White House Blames Debt Ceiling Catastrophe on the People Who Tried to Stop It

I could say that liberals got Obama elected and if you don't dance with the one that brung ya you'll end up regretting it.

I could say that liberals will defend - and have defended - this administration when this administration accomplishes something liberal.

I could say that insulting and sneering at and mocking and ignoring liberals is not the best way to get them to support and compliment you.

But I'll just say that liberals don't work for the White House. We don't work for the Democratic Party. We work for the Liberal Prosperity that this White House and the Democratic Party have done so much to destroy.

We tell the truth. So we celebrate the end of DADT and the Lily Ledbetter Act and (albeit reluctantly) the Affordable Care Act and the Dodd-Frank financial "reform" act.

We tell the truth. So we condemn the Permanent War in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen, Libya, and elsewhere. We condemn budget deals that eliminate the ability of the government to provide public goods and services. We condemn an attitude that gives obscenely wealthy individual and corporations everything they want and gives the rest of us - 98 percent of the population - nothing but lip service.

We tell the truth. So we don't take seriously an administration that responds to accurate criticism with temper-tantrums and name-calling.

KeninNY at Down with Tyranny:

Really good, important column by our colleague John Arivosis at AmericaBlog, "White House blames lib groups for deficit deal debacle at secret meeting." John begins by quoting from a report by Politico's Ben Smith, usually to be trusted when it comes to enforcing political orthodoxy, "that at last night's "Common Purpose" meeting, a regular (supposed to be secret) get together between the White House and progressive advocacy groups (where the White House routinely yells at them, I hear), the groups got an earful about the President's new deficit deal."

Progressive consultant Mike Lux, the sources said, summed up the liberal concern, producing what a participant described as an "extremely defensive" response from Sperling.

Sperling, a person involved said, pointed his finger backed at liberal groups, which he said hadn't done enough to highlight what he saw as the positive side of the debt package -- a message that didn't go over well with participants.

Which, John says, "sounds oddly familiar," since he was on the receiving end of just such an admonishment as part of a group of liberal bloggers granted an audience in February 2010 with then vice presidential economic adviser Jared Bernstein, who berated liberal media for failing to persuade the nation of the wonders of the president's stimulus program.

I remember Bernstein specifically asking the Nation's Chris Hayes whether he and his paper had done enough to help promote the benefits of the stimulus over the proceeding year. Chris said that they had just done a podcast about it that day, but yes he probably could have done more. I recall jumping in and noting that Chris was the last person Berstein should criticize, as he's on Rachel Maddow every night defending the administration quite diligently.

In any case, this isn't a coincidence. They actually believe, inside the White House, that we're to blame for their problems. That they're doing a chipper job and the public would know it, but for the Netroots and the liberal advocacy groups doing such a lousy job selling the President's magnificent handiwork.

Things aren't getting better because the administration doesn't even recognize that they are -- that their boss is -- the problem.

Republicans are no longer the loyal opposition. Liberals are.