There is a civil war on the left over Barack Obama. The fault lines are jagged, and depending on the issue, porous, but broadly, the split is along two fronts:
Grist's David Roberts tweeted the following over the July 4th break:
I fear, deep in my bones, that Bob Kuttner is right.
Roberts is referring to Kuttner's My Private Obama, another installment in a long series of "Disillusioned Progressive" critiques from leading pundits on the left:
We in the progressive community have projected our own visions onto Barack Obama ever since we first noticed him as a remarkable political novice. It was clear from the 2008 campaign that he was a basically a centrist and seeker of common ground. But sometimes a crisis makes a presidency. And history has seldom delivered a more graphic, teachable crisis than the one that Obama inherited. So we voted our hopes that events could compel Obama to govern as a progressive. We are still waiting, and we are a cheap date. Throw us a few bones and we brim over with gratitude. ... [E]ven a dire economic crisis and a Republican blockade of needed remedies have not fundamentally altered the temperament, trajectory, or tactical instincts of this surprisingly aloof president. He has not been willing or able to use his office to move public opinion in a direction that favors more activism. Nor has Obama, for the most part, seized partisan and ideological opportunities that hapless Republicans and clueless corporate executives keep lobbing him like so many high, hanging curve balls.
An even harsher assessment comes from a liberal commenter at Democratic Underground:
I'm not criticizing Obama for failing to be perfect. I'm criticizing him for failing to be mediocre. Perfect = courageously calling out union-busters, supporting EFCA, pulling out of Afghanistan and Iraq, boldly championing LGBT rights and shaming the bigots, ending torture, debushification on par with denazification/Kruschev's destalinization. Mediocre = fighting against union busters and supporting EFCA -- but being less bold and more apologetic, pulling out of Iraq with the help of the UN and drawing down troops in Afghanistan, announcing no expansion into Pakistan and Yemen. Overturning DOMA, DADT. Piss poor = abandoning and shaming unions, abandoning EFCA, continuing to build grotesque and palatial US bases in Iraq/Afghanistan, surge in Afghanistan, continuing renditions/murders/abductions, expanding Bagram (which also houses a black site torture prison), making it legal to assassinate US citizens abroad "suspected" of terrorism, cowardly and shameful on LGBT issues -- can't even fully champion DADT at wartime with LGBT soldiers returning in bodybags, Bush et. al given a pass.
Jonathan Cohn takes the other side of the debate in a piece titled What Do Liberals Want From Obama?
To suggest that Obama hasn't governed as a progressive seems pretty wrong to me. Look at the record: Obama has made a pair of liberal appointments to the Supreme Court, the second of whom appears to be on track to easy confirmation. He's populated the National Labor Relations Board with officials who actually believe in labor law. He's rescued the auto industry, and the region of the country that depends upon it, from economic oblivion. He'll likely get the chance to sign a major Wall Street reform package, just as he did an overhaul of the student lending program. And, of course, he led and won the fight for comprehensive health care reform. Bob isn't that impressed and, I know, neither are many other liberals. Among other things, they think Obama made too many compromises. The recovery act was too small. Financial reform won't break up the big banks. Health care reform has no public option. Etc etc. The compromises are real enough. But, to make what should be a familiar point by now, so are the political constraints.
Over at Daily Kos, Bruce Maples looks for common ground, describing the problem as one of "Incrementalists versus Completionists."
Completionists keep us honest; Incrementalists keep us moving. We need both. In fact, each of us needs to BE both. Teddy Kennedy was both. There was no question about his value system; he was the liberal Lion of the Senate. Everyone knew what his goals were. Yet, he found ways to work with his fellow Senators, even Republicans, to get progressive legislation passed. ... I think it is clear [Obama] is a complex Incrementalist with Completionist tendencies. He has a large set of Big Wins he wants to accomplish, but realizes that the current reality forces him to use Incremental tactics.
Maples' attempt to reconcile the two sides is admirable but the rift may already be too deep. Keith Olbermann slammed head first into the problem:
Olbermann wrote a blog post, presumably his last for awhile, headlined "Check, Please", as a response to the diary he found and one particular comment that insinuated his criticism came because attacking the President was good for ratings (a pretty strange notion when discussing MSNBC). "It can't be verified because it's nonsense, and it wasn't checked because nobody bothered," wrote Olbermann. "Unfortunately there's been a lot of this here lately." According to Olbermann, this is symptomatic of a larger issue at the liberal site that he has been a part of for years now, and he's ready to go his separate way: "You want Cheerleaders? Hire the Buffalo Jills. You want diaries with conspiracy theories, go nuts. If you want this site the way it was even a year ago, let me know and I'll be back."
At DU, the civil war plays out daily and is well summed up here:
We've become fractured as a family. Those of us with the most emotional investment in Barack Obama's presidency have come to see those with the most at stake (i.e. gays like my daughter) as threats to a "successful" presidency simply because we refuse to take a back seat to anyone else's agenda, and vice versa. We've lost our focus.
Strikingly, this civil war is premised on a false choice: that an incremental legislative approach and a well-articulated grand ideological vision are mutually exclusive. They're not. Rapid, sweeping changes may not be feasible in the face of entrenched interests and steely GOP obstructionism, and credit should be given to the president for seeking and achieving solid wins. But neither is the White House prohibited from standing up for core Democratic ideals and presenting them powerfully and unflinchingly, explaining to the public in clear terms why Democrats have the better plan for America. Nor does the glacial pace of progress in Washington obviate the need to reverse George Bush's radical excesses, something the Obama administration has failed (so far) to do.
Progressives demanding more of the president shouldn't discount every accomplishment, but they are correct in pointing out that if you do the legwork but a) fail to frame it with an overarching vision, and b) undercut it by imitating some of the worst practices of the Bush administration, then your efforts are largely for naught.
The dispute on the left over Obama's response to the Gulf reinforced this false choice. Supporters reiterated the White House's claim that Obama wasn't a superhero who could personally plug the leak and that he had done everything possible to address it. Others, like Jonathan Hiskes at Grist made the case for 'going big':
Wake up, Obama. The Gulf spill is our big chance. What happened to never letting a crisis go to waste? This mother of a crisis runs straight into our fossil-fuel addiction. It's a prime opportunity for progressives and clean-energy advocates to demonstrate the desperate need for new forms of energy. It's a prime opportunity to pressure the Senate to put a price on carbon pollution and invest in the R&D necessary to jump-start a clean energy economy. It's a prime opportunity to do all this without the corrupting influence of Big Oil. The president doesn't get this, according to his public actions and words so far.
However, there was no reason Obama couldn't do both:
Communication is an essential component of leadership. Obama's defenders may say it's just piling on and that better communication wouldn't have plugged the leak. But they do him a disservice. That's a straw man. Stepping up and speaking out immediately and forcefully changes perceptions. Perception generates action. As Democrats and progressives, our elected leaders speak on our behalf -- their urgency is our urgency, their leadership is our leadership, their guidance is our guidance...
The great mystery to so many progressives is why the White House fails to grasp this most basic of concepts: act and frame your actions. It makes little difference if Obama is a progressive at heart or if Rahm Emanuel hates the left - simple politics dictates that you have to make the 40,000 foot case for your inch-by-inch progress. If you don't, your opponent will do it for you. The imminent November electoral disaster bears out this point.
Still, despite the intensity and passion and the increasing fracturing of the left, the White House has consistently telegraphed that it doesn't care about progressive disquietude. Liberal blogosphere stalwart Atrios points out that the White House is more solicitous of center-right critics: "Important people in the White House waste valuable time giving a s**t what David Brooks thinks."
Perhaps the White House should take more notice, since the contours of Obama's legacy are being sketched by the two sides in this Democratic civil war and not by Republicans, the media, pundits, or historians. Out of the tension and internecine strife on the left emerges the portrait of a president who made tangible progress on big legislative challenges, but whose unwillingness to tie them to a comprehensive and cohesive ideological agenda and whose embrace of his predecessor's shameful legacy on civil liberties, secrecy and national security allowed opponents to paint victory as defeat, thus swaying the nation and severely denuding his accomplishments.
Follow Peter Daou on Twitter: www.twitter.com/peterdaou
I no longer believe that we await the galvanizing event, but rather the leader who seize the day and galvanize The People. If President Obama were half the leader that FDR was, we would already be well on our way back to a government that serves The People. Obama needs to stop playing pragmatic politician and show a bit of bold leadership. He needs to take a stand against the corporatocracy like FDR did on election eve 1936:
“We had to struggle with the old enemies of peace–business and financial monopoly, speculation, reckless banking, class antagonism, sectionalism, war profiteering.
They had begun to consider the Government of the United States as a mere appendage to their own affairs. We know now that Government by organized money is just as dangerous as Government by organized mob.”
But he isn't, is he?
You know, there are many sides to this issue, but one side I didn't know existed until recently is left out of this story: bitter Clinton supporters who never got over it. Do they come into play in your theory too? I was just wondering, 'cause of the job you used to have.
Why didn't left pundits celebrate or even notice that? The approach of "all attack, all the time" is creating a false impression of reality. The left's failure to discuss the liberal, ideological statements made by Obama only helps conservatives and corporate special interests (like General Electric) who would rather we ignore those statements. It's a self-defeating approach.
We are being governed by those who concern themselves with electioneering. And, Rahm Emmanuel is not particularly good at it. Barrack would definitely benefit from taking on a new emotional co-dependent. By extension- so would the country.
