The Democratic underwhelmed (Erin)
Tuesday December 9, 2008
Categories: Barack Obama
It was bound to happen: people were going to criticize President-elect Barack Obama. It's hardly surprising, given the divided, partisan nation we live in. Except that the latest batch of critics is complaining that Barack Obama isn't nearly liberal enough...
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About Crunchy Con
Rod Dreher is an editorial columnist for the Dallas Morning News, and author of "Crunchy Cons" (Crown Forum), a nonfiction book about conservatives, most of them religious, whose faith and political convictions sometimes put them at odds with mainstream conservatives. The views expressed in this blog are his own.
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Those of us who read his policy statements and looked at his advisers are not surprised. We expected a centrist, pragmatic President. The most liberal in the Senate charge made no sense if you ever took a course in statistics. Now, what he does after choosing his team of moderates remains to be seen. I voted for Bush too.
It's interesting how sometimes we just hear what we want to hear. I think this was sort the case for me and President-Elect Obama. I read a lot of his book and listened to him quite a bit on the campaign trail. A lot of what I heard sounded pretty good. Most appealing to me was his Centrist leaning call for a more practical politics. I heard Centrist connotations over and over from the President-Elect. So therefore, it is not surprising to me that he is choosing cabinet members who show he is just that. As for the right-wing conservatives, they heard socialism/Marxism connotations, and as for the left-wing liberals, they heard…well I guess maybe they heard the same thing as the right-wing conservatives but they liked it.
Obama was caught on video promising ACORN, of all people, that they would be invited to directly help establish his administration's agenda, if elected. Wonder if he'll drop that one? We can only hope....
It's interesting that EVERY democratic Presidential candidate is automatically labeled the MOST liberal Democratic candidate EVER. Thanks for falling in line there Rod.
Jay Severen with a small member: The person you are criticizing for "falling in line" has a smaller member than you.
Sorry. That should have been "Severin."
(Hint: Erin wrote the column)
Obama's being criticized by the Pacifica Radio-listening crowd who wished for an orderly transition to socialism. Their criticism of the President-elect confirms the goodness of my vote for him. I'm just glad that the adults are in charge again.
You mean all those people who were so sure (and didn't like it) that Obama was this socialist, Marxist, 'most liberal Senator ever' might not have been.. exactly correct?
Note, it isn't like the first time he didn't do something totally flaming liberal that this group complained. It was after actually appointing several /REPUBLICANS/ to his cabinet, as well as mostly centrist Democrats (amazing, after losing the primary, how suddenly Republicans started realizing that Hillary Clinton was actually a moderate Democrat..) that they are wondering if ANY of the more progressive wing was going to be part of the cabinet.
Once again, it isn't like they were complaining the minute Obama appointed someone who wasn't far right was so much as vetted, they didn't complain after even Republicans were appointed, before starting to grumble.
Let's see... he was going to be a SOCIALIST, so people freak. Now he's being criticized for being too much of a centrist? And its people on the OTHER side who are gloating over this?
Hey, its fine by me if he dumps the Republicans on his cabinet (not that I expect the President-elect, regardless of whom, to be listening to me..), but is that what YOU are hoping for with posts like this?
Or is it just confirming that he really COULD walk on water, and the Republicans would be claiming it is because he couldn't swim?
BTW, if they really thought he WAS the Messiah, then they'd be making excuses and NOT criticizing anything he did.
John and Baden Fox have it right. The perpetually aggrieved, whether they are on the right or left, will always find something to complain about. Barack Obama's presidency was never going to be any exception to that.
That having been said, a lot of the claims of a vast left-wing disappointment with Obama are overblown. For example, various news articles have talked about disenchantment with Obama on the part of the liberal netroots who write at places like Daily Kos, while if one actually reads such blogs, diaries and articles satirizing the purists who complain about Obama are more popular than the articles from the complainers.
It’s a tactic of the Liberal Establishment to decry as “centrist!” all the people who will predictably move the country to the left.
They will move the country to the left, but we’re supposed to be relieved that we won’t transform into Zimbabwe by next week.
Progressives have high expectations after been left out in the wilderness so often, even by their own party. Social conservatives should understand this feeling since they make the same complaints about their own party. In fact, progressives are the social conservatives of the Democratic party.
Obama is a center left leader. Anyone who was honest and paying attention would know that. Progressives have an agenda, but it may not be their time given the economic crisis and the wars.
Oh whatever. I'm still glad that I won't be told that I hate America every time I criticize Bush.
Obama is a Socialist and probably a Marxist! As far as the cabinet selections, easy come easy go. Don't be lulled by this guy, be ever vigilant. He will eventually start ramping up the opacity.
I only know little bits and pieces about Obama's cabinet. But if he is going towards a Centrist cabinet, more power to him.
Just another example of how selfish we are in this country. We want everything our way and we want it NOW. Nevermind the fact that it took Reagan nearly 5 years to get his economic policies to produce something. Lord Have Mercy! The guy hasn't even come into office yet. They expect him to move mountains before he even has his first shovel.
Not to mention the fact that those groups who are complaining have no idea what they really want or what is truly in their best interest.
