Whew, what a day and night we had on election day. It was fascinating watching all three cable networks covering the unfolding of an unbelievable night. What did we learn?

Well, the lessons were clear. America repudiated conservatism completely after the smoke began to clear. I think the traditional media were scared the last few months by the fire-breathing right wingers who attacked every poll result that they didn't like and actually managed to make a star out of Nate Silver. So, after many polls showed Obama leading by three points at the end, we were treated with headlines that called the election a tossup because three was within the margin of error.

But besides that, President Obama withstood terrible odds of reelection after the rise of the Tea Party and their rout in the 2010 midterms. Conservatives were licking their chops in anticipation of 2012 and who they left with their tails between their legs. Most of the right and some in the media said that Obama didn't put out an agenda for reelection, but he did propose a program built on liberal ideology, even if he doesn't consider himself one.

Obama ran on regulations for Wall Street.

Obama ran on defending Social Security and Medicare.

Obama ran on immigration reform and the Dream Act.

Obama ran on raising taxes on the wealthy.

Obama ran on letting the Bush tax cuts expire.

Obama ran on income equality for the working class.

Obama ran on Women's rights.

Obama ran on Global Warming.

Equal rights for the LGBT community.

So did our Senate candidates. The Senate was thought to be a lost cause for the Democratic Party, with the possibility of losing up to twelve seats. In the end, remarkably, Democrats picked up seats instead.

President Obama won a mandate with this victory, and don't let anyone say otherwise. Republicans have been running on a Hate-Obama platform ever since he was first elected. The fact that he won a second term after getting through a financial and economic disaster is amazing.

Greg Sargent and Digby have some thoughts too:

The good news tonight is not that the president survived. It's that we had, as Greg Sargent points out, a liberal victory:

Obama has been reelected with a resounding victory in the electoral college (the popular vote is outstanding). Democrats have routed Republicans in the Senate races. A progressive champion has been sent to the Upper Chamber in the person of Elizabeth Warren. The first openly gay Senator — Tammy Baldwin, another solid liberal — joins her. The Dem majority will be more progressive and energetic. In Maryland, gay marriage has been ratified by popular vote for the first time.

The story of this election will be all about demographics. As Chuck Todd noted earlier today, the fact that it remained unexpectedly close in GOP-leaning southern states shows that the GOP is not keeping pace with the changing face of America. Meanwhile, Obama’s support proved unexpectedly strong among workers in the industrial midwest, thanks partly to his willingness to pursue aggressive government action to save a major American industry. Obama’s team made the right bet on the true nature of the American electorate. Rather than reverting to the older, whiter, more male version Republicans had hoped for, it continues to be defined by what Ron Brownstein has called the “coalition of the ascendant” — minorities, young voters, and college educated whites, particularly women.

If the Obama team learned anything from all this it should be that they cannot be all things to all people. We disagree in this country and that's ok. This election wasn't about post-partisanship, bipartisanship or "changing the tone." This was a strictly partisan victory made up of the Democratic Party coalition.
Liberals were validated this election, and it behooves the administration to strategize their next four years with that in mind.

He's run his last race and all he has left to worry about is properly governing the country and solidifying his legacy --- and that legacy will be made or broken on how well he fulfills the agenda of those who have voted for him in massive numbers. He has a right and an obligation to unapologetically work to enact the agenda those people elected him to enact.

Fox News was going ballistic last night trying to repudiate what their own eyes were witnessing. Bill O'Reilly was lamenting the end of the white man and Karl Rove was fighting with his own network after they called Ohio for Obama. Charles Krauthammer came out spewing flames of bile as soon as he was on air and after he finished he said that Obama did not have a mandate. What complete and utter bulls*&t.

It was the liberal agenda that broke out this election. We didn't win on bipartisanship -- hell no! Republicans said that only Romney had a chance to unite this insane Tea Party Congress, so President Obama needs to ride this week out then rally the entire Democratic Party around a strong hand. Demand that Republicans work with him and not the other way around.

