Progressives vs. The President

[HopeOverFear]

Bob Cesca...

Some very prominent members of the progressive movement have taken a punitive approach, not only towards the president but even towards allegedly disloyal progressive members of Congress. You've read all of the various descriptions of this movement. The kill-billers. Activists and writers who have a penchant for suggesting that the president is too similar to George W. Bush. Some have promoted the idea of pressuring Bernie Sanders with a primary opponent, while others have suggested that maybe progressive Democrats in the House should return their donations as punishment for (eventually) voting for health care reform without a public option. Some have attempted to team up with wingnuts like Grover Norquist and Dick Armey's tea party movement to attack the administration, as if this will somehow help progressivism.

Just a year into the Obama presidency, these activists and writers have over-emphasized the president's mistakes while almost entirely ignoring the very respectable list of his progressive successes. Almost as if they never happened. I can't seem to pinpoint exactly why there's an almost deliberate ignorance about the president's positions.

Every day, you can find progressive screeds about how the president is "just like Bush" because of trespasses as wide-ranging as Afghanistan to the individual mandate. In one case, the president is wrong for doing what he said he'd do, in the latter case, he's wrong for changing his mind. It's worth noting that the progressive primary favorite in the 2004 election, Howard Dean, was just as hawkish about Afghanistan. And more recently, the progressive primary favorite in 2008, John Edwards, supported individual mandates. Yet the president is a sell out for enacting these positions.

Okay, then. To each his or her own.

But here's the mistake. As a movement, we'll never succeed in moving the nation leftward by engaging in dumb, kneejerk politics and by demonizing a president who is arguably the most sympathetic to progressivism in generations.

Yes, to repeat: the president isn't flawless. He clearly could be more progressive on a number of fronts. But as a movement, we could be more effective with how we get him to do that.

[SeattleGirl]

1. I love reading Cesca, but he apparently never got the memo

that said once we voted for Obama, we didn't have to do anything else but sit on our asses while Obama did everything we wanted, when we wanted, and how we wanted. What does he mean "we" could be more effective? *stomps off in a huff*

:sarcasm: of course. I think Cesca is spot on here.

[HopeOverFear]

2. lol

[goclark]

3. k

[cliffordu]

8. I wish I could kick your response along with kicking the OP.

Great response.

[SeattleGirl]

11. .....

Thanks!

[TicketyBoo]

4. I wasn't aware

of Dean's and Edwards' positions, but it hardly matters. As I keep saying out there, we elect a president to lead, not to do our bidding. No president is going to please everybody all the time.

I do NOT understand why they won't cut Obama some slack, but, luckily, I think he expects the rabid criticism. Unfortunately, we did NOT expect it (at least, not to this extent), so it hits us pretty hard.

[CTLawGuy]

7. did you know

that, as governor, Howard Dean got an A+ rating from the NRA, balanced the budget every year and was a member of the DLC? I bet a lot of our buddies with Dean avatars do not know that.

[quiet.american]

5. You know when Keith O. lost me?

When he decided to do a special comment on Afghanistan the night before Obama's speech. He did not even give Obama the benefit of presenting the why and how of his decision before he pontificated on what he thought it was going to be about.

Another area in which Keith was "out of it," to me was healthcare reform. Even as he was extremely generous in funding the free Health Fairs, he took a very cynical approach to the bills, sometimes even outright getting stuff wrong about what was in it or not. Wouldn't a fairer/better use of his platform have been to have his staff take look at some of the patients featured in the health fair segments and see how they would have benefited once the bills passed? Maybe he did do that and I missed it, but I don't think so.

When Maddow did her segment on Afghanistan, she was all set to go with what appeared to be a well-worked-on theory as to how Obama was now using a "pre-emptive" strategy a la Bush. The fly in the ointment was when U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice looked her in the eye and said "Rachel, you're talking like all this (training camps, Al-Queda cells, Taliban, etc. in Afghanistan) is hypothetical. This is not hypothetical. This is real." Rachel looked like a precocious ten-year-old who'd just come across the first adult who didn't think she was cute. And I don't say that to "rag" on Rachel, because Lord knows the woman is in general a go-to for the facts, ma'am, but why did she think the best use of her intellectual prowess and platform was to try to show how Obama was just like Bush?

But I'll say this about some responsibility resting with the WH on this. If just about every progressive pundit in town has their dander up and are pulling out the long knives, and if Democrats in the House and Senate are ambivalent or sometimes just outright hostile towards the WH, something is WRONG. Wrong in the way the WH is communicating, wrong in the approach to House and Senate democrats. They've got to take a look at what they're doing wrong on this. Because it's in there, somewhere.

[Number23]

9. Susan Rice is MY GIRL

I swear, between her and Michelle O, I don't know which one whose knee I want to sit on and have them be my mentor for life more. I was pulling for Susan for Sec of State but am very happy with her as UN Ambassador.

I really like Rachel Maddow and think that her command of the facts is wonderful. And she seems to be one of a very small group of "pundits" who is actually interested in research and investigative reporting. But she does get off on the "cutesy" stuff sometimes, doesn't she?? I mean, just because you ARE cute doesn't mean you have to BE cute.

[treestar]

6. Interesting about Dean being hawkish on Afghanistan

The ones praising him because he attacked the Democrats on health reform need to find out about that, methinks. The same posters slamming Obama about Afghanistan were in many cases praising Dean later when that subject faded and health care came up.

[Silver Gaia]

10. Bandwagon jumpers...

[Cha]

13. Really? Where did

you see that about Dean and Afghanistan? I'm interested.

Dean and Obama both did not want to go into Iraq as you know.

[Cha]

12. They're regressives..nothing progressive about..

They're perfecting the art of whining.

[Arkana]

14. Pressing Bernie Sanders with a primary opponent?

The guy who's so far left he used to be a goddamn Socialist? THAT Bernie Sanders?

:rofl: