Politico defends Obama from "immature", "impetuous" left

[Enrique]

http://dyn.politico.com/printstory.cfm?uuid=D58D428A-18FE-70B2-A80D4E80D221BD8A

(...)

Polls show most self-described liberals still strongly support Obama. But an elite group of commentators on the left — many of whom are unhappy with him and are rewarded with more attention by being critical of a fellow Democrat — has a disproportionate influence on perceptions.

The liberal blogosphere grew in response to Bush. But it is still a movement marked by immaturity and impetuousness — unaccustomed to its own side holding power and the responsibilities and choices that come with that.

So many liberals seem shocked and dismayed that Obama is governing as a self-protective politician first and a liberal second, even though that is also how he campaigned. The liberal blogs cheer the fact that Stan McChrystal’s scalp has been replaced with David Petraeus’s, even though both men are equally hawkish on Afghanistan, but barely clapped for the passage of health care. They treat the firing of a blogger from the Washington Post as an event of historic significance, while largely averting their gaze from the fact that major losses for Democrats in the fall elections would virtually kill hopes for progressive legislation over the next couple years.

In private conversations, White House officials are contemptuous of what they see as liberal lamentations unhinged from historical context or contemporary political realities.


(...)

[Pirate Smile]

1. There are an "elite group of commentators on the left" who criticize constantly and seem to lack

an understanding of "historical context or contemporary political realities."

They do "barely clap" at major accomplishments and they are "rewarded with more attention" from the media for how they act.

That is a specific group - certainly not all Dems or most Liberals.

Politico's entire piece was one of their standard hack attacks on Obama - "Why Obama loses by winning". It certainly wasn't a "defense" of Obama from the Left.

If the people that section is talking about recognize themselves in it and don't like how they look - good.

[Enrique]

2. we know who we are

and we feel awful about it. Politico/Rahm are right to have "contempt" for us. :spank:

[mkultra]

7. dont forgot the giant swatch of liberals who support Obama

And hold you in contempt.

[depakid]

16. Elite means educated and capable of understanding policy and political dynamics

things that the many of apologists demonstrably lack.

(That wasn't referring to anyone in particular- just the tendency).

[ProSense]

3. Politico is

full of shit.

Greg Sargent:

<...>

I'm no blog triumphalist, and some of the debate about Weigel was overblown, but the claim about blogospheric indifference to the midterms is just laughably false. The liberal blogs I read have spent months now engaged in deep debate about the midterm elections, the best ways to limit losses, and what the consequence for the progressive agenda will be if Dems don't figure out how to pull themselves out of their doldrums.

Indeed, amusingly enough, the very argument VandeHarris are criticizing liberal blogs for making -- that the White House has remained captive to a Beltway culture that fetishizes bipartisanship and has failed to seize this historical moment's potential to dramatically expand the boundaries of what's politically possible -- has been central to the liberal bloggers' debate about this fall's elections.

It's one thing to criticize liberal bloggers for having unrealistic expectations, given whatever we're supposed to agree represents "reality" in Washington. I don't happen to agree with that argument. Many liberal bloggers are advocates and activists. They are supposed to push the White House and Dems in a more liberal direction, even if it doesn't always pay off. That's their function as they've defined it. But reasonable people can disagree about how realistic the liberal blogosphere's expectations have been.

However, to make the argument that liberal bloggers have their heads in the sand about Dem losses this fall is just flat out false. All VandeHarris are revealing is that they don't regularly read liberal blogs -- and that they know they can count on the fact that the Beltway insiders who will snicker knowingly about this article don't read liberal blogs either. And that's fine: Don't read them! But please don't make stuff up about them and call it journalism.

As for the anonymous White House attack, I'm not biting on that one, and I hope others also refrain from doing so.

[Enrique]

5. wow, we agree again

earlier you suggested we need another stimulus, and now you defend liberal critics of Obama. :thumbsup:

[dionysus]

15. is there really anyone here who DOESN'T think we need another stimulous?

[Dawgs]

4. You don't agree with some parts of this "article"?

Generalizing that ALL are immature is pretty stupid, but disregarding everything this author says is also dishonest.

[Enrique]

6. i agree, parts of the article are ok

I thought the part I excerpted was especially relevant to DU.

[Spazito]

8. Politico, doing the dirty work for the repubs yet again...

Politico 'defending Obama'...not. Quite the reverse actually and it is beyond obvious, imo, the intent is to incite anger against Obama.

[ibegurpard]

9. /facepalm

they want me to cheer that shit sandwich they labelled healthcare "reform"...

[vaberella]

10. Positive or negative I do not trust politico. n/t

[ProgressOnTheMove]

11. It is crazy some peoples expectations of him in a system that nearly doesn't allow any change...

He said upfront he wouldn't be a perfect President as no man or woman can be, his efforts to keep congress together has got more done than ever before. Could it be more immaculate of course and would of been without the blockage in the system the GOP filibuster. Could they change the rules yeah and have everything reversed if GOP potentially took over 2010. It's a hardball system for any change so the fact he's got any is the miracle in itself. The only failure he can have is if we fail him in 2010, prepare for disappointment sure, but prepare for a better future the most important part. It was designed to be hard and a really tough fight, so we have to keep fighting. I mean if it was easy they wouldn't of needed a 24/7 media infrastructure on the right. So I personally, celebrate everything he's done. FDR got ti done with overwhelming majorities that's the key. OK, the word 'austerity' may worry people but look on a local level Republicans austerity means wiping out states altogether there's huge difference. The likes of a solar bank in arizona show there's an over arching plan for a solid future here, we can take it or we can lose it all in our hands. Also the critique he doesn't want confrontation, yes and neither do we as it makes a hard system even more of a struggle.

