After Downing Street Videos

President Obama is about to announce a troop escalation in Afghanistan. Though it's consistent with his campaign promises, public opinion has shifted and now, according to most polls, a majority of the American people oppose the war. Politics as usual? Is he stuck? Is there a way around the machine to create a true politics of the people?We continue our discussion with two more big thinkers. David Swanson, author of Daybreak: Undoing the Imperial Presidency and Forming a More Perfect Union and founder of AfterDowningStreet, and Mark Winston Griffith, on leave from the Drum Major Institute and former candidate for New York City Council, join Laura to talk about the way nothing seems to change in politics.Jay Rosen, New York University professor and one of the most prominent thinkers about journalism in the new media era, thinks the media are at least partly to blame for the narrow scope of discussion in Washington. Rosen is the author of What Are Journalists For? , blogs at PressThink, and famously does "mindcasting, not lifecasting," on Twitter.

After the 2008 election, a cartoon was circulated of Obama sitting in the Oval Office Scotch-taping the Constitution back together. But a year later, David Swanson, author of Daybreak: Undoing the Imperial Presidency and Forming a More Perfect Union and founder of AfterDowningStreet, notes that Obama has quietly allowed many Bush-Cheney practices to stay in place--not upholding the policies, perhaps, but issuing signing statements and hanging on to the increased power of the presidency. Mark Winston Griffith, on leave from the Drum Major Institute and former candidate for New York City Council, joins Swanson and Laura to talk about the way nothing seems to change in politics. Is there a way around the machine to create a true politics of the people? These two big thinkers have some suggestions.