IW is right about remaining vigilant and skeptical, but Obama is not even close to being a Socialist - and even if he was, he doesn't deserve to be burned at the stake for it.
"Obama was caught on video promising ACORN, of all people, that they would be invited to directly help establish his administration's agenda, if elected. Wonder if he'll drop that one?"
He promised me that I (and all Americans) could have a part to, "directly help establish his administration's agenda," too. Should he drop that one as well?
C'mon. Can the guy Serve 90 days before we start throwing him to the wolves? GWB got 6 years...
Change.gov - if you don't like something, tell someone who is actually listening! (for the first time in nearly a decade)
What is it? Day -35 of the Obama Adminstration? He's not even president yet!
Actually, people began writing about "the failed
Bush presidency" before he was even inaugurated. But at least it was Democrats saying that.
I highly doubt if Mr. Obama will listen to what I have to say. But I intend to be in Washington DC on Jan 22 to say it with about 100 thousand other people.
Susan Peterson
Fake right.
Head left.
Obama's books are full of this sort of thing. He'll make a few genuflections to right-leaning arguments, sometimes rephrasing them better than the rightists do, and then he'll come down on the leftward side of an argument. I expect his governing style to be much the same. Right now he's trying to secure some maneuvering room for later one. When he pushes a more radical program down the line, he can retort to those complaining that he's a leftist, "Look, I appointed Hillary (!) and Gates."
Unlike Bush, Obama isn't going to be run roughshod over by his cabinet and advisers (and VP). He actually appears to care about policy, which is something that Bush never did. (Seriously. I'd be surprised if a single idea out of the White House had originated in Bush.)
So Obama's going to direct his staff. Hillary Clinton isn't going to run around threatening other countries with war without his approval. And Gates is going to withdrawal from Iraq, that's the whole reason he's staying on, to provide cover to that 'decision'. (Which ironically is no longer a decision, considering Iraq has kicked us out.)
It is mildly ironic that Clinton lost the primary due to her Iraq war vote, and she's being put in charge of State, but Clinton is not, and has never been, a warmonger, she just got tricked into a bad vote. Which has always been her (and Bill's) problem, she triangulates and panders too much to the middle, which could be a problem if Obama leaves her hanging out in the wind without direction, but I doubt that will happen.
I find it interesting that, for some reason, the right is trying to play up the idea that the left is disappointed in him (Hint: We're not.) for not being far enough to the left, when two months ago the right was screaming that he was the mostest liberalist person evar and once he got in he'd turn openly communist.
Do you not see how silly that makes you guys look? Obama is a fairly centrist Democrat, and everyone who actually listened to him during the election knew that.
I personally wish he was further to the left, and was for Edwards because Edwards was slightly further that way, although a) Edwards pushed the discussion to the left in general (especially WRT to the poor and health care) so it wasn't as bad at the end, and b) I'm glad he didn't win because of the affair thing that came out. But I know pretty well where Obama stands, or at least claims to stand, and it's about where the American people in general stand, aka, in the right half of the Democratic party.
I also love the idea that somehow the left has devolved into a dozen groups all pushing their own agenda, and hence Clinton is the 'enemy' of Obama or whatever. Just because the left doesn't like Clinton as much as Obama doesn't mean they are mortal enemies at each other throats. They agree on 90% of the same stuff.
You guys are projecting the problems of the divided right onto the left. We don't have three or four groups that are totally opposed to each other and fighting for control of the party. We just have a perfectly normal primary race over mostly identical positions, it wasn't various parts of the party fighting other parts. Maybe the Clinton machine fighting the Chicago machine, but it wasn't a fight over principles.
Now...Democrats in Congress we're pissed at, and have been for two years. Because they are weak-willed President Bush Yes Men.
Obama's not liberal? LOL!!!!!
No, he's a radical liberal. But even liberals have to deal with reality, and reality is that Obama doesn't know ANYTHING about governance or running something. So, he's been grabbing up Clintonistas. For whatever the have for values, they "have been there before", and he hasn't. And they are the only pool of "left of the aisle" people with "experience" there are.
I suspect he's been given a few security and other briefings at White House and blanched whiter than Bush has ever looked and decided the old boys doing security weren't that dumb after all.
In reality, liberals and conservatives want similar things... domestic security, a level of prosperity, etc. Just because Obama's had a few hundred "OH MY ***" moments, and has probably adjusted his policy stances a bit, does not change his inherent belief in the superiority of government over the people and over the private sector. He is STILL a hard left liberal. But even liberals, if they have a brain, will end up being confronted by the emptiness of their own ideas and adjusting them at times.
Also, If we're to believe Toe Sucker Morris, Obama's engaged on a party control strategy, not a governance strategy. Thus, you put key possible troublemakers in places where you've got thumbscrews, and you control the party to control the government.
In reality, Obama's an ideologue with no practical experience. His only option is to slide sideways into where Bush is and work from there. He hasn't the capacity or capability of synthesizing a governance policy and structure on his own.
"Progressive Democrats of America? Isn't that an oxymoron?"
I'm sorry, but I think the fact that your party gave us George W. Bush kind of cost you your right to pot-shots like this. I don't have any love for the extreme left, but your and yours on the right are certainly no better.
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