Angry Black Lady speaks for me.

You see, on Wednesday I wrote a rant about the looming irrelevancy of the Professional Left aka firebaggers aka Obamabashbots. It was one in a series of screeds I have written about the destructive tactics of these self-appointed leaders of the left and their firebagger minions. It was also part of a collection of screeds written by liberals of all colors, each of whom views the attack dog tactics of the Professional Left (and the resulting rancor among the Professional Left Commentariat) as damaging to not only the President, but also the country. …

… Due to the growing sense that places like FireDogLake, Salon, and Daily Kos seemed more invested in endlessly criticizing the president than promoting a useful discussion about the ways in which liberals could advance their policy goals, people who were tired of surrounding themselves with nothing but negative commentary decided to branch off and form their own blogs. In these smaller communities, it is not considered a character flaw to express one’s support for the president. In these smaller communities, one does not have to qualify every expression of support for the president with “but I don’t agree with everything that he does.”

It is in these smaller communities that those of us who know how to walk and chew gum at the same time are able to support the president generally, while not supporting each of his policies specifically. It is in these smaller communities that people who, ironically, refuse to see everything in “black and white” are comfortable with infinite shades of gray.

Perhaps it is because of the smaller communities that have been formed over the last year that minorities who typically are ignored until we become convenient for political strategy have found our voice.

To be honest, I no longer feel connected to the Left Blogosphere community. Some of the rifts date back to the 2008 Dem primaries, when the “smart” people decided that only Hillary Clinton had a chance of winning the general election, and that those of us who preferred Barack Obama were “naive.” Or “emotional.” Or some such. This may provide a clue why so many of the same “smart” people morphed into Obamabashbots (love that).

These days, on some of the “big” sites, one may not say anything even mildly supportive of President Obama without being derided as an “Obamabot.” We may differ on which side the “bots” are on, however.

Angry Black Lady goes on to talk about the way some of the self-appointed spokespeople of the Left Blogosphere dismiss the concerns and opinions of us lesser folk who don’t get the ad revenue they do. I still haven’t gotten over the way financially comfortable Jane Hamsher, who has survived breast cancer because she had access to state of the art medical care, was so eager to kill the Affordable Care Act because it fell short of the ideal. If that Act hadn’t passed as it was, it’s insane to assume that Congress would have cranked out more progressive legislation before the new Congress took over. Killing the bill would have amounted to depriving millions of people of any hope of access to health care, possibly for many years.

When you’re the one who’s drowning, you really don’t appreciate the lifeguards wandering off to look for a better lifebuoy than the one they have at hand.

When I went to bed last night the shutdown was still looming. I can’t think of when I’ve seen the word “loom” used in so many headlines at once, in fact. So today I see there is a deal. So who blinked?

The short answer is “everyone,” since Dems already had given away a lot more than they should have. But I see this morning that the loony wing of the loony party is angry about the deal and threatening to vote against it, which is a relief. If the baggers don’t like the final bill, it can’t be a total disaster.

Funding for Planned Parenthood is preserved, and they’re angry, because punishing Planned Parenthood for performing abortions is more important to them than running the federal government. NPR and PBS were spared. I see also that the incredibly childish rider that would have blocked the Environmental Protection Agency from actually protecting the environment is out. The Dems have agreed to funding a study that would look at the economic impact of environmental regulations. I hope this study also looks at the economic impact of no environmental regulations, which I suspect would be much higher, long term.

NPR reports that the President has been more involved in the budget process than he appeared to be.

In public, Obama tried to keep it at arm’s length.

“I shouldn’t have to oversee a process in which Congress deals with last year’s budget,” Obama said as the time got short this week.

But in fact he was involved up to his neck.

It was Obama’s veto threat that made clear he would not accept the scope of spending cuts Republicans wanted. It was Obama who said he would accept no more short-term bills to keep the government afloat for a couple weeks at a time unless there was a broader deal in hand. And it was Obama who kept saying it was time for leaders to act like grown-ups.

The White House said his strategy was to stay behind the scenes, work the phones and let his senior aides do the negotiating. That hard-to-see engagement provided a huge opening for Republicans to question his leadership. And it led to rumblings from frustrated lawmakers in his own Democratic Party who wanted Obama to openly attack the cuts Republicans wanted.

I don’t think this is the smartest strategy politically, since it plays into the perception that the President is not really in charge of anything. But that’s what they’re doing.