Liberals should celebrate because our principles were embraced by America. My God, even Brit Hume admitted that America was more liberal than he thought. So rejoice. About the only person who failed miserably was the DCCC's Steve Israel. Howie Klein breaks it down.

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Just imagine there was a giant swarm of super-super liberal freshmen in Congress. They had given the President a “shellacking,” secured a large number of seats in the House of Representatives and had been on the job for eight months. Just a bunch of lockstep liberals clogging up the Capitol. In that time, they’d done amazingly little work while cashing their government paychecks. Sure, they’re supposed to represent a nation still wounded from the worst economic disaster in two generations, instead they spend all of their time debating and passing symbolic go-nowhere bills while going on television to blame the economy on the President. That’s when they’re not on recess. These freshmen hate Washington so much they’re almost never there.

Oh, and their battle cry while doing nothing which keeps the government from functioning? “Washington is broken!”

These imagined liberal freshmen are extremists. They’ve already signed a pledge with a liberal lobbyist saying that they will not – under any circumstances whatsoever – cut, alter or in anyway change social safety nets. So whatever burning national issue of overriding importance comes up their only solution is to adhere to their lobbyist’s pledge.

The Smurfs use the word “smurf” for all verbs. As in: “I’m going to smurf you!” These extreme no-lawmakers use “social security.” As in: “We can social security our way out of this crisis.”

And they want to re-write the Constitution. Yes, they say it’s a great document (blah blah blah) but it would be much better if it were amended to suit their sole goal of bringing down the incumbent President. So since the last amendment took 203 years from proposal to ratification – they decide no one can do anything until we have another amendment.

Then the polls say that Congress’ approval rating is at an all time low. The margin of error looks more favorably on the Congress than the American public. As a direct result of the brazen incompetence and blind ideology - a rating agency downgrades the country’s Treasuries. The stock market tumbles. These liberal tea party-like folks are caught on video cheering at the news of the chaos they’ve caused.

If they were liberals - Fox News would run headlines: “Liberals Hate America.” Well, basically Fox News would say pretty much the same stuff, but in this case it would be warranted.

These liberal obstructionists would be called terrorists. Not just maybe once in a private off the record meeting with the VP – but on the record and all the time. Since these liberal freshmen would seem to have the same economic goals for the U.S. as Osama bin Laden – that would be pointed out repeatedly. They’d be accused of treason. Their loyalty would be questioned: “Are they upholding the Constitution or their pledge?” There would be calls to deport them. People would tell them to leave the country and go wreck some other economy. They’d be dubbed a hoard of Neros fiddling with their pledges while Rome burned.

If liberals were doing to the country what extremist tea party Republicans are doing – it would be called unpatriotic. A whole tsunami of sound bites would sweep the country calling for the sabotage to stop.

Liberal dissent is akin to a security breach but conservative economic calamity is given a pass. We’ve treated the tea party like they are our country’s kooky, graying, drunken uncle at Thanksgiving dinner spouting some non sequiturs he picked up on AM radio. When really they are well-funded economic saboteurs who refuse to participate in the democratic process. Their goal of causing the executive branch of government to fail means our entire country goes with it.

The media likes to pretend it treats the political spectrum as opposite equals. The right is the same as the left – the other side of the same argument. Politics is not symmetrical nor is the coverage of the partisans. Nothing makes this clearer than the coverage and tolerance of the brinksmanship-happy tea party.

If liberals did this to their own country they’d be called criminals. The tea party did do this to their own country and they are treated like avant-garde Civil War reenactors.

Eugene Robinson and Michael Gerson take on the debate over whether Barack Obama's Presidency is succeeding or failing.

Both make interesting points, though I admit that it frustrates me to see a conservative writer quote Lawrence Lessig in support of his thesis that the Obama presidency is a failure.

I have problems with both of their arguments. Eugene Robinson cites Obama's swim in the Gulf as evidence that the oil spill was handled well and is now behind us. I disagree with him, and it weakens his other arguments to use it.

