it's not. Obama represents the rich and elite, that's what he is, a puppet and mouth piece. I don't agree with how the left wants to achieve their goals, but I do agree with the spirit of it. Free health care, for the leftists is about government takeover. Which isn't a bad thing, most countries in the world do this for a reason. I think it could be much more affordable with deregulation. Lower the bar to become a doctor, open immigration channels for foreign doctors. Remove all patents on medical equipment. De regulate insurance industry to make it more competitive. Use more AI tech for diagnostics to drive down costs of specialists. Doing this would cause health care costs to plummet and it's far more affordable than government take over and keeping status quo.

The only one wrong so far is your assumption that Obama is wrong and also that random polls are an actual picture of what most Americans want.

But let´s entertain that you are right, how do you logical explain away the fact that Republicans are in control of a majority of state legislation and also Guvernatoralships and therefore vote in people who go against what you say they are supposedly for.

@theone86: Right, our politics, like our economics, has become more and more winner-take-all. The GOP will call Obama a socialist while he implements their policy proposals, so f 'em. Pursue good policy, let them oppose it, and allow the chips to fall where they may. They'll lose sometimes, but the alternative proposed by Obama and those like him is to always lose.

Isn't that what they did last time? I know there is a special, visceral hatred toward Hillary Clinton, but she's pretty moderate when it comes to policy.

People can get upset about what President Obama said, but he is right. Far-left Democrats that push away the folks that don’t think exactly like them are going to see the other side benefit politically. The same thing can be said about far-right Republicans pushing away the more moderate Republicans.

Think about the hubris AOC had implying that any moderate Democrats that did not toe the line with the ones that are much farther left were putting themselves at risk of being primaried. There are plenty of Democrats that are elected from purple and even red states.

Senators like Kyrsten Sinema (who didn’t wear white to the SOTU and applauded at certain parts of Trump’s speech) and Doug Jones do not have the same luxury as senators like Kamala Harris or representatives like Nancy Pelosi, those people from red and purple states have to at least try to compromise with their red base if they want a chance to be reelected versus politicians in areas that are so overwhelmingly blue that the opinions of the few red voters in their area are irrelevant.

It’s the same reason you can look at Maryland’s governor Larry Hogan and see why he is not nearly as far to the right as many other Republicans, Maryland being a blue state would quickly vote him out of office if he sided with the president too often.

Some of you need to get out of your echo chambers, just because everyone you know personally and most of the people that post in your favorite online communities think like you doesn’t mean a majority of voters think the same way. That is part of the reason so many people were shocked Trump got 63 million votes and why they are shocked his approval rating isn’t currently in the single digits, they only listen to people that agree with them and dismiss everyone else.

And Obama. But, you know, he's a radical socialist because... reasons?

@Jacanuk: @Jacanuk: Republicans are in control because redistricting, redrawing maps to favor them and immigration fear mongering (which is right). In fact it's so lopsided now, 2 Dem votes equals 1 republican vote. Even worse, the con jobs stacked the supreme Court and this was a direct result from the backlash against the main stream elite. People despise Hilary's type, and unfortunately the Democrats are filled to the brim with these snake trash politicians. They simply represent the rich and elite. They have the money and campaign for other rich and elite. Nobody likes them, nobody wants to vote for them. And to be honest, if the Dems try to force their scam 'centrist' policies, they will lose period. They need to go back to representing the middle class not the rich. The middle class wants universal health care, affordable education and other progressive policies, and the polls back it up.

So, if the Dems continue catering to the rich, which is really what the snake sellout Obama means when he says, 'compromising and sacrificing', they will continue to lose, 2020 and beyond. The country will turn into a giant sht hole but so be it if that's what it means.

If the Dems nominate another snake elite, for sure the Dems will be split and a big chunk of progressives will be voting trump#2020.

P.S, the college cheating scandal was perpetrated by a bunch of registered dems. Including Lori Laughlin, a proud democrat. The hate against the liberal elite is at an all time high, again nobody trusts them

Kulinski's mentality, which involves splitting the left further, doesn't help either.

That is a lot of speculation and if you want to provide actual proof of that and dispute elections with actual facts and evidence, then, by all means, make a new thread and we can take it there. (and before you spout links, make sure they are of actual proven facts, not speculations"

But to get to the core, the facts are more that republicans actually vote because they care about their rights, where especially the far-left younglings don´t really care enough to spend a few hours voting or getting registered so they can vote.

@mattbbpl: Yup, yup. We might take some losses in the short term, but if we keep compromising to the point where we're not accomplishing any of our policy goals ever then what's the point of winning?

