The Real Obama
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Progressives need to stop pretending Obama is something he isn’t. This doesn’t mean you shouldn’t pressure him from the left on issues, but the stabbed in the back narrative should have a pretty short half life.
16 Responses to “The Real Obama”
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© 2000-2011 Oliver Willis
The outrage seems to be coming from the Manicheans among us. There’s no empiricism to the “kill the bill” crowd; it’s all good versus evil, and Obama has “played” the left to get what he wants.
I agree when he isn’t going back on campaign (and subsequent) promises. That’s why we shouldn’t be surprised when he sends more troops to Afghanistan. That’s what he said he would do! But there are other areas, such as government openness and protecting personal privacy, where he is now promoting something very different than he said he would. On those items I think it is wholly appropriate to talk about broken promises.
Promising to conduct negotiations in the open and then not doing that isn’t stabbing anyone in the back, but it’s not great either.
Lieberman was Obama’s mentor in the senate but people thought he’d govern like a Democracy Now! guest because of a Will.i.am song
As is often the case, Tom Tomorrow made it all clear to me: http://blogs.artvoice.com/avdaily/2009/10/15/this-modern-world-the-idea-of-obama/
We’re now entering the surreal world where progressives attack Obama from the left for not being progressive enough while the right continues to hammer at him for being further left than Karl Marx.
Meanwhile, it gets harder and harder for Obama to push for incremental, pragmatic change that will make a real difference in people’s lives.
Obama and the Dem controlled congress effectively ended the ban on federal funding of needle exchange programs (h/t john cole) which has been in place since 1988. The ban has been in place so long I forgot it what was even an issue. And now it’s lifted.
Do you think that kind of thing is going to keep happening if progressives undercut Obama in 2010 because they thought he was going give them universal health care with the wave a wand?
As someone who is down on Obama, let’s move on to 2010 and hope to ameliorate the damage. And for 2012, let’s work to sell this crappy bill as a potential to work on. (Which it could be, but I’m not sold.)
But yeah, can we strip Lieberman now?
BTW Oliver, you no longer consider yourself a progressive? Just Chris Matthews lite?
Very sad. You should keep fighting, as I know you will. But stop trying to tell us Dems when we should and shouldn’t be pissed off by mediocrity. We need them Thor links.
I guess I have more sympathy for Obama than many. I know that when I was promoted to management some years ago I had changes in mind for my new staff, but the ‘system’ simply blocked most of my efforts. Real life isn’t always the way we image it can be.
I think that’s exactly right. I’ve not always been happy with Obama’s decisions, but the guy inherited two wars, the worst economy since the Great Depression, a huge budget deficit, eight years of lawlessness, corruption and ineptitude … not to mention Guantanamo, the Military Commissions Act, torture, illegal warrantless wiretapping … I think it’s a bit unrealistic to think he was going to solve all of those problems and revolutionize health care in his first year.
Personally, I struggle with finding the right balance between criticizing Obama when he lets us down (i.e., endorsing Bush administration positions on issues like state secrets, or failing to get rid of DADT when it would seem the time is right for that kind of change) and supporting him against the ridiculous onslaught of rightwing BS. This, I think, is the challenge for all of us on the left. We need to be part of the broader discussion on issues like gay rights, torture, Afghanistan, health care; but we can’t let our disagreements with the administration bring down Obama’s presidency. If he is a one-term president, we all stand to lose quite a bit more than the public option come 2012.
Oliver has always been a liberal centrist ALA oliverwillis.com has been online. Back in the Bush days ppl routinely labeled him a closet Republican.
That term “progressive” is fraught with problems, anyway. I was calling myself one in the 90s because “liberal” seemed to milquetoast. Then when “liberal” became a 4 letter word I started using it, in part to annoy all the newly-minted “progressives”, calling themselves that because saying you were a “liberal” was some kind of sin.
Then there was the orig. T Roosevelt Progressive Party, who I don’t think would like my kind all that well.
Politicians often sing to their wing then wiggle to the middle, being politicians and all.
But I still think Obama believes today’s answers, to today’s problems, lie on the progressive side of things. There are just too many greedy, corrupt and stupid crazies out there with too much power for our own good.
But yeah, can we strip Lieberman now?
Unfortunately, no. We’re gonna need him for cap and trade.
When did I say I wasn’t a progressive? You’d have ground to stand on if you didn’t keep inventing things I said. I’m a progressive. Am I as progressive as a lot of my readers? Nope. I’ve never pretended otherwise. I’m generally on the progressive side on issues, but I have far more in common with Al Gore, Bill Clinton and Barack Obama than I do Bernie Sanders and Denniis Kucinich.
More nonsense about progressive projection. There’s a trail, as others have noticed, including Media Matters.
http://mediamattersaction.org/factcheck/200911190006
fail
fail
fail
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Epic fail.
Sorry, this link didn’t work.
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2009/12/22/818090/-President-Obama:-I-Didnt-Campaign-on-the-Public-Option.-