[and-justice-for-all]

12. Fuck Politico...nt

[Sebastian Doyle]

13. PoliticHo - rightr wing bullshit from day one.

As credible as Drudge or FAUX. Only slightly more so than Newshax or World Nut Daily.

[PATRICK]

14. Over the different eras

it has always been better for the people people at least had something progressive to revere. On the presidential scene for a long time, so institutionalized that it seemed at the time stale and stagnant was invoking FDR in the constant struggle against recidivist Republicanism. two presidents, not popular enough generally to generate generational mythology for everyone, Truman and Carter, nonetheless see their legacies endure. Oddly the closest the GOP was Goldwater who failed except for keeping. in the shadows, Eisenhower and Nixon as well.

The real next paradigm of national leadership vision and production of progress was JFK whose agenda was partially powerhoused by LBJ whose legacy almost cancelled itself out and was further blighted by the next Dem movement away from liberalism, toward the big money in DINO ways, seemingly not as bad since stripped of most hardcore Southern conservatives.

The corporate press enamored of any president their readership adores of course let the right piss all over the memory of JFK at least eventually removing him from replacing FDR as the new myth model for modern times. Instead, Reagan, who shamelessly glommed off the aura of JFK in ways that disturbed some Dems(and Kennedys) became for worse and then worse THE modern myth model for the Foggy Bottom glee club.

That is where the party leadership is currently mired, even more revolting for being in power, transcending what is the most abominable about the consequences of "Reaganism" because it excuses the lure and glamour of big time money corruption Dem style.

All of this could pass if Obama sets himself by merit and inspiration beyond Reagan. This is more than an uphill battle for any Dem, especially when progress itself not part of the model and dogpaddling through the impunity of GOP crimes and disasters is the first necessity.

The raw enthusiasm of adopting a poisoned model of Republicanism into the "New" Democrats is a double recipe for disaster if Truman could not succeed with FDR and Johnson gets zero credit for enabling most of the Kennedy dream, yet a zero like the Bushes could surf Reaganism for the benefit of a few fellow plutocrats alone.

Clinton also went this route already. The negatives have not been avoided though there have been many more early successes along with a truly remarkable staving off of financial chaos. Clinton was morally assassinated before leaving office and Gore was pre-Carterized into getting cheated out of his just election.

This is not so much a critique of Obama as an observation of passing the torch. In the FDR myth model it was a creative and progressive light, in Reaganism a destructive false flame.

Things always seem to get worse during the actual term of a president compared to his progressive promises(or more total GOP BS). The problem is that the new Dems do not deal themselves a hand from the stacked deck but let the media and discredited GOP do it, do not see the utter emptiness of the Reagan myth(for Dems especially who are forever branded as weak goats in said narrative). the blindness I guess comes from money. The blind lead the sighted and we, although we do not want to fall into the pit are doing preciously little enough as a group to even save ourselves much less do the ACTUAL NEW rebuilding that was always the totally necessary part 2 of 2008.

Suffering dangers and the evils we have known in one fashion or another will plague us in an almost permanent crisis. A far cry even from the cold war grimness of the JFK dream and constant imperfect progress toward rights, reforms and peace.

[boston bean]

17. Isn't politico a RW rag? hmmmmmm........

There has been a crusade to get them banned as a source here on DU.

:eyes:

[Warren Stupidity]

18. Rightwing propaganda outlet. Nt.

[Jennicut]

19. Does anyone here care what any hack at Politico puts out?

Other then feeling slightly bad about Roger Simon's amputations due to an infection, I hate Politico and all the people that involve themselves with that trashy rag.

[Enrique]

20. Glenn Greenwald has interesting comments on this article

http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2010/07/16/contradictions/index.html

(...)

But there are two passages from the Politico article I want to juxtapose because doing so demonstrates one of the great mysteries of the Obama era. First is this:

Obama sees himself as a different kind of Democrat, one who transcends ideology but is basically a centrist. By some measures, his self-image fits. His war and antiterrorism policies are remarkably similar to those advocated by the man he blames for most of the country's problems: George W. Bush.

Then there's this:

An elite group of commentators on the left -- many of whom are unhappy with him and are rewarded with more attention by being critical of a fellow Democrat -- has a disproportionate influence on perceptions. The liberal blogosphere grew in response to Bush. But it is still a movement marked by immaturity and impetuousness -- unaccustomed to its own side holding power and the responsibilities and choices that come with that. . . . In private conversations, White House officials are contemptuous of what they see as liberal lamentations unhinged from historical context or contemporary political realities.

Perhaps one day it will dawn on Politico and their anonymous White House friends how the realities in the first passage completely negate the petulant, clichéd, Iraq-War-era insults in the second (and that's to say nothing of the domestic policy critique Digby articulates). What's the true manifestation of "immaturity" and "impetuousness": after having spent years screaming that Bush's "war and antiterrorism policies" are evil, tyrannical and a shredding of the Constitution (as virtually every Democrat, or at least progressive, did), to watch many of those same policies be embraced and in some instances even expanded by Obama and then (a) meekly acquiesce or even cheer because it's someone from a different party doing it, or (b) object just as vociferously as when a Republican President did it? It's a real tribute to the empty-minded shallowness of Politico and those in the White House (and their supporters) who are spitting these insults that they are able to blind themselves to the glaring contradiction between these two passages.

[boppers]

21. Nice piece of self-fulfilling prophesy, there.

Maybe politico should do a piece on how pseudo-journalistic political websites spew rambling, contradictory, rants in order to get attention.