Michael Gerson wants to hang the fact that the tone in Washington hasn't changed on Obama, and supposes "all that is left is to attack Republicans." Of course, he ignores the larger truth, which is that the toxic tone in DC is a direct result of Republicans' obstruction and intentional obfuscation of the very real issues confronting this country. That's intellectually dishonest, and assumes Republicans shouldn't be attacked or that they don't deserve the criticism that comes their way. They deserve more criticism, not less.

As many here have noted in comments, Obama reached across the aisle early and often, to the dismay, anger and disappointment of liberals who wanted more forceful rhetoric and action with a near-majority near super-majority in the Senate and a clear majority in the House.

It's an interesting point-counterpoint nevertheless, and certainly mirrors the same debate I've seen here and elsewhere.

I had a good time in Vegas, so I didn't spend a huge amount of time at NN, but I did spend enough time to take in the mood, and it was schizophrenic. About half the people there are some combination of angry, disappointed and bitter with Democrats in general and Obama in particular.

This group sees him as not a heck of a lot better than George Bush, and in fact the Democrat who extended some of Bush's worst policies, especially in civil liberties. This includes a lot of feminists (angry at what they see as betrayals on abortion), many Hispanics angry at the continued harsh enforcement of immigration laws, gays who feel Obama has betrayed clear promises on gay rights, anti-war activists saddened by escalation in Afghanistan and elsewhere, and a mishmash of folks who think health care reform was a dog's breakfast and that the general way the economy and financial reform has been handled is a disgrace.

Then there are the folks who would characterize themselves, in general, as hard-nosed pragmatists and "realists". These range from the "Obama is the greatest liberal president since FDR" types, who think that the Obama is just wonderful and those progressives and liberals who don't agree are simply delusional to those who feel that a lot of what he's done has been watered down pap in general but that it's certainly better than nothing and that those who are disappointed are unrealistic idealists who simply don't understand the constraints Obama and Congressional Democrats are working under.

As regular readers know, I tend to the first camp, but I'm not going to go into why, I simply want to note that this divide is very real. It's occasioning a lot of anger on both sides. The first sees the second as tribalistic sellouts, willing to excuse horrible things they would never excuse in Republicans so long as they are committed by Democrats and lacking an understanding of just how bad Democratic policy has been. These are folks who tend to sneer at the "wins" as either illusory or so underwhelming as to be a parody of the "lesser evil" argument. (Reminding one inevitably of the T-shirts which say "Why Vote for the lesser evil. Cthulhu 2008.") To many of these folks the other side are, crudely put, sell-outs.

The second side is angry at what they see as fairy-tale thinking and deeply unrealistic. "Obama couldn't fix everything immediately, but he's better than the Republicans will be if they get back in power" is their mantra, ranging from "really, he's wonderful and you're insane for thinking otherwise" to "well, yes he sucks but he sucks less than what the Republicans will do when they get in power." Either way, they see the attacks from what they consider the "purists" as deeply damaging. Democrats may or may not be a ton better than Republicans, but either way, they are better, and there is a moral case to be made for sucking it up one more time and working hard to elect, as the old progressive battle cry runs, "better Democrats". This is a two-party state, with those parties having an unbreakable oligopoly on power. Dissing Democrats just helps the even worse party win, at which point they will do even worse things. So get over your problems, whether they are with economic policy or Obama's continued shredding of fundamental civil liberties like Habeas Corpus, jump back into the trenches with your bowie knife or bayonet and fight for Democrats, not against them because by constantly bad mouthing Dems all you do is make it more likely that Republicans will win, and if they win, well, that will be baaaaddddd. Very, very baaaaaddddd.

To put it crudely and unfairly to both sides, it's the sell-outs without principles against the purists without realism.

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Cenk Uygur of the Young Turks was filling in for Dylan Ratigan on MSNBC yesterday, and had on Sam Seder and conservative blogger Matt Lewis about Netroots 2010, Right Online, and media bias.

Lewis actually started arguing that the reason liberals don't have a Breitbart is because we don't need one -- we have the whole liberal media. No, really, he said that.