And where were all of these sensible centrists when it was time to vote against Trump? What did nominating one of the most non-confrontational centrists get us in 2016? It got all you pricks on the right calling us stupid snowflakes and laughing about how you voted for a grossly incompetent candidate in order to "own the libs." If there was ever a chance to test out your theory, 2016 was it. You had an outgoing Democratic president who spent about three quarters of his time in office bending over backwards to compromise with Republicans and talking non-stop about reaching across the aisle, only to be met with people who refused to compromise because they wanted "to make him a one-term president." You had a Republican nominee who not only had zero experience in government, not only had declared bankruptcy several times, but had myriad personality issues and a complete lack of decency that were apparent to everyone on the planet. And you voted for the incompetent clod over the qualified woman who just so happens to be on your side on several significant issues (such as foreign relations with Israel). If you think that proves that there are a bunch of well-reasoned centrists just waiting for a decent candidate then you are delusional. It proves that even when Democrats swallow their pride and nominate a centrist, even when they go out of their way to compromise, Republicans are still going to keep running ever further to the right and their voters won't call them on it. Your vision of how American politics works is laughably outdated.

And LOL at a Fox News viewer talking about echo chambers. Your entire life is an echo chamber.

"Owning the libs" may have been the goal of some people that voted for Donald Trump, but most others voted for him because they felt he would try to accomplish what they wanted. Why would someone that wants immigration laws enforced vote for a candidate that is talking about amnesty? Why would a pro-Second Amendment person vote for a candidate that wants tougher gun laws? Why would a person that watched their coal mining jobs that have been going away vote against the candidate that says he will try to bring them back? Despite Trump's lack of government experience, he was able to beat over a dozen establishment Republicans in the GOP primary and a former senator and Secretary of State in the general election.

I talked about AOC's hubris, it seems like you are suffering from the same issue. Compromise is a reality of politics, Democrats simply do not have the nationwide numbers to take a super-majority in Washington like they did in Sacramento. Taking the position "f the right, and only settle for absolute authority" will just make it worse and will hurt Democrats in purple and red areas in the polls. "Basket of Deplorables" was Hillary Clinton's 47% moment, no matter how much you may or may not have agreed with her. You can question Trump's moral background, but he had the advantage of not insulting the majority of people that he was trying to get to vote for him. If Barack Obama was elected twice with the highest and second highest popular vote total in history respectively, that should tell you Hillary wasn't the best candidate and a stronger candidate probably would have beaten Trump.

Get a little bit of self-awareness, your posts come off as completely unhinged in how mad you are at people you assume to be Republicans over the fact that they dare not agree with you. I've lived in red and blue areas, and I have friends that think Trump is the best president in the past 30 years and other friends that think Trump is tearing the country apart. Your post shows who lives in an echo chamber when you pretty much imply that the only people that voted for Trump are bigoted morons too stupid to realize that Hillary Clinton was going to be their savior and that they should just roll over and vote blue for the rest of their lives no matter how little the candidates try to cater to their needs. A man that works behind a desk in New York City does not have the exact same needs as a person that works on a farm in the middle of Oklahoma.

Obama is 100% correct but **** corporate democrats.

ACCELERATIONISM

Wow, you are delusional beyond compare. You start out saying that people who voted for Trump are completely vindicated, even though he was historically unqualified, because he promised to support their partisan policy preferences. You then go on to lecture me about compromise and tell me that if me and people like me don't choose candidates with policy positions we disagree with we're going to be hurt electorally. Talk about cognitive dissonance. You just proved my point for me, if compromise was a reality of politics then we wouldn't be sitting here with an unqualified nut of a president who refuses to compromise on anything, to the point where he's constantly firing his own appointees for not following his diktats. If compromise was a political reality then the party of the president who was consistently compromising wouldn't have lost while the party of the Senate majority leader who was consistently standing in the way of compromise won. You're not really saying "compromise is a political reality," you're saying "gimme my way, or you're going to get hurt," like the entitled conservative baby you are.

And Hillary was wrong about the basket of deplorables. It wasn't just a basket, all Republicans are deplorables. Seriously, all I can remember you doing for as long as I've been alive is being angry about one thing or another. You have an entire cable network dedicated to peddling anger. When that wasn't enough, you started an online news network dedicated to peddling anger AND conspiracy theories. And when that wasn't enough you started another online network dedicated to peddling even more far out conspiracy theories. And that's all in addition to the robust blogosphere and conservative radio network dedicated to peddling, hmmmm...let's see, what was it? Oh yeah, more anger. And you're going to come in here and accuse me of being unhinged? You're the one who has a total lack of self-awareness.