I see little difference between the democratic and republican parties. They will BOTH sell us out in a heartbeat.
I used to think Obama was fantastic, now I despise him for the empty, hollow suit that he is.
The fact is that at it's peak, the Democratic caucus had 60 Senators. If Democrats can't enact strong Progressive legislation under those circumstances, it's because they're either unable or unwilling to do so and thus do not deserve our support.
I'm sick of hearing how it's the Republicans who are blocking reform: it's Republicans AND Democrats who are doing so.
You want to know what another six or seven seats will get the left? Simple: the assurance that two or three more seats in the next election is all we need to start seeing real change.
If, out of 60 Dems, you have several conservative, and several moderates, don't expect "progressive" legislation.
You are right in that it's not just shear numbers, but a 60 seat majority of actual progressives would produce the changes progressives wan't to see.
But for Progressive legislation? Well. You can't expect anything with 60 seats.
Which, honestly, I could accept as the unfortunate reality. I just wish people would stop making the claim that we'll magically accomplish favorable legislation if--oh, if only!--we had just a FEW more seats. So lame.
People, we must make ourselves heard. THINK of what another Repub take-over would mean, when we are just beginning to make headway on our massive problems.
(And just for the record, I'm liberal, for single-payer, discouraged -- but I will work to improve these faulty "reforms")
They do not care what we think. They just tell us what they think we want to hear in order for us to vote for them.
In Obama's case, he publicly BASHES the left and so do his henchmen. So I think he has made it crystal clear that he disdains the majority of those who voted for him.
I'm from TX with a great liberal Rep. and 2 horrible Repub senators -- so I KNOW the discouragement of writing to ask them to vote for THE PEOPLE on clean energy and the environment and health care reform and real financial reform -- they ain't gonna do it, but I keep writing and phoning.
As for our Prez, who I worked my butt off for, .... I think he gets faulty advice from his two sidekicks, David & Rahm, who pay too much attention to the polls that Americans are worried about the deficit, but actually Americans are lumping all financial economic matters together, and are really worried about jobs/economy -- the administration is emphasizing "the deficit", when they should be emphasizing jobs, and only jobs -- to win in Nov. (several great blogs on this idea).. I am distraught that Obama cannot hear us, because of the layers b/w us and him -- because Obama KNOWS we won the election for him with our campaigning and organizing. The phrase, "let Obama be Obama" is the right advice now.
I truly believe he hasn't forgotten us -- he's too smart. He has to keep us AND the middle.
“Barack Obama did NOT run as a progressive candidate in spite of the myth that some progressives concocted in their minds. He ran as a centrist who would govern from the center in a bipartisan way. He is not assembling a government to do that. The left should try to get what it can, but realize that Obama is not beholden to the left and will not govern from the left.
I am way further left than a progressive, and I did not support Obama in the primaries and be much happier if Dennis Kucinich were in the WH, and happier still if it were Noam Chomsky.
However, I am not disappointed in Barack Obama. He won the primary by beating the Clinton machine, and then went on to win the general by trouncing the right wing attack machine.
Now he is just doing what he said he would. And who knows...?”
Thats actually a bad thing imo because you shouldn't have to wonder, it should be clear form the noniniees record, and it wasnt in either of their cases.
However, he needs effective pressure from the left. That doesn't mean calling him nasty names more or less unconditionally. It does mean communicating with people who don't already agree. It does mean primary challenges to DINOs in safe districts, such as Stephen Lynch here in MA. https://secure.actblue.com/contribute/entity/24404 It does mean donating to issue organizations like the ACLU and MoveOn.
We needed President Obama to come out forcefully and aggressively against the Republican barrage of falsehoods, straw men, red herrings, and legislative and judicial outrage, every single day. He has the power of eloquence, as we saw during the campaign, but he has failed to use it during his presidency. This is a terrible letdown; even worse, it spells doom, in my opinion, for the United States.
Not only is the WH not using the gulf spill for the political purposes outlined above, it is allowing to BP to set the agenda and piss all over the first amendment.
How have we come to a place where the federal government is prohibiting access to public property and threatening reporters with fines and jail time for reporting or trying to report on the ecological damage and mediocre cleanup effort of the gulf spill? How did the Coast Guard become a shill and apologist for BP? Where is the outrage?
Obama is staying away from the spill because he is afraid of the clean up outcome and figures best politically to stay clear...doesn't help the USA only his political position
I'll call him a Republican only using the descriptor Democrat to gain election.
Tea Party . . . . . . . GET CENTERED ON MIDDLE CLASS AMERICA and kick the so-called Democrats and Republicans out of office and on to the street.
Don't play Politics in so doing - bring principal and leadership to the middle class citizenry.