LEWIS: You don't need Andrew Breitbart. You have the Washington Post and the New York Times and three tv networks. The conservatives had to invent Andrew Breitbart because of the liberal bias in the media for decades. It's only been since the advent of the blogosphere the conservatives hope to keep up.

You don't need him. You've got networks. The Washington Post and the New York Times don't run any -- whatever the liberals want them to run.
It's obvious.

It seems like only yesterday when the Times ran that investigative series exposing false intelligence and urging President Bush not to invade Iraq, doesn't it?

Yeah, I especially enjoyed the part in Citizens United's "Hillary: The Movie" where Obama says Clinton had no diplomatic experience. Thank God he won and she doesn't have anything to do with the State Department, huh?

Anyway, how amazing that not only do corporations get to pour unlimited amounts of money into the political system, they don't even have to disclose it, thanks to this new FEC ruling. Here's hoping some of those famous "Hollywood liberals" start putting some product together to counterbalance the expected flood of similar right-wing tropes:

WASHINGTON — A little-noticed Federal Election Commission ruling that expands the definition of “media" to include a partisan film production group is the latest in a series of actions eroding legislative limits on the influence of money in politics.

“We’re really returning, seemingly inexorably, toward an entirely deregulated system," said Thomas Mann, who studies campaign finance at the Brookings Institution, a Washington think tank. “It was a rather breathtaking decision."

The commission voted June 10 to designate the filmmaker Citizens United a “press entity," equating its often highly partisan work — including films attacking Democrats Hillary Rodham Clinton and President Obama — with the work of nightly newscasts.

The result, analysts say, is that the group is not required to disclose its role in sponsoring political projects or activities, or reveal the source of its funding. Thus, it becomes impossible to discern its influence in the political process.

No FEC commissioner would agree to be interviewed, according to a spokeswoman. But in defending the commission’s 4-to-1 vote, the panel’s vice chairwoman, Cynthia Bauerly, said in a statement that traditional images of the press no longer apply.

“We all used to know that ‘press entity’ meant something like ABC News," she said in prepared remarks to the commission. “Today, however, technology has changed nearly everything about media."

The FEC ruling has alarmed advocates for campaign finance rules, who say it sets a troubling precedent.

“If a self-proclaimed political advocacy group that has made some very, very slanted so-called documentaries to influence elections constitutes the press, it’s difficult to imagine what types of political advocacy groups would not qualify," said Paul Ryan, an election law specialist at the Campaign Legal Center, a nonpartisan watchdog.

Happy Independence Day! I mean that with all sincerity. A quick scroll of the posts I missed over the last week or so tells me a little hope is in order. Be forewarned: This post will not tell you how miserable our government is, or how awful our lives are, or how corporations own us all. If you were looking for that, skip over this one and look around. You'll find plenty here and elsewhere to reinforce that belief.

I am by nature an optimist. That doesn't mean I don't enjoy the snark and snipe games as much as the next guy, but my natural inclination is to see the good rather than the bad. Despite popular themes, far more good has come out of the past 18 months of the Obama administration than bad. And that good is only now beginning to hatch. Is it as good as it gets? No. Can it be better? Sure, just ask any of the folks who lost their unemployment benefits (thanks to Republicans) or have exhausted them. Even so, what I see is a half-full glass that needs to be filled more, but still offers a refreshing break.

How many of you can count the number of accomplishments this administration has actually delivered over the past 18 months? Some friends of mine are working on a detailed list now, and the number of substantial, documented, quantifiable accomplishments of this President is well over 300. So far.

300 substantial positive changes in 18 months. That's a remarkable number, certainly far more than we'd have seen if Almost-President McCain and Quitter Palin had been elected. Accomplishments that invest in present and future. Some correct past mistakes. Others seek to establish a strong foundation to build a future for us all. Still others affirm a commitment to opportunity for all of us.

Here are a few easily-forgotten examples.