I didn't say anything about them being vindicated, I told you that the idea that they would vote for someone that doesn't care about most of their concerns out of some moral obligation to go with the so-called "more qualified" candidate (Hillary Clinton) is completely overlooking their possible reasons for going with Trump instead. Your total disregard for the opinions of people with different political views as you is obvious, especially with you claiming that Hillary was only wrong with her deplorables comment because she only directed it at a fraction of Trump supporters rather than all Republicans. How in the hell do you expect any reasonable person to even entertain compromising with you when you already admitted that you don't care about their opinion because you view yourself as morally superior to them?

If Donald Trump loses in 2020, I will wish the new president-elect luck and support them just like I supported Barack Obama as my commander in chief for eight years. Will you do the same if Trump is reelected, or are you going to have a meltdown and go into a bunch of rants about how racist and wrong the people that reelected him are? If you want to talk about unhinged, look at how the media reacted to the Muller Report, with Rachel Maddow on the verge of tears over finding out that the most powerful elected man in the country wasn't compromised by Russia, or how they are demanding a completely unredacted report made public, grand jury and classified information be damned, while ridiculing the same thing being done with reports that targeted Democrats accused of wrongdoing.

I can look at Democrats like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez as people I disagree with politically, but someone I genuinely believe is doing what they think is the morally right thing and the best thing for the country. How do you view Republicans that aren't in total agreement with the president but claim that they want the best for the country? I'm sure I already know the answer to that but I'm willing to be proven wrong.

@nintendoboy16: But AOC's rise came from the conflict between establishment Democrats and working class progressives. The centrists seem to not want to acknowledge this rise and address the fact that polls are showing more support for progressive policies.

And in less than a year, AOC has turned the NY establishment on its head.

https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2019/04/08/alexandria-ocasio-cortez-new-york-226578

Really, its the establishment center than needs to do the listening. The Dems do have a problem right now and it showed in 2016.

@ad1x2:You are selling AOC (or people like Ro Khanna) short here. She is not going to get moderate Dems in red areas in primaries, she is targeting corporate moderate Democrats in safe blue seats. Thats who the Justice Dems will go after....like this guy.

https://www.opensecrets.org/news/2019/04/progressive-group-to-primary-pac-friendly-texas-dem/

Its a very smart strategy, and one that can work. And many of these Joe Crowleys need to go down.

And really, if Sanders, Harris, or Warren is the nominee, the party will actually be less fractured than with Biden. Sanders actually polls well in working class white areas so far.

And it was the issue on trade, not Hillary's comments, that did her in. She lost because of rust belt politics more than anything else. These areas are now paying the price. Sanders was polling better against Trump not only nationally in 2016 than Clinton, but in these areas.

President Obama has been installing Democrats judges when Democrats has senate control (112th United States Congress). There's something wrong with the entire system when a country turned into "country of political judges".

His SC justices were not installed. Also why the hell do you think trump won? To install justices. Double standards should not be a way of life dude.

Regardless of what backpedaling may have happened after the fact, AOC’s threat was aimed at any Democrats that failed to stay within party lines. It was more specifically in response to the gun vote that allowed authorities to report illegal aliens that attempted to buy a gun, and she didn’t appear to take into consideration the Democrats that need red voters to stay in office. She takes her heavily blue district for granted in assuming they can do what they want and not get voted out of office in favor of a Republican as a result.

Playing it up as a moderate didn't seem to do Obama any favors in getting policy through congress (ACA sucks) or getting Clinton elected.

It's funny because there is genuinely a lot to criticize Republicans on but you can't do that without also pointing out the Dems are just as guilty. Aggressive foreign policy, world policing, corporate favoritism, money in politics, etc.

Feels like establishment Dems and Repubs would rather keep their hold on fiscal policies while they play tennis over social issues.

I don't want Biden or Kamala or Beto. Give me Sanders or Warren.

"I didn't say they were vindicated, I'm only saying they're vindicated." What you just said is vindicating them, thank you for proving my point for me.

I didn't say I was morally superior to them. Stop building strawmen to knock down. I said that there was a perfectly competent centrist candidate in the 2016 election, and she lost to the fringe candidate who was openly divisive. YOU'RE the one who brought civility into this conversation in the first place. Don't lecture liberals about being civil and then act like we're being snobbish for pointing out that Trump is completely uncivil twenty four hours a day. Your hypocritical bullshit is seriously giving me a headache right now.

The Muller report didn't say Trump wasn't compromised, it said they didn't find enough evidence to prosecute him. In fact, we don't what the Muller report said because Trump's flunky won't release an unredacted version of it to the public. You would know this if you weren't living in a Fox News bubble, which is ironic considering you accused me of living in a bubble. Hypocritical bullshit.

