It always amuses me when people profess shock that the President is not the great "Liberal Savior"

[Perky]

they thought he was.

Technically speaking he is not a DLCer, because he is not a ember. But he is most clearly from both his writing "The Audacity of Hope" and form his introductory speech at the the DNC in 2004. Post-Partisan and naive.

Historically. Partisan rancor since the end of the Second World War has been defined by the Cold War (McCarthy, Nuclear Armageddon, Vietnam) Federalism (Civil Rights battles, the role of the central government) and Social issues. He has always suggested that the path to moving beyond these battles is a meeting in the middle and incrementalism.

He has always wanted to marginalize the shriller, more emphatic voices on both the right and the left and appeal to the middle 60% of the electorate.

(His naiveté was in thinking that either the radical right or the professional left would let him. He's failed to understand the power RW media over the 20% on the far right and how scared to death the institutional right is of that empire, and he failed in my opinion to define himself properly to the Left, leaving it to them to see whet they want to see in him and he rose to power. The result is that 20% think he is the Antichrist and 20% are dissolutions and that 40% is who drives politics in this country for the other 60% of the country who are only nominally involved in the political discourse and only represent about 20% of the voting population.)

If you think this president has deserted you, you may have too high an opinion of yourself and the ideological levers of the 20th Century. He has not deserted you, you never paid enough attention to what he was saying in 207 and 2008 understood who he was. That is not to say you are wrong to have the liberal moorings, you have. Your opinions and concerns are both valid and essential. But if you are looking for a partisan warrior in this president you are going to be continually disappointed because that is not who he is.

[meow mix]

1. he just plays one on TV.

and does so very well! (during elections)

dont worry "campaign obama" will be back soon and we can revel before an illusion once again.

[Exilednight]

2. I paid attention to what he said. I just wonder if he did. After-all

this was a man who said it was alright to compromise as long as you did not compromise those principles that were uncompromisable. Unfourtanetly he never stated which principles he considered uncompromisable.

He said that words mattered, but then again he never said which words matter.

I didn't draw anything upon his supposed blank slate. He started with a blank slate and drew it himself. He defined what he wanted to do with health care reform. He defined his position on ending the Iraq war. He defined his position on Gitmo. He defined his position tax cuts for the rich.

Sadly, his definitions do not match his actions.

[Perky]

5. But that is the point

He did don tell you what principles he did not tell you what words. He gave you and empty glass and you filled it up.

And on your four points I would submit that he has done what he said he would do on the Iraq war just not on your timetable; that on healthcare, he never got too deep in the weeds and overpromised, but now people who did not have insurance can get it, and people who have it can not lose it and the cost of health care to the government has been bent downwards. Gitmo could have been done were it not for opposition on the right and portions of the left to having trials but things are certainly better, though not hardly resolved. He compromised on Tax Cuts as an interim move to insure that unemployment insurance be continued for those who need it.

I appreciate the disappointment, but defining thing by the ideal without appreciating political realities will always leave you disillusioned.

[Exilednight]

8. He said he would end the war in Iraq. Anyone who believes he actually

ended the war has not been paying attention.

As far as your point about insurance, you're confusing affordability with eligibility. Just because someone who has a pre-existing condition is now eligible for health insurance, it doesn't mean they can now magically afford health insurance.

Gitmo could of been closed, but Obama doesn't want to take the hard line.

Same with taxes. Obama could of gotten everything he wanted in taxes, but he believed bipartisanship to be more important than doing the right thing and taking the hard line.

I'm not exactly sure what you meant by "But that is the point".

Was he a blank slate? Not completely. And that parts that were blank he decided to fill in himself. I supported him based on his policy and his promise to be able to get it done.

[harun]

3. You can represent the People or represent the Corporations.

Obama has made his choice, as voters we will make ours.

[connecticut yankee]

4. I voted for him

because I certainly couldn't vote for the opposition.

but I really thought he was a Liberal.

[Perky]

6. Why?

I am not asking sarcastically. I an curious as to why you thought he was a liberal?

[OwnedByFerrets]

7. I will answer that for myself. Hope. Pure unadulterated Hope.

It was misplaced, but that is why I thought he was a liberal. All I had left (after 8 yrs of complete repression) was Hope. Unfortunately, it has been crushed.

[muffin1]

9. I don't know about the other poster,

but I thought he was liberal because he went on and on about ending torture, closing Gitmo, ending DADT by the end of his first year, a HCR bill with a robust public option, about ending the 'Bush tax-cuts', and about helping Main Street instead of Wall Street. I DID know that he said he was opposed to same-sex marriage, but I HONESTLY thought he was lying because he knew it was the politically expedient thing to say. I FULLY expected he would have an epiphany shortly after taking office, and not only end DADT very quickly, but also reverse his statements on same-sex marriage.