• Offshore tax haven closure, which benefited rich investors, outsourcers and corporate tax dodgers. [Reference]
• Reformed Credit Card laws, adding consumer protections against predatory credit card lenders [Reference]
• Doubled federal funding for clean fuel research [Reference]
• Expanded Pell grants, enabling more low-income students to go to college. [Reference]
• Established climate change as a policy priority and set benchmarks for efficient energy standards. [Reference]

These accomplishments stand next to the ones most obvious: Turning the economy around, restoring our international standing, initiating a call for an end to nuclear proliferation worldwide, and getting universal health care passed, to name a few.

For those of you who are already sputtering "but, but, but...." and pointing out how each of the initiatives I listed or mentioned are impure, or somehow flawed from the original vision, I offer this: Legislation is an act of Congress. The health care bill, for example, teetered on the very, very edge of what was legislatively possible given the players in the House and in the Senate. One look at the vote counts should be all it takes to understand what that means. Changing one small provision could have killed the entire effort. Instead, we have a future which includes coverage for all, and subsidized coverage for those who cannot afford any health care, covered or otherwise.

All of this -- all 300 separate accomplishments -- are a down payment on future progress. This is what change looks like. It looks incremental, not immediate, and moves slower than any of us want. Some say it wears the tarnish of compromised promises. I say it wears the patina of unrivaled effort.

It is July 4, 2010. In 4 months, there will be an election. What is said today matters to that election of tomorrow. Ignoring what has been done in this short time will not win those elections. Using what has been done in 18 months to build upon a better, more progressive Congress will not only win elections, it will lay the foundation for more progress and more opportunity to rebuild what conservatives have spent the past 40 years tearing down.

Blue America is already working toward that future. If hope is kept at the forefront -- yes, HOPE -- we will make opportunities to perfect and refine the work in progress.

Hope pushed our founding fathers to sign their names to a Declaration of Independence. This country was founded on hope and optimism, not despair and criticism.

Digby is right:

I don't cut President Obama much slack --- the job is too important for that and he doesn't need patronizing sycophants --- but on Independence Day it pays to remember that the election of the first black president is still, as the Veep would say, a Big F$@#ing Deal:

I wonder too about whether President McCain would really care enough to do this for the baby turtles in the Gulf.

Know hope.

Cross-posted to odd time signatures

Bill O'Reilly has been on a mission to first destroy the credibility of Rolling Stone, that fine upstanding DFH mag, which includes the author of the piece that brought down Gen. Stanley McChrystal, Michael Hastings. And secondly, he's now attacking liberalism in general and blaming McChrystal's downfall on the idea that he's a liberal, so he deserved his fate.

And you know BillO hates Michael Hastings -- who once upon a time ran some scathing pieces on Bill O'Reilly's sexual peccadiloes -- so as usual he brings on Bernie "I hate Liberals" Goldberg to attack Michael Hastings and call him a weasel. He's blaming Hastings for ruining General McChrystal, which is absolutely ridiculous. Hastings didn't make anything up and the general and his staff have not refuted anything at all about the article.

BillO has not been able to prove that the general is a flaming treehugger -- he says so in this segment -- but that doesn't stop him from promoting the idea anyway. BillO uses Lara Logan's opinion about how the military grants access to journalists. She is shocked that there were no rigid ground rules.

UPDATE: Read Glenn Greenwald's piece on Lara Logan's response to Hastings.

That in itself is meaningless since Rolling Stone has said from the beginning that they were granted access to write their piece in its entirety. Bernie says she knows what she's talking about, but he can't prove that Hastings sandbagged the general and a reporter is not there to do PR for the military. Good for Bernie. Then Bill delves into liberal-conspiracy-land with Bernie happily along for the ride.

O'Reilly: I don't know his ideology, but when I heard that her's an avowed liberal who turned off FOX News in his office, which as you know is the most widely watched network on all the army, marine and naval bases, all over the globe by far...FOX NEWS,FOX NEWS, FOX NEWS. When he did that and I heard that,"OK, maybe his own ideology brought him down. I wonder if general McChrystal is as liberal now today as he was today before the Rolling Stone article? So I think you live by the liberal sword, you die by the liberal sword.