You don't want what's best for the country, that's just the bullshit you feed yourself in order to justify your cynical power grabs and inhumane policies. Just because I don't kiss your ass and call it chocolate doesn't mean I'm intransigent or uncompromising. We liberals have been compromising for decades. I supported President Obama full on throughout his presidency. Every time he decided to adopt conservative policies in order to win over conservative support, every time he decided to have a beer with a cop who profiled a black man, every time he treated Republicans as trustworthy bargaining partners, and what did I get for it? I got absolutely no action on any of the policies I cared about because of intransigent Republicans, I got a massive shift in the court system towards conservative dogma because of Republicans gamesmanship, and I still got called a communist and socialist for advocating for even the most moderate of policies. I learned my lesson, you people are not to be trusted. Not one goddamn inch. You don't mean what you say, and you don't care about anything but getting your way. You can run your mouth all you want about respecting politicians you disagree with, but I don't buy it. Actions speak louder than words. When you actually start supporting moderate candidates ON BOTH SIDES I'll believe it. When you speak out against divisive figures like Donald Trump instead of offering up excuses for him I'll believe it. When you actually sacrifice your policy views in order to oppose an uncivil candidate I'll believe it. Until then, every word out of your mouth is. Just. Hypocritical. Bullshit.

And BS on you supporting President Obama. I was in this forum throughout most of his presidency. I remember what you said about him, I remember the way you treated him. You are a complete and utter hypocrite for spewing all the Fox News BS you could about him during that time, and then turning around and saying you supported him.

No, President Obama was appointing qualified judges, full stop. There used to be a consensus in this country about what a qualified judge was, and there were well-accepted norms for keeping fringe candidates off the benches. Judicial confirmation used to be a fairly bi-partisan process. Then Republicans woke up one day and decided that wasn't working for them, they needed to install judges who were ideologically aligned with them. So they went about blocking and stalling judges who didn't share their ideological views, which is a blatant politicization of the court system, which blatantly goes against what the court system was supposed to be in the Constitution. There were no Democratic judges and Republican judges before Republicans politicized the courts.

This......

Centrism got Trump elected, led to the Brexit crisis, and the yellow vest protests in France.

However I do like Kamala to a degree and would easily support her. I do think she would be the only one to pick up the entire Democratic coalition. Biden is planning to campaign about going back to the Obama days, seriously. Not even Obama wants to go back to the Obama days. And AOC just threw shade on Biden's campaign...ouch.

Beto.....ugh. I do like what he said about Netanyahu though, I will give him that.

Your words betrays your feelings, you can say all day that you never said that you are morally superior but the way you reply to other posters reveals your outright disgust with Republicans. You said it yourself that Hillary Clinton was wrong because she called half of Trump’s supporters deplorables when in reality all Republicans (not just Trump supporters) are deplorable.

You may want to relax before you type, while I don’t agree with many of the other posters here most of them seem pretty civil in their answers. I can’t say the same about you.

Blah, blah, blah, absolutely nothing of substance, some bullshit about civility (old Nazi trope, BTW), blah, blah. Thanks for proving my point. And the whole bitching about the deplorables comment would be a lot more convincing if you didn't support a politician who spends 99% of his time insulting other people and trying to trigger the libs. Don't like the deplorable comment? Then go find a safe space, snowflake.

https://www.haaretz.com/us-news/.premium-america-s-fear-of-incivility-appeased-nazism-we-can-t-go-there-again-1.6220593

I'm just speaking facts, your posting history speaks for itself. But then again, why should I care what some white guilt-filled SJW on GameSpot thinks of me? It's also funny when you try to take back snowflake (something I never called you) while calling me a Nazi because I don't agree with you politically and you complained repeatedly over the fact that half the country was too stupid in your opinion to elect Hillary Clinton. Don't you have a sky to scream at?

You can call me a deplorable and Nazi all you want it if makes you feel better. Since I'm black, you can add Uncle Tom, house n***** and sellout to the list as well, right after you virtue signal by writing my repatriations check for some things your great-great-great-great grandparents may have did to my great-great-great-great grandparents. Or do I need to register as a Democrat first?

You've never spoken a damn fact in your life. If you want to speak facts then why don't you just speak them instead of blathering on and on about how you speak them? Oh right, cause you're full of shit.

And I didn't call you a Nazi (more bullshit from you, what a surprise) I said that bitching about civility is an old Nazi trope, and I provided a link to solid proof of that fact. Who's spitting facts now? Not you.

Once again, Obama is doling out sage advice with a healthy dose of reality.

The more I read about what is going on with the Democrats, the more I realize exactly what happened with the Tea Party-takeover of the GOP is going to happen with the Democrats; they're going to keep paying lip service to the extremists in the party until eventually they get someone who they think can't possibly win and then *bam* they're going to win.