After being beaten down for eight fucking years by the Bush administration, hearing Obama say "We're going to change (insert state), we're going to change America, and we're going to change the world!!!!!!!!!!" meant a LOT to me and many others. It was wonderful to listen to him speak - he is extremely intelligent, and him being an attractive, younger candidate with an attractive, young family was icing on the cake - shades of Camelot, if you will. His soaring rhetoric was music to the ears that had listened to Bush speak for eight long years.

Maybe I'm guilty of only hearing what I wanted to hear.

[Vinnie From Indy]

10. Nonsense!

"he failed in my opinion to define himself properly to the Left"

Well gee! I guess those hundreds of campaign speeches he gave meant nothing in your opinion. Most liberals I know are upset with President Obama precisely because he is failing miserably to live up to the PROMISES he made during the campaign. We did not vote for some "mystery" candidate in the hope that he might agree with some liberal policies, we voted for him because of what he said he would do during the campaign.

[Perky]

12. CAN YOU POINT TO THE ABJECTLY PARTISAN RIFFS

In either the Boston speech or the Audacity of Hope.

[Exilednight]

16. You can't focus on just two speeches. What about his

announcement speech in Springfield? What about the debates where nominees establish their platforms?

[paulk]

11. I never thought he was a liberal

which is why he was on the bottom of my list during the primaries.

He did, however, go out of his way to enlist the more liberal factions of the Democratic Party during the primaries with his anti Iraq war stance, most especially through his position on the IWR - a stance I always felt was... disingenuous at best.

I had hoped that the economic crisis would cause him to move more to the left, since I believe that it is only liberal/progressive policies (and partisanship) that will get us out of this mess. So far I haven't seen much to indicate Obama will do this. Getting reelected seems to often be his main concern...

[mix]

13. Your excellent analysis explains the essence of his presidency.

You're on to something...a "partisan warrior" would have stopped torture, taxed the rich, ended the oil wars, and stood up to Wall Street and Big Pharma.

But I guess that "is not who he is."

Well done.

[Perky]

14. You forgot the sarcasm emoticon

He did stop torture
He is ending the oil wars and the Republican are not really opposing his path out of them
He did stand up to Wall Street see the Financial Reform legislation, See HCR, See the Consumer Credit card reforms
He is closing the Donut hole on Medicare Part D not sure what other fights there were with Pharma

[mix]

15. Manning's detention isn't torture? And the black site at Bagram?

Are anti-torture and human rights activists mistaken? Are the testimonies of recent torture victims lies?
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=433x581891

White House bullet points are amusing. Talk policy all you want, but Obama is following the same failed economic policies of Reagan et al...more depressed wages, more dead Americans, overseas jobs, 30-40 million in poverty, 50 million w/o insurance, an indebted citizenry, and wealth concentrated in the top 2%.

How anyone could defend these injustices is beyond me.

[Exilednight]

17. Don't let facts get in the way of rhetoric. That seems to be the administration moto. n/t

[Perky]

19. You are defining detention as torture? Really?

[mix]

20. Sleep deprivation, prolonged solitary confinement are legally defined as torture.

He is being subjected to both. He has been held in solitary confinement for 7 months, 23 hours a day. He is also being made to sleep without a pillow or covers under freezing conditions. He is also being prevented from exercising.

You should look into what your government is doing.

http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2010/12/23/manning

[treestar]

18. Where anything less that complete cynicism is naivete

Everyone is naive but the most hardened cynics.

a President has to speak in positive terms - no one expects some world weary cynic to be President.

[Jakes Progress]

21. Somewhere between right wing appeaser and liberal savior would be nice.

Although it is a nice bit of rhetorical trickery to say that those who believe the president lacks the progressive gene thought he was a "Liberal Savior".

Truth is that most of us knew he wasn't progressive. But he did talk like he wouldn't just roll over and let the corporate big guys rub his tummy. There is a quite a difference between those two positions.

[Donald Ian Rankin]

22. A wonderful example of the (ab)use of loaded language.

A great deal of the language in this post - "partisan rancour", "shriller", "professional left", "partisan warrior" takes it for granted that the left and right are wrong and bad and the centre is right and good, but the post doesn't actually set out any arguments to that effect.

Yes, I agree with you that Obama is a centre-leftist and not an outright liberal or progressive, but I think that this is a major fault and not a virtue on his part, and I am not impressed by the use of loaded language to imply the latter without having to argue for it.




Incidentally, I don't think that misrepresenting himself to the left was a failing on his part, I think it was a masterful tactical move. Enormous posters with "hope" and "change" and Obama staring messianically into the distance made everyone assume that he meant the same things by hope and chance that they did, without his actually having to come out and say what he meant by them.