Goldberg: Exactly, exactly, God created irony. If you're a liberal military man and you take a liberal journalist into your confidence and then he turns around and screws you, I mean that's what we call ironic.

Ahhh, it's all so ironic, Bernie. Well, BillO and Bernie get to their own warped version of what it means to be a liberal and how the media will treat you. You see you stupid liberal military men. All liberals in the media will bring you down in a cloud of shame if you talk to them. Beware, only the halls of the NRO are worthy for you because they will protect you no matter what you say. That's real journalistic integrity. Then Bernie says in a fit of hubris that if Hastings pretended to like McChrystal to win his confidence and he knew he was going to screw him before he did the interview, then Hastings is dishonest. It's killing these wingnuts that General McChrystal might actually be a lefty. The man dubbed the savior of Afghanistan even hates FOX News.

Bill's proof that he must be a liberal is found in Marc Ambinder's piece, which says he is a liberal and banned FOX News from his office. I like him a little more if this is true, but O'Reilly's idea that he got the axe because he was a liberal is absurd as usual.

Today there's a report in CNN which has a military spokesman saying that Hastings didn't fact check some of his quotes.

But days after his ouster, one military official who worked for McChrystal in Afghanistan has told CNN that many of the controversial quotes in the article were never meant to be used on-the-record. But at no point did the official dispute the accuracy of comments about the president or other key administration officials that appeared in the article.

If you have access as a journalist to do an article then he/she is not going to refrain from including controversial comments because you suddenly realize that you made a mistake in making those comments for the record for the fact.

Bill O'Reilly then defends his own "ambush" tactics by calling it "eye to eye' and 'face to face' with someone you want answers from directly.

O'Reilly: ...This Hastings is a weasel, Bernie. He's a weasel. You know he's a weasel. This is a weasel with a capital "W"

Goldberg: I suspect he is...

And there you have it, Michael Hastings must be a weasel and McChrystal is a liberal and deserved his fate.

Stay classy, Jane:

Colorado Senate hopeful Jane Norton (R) has given her campaign website a facelift. And as part of that facelift she's hitting Barack Obama for...not going to war against Islam.

The site.. features a still frame from a new ad, attacking Obama and Washington liberals for abandoning the War on Terrorism.

The ad includes a May 26, 2010 Reuters headline saying "Obama doctrine to make clear no war on Islam."

This is supposed to be a bad thing.

As ColoradoPols put it, it's utterly tasteless:

We got to thinking about it, and it occurred to us that a "war on Islam" would actually be a very bad thing. Somewhere between leading off with that particular headline and the violent interruption of Norton's "never forget" boilerplate by the screeching of jet engines, we begin to realize that a terribly low road has been taken here.

Gee, ya think?

I started this series using Doughy Pantload as the first example of how the conservative movement supports their authors. They make sure that even if they write pure fantasy accounts devoid of reality that it sells as non-fiction, the better to persuade the less-engaged out there of their warped point of view.

Is there a bigger recipient of wingnut welfare out there than Dinesh D'Souza? He's been at the trough of wingnut welfare his entire life, writing book after book for Regnery Publications blaming everything under the sun on liberals, secularism or godlessness, and gays. At least Beck isn't trying to make believe his new book is covering historical events. Okay....maybe HE is. Bad example.

Dinesh wrote a book that blames Liberals for 9/11 and claims that Bin Laden and I have the same agenda.

Timothy Noah makes Dinesh look like fool in Slate, if you need more. Dinesh D'Souza's Mullah Envy: A leading conservative thinker blames 9/11 on liberalism.

David Neiwert and I have written a book that isn't guided by the arrogance that we are part of a superior religion guiding us into the grace of Heaven and all you non-believing gays are destroying the culture of the world. Unlike Dinesh, we prefer to write a book based on facts.

Just a few other reasons out of a gazillion to support real authors...

And buy this book.